“Jake, please,” she whimpers softly. “Please. I need to feel you inside me.”

I lift my head and look at her. Her eyes are heavy. Her cheeks are flushed. Her nipples are puckered. Her lips are trembling.

I strip off my shorts as fast as I can and position myself between her legs. For a second, I feel frantic, too, but I make myself slow down.

I lean back on my heels, poised between her spread thighs. I look down as I rub the glistening head of my cock over her swollen lips. I tease the entrance and I feel her slippery cave clutching at me. I bite back a groan.

I glance up at her. Her chest is heaving with every breath she takes. She’s right on the edge of another one. And if I wait just another second . . .

I put my palms on the insides of her thighs and I push them farther apart, easing an inch into her. “Lean up,” I tell her. “I want you to watch.”

Laney levers her body up onto her elbows. I withdraw fully so she can see the light flicker off the wetness covering me. “See that? That tastes like sugar. You taste like sugar,” I say, slowly slipping the head back into her and rocking it in and out. She’s sucking at me, begging me to fill her up. “You’re all over my tongue,” I say, thrusting a little farther in. “I can still taste you.”

I look up at Laney. She’s watching me tease her, her mouth a silent O of pleasure, her eyes little more than slits as she struggles to keep them open. I pull out and circle my fingertip over the head of my cock then reach up and drag it over Laney’s bottom lip. I feel like I might explode when her tongue sneaks out and licks it off.

“So good,” I whisper. “I want you to see how good we are together.” I moan, straining to keep my strokes short and shallow. “I want you to watch me come inside you. I want you to feel it. Filling you up.” My control is slipping. “Filling you up and running back out.” My heart is racing and I can’t hold off much longer. “I want you to see the mixture of us dripping from my cock. Us. Together.”

Her face looks pained, but I know what she’s feeling—desperation. She wants this every bit as badly as I do.

Pulling her hips in closer to mine, I angle my body and drive as hard and as deep into her as I can. She takes every inch of me and her cry tells me what I can already feel.

She’s coming again. That’s all it took for her. She came undone. And with every spasm of her body around mine, I know I’m not far behind.

I watch Laney watching us, watching my thick cock crash into her over and over again. And then I feel it. It steals over me like darkness. It robs me of sight and sound for a few seconds, and all I can sense is the tension in every muscle of my body.

And then I’m coming. I spew into her, knowing she’s watching, and I love it.

I’ve never come so hard before. For a few seconds, I lose touch with reality. Like an animal, I arch my back and throw back my head and growl. I growl as I spill everything I have deep inside Laney.

As she watches.

I can feel it oozing out of her, all around me. And when I pull out, I can see it dripping off me. And so can she.

I hear Jake get up, but I don’t feel like moving yet. Every inch of skin, every fiber of muscle, and every last nerve is supremely satisfied. My stretch is languorous, making me feel like a cat.

I lean up on one elbow to watch Jake climb out of the tent. Even if I weren’t attracted to him—which I am, and which I fear is becoming very dangerous for me—I could appreciate his beauty. His legs are long and muscular. His butt is hard and round. His waist is narrow and trim. His back is V-shaped and his shoulders are wide. And everything is covered in flawless, golden skin.

When he turns to look back at me from just outside the entrance, I see him from the front. I feel my cheeks flush when I look at him. I still can’t believe it’s that big. And that it fits in me.

But it does. Oh, how it does!

Chills spread down my arms and chest, and I feel a gush of warmth. I look quickly back to Jake’s face. He’s grinning.

“You’re very much awake now, aren’t you?”

I nod slowly, grinning broadly.

“Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

I lie back and snuggle down in the sleeping bag, smiling happily as I listen to the sounds of the forest waking up. In the distance, I can hear the babble of the river, which reminds me that I actually have to pee.

Dang it!

Throwing on Jake’s big T-shirt, I slip out of the tent and find a place in the nearby woods that has a marked lack of poison oak. I see a fallen tree and head for it. It’s always good to have something like that close at hand. That way, if I lose my balance, I can reach out and grab it rather than falling onto the ground while I’m trying to pee.

I turn my back to the log and lift Jake’s shirt. Before I can squat, a sharp pain tears through the back of my left knee. I yelp, partly out of surprise and partly due to the discomfort.

I whirl around toward the fallen tree, looking for what assaulted me. I feel the blood drain from my face when I spy the beautifully patterned, rust-colored snake coiled inconspicuously on the back side of the log. Its head is still lifted and it’s facing me as though ready to strike again. Pain is radiating down the back of my calf already and all I can think, in total Jake style, is oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

I know virtually nothing about snakes, so I don’t know whether I should move or not, or how much trouble I’m in. I do the only thing I can. I yell for Jake.

“Jake! Help!”

My pulse is pounding in my ears and my leg is on fire as I stand perfectly still and watch the snake. I’m relieved when I hear the crashing of Jake coming through the woods toward me.

As if sensing that danger is on the way, the snake slithers off its perch and sneaks into the bracken surrounding the fallen tree. Overwhelmed with relief and feeling a bit lightheaded from the pain in my leg, I sink to my knees just as Jake finds me.

“Laney, what’s wrong?” he asks. There’s panic in his voice, which actually makes me feel like smiling. But I don’t. The pain in my leg seems to be increasing by the second.

“A snake bit me,” I breathe.

“Where? And where is the snake?”

I roll slightly to the side and point to the back of my leg. Jake examines it and then looks back to my face. He gently takes my chin between his fingers and looks closely at me.

“Which way did it go, Laney?” he asks quietly.

“Off the back of the log, into the woods.”

“I need to find the snake. I need to know what bit you. Stay here. I’ll be right back,” Jake promises. He brushes my lips with his, so tender and sweet it makes me want to cry, before he stands up and turns a complete circle. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he takes a good-sized rock from the ground and hefts it a time or two, as if to check its weight. With it tucked against his palm, Jake walks to the log, steps cautiously over it, and moves farther into the forest.

I pray hazily for God not to let him get bitten, too, as I lie back against the cool ground. I would be devastated if something happened to him because he was trying to help me.

I don’t know how much time has passed when Jake comes back. Gone is the rock, replaced by a length of wiggling snake body.

I gasp in shock. “Jake, it might—”

He holds the snake up just long enough for me to get a good look at it. And see that it’s missing its head. “Is this what bit you?”

I look closely at the snake. The color and markings are unmistakable. “Yes, that’s it.”

“It’s a copperhead,” he says, tossing it back into the woods. Jake’s face is solemn, which worries me. He bends and gently sweeps me into his arms, careful not to jostle my leg or put too much pressure on the bend of my left knee. “We need to get you out of here.”