Lily was about to say no, but something inside her told her to go for it. In the past forty-eight hours her life had gone from lackluster to crazy to simply unbelievable. First making love to Travis, now being hired to decorate a villa in San Francisco. Surely sitting by the pool with the man she had lusted after her whole life paled in comparison to all that.

She sat on the rock and slid her feet out of her shoes.

“Why don’t you take off your stockings?” Travis asked innocently. “Feel the grass under your feet.”

Lily shook her head. She couldn’t do that. Travis would see her big, white legs and immediately start thinking about elephants.

Travis raised an eyebrow. “Afraid that I won’t be able to keep my hands off you?”

Something churned in Lily’s gut at Travis’s taunting. She’d show him. If it killed her, she was going to make him so hot he was screaming for release. And then she’d leave him cold and desperate for her.

“No, you’re right. I’d like to feel the breeze on my bare skin,” she said, working hard to pitch her voice in a sensual manner. After all, the sun was almost down. Didn’t everyone always say that sunset was the most flattering time of day?

She pulled up the hem of her skirt and unhooked one side of her garter.

“Do you need any help with that?” Travis asked nonchalantly.

Lily forced herself to reply as carelessly. “Not unless you want some help with your pants.”

Trying to still her trembling fingers, she unrolled her stockings down her thigh. As unbelievable as it might have been that the prom king was lusting after the original wallflower, Lily knew it with every fiber of her being. Now was the time for what Luke had instructed her to do: She needed to whip Travis up into a sexual frenzy, then leave him before he got the upper hand.

Could she do it?

Lily looked up at Travis from beneath her lashes, and what she saw in the green of his eyes took her breath away.

He wanted her.

Badly.

Licking her lips, she said in a husky voice, “Is your offer of help still good?” In less than a second, he was kneeling at her feet, his hands on hers at her knees. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, laughing softly at the new feeling of feminine power that was coursing through her.

“Don’t forget, my pants are next,” he growled. With painstaking slowness he slid the silk stocking off her leg. With every inch of skin that he uncovered he lightly nipped at her skin until wetness soaked her panties.

She bit her lip to stifle a whimper of pleasure. Somehow she needed to act like she was doing him a favor

—at least that’s what Luke had said she needed to do—but it was so incredibly hard to think of that when Travis was touching her, kissing her.

With one of her legs bare, he gently massaged the arch in her foot. “Oh God, yes,” she said, and Travis surprised her by coming up to seduce her with a hot kiss.

His mouth tasted like sweet lemons and sunshine. She blinked uncertainly when he pulled away from her, but before she could protest she was lost in the sensation of his fingers on her skin as he reached under her skirt to undo the clasps on her other garter. He freed the silk from its binding and began the delectable task of sliding it from her other leg. With every nip of his perfect white teeth on her skin, Lily felt herself melting further and further into him.

“Your turn,” he said, getting to his feet. Standing before her, she could see his enormous erection jutting out from beneath his expensive navy blue trousers.

Lily reached for his leather belt with shaking fingers. She undid the clasp, then her fingers were on the top button of his slacks. She popped open the button and unzipped him, letting his pants fall to the ground.

She sucked in a breath. His huge, perfect penis jutted toward her, and as her hand came up of its own volition to touch it, a drop of Travis’s arousal coated the tip.

That settled it. She needed to taste him, and she needed to taste him immediately. Her mouth covered the thick head of his penis and she licked every last drop of his precome before more coated the inside of her cheeks. She sucked down his c**k into the back of her throat, wanting to swallow him whole.

She had spent years wondering what it would be like to blow Travis, wanting to know what it felt like to be holding his balls with her hands while she sucked at his velvety skin.

Running her tongue over the ridges of his enormous shaft, she understood that everything she had ever dreamed about doing with Travis was so much better in real life. His c**k grew impossibly bigger within her mouth, and before she knew what was happening he stepped back and pulled her to her feet.

“Take off your clothes,” he said, his words a command as he took off his shirt.

In that moment it didn’t matter that they were on the private property of Travis’s clients, that they could be found at any minute by a pool man or a gardener. It didn’t matter that she was supposed to be in control, that she was supposed to be telling Travis what do, and not the other way around.

The only thing that mattered was obeying Travis’s command if it meant finding the release that she so desperately needed.

Heedless of their clothes, strewn across the flagstone terrace that surrounded the magnificent pool, Lily stood naked before Travis. She barely resisted the urge to cover herself with her hands, to hide her totally imperfect body from him, to flee.

Conjuring up the invincible queen that she had been at the fashion show only days before, she asked, “Is this what you want?” He growled his response as he pulled her body against his.

“I want more than that.” He captured her mouth in a kiss that left no doubt in her mind that he intended to claim her, to brand her as his own. The friction of his skin against hers, of the hair on his thighs against the soft, aroused skin between her thighs made her want to scream out with pleasure.

She rocked her pelvis into the hard planes of his body again, but instead of taking her to the place she needed to go, Travis moved them to the edge of the swimming pool, without breaking their kiss.

His hot breath tickled the curls by her neck. “Come into the pool with me.”

“Now?” she asked, shivering at the thought of what he might do to her underwater.

“Now,” he said, his green eyes nearly black with passion.

He walked down the wide steps into the cool water, and Lily followed his lead. Her ni**les grew hard as the water covered first her feet, then her calves, then her thighs.