“Ah, but I’ll be doing things to keep you warm.”

“Not even what you do could keep me warm at this time of year.”

Gavin laughed and steered her back to the skate house, where they stripped off their skates, leaving them lying willy-nilly on the floor.

Retracing their steps through the garden, Gavin took them around a different corner of his mansion. A wing constructed of glass and white columns jutted out in front of her. “Is that an indoor pool?” she asked.

“No self-respecting billionaire would be without one,” he said, pressing his thumb against a panel beside one of the glass doors. It slid open, and she stepped into a light-filled space that smelled of water and warm soil. The soil scent came from the pots of huge ficus trees dotted around the stone patio that edged the pool.

“And now . . .” He reached for her jacket’s zipper.

“But . . .” She looked at the transparent walls.

“The moment we walked through the door, the glass turned opaque to viewers from the outside.”

“Is there anything you billionaires don’t think of?” Allie dragged his zipper open and pushed his jacket down his arms.

They left a trail of clothes right up to the lip of the pool and dived in side by side as though they’d planned it. When Allie surfaced, Gavin came up behind her, snaking his arms around to cup her breasts and pull her back against him. His erection nestled hard between her buttocks as he tweaked her nipples with his thumbs. The water was just deep enough so her feet didn’t touch the bottom, while Gavin could stand. It made him her anchor.

“Have you ever made love in a pool?” he murmured as he nipped at her earlobe.

“That’s a very personal question.” The pinch of his teeth zinged through her like lightning.

“You’re right. I don’t want to know.” He skimmed one hand over her stomach to slide it between her thighs while the heel of his hand pressed against her. “I can’t tell if you’re wet for me.”

“One drawback to sex underwater.” She let her legs float apart in a shameless invitation and was rewarded when he slipped two fingers inside her, pushing them deep as he rubbed his thumb against her clitoris. There was pressure but no friction, making his invasion feel sensual and languorous.

“Ahh,” she sighed out, tilting her head back to rest on his shoulder. With her pelvis locked in place by his hand and his cock, she could do nothing but drift in the sensations his questing fingers evoked.

He rolled her nipple between his fingers, making it tighten and peak. “I love that the water makes you slippery so I can go harder,” he said. She felt as though he played her body like a violin with the strings stretched from her breasts to low in her belly.

The wet skin of his chest slid against her back as he began to thrust his fingers in and out of her, making her buoyant body shift in the water. He flexed his hips in the same rhythm so his cock slid against her bottom. The motion created wavelets that stroked her skin, adding another sensation. His breath rasped past her ear as he moaned out her name.

He crossed his arm over her breasts like a band. The strokes of his fingers drove her sensitive skin against the flat of his powerful forearm so the pressure eased and strengthened, eased and strengthened. Flares of pleasure added to the coil of arousal his skillful fingers were winding ever tighter.

As she felt herself beginning to crest, she seized his wrist. “Not yet. I want you inside me.”

“I don’t know if I can hold on long enough for that,” he said in a guttural voice she’d never heard before. She felt the heave of his lungs, but then he withdrew his fingers, the motion nearly sending her over the edge. She arched and gasped but clung to her control.

He towed her with him to where their clothes lay and pulled a condom out of his trouser pocket. When she tried to take it from him, he moved it out of reach. “If you touch me, I’ll be gone.”

As he rolled it on, she could see the tendons in his neck standing out in his battle to keep himself from coming. She relished knowing she had brought him to that point.

“The shallow end,” he said, once again pulling her against him and plowing through the water.

When the water was at his hips, he stopped. Allie liked what he was thinking and faced him, running her hands up his chest, just to feel the planes of his muscles. She smiled into the blazing green of his eyes as she slowly lay back in the water, letting it support her while she opened her thighs on either side of his.

“My mermaid,” he murmured before she felt his hands curl around the outside of her thighs, pulling them wide as he positioned his cock between her legs. For a long moment, he stood there, gazing down at her, the tip of him brushing gently against her as the water lapped around them. The anticipation was exquisite as she waited to see whether he would take her fast or slowly.

Gavin tightened his grip on Allie’s thighs as he fought the desire to drive himself into her with one hard thrust. He wanted to feel the connection she’d asked for. To be inside her. Her simple request had taken on more than the physical meaning.

When he had regained enough control, he eased the tip of his cock into her slick heat, feeling the slide and clasp of her around him. As he pushed deeper, soft little gasps came from her throat, and he felt tremors run through her body, echoing the shudders shaking his own. He sank his fingers into the flesh of her thighs and opened them more so he could go in farther. When his balls were pressed against her, he stopped, feasting on the sight of her impaled on him, her thighs creamy against his darker skin, her red hair waving around her head like silk ribbons in a breeze, her breasts glistening like rain-wet peaches.

She opened her eyes a slit and caught him staring. Her lips curved into a siren’s smile, and he felt her internal muscles tighten around his cock like a fist in a velvet glove. Every molecule in his body screamed for him to move.

But he wasn’t ready to let go yet. He wanted to stay joined with her, part of her.

She closed her eyes again. “I like having you there,” she said, almost as though she had read his mind. “You fill the longing.”

“Tell me how it feels.”

“It’s like a hollow ache, an emptiness that needs something inside it. Yet even when you’re there in me, it hungers for more.” She used the leverage of his hands on her and rocked against him. “It wants the motion, the release.”