Sweet Summer Bliss

"It's not babysitting we're asking you to do," Michelle said. "She's a good kid." The words gave her pause and she amended, "A good young woman. You know that."

Paul did. So far as he knew, Michelle and Leon's youngest daughter had never caused a bit of trouble, apart from one incident four or five years ago where she snuck out of her house not to visit some boy or go to a concert or something, but to go to a book signing two hours away by a favorite author of hers on a school night. It was the sort of story Michelle and Leon loved to tell at parties and he heard it a half-dozen times now, being their neighbor a few houses removed.

"And of course we'd be willing to pay you for the trouble," Leon said. "Say... four hundred a month to drop in a few times a week and check on her?"

"Don't sweat it. Happy to help. Besides, I still owe you," Paul said, and that was true. A couple years back on a roofing job, he crashed through rotting beams into the attic of a client, breaking a leg and several ribs in the process. It took time to heal, and while he was laid up, Leon, Michelle, and their daughter Summer became his living crutches, bringing him meals, driving him to medical appointments, and tending to his house for him. It was a debt he tried to repay by mowing their yards every weekend during the summer and shoveling their walks in the winter, but it had never felt like enough. He was not a man who was used to taking charity, but they'd inserted themselves into his life effortlessly and he was profoundly grateful for it.

"You don't and you never have," Leon said. Michelle nodded her agreement, touching her hair and hastily realizing what she was doing. It nearly made Paul smile. He knew the fifty-something mom liked to look at him from time to time. It was flattering. She was a beautiful woman, and he knew she would never cheat on her man, not that Paul would say yes if she ever actually did come on to him. He wasn't a homewrecker and he thought Leon knew it, the way he'd flash a secret smile when he caught his wife looking or blushing from time to time. Or so Paul hoped, anyways.

"Still, I won't take any money for it. And let her know if she needs anything at all, I'm just down the street. A meal, help with anything around the house, household stuff, whatever. My door's always open to your family, you know that."

"We appreciate that, Paul," Michelle said. She looked at her husband and nodded. "I feel so much better about this now."

"Me too," Leon said.

"It's a hell of an opportunity for you both," Paul said. "I'm jealous. Always wanted to go."

"We're so excited but it would be hard to leave Summer here alone," Michelle said. "I know she's twenty-one now but still..." Her voice thickened and her eyes went glassy. "She's our girl."

"I'm sure she'll do great here," Paul said, reaching across and taking her hand to squeeze it. "And I'll look out for her. Hell, she'll probably call annoyed with me coming over and knocking on her door."

"Good," Leon said, and Michelle chuckled as she wiped at her eyes. "Thank you."

* * *

A month and a half later, Summer helped her parents load their luggage into their Uber, all smiles and a little bit apprehensive. Not for herself, but for them. She wasn't the biggest fan of flying and the thought of a nine-and-a-half-hour flight to London gave her the chills, especially with all the flight accidents occurring lately.

"You're going to have such a great flight!" Summer squeaked, trying not to think about oxygen masks dropping and screaming passengers and the plane filling up with water when it crashed and oh God she was going to pee herself a little if she didn't stop thinking about how this could all end. She added much more faintly, "So much fun. Fun fun fun."

"It'll be all right, sweetheart," her father consoled her as he closed the trunk on the SUV. "We're supposed to worry about you, not you worry about us."

"I'm not worried," Summer said. "Just... you know... be careful. Be smart. If the plane... oh, I'm sure the plane will be fine. It'll be totally fine!"

Michelle saved her daughter from her overactive imagination running amok by rushing her and embracing her for the day's half-dozenth hug. "Oh honey, I wish you were coming with us."

"I wish I was too, Mom. But you're going to have an amazing time, you really are. And I'll be out there at the end of July, so have the tea and crumpets ready."

"Aye aye, wut wut?" her father said. Neither father or daughter were exactly Anglophiles, and Michelle turned her head skyward to mouth, "Lord help me."

There were tears, and another round of hugs, and her parents were off on their grand adventure. Summer had never been prouder of her mom, and with good reason. The acquisition of a small but popular candy company had been her pet project for over two years now, and this was its culmination, an opportunity unlike any she'd ever had in her career. Three months in London. It was a dream come true.

Summer saw them off, waving until the SUV took a corner, smiling and sniffling. She would miss them, and she was genuinely heartbroken she couldn't join them for another month and a half, but she had to admit, she was looking forward to this, to having the house to herself for the first time, to fend for herself, to feel like an adult. Sure, she was twenty-one, but this was her on her own -- for the most part.

She headed inside to the old two-story house she loved so much and had missed her two disastrous years at college in Georgia. How eager she'd been to move away from home then, and how eager she was to move back. A year home now, and still it felt good to be back in her parents' house and the neighborhood. This place would always be her North Star, and she only wished she'd seen that sooner, but she had been young and in love, or so she thought. Oh well.

She touched everything that reminded her of her parents, the quilt her mother sewed as a means to relax when she came home from work, the books her father self-published as a fun side gig to his programming job, the coffee mug he'd left on the kitchen counter, having forgotten to wash it out. Summer did that now, smiling to herself and already missing her parents fiercely.

She thought earlier she would take a nap while she waited for their flight to land, but knew now that she would be too worried to sleep, so instead, she changed into a bikini and grabbed her Kindle, a beach towel, and some suntan lotion. The bikini was a new purchase and pretty daring for her, a black two-piece that made her big boobs and curvy hips practically shout for attention. Too bad there was no guy in her life at the moment to show it off to. Well... there was one, but she was not going to be showing off any bikini, sexy or not, to Maddox Tillsley anytime soon.

Outside, Summer laid out her things on an end table next to a lounge chair and found a pop playlist on her phone. She kept the volume low, not out of any worry that the neighbors would complain but because that was her nature, quiet and sweet. Summer liked to move through the world with as little dappling as possible.

Before tanning came the pool. Ten laps, she told herself. No rush. Swimming was her favorite way to exercise, but these laps would be more to get her mind off missing her parents and her worry about their flight, so when she dropped into the slightly chilly water, she swam her laps lazily, first freestyle, then the backstroke. Swimming was the only sport she joined in high school, but because Summer never had a competitive spirit, she rarely placed, usually falling somewhere near the bottom of the meets. That was fine by her. She was there to stay fit and have fun with her friends.

And now, in between her junior and senior year of college, she swam to exercise and relax, to calm her mind and her soul. It was her Zen, her meditation, and even when she finished, she still paddled around lazily on her back, beaming up at the sunshine, eyes closed right up to the point where she heard someone call her name from the side gate.

"Summer?"

It was Mr. Castle, and that made her smile widen. Her favorite person on the block. Her parents' too, but probably for different reasons, though Summer suspected that, like her, her mother had a crush on forty-year-old Mr. Castle. Then again, just about every woman who ever met the man probably did.

Summer called, "In the pool! Come on back."

She headed for the shallow end and the edge of the pool where her body wouldn't be on such display, folding her arms on the decorative concrete and enjoying the sound of birds in the trees as the gate opened and closed.

He came around the side, a hulking figure that would have scared her if she hadn't lived doors down from the man for well over a decade at that point. He was a linebacker back in the day in high school and college and it showed in Mr. Castle's broad shoulders and tall, well-muscled frame in his jeans and chambray shirt. His face was rugged and leathered for forty, the result of working construction jobs in the sun for nearly twenty years. But it worked for him. Oh God, did it work for him, especially with the sharp angles of his square jaw and sharp cheekbones. His eyes, though, were surprisingly soft, warm sandy browns that lit up easily.

Those eyes fixed on her now, his smile warming her to her very core. Oh boy, if he was to come to the lip of the pool and offer her a hand, she'd be out of the pool and on her knees for him in about half a second.

"Hey, pool warm enough for that swim?"

"Just barely," she said. "I needed something to do to keep my mind off Mom and Dad's flight. I am completely terrified of flying, so I did some laps and now I'm relaxing."

"Hey, I get it. But I'm sure they'll be fine." He stuffed his big, scarred hands into his jean pockets, an almost criminal act. Summer was big on guys' hands and his were both deliciously large and fascinating in all the nicks and scars that covered them. "You got something for dinner tonight?"

"I do. My mom made up a bunch of my favorites and either froze them or left them in the fridge. I think I've got enough for two weeks, at least."

"Ah, well, you want something hot and fresh, you let me know."

"Thank you, Mr. Castle."

"I was thinking about bratwursts on the grill tomorrow night. That interest you?"

"Oh my God, yes," she said. When Mr. Castle and his then-girlfriend whose name she couldn't remember had their family over for dinner one time not long after he moved to the neighborhood, he grilled bratwursts for them. It was one of the best meals she'd ever eaten, even when her priggish older sister Becky told them all what bratwursts were really made of. "Sorry, am I actually drooling?"

"Just a little. Don't worry. With the pool, I can barely tell. Come on by my place, say... seven o'clock. That'll get you out of there early enough the neighbors won't think I'm making a dishonest woman out of you."

"What does that mean?" Summer asked.

His eyes twinkled with his easy smile. "Figure it out in context."

"Ohhhhh," she said, blushing hard. "Oh, we are going to have so much fun getting some rumors started this summer, aren't we?"

"I bet we are. You got my number. You need anything, big or little, let me know."

"Thanks, Mr. Castle. I'll see you tomorrow night."

He turned to head for the sidewalk leading to the gate, and she pushed away from the wall to head for the steps. But just as she was rising out of the water, he turned.

"Oh hey," he started to say, then stopped, staring at her big breasts in the bikini top, her nipples hard points against the fabric. He only looked for a second and then his gaze shot to her face. "Sorry, I... shit."

"It's okay," she yelped, dropping down into the water and covering her chest. "I would have dressed more decently if..."

"Yeah, no, it's my fault, I should have... called, uh, texted..."

Wait. Was Mr. Castle actually flustered? About her body? Summer grinned, noticing the way he was now pointedly staring about four feet to her left and well above her head.

"What were you going to say?" she asked, her voice far too bright and cheerful. Oh God, forget tanning. She was going to run into her house after this, lock the doors, and either die of embarrassment or dig out her vibrator and die by dehydration.

"Uh. Just that you can call me Paul. The Mr. Castle thing, you're twenty-one. Paul is fine."

"All right. Paul. Yes. Paul."

"Right," he said, finally collecting himself. "See you tomorrow night."

* * *

It was easy at first for Paul to laugh off the moment with his twenty-one-year-old neighbor. So he got a pretty good look at her tits. It wasn't like Summer was naked, and he'd seen her in bathing suits before. Though definitely not a bikini that put her very ample curves and toned, trim waist on display. And the way her nipples stood stark against the black fabric, like they inviting him to jump in the pool and say hello...

No. She was his ward for the summer, his friends' daughter. That was a fantasy he would not entertain. Or so he told himself.

It was undeniable that Summer had become a stunningly sexual creature over the last couple years. It wasn't until she came home from her first year at college that he really noticed her as a woman and not the goofy shy teenager she had been, the first time he thought to himself with lowkey amusement that were he twenty years younger, he'd be chasing her like a bulldog chasing a steak on a string. It was an idle thought, a mental, "Oh damn, she really is nineteen now, huh?" and that was it.

Summer's story was an interesting one, though he only knew bits and pieces of it from conversations with her family. The young woman followed her high school boyfriend to Kennesaw State University in Atlanta before breaking up with him and coming back home two years later to New Bainbridge to finish out college here. He knew she was spending the summer here rather than England because she lost college credits in the transfer to the local college and needed to pick up a handful of classes over the summer to graduate on time the next spring. Smart, but it must have been a hard decision.

He also knew a smattering of other things about Summer, that she started studying business and now intended on becoming a teacher or a professor. She'd make for a good one, he thought.

And now he was looking after her for a couple months. Not a big deal, though. She was a sweetheart, and didn't cause anyone any trouble. Though, Paul did vaguely remember a pretty shitty boyfriend of hers that would play rap at maximum volume in his car when he'd wait for Summer outside the house, but she was smart enough to ditch that loser a couple weeks into their fling.

Paul thought about all this as he worked out at the gym that night, hitting it hard. He had a weight machine, treadmill, and free weights at home, but he was a vain man, a fault that amused him to no end. He wasn't a workout freak but he was proud of his body, especially at forty, and he liked the women at the gym looking at him. He liked it even more when they approached him and struck up a conversation -- and sometimes more.

But that night, despite the looks and whispers from a pair of blonde cuties who might have been sisters or cousins, Paul's mind never strayed far from that image of Summer in the pool, caught by surprise as she was just starting towards the stairs. That black bikini, her dark brunette hair matted to her back, her richly tanned skin, those big sweet doe eyes widened in surprise. Even her fucking overbite kept him half-hard.

His amusement with himself vanished that night as Paul rested in bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling. He tried to tell himself not to do it, not to fantasize about her, but he could not shake the vision of his twenty-one-year-old ward no matter how hard he tried. He stroked himself to one orgasm thinking about a favorite actress, but his mind kept wanting to wander back to a pool and a black bikini. And his forties left him sexually ravenous, an odd contradiction to what he heard happened to men at that age, but which was no less true for him. One orgasm was simply not enough for him that night, and try as he might to fantasize about Salma Hayek and Kate Upton giving him a joint tit job, his mind invariably returned to Summer.

"Fuck!" he snarled into the night, and at two in the morning, with a basement remodel to do in just hours, he finally allowed himself the release of imagining himself behind Summer in the pool, bending her over the concrete, that juicy fit ass thrust at him, his cock sliding between her deeply tanned cheeks before he pointed himself at her cunt and hilted himself inside her.

Inside her twenty-one-year-old pussy. Half his goddamn age.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" he grunted when he came again, his chest heaving, his eyes wild in the darkness.

With the release, he fell asleep in less than a minute.

* * *

Thoughts of dinner with Mr. Castle -- Paul -- kept invading Summer's mind during class. It distracted her to the point where she flubbed a lob of a question by her professor, who gave her an amused reminder to pay attention. Amused, because Summer was, in general, a great student and wasn't the type to let her mind wander easily.

Her summer schedule was lighter than the fall and spring semesters, with fewer students and a more casual, relaxed atmosphere. There were only seven students in the class that day, a full house, and the professor let them out ten minutes early.

As Summer closed her laptop and stowed it away, her friend Maddox did the same with his tablet. He always made a point of sitting at the same table as her, and stood with her. "You okay?" he asked. "You were out of it the whole class."

"I'm fine." And she was. She spent most of the class thinking about what she would wear that night, entertaining a brief, silly fantasy of showing up in a lacy bralette or a teddy underneath a trench coat.

"You sure?" he asked. "Is it your parents?"

"No. They're doing great. I'm all right, Maddox, really."

"Okay," he said dubiously, following her out of the classroom. "Do you want to get dinner at the cafeteria tonight?"

Another day, she might have said yes. Even with reduced hours during the summer, the cafeteria still made pretty good food and she might have enjoyed the company. Except Maddox started taking these little lunches or dinners together as too much of a sign, like they were dates. That worried her. Maddox was not handsome, leaning towards chubby and bookish with long shaggy hair he really needed to cut. But Summer wouldn't have cared about that if he wasn't so clingy and needy. She suspected she was the first girl to have ever shown him any sort of attention in his life, and the nineteen-year-old took that as more than what she wanted to give him, the story of a dozen other guys in her life, from junior high to college.

"I'm sorry, I have dinner plans."

"A date?"

She seized on that. "Sort of. He's from my neighborhood. I want to see how it goes."

Seeing Maddox's hurt made her feel a twinge of guilt at that, but she'd been trying to push him gently away for the last couple months. The usual hints like "oh, you're a good friend" weren't landing with him and it was starting to bug her.

"Oh. Well, I hope it goes good," he said.

"Maddox," she said, and sighed inwardly. This had been a long time coming, but she needed to rip this Band-Aid off now. "Listen, you're a sweet guy, but-"

"No, I get it," he said, brusquely.

"But I need to say it anyways. We're not going to date. You're a nice guy and I'm sure there's someone out there for you but it's not me. I hope we can stay friends, but..." She smiled commiseratively and shrugged.

"I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. Have fun on your date."

With that, he stormed ahead, his short legs churning fast to keep ahead of her. She thought about calling after him, but she could do no more for Maddox.

Despite her daydreaming about what outfit she should wear that night, it took her hours to actually decide between a sundress and a pair of shorts and a plunging halter top. In the end, after trying them both on twice, she settled on the sundress. It was super cute, white with roses imprinted on it. She'd only worn it once before, at a cousin's wedding, and it not only flattered her figure, but it aged her up some too, which was why she picked it over the shorts and halter top. Elegant, and maybe too classy for bratwursts in a backyard with her dream man, but it also just felt... right.

She paired it with strappy sandals and a sun hat, though the sun hat felt a bit silly walking down the street, so she took it off and held it, smiling to herself at her foolishness. This was Paul Castle. Her girlish crush could only ever be that. He wasn't going to be interested in someone half his age.

But that look he'd given her the day before in the pool, the look that had left her running for the house after he left to play with her favorite toy and give herself four of the most powerful orgasms of her life... oh, that look.

Music played faintly from an open window somewhere from Paul's house. The song was familiar, something she heard on the rock anthem satellite radio station her dad listened to in his car. It made her smile, and maybe even feel the tiniest bit dizzy, knowing the man she was crushing so hard on was closer to her parents' age than hers. But that was kind of delicious too, a harmless bit of taboo spice to their relationship. She was not an innocent flower, despite her sweet appearance, and she knew the age gap between them would get people talking. But the people who knew Paul, the people who mattered, knew his character.

She rang his doorbell, and heard him call out to his Echo to lower the volume. A few moments later, he came to the door, smiling out at her and then freezing again, his eyes dipping to her cleavage, to the way the dress flowed around her curves.

"Well... that's a nice reaction," Summer said.

"Oh hell, I'm sorry," he said, his eyes snapping immediately up to her face. "I just... you look... that dress is great on you."

She laughed lightly, feeling her cheeks burn. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, yeah, of course, assuming I haven't made it too awkward." He stepped aside, giving her room to pass.

Like most of the houses on the block, Paul's was a nineties sprawling two-story home of an indefinable but pleasant style. Big living room, big kitchen, three bedrooms. Lots of beige walls in his, and though he'd obviously made an attempt at cleaning, it was haphazard, a blanket sloppily folded and laid out over the back of the couch, bookshelves overflowing with movies and paperbacks. There were a few pictures on his wall of him with an older woman, his mom when she was alive, as well as some art prints of cityscapes in the rain. It was the home of a man comfortable with himself and his life, and she liked that.

The scent of the brats cooking filled the house, rich beer and onions on the stovetop. It made her mouth water. "Thanks again for having me," Summer said. "That smells so good I'm surprised I'm not drooling."

"Same here," he said. "Come on in. You want a glass of wine or a beer or something?" That gave them both pause, and he grinned. It was such a lovely grin, smoothing the hard lines of his face along with those soft eyes "Feels weird offering you that but I don't see any harm."

"I'd love a glass of wine. And I promise, no drunk face-dives coming off your steps."

That was an inside joke. During a neighborhood barbeque Paul hosted a year or so ago along with his then-girlfriend Gianna, a neighbor had way too much to drink. Paul offered to walk the man out, at which point the guy loudly and angrily proclaimed he wasn't that drunk and did a Superman-like dive off the front porch and onto the sidewalk. He wasn't seriously hurt, but his pride was so wounded he never showed up for another barbeque, potluck, or the annual block Christmas party again.

Paul opened a bottle of pinot and poured them each a glass before transferring the beer brats cooking on the stove to the grill outside, where he'd finish them off along with some zucchini and asparagus. Summer watched him while he cooked, the way he very pointedly did not look at her as they kept up a stream of light conversation about her classes and his small construction crew's remodeling project.

He's as flustered by me as I am by him, she thought. The notion was new and revelatory. She'd seen Paul occasionally glance at her boobs or butt ever since she was nineteen or so, when she started dressing a little more daring and ditched her glasses for the most part. But those had been quick idle things, a guy registering that, yes, the cute nineteen-or-twenty-year-old did in fact have boobs and a nice butt and it was time to move on from that thought. This... this was new. Paul had never seemed uncomfortable or shy around her, and yet, here he was, definitely avoiding looking in her direction, as though he might be tempted into staring.

Even when he was done cooking, he took a seat beside her rather than across the table so as to avoid face-to-face conversation. But now she was feeling shy too, so warm and relaxed around him, so annoyingly turned on that she wanted to rub her thighs together -- or stick a hand between them and do to herself what she'd done multiple times the night before.

Finally, halfway through an amazing bratwurst loaded with some of the onions from earlier and a spicy brown mustard that made her lips want to pucker, Summer said, "I used you as an excuse today."

Now Paul did look at her, the corners of his lips quirking up. "How so?"

"There's this guy at school, Maddox. Sweet, but... not so great with girls."

"Ahhhh."

"Yeah. He wanted me to go to dinner with him at the caf, which, you know, I'm definitely not above that or anything, but there's no spark with him, no... anything. So I said I was going on a first date with a guy."

Paul's consternation delighted her. He looked right at her, his eyes widening. As she took a deliberately big bite of her bratwurst, he said, "A... date."

She took her time chewing and swallowed. It was most definitely not her imagination that he took a small, sharp breath when her tongue flicked out to lick a dab of mustard off her lip. She grinned.

"Yeah. You know. Just to let him know I wasn't interested."

"Of course," Paul said, trying his best to recover, but she'd just hit him with a haymaker that nearly put him on his ass, and Summer was gleefully proud of it.

Later, when he'd put the leftovers away and cleaned up, they sat on his couch, him as far away from her as possible, his cheeks a bright red she couldn't attribute to the sun. Then again, she was feeling pretty flushed too, and it was not from the lone glass of wine she had before dinner. Paul had very pointedly not asked her if she wanted a second, and she was sort of grateful for that. Given how feral she was feeling about him that night, she was sure she'd embarrass herself far harder than the neighbor who did the suicide dive off his porch.

He gave her the remote and told her to find something to watch. "You don't want to give me that kind of control," Summer said.

"Why?"

Instead of answering, she changed the channel to one of her favorite trashy reality TV shows about to start, and he groaned.

"You're right, give me the remote back."

"Nope. It's mine now."

"It's my remote. My TV. My house."

"You want it, come and get it."

Quick as that, his hand shot for the remote, but she was quicker, stuffing it into the pocket of the couch beside her. He'd have to practically crawl on top of her to get to it, definitely an appealing prospect.

"Uggggh," Paul said. "You win. You want some ice cream? Popcorn?"

"Mm, I'm stuffed. But thank you." They watched the recap of the past week's eliminations, and when the show cut to the theme, Summer twisted and rested on her back, putting her feet up on Paul's lap. He glanced at her, surprised and red-faced, and she wiggled her toes at him. "Foot massage. That's what I want."

"Summer..." he said quietly.

"Just a foot massage."

The machinery turning in his head was almost visible in the way he studied her feet. The dress was long enough there was no chance of him peeking up it, but she still felt a thrill of pleasure as he examined her delicate feet and the nails she'd just painted hours ago. Finally, his resistance crumbled, and he took one of her feet in his big hands.

"I should not be doing this with my neighbors' daughter," he muttered to himself.

"It's just a foot massage. That's all," she said, but her tone was breathy and oh Lord if he reached up her dress and felt for her sex at that moment, he'd find her practically dripping, as turned on as she was all night.

She was ticklish and nearly kicked him at first when his rough fingers began to probe at her soles. She giggled throatily, and he looked over at her, lips parted, his eyes no longer so soft and light. They looked hungry, but he tore them away from her just as fast as he began to work the muscles in her feet with his thumbs. He was very strong and firm, and even when he brushed a particularly sensitive spot, he held her foot steady despite her best efforts.

"Why aren't you married?" Summer asked him.

This time, when Paul glanced at her, it was with surprise and serious contemplation. He smiled, and it was not a smile for her, but for a memory. "I was. Twice."

"What happened?"

He drew a deep breath as he considered that, and let it out slowly. "Well, the first one was a mistake. A sweet mistake, but a mistake. I was only a year or so older than you, and fresh out of college. I was working for the state as an engineer and we met when I was doing a road construction job outside Annie's little town. We met at a bar and hit it off, and I confused a little bit of lust for love." He chuckled. "Ah, I was young. We got married about a month later."

"What broke you up?" Summer asked as he worked the balls of her feet with his big thumbs. She had her hands on her dress and was slowly, ever so slowly, inching it upwards.

"She was a drinker back then and made some mistakes."

"Like... cheating on you?"

"Yeah. And some problems handling her money."

"Oh, Paul, I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. It was..." He clicked his tongue, thinking about it. "It's going to make me sound calloused, but I almost expected it after a while. If we dated longer, I would have seen we weren't right for each other. I like calm and quiet and sweet, and Annie's anything but, no offense to her. But we've talked a handful of times since the divorce and she's turned into a good woman. A good mom, a good wife. I can respect that."

"She hurt you, didn't she?"

"A little," he said. "Getting cheated on felt like things were my fault, as ass-backwards as that seems."

"And the second marriage?"

"Leila. Yeah." He finished with that foot and started in on the other. This time, she wasn't so ticklish, and settled in, wiggling her ass into the thick comfortable couch. "This was about twelve years ago. I was twenty-eight and just about to quit a big construction company to start my own business. A client set us up. She was his sister, and I think he was hoping it would lead to a friends and family discount. Leila was smart but she's not like you or your mom. She used those brains like a weapon. It got exhausting. The world was just kinda starting to come apart back then, a lot of shitheels coming out into the light. And don't get me wrong, I was with Leila in spirit. There were a lot of assholes who deserved to be shouted down. But she let the world poison her, and that hate... that became everything she wanted in life. She lived to hate people. And that came home eventually."

"That's terrible," Summer whispered. She'd stopped moving the dress upward, but there were still inches of her legs bared, and he stared at them now.

"Yeah. Her, I don't talk to. Things got ugly at the end. I tried to save the good in her but she was not a woman who wanted to be saved, and like she said, maybe it was never my responsibility. That was the divorce that sent me here."

"Do you think you'll ever get married again? Have a family?"

"I'd like to. I always wanted kids but it was never the right time with Leila or Annie. I told myself third time's the charm. I want to get it right. And I've been having fun looking ever since."

Summer hesitated, then slid the foot he wasn't working on along his groin. He drew a deep breath as she explored his hardness with her heel. "Paul, I..."

"Don't, Summer," he said softly.

"Why not?" she asked, hurt.

"Because you're barely out of high school."

"I'm twenty-one. I'm about to graduate college next spring."

"To me, that's not all that long gone out of high school," he said, trying to smile.

"I've been in a long-term relationship. I know what I want too. I'm not some innocent little girl."

"I know, I..."

But she was already pulling away from him and standing up. "I thought we were having a moment. I misread things. Oh God, I feel so stupid, I... I..."

Paul stood too, and grabbed her arm. She turned towards him -- whirled towards him, more like, and he stepped in, his lips going for hers but stopping just shy. They stared into each other's eyes as his hand went to her shoulder, and she wondered what he would think of her if she told him she wanted it wrapped around her delicate throat, or grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking it back as he fucked her from behind. That she wanted him to claim her, own her, dominate her.

"You are not stupid," he growled. "Goddamn, Summer, the things you've been making me feel all night, I'm half a step from..."

"From what?" she breathed.

"It is far better for both of us that I not finish that thought." He let out an irritated grunt. "I can't do this. You're my friends'-"

She kissed him. It was fast, hard, and sloppy, but she kissed him, her hand going to his face and her nails raking his cheek and neck. He grabbed her ass through the sundress and pulled her tighter to him, his hard cock between them pressing at her stomach as if pointing the way to what he should fill up with his come, to impregnate her, to make her his forever and ever. She moaned as he squeeze her ass and thrust his cock against her stomach, his eyes slits, his other hand going to one of her big breasts and squeezing before he pushed her away.

Without another word between them, she turned for the door, stopping only to snatch up her sandals and hat on the way, tears falling down her cheeks.

Despite his assurances, she whispered the word the entire way home. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."

* * *

From every angle, Paul felt like shit.

For starters, he was hung over as all hell, the first time he'd really tied one on since a friend's wedding four or five years ago. He wasn't sure where the bottle of Wild Turkey even came from. People used to leave booze there often when he and Gianna would host barbeques or potlucks in the winter, so that could have been it, or it could have been part of his liquor store haul when his mother, his last remaining close relative, passed away.

But Paul's hangover paled in comparison with his guilt. Christ, he'd come so close to making some terrible decisions with Summer the night before. His twenty-one-year-old neighbor. Two of his best friends' kid, though she was definitely no kid any longer. That had been all woman kissing him the night before, all woman in his hands. He hardened thinking about her lips on his, her big fit ass in his hands. He should have never let it go that far. It all should have ended with him telling her no to the foot massage and escorting her out.

But... goddamn, Summer felt so good against him. So fucking right.

He showered and shaved with the energy of a zombie, almost confusing his hand sanitizer for aftershave. It wasn't the hangover clouding his brain, but her, the beauty of her, the ripeness, the big sweet eyes, her cute as fuck overbite, the long nose, the dark waves of her hair, the hourglass figure, the sundress. In the right light, he could see right through the fabric to a hint of her bra and panties underneath, driving him mad any time she stood up in the backyard.

"She is half your age, old man," he snarled at himself as he threw on one of his work shirts. It had a simple logo, a castle emblazoned over the pocket. There was a matching cap in the Ram. The merchandising had been his second wife's idea, in the good days, when they were still in love and he just broke away from the big construction company he worked for to start his handyman business.

Annie. Leila.

But she hurt you, didn't she? Summer asked the question the night before, and it was so perceptive it nearly made him shiver. He damn near drank himself to a stay in the hospital when he found out Annie was cheating on him because back then he thought it was his fault, something he wasn't giving her, despite the great sex and the good rental they lived in. And Leila... Leila got her hooks in him deep, and tearing them out of his own skin left scars. He tried so hard to pull her back from the existential depression she fell into and couldn't, and she knew all the best ways to hurt him. That had been all she wanted in the end, to hurt everyone, and he couldn't take that.

Now he lived to find his next great love. For a while he thought Gianna might have been the one he'd been waiting for nearly ten years to find, but no, she was career-focused, and he couldn't blame her for wanting to take the job in Dallas. At least they'd ended things well, and were still good friends. He missed her, though in more of a brotherly way than as lovers.

And now there was Summer. Summer, who had gotten not just under his skin but in the quick of his soul with one kiss, one scorching look, one night he should have never let go that far. And Christ, they were only two days into her parents being gone. That was great. Just great. How was the rest of the summer going to go if they circled around each other, her the hunter, him the hunted?

One thing Paul was certain of regardless of his confusion about the young woman, he had to make things right with Summer, no matter how awkward he'd made things the night before. Feeling like a kid dragging his feet doing a chore he desperately did not want to do, he parked at her curb and stepped out into the beautifully still day. From their conversation the night before he knew she had a morning class in an hour or so, so he hoped she was awake when he rang the doorbell.

She opened up a minute later, and his breath didn't want to escape his lungs. The pajama bottoms clung to her curvy hips and ass, and her nipples were stark against her spaghetti strapped tank. She had yet to do her hair and makeup, her hair wild. Dark rings circled her reddened eyes under her big-lensed glasses. Hadn't had time to put in her contacts yet, he assumed.

Even so disheveled, Summer was so goddamn sexy it hurt to look at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I didn't want to leave things like we did last night."

"Like I'm a little girl who can't make up her mind about what she wants."

He glanced around. "Can we do this inside?"

"No," she said. "Because we're not doing it at all. Your decision, not mine, remember? Have a nice day, Mr. Castle."

She shut the door on him. He didn't stop it, but he did say loudly, "You didn't even look at what was in my hand." Silence. "We had two leftover bratwursts. I thought you might like them for dinner tonight. I can leave them here by the door."

The door opened just a crack and she stuck a hand out, snapping her fingers. Unable to help a grin, Paul dropped the baggie with the two bratwursts indie into her palm.

"Jerk," she muttered, and shut the door on him.

"If you need anything, I'm still here for you. And I'll bring by some homecooked meals now and ten." Silence. "I'll text first." Silence. "Right, just going to go."

"Good."

He winced, and left her there.

* * *

"He's an ass," Denise said.

"A total ass," Maddox said all too eagerly. "He deserves to be punched."

Denise gave Summer an amused look over her glass of iced tea. She could afford to be amused. Maddox wasn't obsessed with her, after all.

Summer's would-be paramour saw the two friends eating together in the cafeteria and had plonked his tray down across from them after shyly asking if he could. It was the first time since Summer shot him down a week before that he'd talked to her, and of course, he had to ask how her date went right in front of Summer's best friend, so she recapped the whole story, mentally grinding her teeth at the look of barely filtered joy in Maddox's eyes.

"And a guy that old hitting on a twenty-year-old is... it's gross," Maddox continued, picking up his cheeseburger.

"He's only forty or so," Summer said.

"Only," Maddox said. As he took a bite, mustard dripped onto his shirt and he dropped the burger to hastily wipe at it with a bunched-up napkin.

Suddenly, Summer didn't have an appetite anymore. As it was, she'd barely picked at her salad. When she asked Denise and Maddox if they wanted it, Maddox said he'd take it, and she pushed it towards him, the first time she'd seen him eat a salad in the cafeteria all summer. Back when he was first trying to impress her in the spring semester, vegetables were all he'd eat around her, but that veneer had worn off.

She left them there to take a walk, joined a minute later by Denise, who caught up to her on the quad. "I told Maddox to give us some girl time," she said, glancing back at the cafeteria.

"Thank you. He's been a lot this summer."

"I know."

"I tried to tell him last week I wasn't interested. I just... I don't know how to make them get it without being a bitch."

"So be a bitch. It's your personal space and he needs to respect that."

"I guess," Summer said listlessly.

They walked in silence for a minute, an aimless amble across the grass towards one of the dorms, shut down until the fall. There were only a handful with residents for the summer semester, and the campus was, for once, quiet.

"It's not Maddox that has you so upset, is it?" Denise finally said. "It's this Paul guy."

"Yeah," Summer said. "He's always been my dream crush. And I thought for a minute I had a chance. But..."

"It's his loss. You're amazing."

"I'm tired of boys, Denise. I'm so tired of them. I want a guy who can take care of me. That sounds so... so... stupid, like I want to be some happy little housewife, but it's true. I want a guy to, to take me to bed and know what he's doing. I want a guy who isn't stuttering around me all the time, someone who has hobbies other than video games."

"I get it. I totally get it."

From behind them Maddox said, "Hey, I saw you two and I-"

"Not now, Maddox!" Denise snapped.

"I was just-"

"I asked you for a few minutes alone with her. Go hit on literally anyone else."

Maddox didn't make a sound, and when Summer looked over her shoulder, he was storming away, hands in his pockets.

"I feel so bad for him," she said.

"I don't. He needs to quit latching onto you like a parasite. There is life away from you. But don't think you're escaping me, bitch."

Summer laughed helplessly. "No, never. Thanks, Denise."

"You bet!"

Summer made it through her afternoon classes and decided to drive around for a while before heading home. She regretted now not eating at lunch and wondered what she should do for dinner. Her mom left her with so much frozen food but she felt like something hot and freshly cooked, and decided to try to make spaghetti. Carbs would help her mood. They were magic like that.

She went to the grocery store, trying to remember everything she'd need. Back when she lived in an apartment in Atlanta with her then-boyfriend, they didn't do a lot of cooking, mostly ordering in, but Summer did like to help her mom and dad around the kitchen and thought she could whip up the basics.

Onion... did she have onion at the house? She wasn't sure, so in the cart that went, along with canned pasta sauce and hamburger. The pasta aisle overwhelmed her. There were so many options, and she only realized later that she bought wheat spaghetti noodles when she meant to buy regular ones. That was okay, though. It would be like an experiment. Maybe they would be good.

Summer's money came largely from her parents, who were moderately wealthy, her mother an executive and her father a double threat as a programmer and an indie horror writer with a fast-building readership. But she worked too, sixteen hours on the weekends doing gofer work for an insurance office. Her parents wanted her to focus on school, especially after moving home, and Summer felt both embarrassed and grateful for that. She tried not to abuse their generosity, though there were nights like that one when she didn't let guilt stop her from buying a bottle of wine, pinot like at Paul's. And okay, so she'd never really drank pinot before then, but damn it, she was buying it now because she liked it, not because it reminded her of him or anything nonsensical like that.

The clerk gave her a very funny look when Summer said as much to her.

Back home, she got in a swim and a much-needed workout focusing on lunges and squats. By the end of it, she was utterly drained and ready to just have Chinese delivered, but she told herself she was twenty-one now, and she needed to act like it and learn to cook for herself. That Paul's words about her age stung like hell, she tried not to think about -- too much.

Cutting the onion was the only part she was really familiar with. Although Summer helped her mother cook spaghetti before, suddenly she couldn't remember what pots and pans were used, and spent an embarrassingly long time looking online to discover that she should probably use a bigger pot than she dug out for the noodles. Once she found a stew pot and filled it with water, she set it to boil. Time to try to cook the hamburger.

"I can do this," Summer told herself as she turned the heat on high. She'd browned hamburger before -- recently, in fact, when her mother ran her through some culinary basics like how to drain the hamburger and keep it nice and lean. She dug out a spatula and attacked the hamburger in the pan, wondering what she should use for seasoning. Salt and pepper, definitely, but she was stymied by the difference between the garlic salt and garlic powder in the cupboard. This led to another YouTube tutorial, and that was where the trouble began.

The smoke alarm went off before she realized the kitchen was filling with smoke. There was no fire, but Summer let out a short scream, imagining the worst-case scenario, burning her parents' house down. She rushed to the stove and turned everything off, realizing with horror that the hamburger was smoking. She jerked the pan away from the stove and only remembered her mother's words about not dousing a grease fire in water moments before turning the faucet on. Instead, she dropped the pan back onto one of the unused burners and grabbed a hand towel, whacking at the meat for a full minute before she realized there was no flames, just scorched meat.

It was the sort of moment that might have made for a funny scene in a movie, but in reality, it terrified Summer. In that moment, she realized how little she knew about cooking, about any of this. She had been dealing with the absence of her parents pretty well to that point, but now, a terrible sense of loneliness and dismay filled her heart and soul as above her the smoke alarm wouldn't stop beeping.

At least she knew how to fix that. She hurried for the kitchen pantry and the step stool she and her mother had to use to reach the topmost shelves. Her father kept spare batteries of every imaginable sort in a plastic bin in the garage, and she was grateful for his particular preparedness now as she dug out two AA and AAA batteries, not sure which she'd need.

But when Summer climbed the stepladder and tried to pry open the casing, it wouldn't give. She frowned and tried it again. She could get the little latch to depress but it wasn't falling free the way it should. She fiddled and fiddled with it, knowing what she needed to do, knowing how much it was going to suck, but still she fought it anyways, crying a little and loathing herself and her sheltered life in that moment. This should be easy. She'd done it before.

And yet.

* * *

Paul got the call as he was finishing a second mile on the treadmill at the gym. Workouts helped take his mind off the guy he had to fire that day. It had been coming for a few weeks, but the man showed up with alcohol on his breath after lunch and Paul finally had to can him. It left him in a sour mood, so seeing Summer's name on his phone was exactly the bit of brightness he needed in that moment.

"Hey Summer, what's up?"

Before he even finished the sentence, he heard the beeping in the background. She choked out, "Fuck, I didn't want to cry when I asked you this."

It was the use of the word "fuck" that threw him off. It wasn't the first time he heard it from her, but it was not a regular part of Summer's vocabulary, that was for damn sure. "What is it? A fire?"

"No, not really. I burned some hamburger and I... I should know how to open up the casing for the smoke alarm but it won't budge and I feel so stupid, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Hey. You turned the burners off?" he asked, stopping the treadmill.

"Yeah, they're all off. There were no flames, just some smoke. Not even all that much."

He shot for the locker room to grab his bag. "Okay. I'm on my way. I'm at the gym so I'll be a minute, but I'm on my way. Do you have batteries?"

"Yes. Yeah."

"Good. Hey, Summer."

"Yeah?"

"It's okay. Shit like this, I'm just glad there's no fire. We can fix a smoke alarm."

"Or blow the damn thing up," she muttered, surprising a laugh out of him.

"Let's call that plan B. Be there soon."

When he got there, she opened up the front door before his feet even hit the sidewalk. She'd been crying, and it showed. Her makeup was in smudges, and he hated himself a little for how much it turned him on, imagining it was from her sucking his cock and holding it deep that had made it run instead of tears over a smoke alarm.

He smiled wide for her and thought about cracking a joke about how at least this got her to talk to him again, but he wisely decided now was not the time.

"I have the stepladder and screwdrivers and everything out in case you need it, but I don't think it needed screwdrivers the last time I did this," Summer said. Her voice sounded stronger. "The sound is driving me crazy."

"If you want, stay out here and I can fix it."

"No. I want to learn. I need to learn. This whole thing has me so upset I can barely see straight. I was only trying to cook spaghetti. How do you burn spaghetti?"

"Let's get the alarm fixed and then you can walk me through what happened."

They headed through the house to the kitchen. There was only a faint haze of smoke hanging in the air. She'd already thought to open up the kitchen window and the patio door leading out to the backyard so even that was dissipating. A stepladder was set up under the smoke alarm in the kitchen, the burners indeed shut off and no sign of anything actively burning. He scaled the stepladder and reached for the alarm. There was a little lip to the alarm where it should pop free, but when he tried, it didn't budge.

"Huh," he said.

"It's not just me?" Summer asked.

"No. That should pop right open."

"Oh thank God," she gasped. "I felt like I was... it's so dumb. I felt so useless."

"I get it. I do." He gave the latch one more hard flick, and the hinge snapped. It took him by surprise and he nearly fell. Summe hurried forward, pressing an unnecessary hand against his leg. "The hinge was jammed up. Huh. Never seen that before with one of these. Grease or something." He frowned down at the kitchen. "I'm surprised your dad installed this so close to the stove. Do they set this off a lot?"

"All the time."

"It would make more sense a little further away from the kitchen. Are your parents awake, do you think?"

"Um. I don't know. Do we need to call them?" He gave her a curious look. She blushed and muttered, "I don't really want them to know I burned the hamburger."

"Ohhh. Sure. We don't have to tell them that. We'll just tell them part of the truth. You set off the smoke alarm, we tried to get it open, and the hinge broke. I want to ask your dad if I can mount a new one somewhere out of the kitchen."

"Thanks, Paul. I... thank you."

He came down off the ladder and went to her to grip her shoulder and hug her. "It's okay, hon. It's really okay."

"No, it's not. I couldn't even cook spaghetti."

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say you had the hamburger on a really high heat?"

She pulled back and frowned at him. "Was that wrong?"

He grinned. "Yeah. A bit." He looked at the meat and scraped it with the spatula. "Most of it's still edible, but... better safe than sorry. I have chicken breasts out. Chicken salad sandwiches?"

"That sounds great, but can I help you cook? I want to learn. I want to be better than this."

"Of course. We'll cook together as often as you want. I'm happy to have the company."

"I'd like that. I just... I don't want you to look at me like I'm a little girl. That's why I feel so dumb about this. I thought I could do it. I thought..."

He hugged her again. "We'll get this cleaned up, then we'll call your parents. I have some unopened smoke alarms at the shop. We'll go by there, grab one, and we'll get it installed."

Leon was more than amenable to the idea. He was grateful. "I should have replaced that damn thing years ago," he said. "It's as old as the house, I think. And do me a favor. Install two. One upstairs too. I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

"I can do that," Paul said.

Quieter, Leon asked, "Is she doing okay?"

"Doing great," Paul said, smiling at Summer as she listened to his half of the conversation. "If this is the worst thing that happens, I think it'll be a pretty pain-free summer."

"We miss her so much. But... this is good for all of us, you know? It's hard for us to let her go after just getting her back from Atlanta. We always want to be there for her."

"I understand the feeling," Paul said. Because whatever the sexual tension was between them, he always wanted to be there for Summer too.

They installed the smoke alarms first, then they settled into the kitchen to make chicken salad sandwiches. Summer was a great learner and took notes on her phone, while he enjoyed her closeness a bit more than he knew he should.

As they waited for the chicken to cook, Summer opened the bottle of wine she bought earlier and caught him watching her pour a glass. "I know I shouldn't be buying wine."

Confused, Paul asked, "Why is that? You're of age."

"It's not that. I only work sixteen hours a week and I'm more or less living off what my parents are giving me. So... I shouldn't be buying wine. I know that. But I just... I wanted to treat myself. It's not an everyday thing. It's not even an every-week thing."

He rested a hand on her back and rubbed up and down. "Hey. If you think I'm judging you, I'm not. It's not like you're over here partying your life away. And if you feel guilty about taking your parents' money, that's between you and them. But I know someday you're going to make your own way. So do they. I promise you they wouldn't leave you in charge of the house if they didn't."

She turned towards him, and leaned up to kiss the corner of his mouth. It was a questioning kiss, and he let it linger a little longer than he should have before pulling away. It made her smile some secretive smile, and she said softly, "Thank you, Paul."

For what, he wasn't entirely sure.

As they shredded the chicken breasts, she told him about Maddox, and Paul listened with a sympathetic ear. He didn't sound like a bad guy, but like Summer worried about, it was all too often the "nice" clingy guys who would turn on a woman in the most vicious and cruelest ways. Talk shifted to more pleasant things until the sandwiches were done.

They brought their plates to the table, and as he sat down, Summer returned to the kitchen for glasses of ice water. When she came back, instead of sitting next to him, she put the glasses on the table and slid onto Paul's lap, making him tense.

"Summer," Paul said, his voice more of a throaty whisper. The weight of her on his lap felt so fucking good, and he didn't want to fight her again, not now, not when he was falling so hard for her.

Summer didn't say a word, but turned and picked up one half of his sandwich. She brought it to his lips, and he took a bite as he stared up into her eyes. It was good. She was better. She leaned down and slid her tongue across his lip, getting an errant bit of mayo that had escaped his mouth. He moaned, and she pressed her lips to his, her tongue searching his mouth, his cock hardening.

She pulled back and took a bite of the sandwich for herself, wiggling on him now, little minute quakes of her body. He reached up and freed her hair from its ponytail, letting it spill down her back. If she'd gone for his zipper in that moment, Paul wouldn't have been capable of stopping her, his beautiful Summer. But she seemed to know she had him now, and the game was now hers to play out. She took her time torturing him, alternating bites of the sandwich for both of them between languid kisses, her breast pressing against him, the weight of her, the heat of her, driving him mad.

They finished off his sandwich and never got to hers. Summer turned on his lap, straddling one of his thighs, grinding on him slow, leisurely. He wrapped one arm loosely around her, watching her, helpless but to want her. He fought the urge to tear at her clothes, to lay her bare on the table, to drive his cock into her sweet young pussy and take her for his.

She rocked harder on his hip, and he could swear, although there were layers of clothes between them, he could feel the volcanic heat of her, her need, her core begging for him. Lust made him dizzy as her breaths became audible, not quite panting but close, her eyes going half-lidded.

"Paul," she whimpered, her hands going to her long dark hair and gripping it.

"Come for me, baby girl," he said hoarsely. "Let me see it. Let me watch you get yourself off on me."

Her eyes opened again and she grinned, but she did not slow. "Baby girl," she breathed. "I like that."

She moved faster, nearly bouncing on him, her lithe stomach undulating as she took care of herself. Her lips pouted in the last, her eyes rolling up, a show for his benefit, and then her face transformed as she orgasmed, lips parting, tongue peeking between her teeth, her eyelids closing.

"Oh. Ohhhh!" she whimpered.

"So beautiful. So fucking beautiful."

Summer plunged her lips to his, kissing him as she rode out the quaking of her body, and she was moving, standing and sitting again, straddling both his legs this time, grinding his cock as her hands gripped his shoulders, fingernails digging into his hard muscles. Paul was already close, the show driving him nearly to madness for her, and he kissed her again, and again, his own breaths now rivaling hers, hard signs that he needed her.

And then Summer pulled back. "That's all you get tonight."

"What?" he asked, completely dumbfounded.

"Yup. You were a jerk. Making me feel bad about how young I was."

"I was trying to spare you from me."

"From you?"

Paul leaned forward, wanting to trace her body with his hands. She stood with her butt against the table, not far, still more or less standing between his legs, and he knew he could bring her back to his lap with a simple pull, but Summer was playing a game here, one he was enjoying.

"You deserve a gentle man," he said, his voice low thunder, a promise of a storm to come. "If I take you to bed, I won't be gentle. Because a body like that, I'm going to want to use you." Her lips parted and her cheeks went even brighter red. "I'll fuck you until you're leaving puddles. I would pound that sweet young pussy."

"My..."

"Your pussy." She swallowed, and his wolfish smile grew. "I'll take care of you, baby girl, but I'm going to take too. I'm going to drive this cock down your throat and fill that tight little tummy with my come. I'm going to fuck that ass. But most of all, I'm going to want to bend you over this table, that counter, the bed, and I'm going to want to fuck you until you beg me to come inside you, to fill you up and make you pregnant over and over and over again."

"P-pregnant." Her breath caught and her hands trembled as they gripped the edge of the table. "I..."

"But before I do any of that, I want you to be certain all of that is what you want."

"It is," she said, and there was the anger from the week before, the fire to her. Good. "You are what I want. A man. Not a boy. And a good man."

"And if this good man told you to bring home one of your friends, to make you watch while I fuck her? If I told you I want to film you as you come for me?"

She reached out with trembling fingers and ran them down his chest, across the hard lines of his muscles and all the way down to his steel-stiff cock. "And if I told you," she said, her voice with a throaty growl of its own, "to get on your knees and worship me? To take that friend harder and harder and shove her face in my pussy?" That shocked him. "I'm not the little girl you think I am. I have appetites. Things I've always wanted to try. That's why I broke up with Dane in Atlanta. I didn't want a boy. I wanted a man who can handle me at my wildest. To teach me things. To take me."

He stood up, and they stared at each other. He reached out, taking her chin in his big calloused hand, and she sucked his thumb when it was offered. What he might have done next, he wasn't sure, but Summer gave him a devilish grin and whirled away.

"Well, thank you for teaching me how to cook dinner tonight. That was fun," she said. "See you again tomorrow night?"

He stared at her a long moment, knowing how hard he was going to come the moment she was gone and he could wrap a hand around his cock.

"Yeah," he said. "See you tomorrow."

* * *

It was so much fun to tease Paul now that Summer knew he wanted her too. The promise he made her about using her nearly made her whimper every time she dwelled on it, but she was gong to take full advantage of the power she had over him and torture him in the process.

It was cute the way he resisted her temptations. The night after the smoke detector debacle, he tried to stay focused on teaching her how to make a simple meatloaf, but she kept distracting him with little brushes of his body, her fingers roaming his hard abs, his defined chest, his cute butt, and oh so often his big thick cock. When he couldn't take enough, he spun on her, pinning her to the countertop and grinding against her hip as he kissed her, only it wasn't kissing. It was like they were trying to swallow each other whole, lips clashing, tongues driving deep into each other's mouths. And when she pushed him back with her fingertips, he went, their smirks a mirror image of each other. He was having as much fun with this as she was.

She'd only been with three other guys, her first high school boyfriend, then Dane, and when she broke up with him, a terrible mistake in a rebound, a football star who shot his load in two minutes -- both times. Paul was going to be bigger than all of them and she nearly drooled at the thought. Not that she was a size queen but when she ground him, or he let his bulge press against her, it was hard not to fantasize about how he was going to fill her up in a way no man had.

I'm going to take care of you.

Yes, please.

The night after that, they made a chicken curry, and he welcomed her by pushing her back against the front door. She thought he was going to take her right there, but instead, he brought his lips to her warm skin, butterfly brushes against her cheek, her chin, her neck, her shoulder, the upper slopes of her breasts where her cleavage was bared. She nearly begged him to keep going, to tug her top up and undo her bra and suck her nipples, to stop his teasing and fuck her already. But that would mean defeat, and she was not going to be beaten so quickly, not when they had a whole summer to play.

And so it went as June slipped into July. They didn't spend every night together -- she was still young and alive and living a good life with her friends too, and he had side projects that needed his attention -- but they saw each other every day, even if it was for a few minutes. They played grab-ass in a restaurant at lunch. They went for long walks that she wished would never end, talking about all sorts of things, about their childhoods, about Paul losing his dad at an early age to alcoholism and his mother to emphysema and pneumonia. Summer cried some at that, and he held her hand, and it was so very easy to fall in love with him.

And she talked too, about her light jealousy of her sisters' successes, but how really at heart she wanted to live a quiet life, leaning more and more towards being a professor of economics, related to what her mom did. She admitted that she felt like more of an educator than the kind of boss her mom was and how at first that decision made her feel sort of inferior to her mother, but that she came to realize, especially in this day and age, that being an educator was what called to her.

And Paul listened. That was the difference between him and someone like Dane or Maddox. He heard, and he processed, and he didn't offer advice or suggestions unless she asked him for them. He listened, and he held her hand, and he was there for her. She stood no chance with him, and he stood no chance with her. Their looks became more and more wanting, their bodies needing contact. Soon, she thought to herself often.

The Fourth of July came, and the relatively cool summer overnight turned delightfully hot. Both Paul and Summer had been invited separately to take part in a neighbor's barbeque and to watch the street's fireworks afterwards. "Our first real date," Summer told Paul, which got an amused and thoughtful expression out of him. He tried to insist she should spend the holiday with her friends, but she genuinely meant it when she said she missed the street's barbeques and potlucks and Christmas parties, all of it. She would never leave there again, if she had the choice, and Paul told her he'd always felt the same since he first moved in.

With the day being so beautiful, Summer took advantage of it, resting out under the sun again and touching up her tan. Paul was going to come by at some point and they would cook up some appetizers and side dishes together to take to the barbeque. Knowing full well her boyfriend -- and didn't that word associated with Paul melt her to a brainless, ecstatic mess? -- was going to be there soon, Summer dressed in her tiniest bikini, one she'd only ever tried on and never worn outside, let alone for anyone. The tiny polka dot-print triangles barely hung onto her big breasts, and the vee of fabric against her pussy did little but emphasize her fully, pouty lips.

Before she went outside with her sunscreen and Kindle, just like at the start of all this, Summer looked at herself in the mirror, and was startled by the sexy creature staring back at her. Gone was the eighteen-year-old in her dorm crying because she was trying to convince herself she was happy in Atlanta, happy with her boyfriend Dane, happy with being half a country away from her family and the home she loved so much. Gone was the nineteen-year-old stammering out an apology to the screaming young man who told her he'd sacrificed everything for her and their stupid apartment, and gone too was the young woman hugging her parents tight, embarrassed at her need of them, at feeling like a failure for moving back home.

This woman was beautiful, and fulfilled, and sure of the path she was on. Happy. Loved. Loving.

She took a picture of herself, one of her very favorite selfies, a goofy grin on her face, her eyes crinkled, her free hand on her shoulder. It was a picture she only ever shared with Paul, to show him on the eve of a very special day for them both how happy he made her in those early weeks, how he helped her transform.

But that was the future.

Now, she traipsed outside, feeling free, feeling high, although it had been better than three or four months since she had so much as an edible. Shame Paul wasn't there to help her with the sunscreen. She was sure he would have loved covering every inch of her in cream. The thought made her giggle, and she rested on her stomach when she was done, loving the feeling of the hot sun on her back.

Summer was halfway through a chapter in Rebecca Yarros's latest book when she got a text from Paul telling her he was on his way. She told him she was out back, and to let himself in again. A minute later, she heard the clack of the side gate, reliving that moment in the pool when he'd seen her in the black bikini. He was about to get a much, much better view.

On her stomach, she bent one leg and idly kicked her foot against her butt as he came around the corner. Paul breathed, "Fuck."

It was exactly the reaction she hoped for. Idly, she looked back over her shoulder, then ran a hand down to the string bikini bottoms and tugged them aside, giving him his first unobstructed view of her pussy.

He moved.

Summer started to say something, but then Paul was there, dropping behind her and bodily yanking her towards the end of the lounge chair. "Oooh," she moaned, loving the roughness of him, his big hands nearly wrapping around the entirety of her slender legs.

"On your knees, now."

"Yes, sir!" she said smartly, and thrust her butt up in the air.

"Fuck, Summer. I..." He grunted irritably, unable to find the words, and instead, he showed her. He dropped to his knees on the hard concrete, his big hands going to the bikini bottoms and tugging them aside so hard the cord snapped. She didn't care. All she wanted was what happened next, his lips against her pussy, his tongue driving into her.

She fought not to cry out as his big, calloused fingers spread her pussy lips wide for his deft work, his tongue moving with an assuredness she'd never felt before from any guy. Paul knew how to take care of her, knowing she needed this release and giving it to her. She bounced back against him, the heat inside her building, building, a towering fire that roared like no other orgasm in her life.

Her pleasure destroyed her and she never heard herself cry out his name, a sharp wail. "Paul!" He chuckled behind her as her mind fought to come back together, her pleasure consuming conscious thought until his big hands were on her ass, her waist, and he was flipping her over and throwing her legs over his shoulders, her ass rising up off the lounge chair, her big breasts spilling free from the tiny bikini top.

She raked at them as he sucked at her clit and slid a finger deep inside her. "Oh, oh fuck!" she gasped.

"Quiet, baby girl, quiet now, or they'll hear you. Then again, maybe I should make you come so loud they know you're getting it good."

Summer writhed at the thought, her hips wiggling side-to-side as she thought about everyone knowing who was claiming her. Her fingers went to her big dark nipples and tweaked them. He was so good with his fingers, and his tongue, and his everything. She was a mindless ball of pleasure in his care and all she could think about was getting that big fat cock inside her, letting him come into her, making her truly his.

"Ahhhhhh!" she howled when he slid a second finger into her, not caring who heard, not caring about anything but those digits pumping inside her. He twisted his hand and curled the fingers against her walls and that was it for her, her spot being rubbed just right as he licked her clit, her big engorged clit, so sensitive for him, so needy. Every bone in her body ceased to exist and she collapsed, head rocking up and down, her eyes squeezed shut, her lover still going, still making her feel so good.

His fingers stayed where they were but he moved, dropping her legs and sliding up her body to whisper in her ear. "You're so fucking tight around me, so tight I don't know if I can get my cock in that tiny little pretty pussy, but you're going to take me, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes, t-take you, I'll take you, every inch of you, I want it," she whined.

"Not yet, baby girl, I'm going to make you beg for it."

"I want it, I want it now, I want you inside me, m-making me yours," she said, clutching at his hand against her cunt as her other went to his free hand and pulled it to her big breast. He stared into her eyes, and she realized with faint amusement he looked nearly as desperate as she was.

Remember the power you have over him.

She clutched his head and kissed him, her own wetness still on his lips. He grunted his pleasure as their lips clashed, tongues fighting for control. He squeezed her breast and ran his thumb along her nipple as he sped up the fingering with his other hand, cracks forming in his self-assured control.

"I'm close, I'm close again, keep doing that, keep kissing me and... and..."

"Tell me," he breathed against her lips.

"Keep fingering my..."

"Your what, Summer?"

"My..."

"Your pussy," Paul whispered, and moved his lips to her ear. "Your sweet, tight little cunt."

"Oh FUCK!" she cried out. Her thighs slapped together against his hand and she came again, arching her back and losing control. Her pussy -- her cunt, her mind whispered, sampling the word she'd never said aloud before -- quivered around his fingers and her hips bucked as she stared into his eyes. She almost begged him for it again, and she knew, absolutely knew, if she did, he would fuck her right then and there. And with that knowledge she held the cards again.

"You'll... beg me... for it," she said and reached for the suntan lotion with her free hand. He watched, eyes narrowing in dazed lust, as she squirted some between her breasts. Paul's face transformed. There was no other word for it. In an instant, gone was the smug cockiness of knowing he'd brought her to orgasm three or four times. In its place was something she would replay over and over and over again. It was raw, animalistic lust, a snarling need to him.

He stood up, kicked off his shoes, and jerked at the button to his jeans, dropping them and his boxers. Just as she was naked to him for the first time, he was naked to her, excepting his shirt. His cock was clean-shaven, his balls hanging low. A scar from his fall through the roof cut a jagged line up his hp and she promised herself she'd lick every inch of it someday very soon.

Summer pushed herself further up the chair and he straddled it, his huge cock in his hand, so big, so fucking fat that she knew with a delicious shiver that thing was going to stretch her wide, make her hurt in the best way possible. And again, she nearly begged for it, but instead, she grinned up at him as he bent, pointing his cockhead at her big breasts and driving it between them as she cupped them.

"Fuck," he growled, his voice nearly as loud as her cries, and there was laughter from somewhere, one of the neighbors, but neither of them cared. They were too far gone for that, and besides, Summer liked the neighbors knowing, liked the idea of being out here, being used so close to so many people. It was an unbelievable turn-on, one she didn't know about herself, and she drank it in, now aware they had an audience and probably had for some time.

But Paul didn't care either. As Summer squeezed her tits along his massive length, he fucked them, hard. His muscular hips thrust back and forth with a silky smooth rhythm, his shirt coming up and off his head before he stared down at her with manic eyes, a bull ready to charge.

"Come for me, Paul, come all over me, come on my big breasts."

"Your tits," he said.

"Yesssss, my tits, come all over my tits, my face, mmm, I want to feel it, I want to feel it all over me, come for me Paul, come all over me."

"Summer, fuck..."

"Yesss, I'm yours I'm yours, so paint me with it, paint me and take a picture because I need to see it, need to see what you do to me."

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" he roared and then he was yanking away, jacking his cock hard and fast with his right hand, coming, coming so much that it made her laugh breathlessly, ropes of him hitting her chin and her neck before he aimed at her tits, coming across them, painting her in five, six, seven ropes.

Quick as that, she reached out and grabbed her phone. She punched in the PIN and handed it to Paul. He hesitated only a moment, then snapped three or four pictures of Summer on her back like that. She reached out and grabbed his cock, pulling him back to her. He settled it between her messy breasts and snapped another pair of pictures.

"One last one," she murmured. "You won't think I'm too naughty?"

"Fuck no," he said, and laughed breathlessly.

She pulled him further up still, and brought his big cock not to her lips, but her forehead, letting him rest against the length of her face. He moaned, and snapped more pictures before stepping back, staring down at her.

"I want you to send them to me too," he said. "They'll never leave my phone."

"I trust you," Summer said, and took his hand when it was offered. He cupped her face in his big hand and she nestled into it, smiling. "Not too much?"

"No. No, baby, no. That was fucking incredible."

"I thought so too." She patted his muscular ass. "Come on. We need showers, and then we have cooking to do."

He looked surprised and disappointed all at once. It made her laugh, and she sauntered towards the door as he stared at her ass.

* * *

The neighbors knew. After the show they'd put on, Paul was sure of that. And that meant very likely Michelle and Leon knew, which might be a problem. He came up with and discarded a dozen different variations on how to talk to them about it and discarded all of them as being too idiotic, too dramatic, or too gruff. Then again, he wasn't great at talking to people on the phone to begin with.

Summer seemed unbothered by any of this. "They can get mad if they want," she said. "I mean... I probably would in their shoes. Wouldn't you?"

"If I was your dad, I'd probably shoot me."

"My dad doesn't own a gun."

"Well, that's something, at least."

They were taking a walk around one of the countless lakes near New Bainbridge. Their hands were intertwined, earning them some curious looks but no comments. Summer had on a pink visor against the sun. It was cute, but already he was thinking about getting her back to his house so he could set her hair free and eat her out again.

She gave him a shrewd look. "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"

"No," Paul said immediately. "Not for a minute. But your parents will. They have to, for your sake. And that's a good thing."

"Yeah. But they know you. They know you're a good enough guy to entrust my well-being to you."

"And look what I've done with that trust. I've made you a damn dirty sinner."

"Mmmm. Yeah." She looked altogether way too happy about that. "What I mean is, they handpicked you to look out for me. A single, handsome guy in his forties they know I've been crushing on forever, you don't think they had to know this might happen? And to me, it doesn't really matter what they think. When they see us together, they'll either get it or not. And if they don't, they'll come around."

"They love you too much to be mad at you for long. But I'm not exactly expecting to be a guest at the head of the table at Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, I'd avoid any sharp knives at my house until we know where my dad's at on this."

They walked on a while, eventually circling back towards the parking lot where his around-town car, a 2010s Challenger he was starting to think about replacing. A friend at a dealership was trying to sell him on an imposing black Land Rover, and he was almost convinced. The price was a little high, but his company had just been subcontracted out for roofing and tiling a big new subdivision that would see them making serious bank.

In the car, Summer leaned across the divider and kissed him. "I'm with you, Paul. As long as you want me, I'll be yours." Her eyes searched his. "If this is something you want as a long-term thing."

"Ahhh, the commitment talk," he said, nodding sagely. That made her smile, and he cupped her chin. "I've been thinking we already were. But good to make it formal."

They kissed again, longer, softer, needier on both their parts. Her hand fell to his cock and stroked him through the khakis he wore that do.

"Take me home Mr. Castle," Summer whispered.

He knew what she meant. The deeper meaning. Paull cupped her face. He kissed her again, and again, adoring her. Her fingers went to his hair, brushing at its short crispness, then trailing down again, down across his cheek, his chest, his stomach, his cock. Summer unzipped him and fished him out of his khakis. They pulled out of the parking lot and she looked around casually before leaning over the console again.

"Goddamn," Paul said as she wrapped those lips around him for the first time.

"Mm hm<' Summer purred. She came off him and twisted her head so she was licking up and down the base of his shaft. "I think you unlocked some kind of kink in me on the Fourth. I can't stop thinking about doing it with you in public."

"That was hot," he said.

"Mm hm. Think you can handle that? Me liking to show off?"

"Baby girl, anything you want to do, I'll try it with you."

"Anything?" she asked breathily, and devoured him again.

He rested his hand on the back of her head, gripping it gently and pushing her down even further, the warm wetness of her mouth taking inch after inch of him.

"Anything," he said.

And it was true. Paul loved the dance they were doing, the teasing, the achingly slow build. Sure, it was driving him crazy not to plunge his dick inside her, to make her scream his name, but it was a good kind of crazy. Summer was making him work for it, and she most definitely deserved that. And the build towards actual sex had the added unexpected bonus of grounding their relationship. They'd spent long hours at her place or his talking politics, religion, and what they wanted long-term, and while they didn't match up one to one, there was nothing that would make for a cracked foundation to something that could, he hoped, be forever.

Forever.

It was forever he thought about as her magnificent lips wrapped around him. Paul felt the twinges of love before that day but now he openly acknowledged it, embraced it. He loved Summer, and wanted this to work more than anything. He was twenty years older than her, and there would be a day when she would have to see him off on a journey she couldn't follow, not for what he hoped would be a long, long time to come, but he was not yet ancient, and they could have so many good years together.

She was everything he wanted, and in that moment, he had an idea. A seed he needed to look into. But for now, there were her loving lips on him, her tongue whisking along his cock, her head bobbing enthusiastically. More, too, her thong peeking out from the back of her shorts, the brush of her breasts against his thigh, the soft lavender scent of her body cream.

Paul ran a hand along her back, marveling that Summer was real, that she was his, and he came so fast for her, warning her, filling her mouth, then trying to keep an eye on the road while simultaneously watching her swallow with an exaggerated, "Ahhh!" and wipe her lips with a finger.

At the next red, he reached over, took her hand, and said the words he needed to say.

"I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered.

* * *

Summer brushed her teeth in his master bathroom while Paul stood behind her, undressing her slowly, a gift he relished with every inch of her skin revealed to him. He was so loving with her, so patient, so sweet. When she was down to her bra and panties, he stopped for a moment to kiss her neck, slow, sweet caresses of his mouth against the delicate bones and her warm skin, making her arch her back in pleasure before he switched sides and did the same thing. She had her hair up in a cute pigtail updo, and he freed that too, letting her dark hair spill down her back.

His hands went to her breasts and her sex through her bra and bikini briefs, and she nestled back against him, toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. He filled his hands with her, loving her with gentle strokes of his fingers, getting her so hot, so needing. Down came her panties, her sex bared to him, smooth and hairless. Then her bra too as she finished up brushing her teeth and rinsing, her white tan lines in stark contrast to her otherwise sun-kissed skin. It was as warm as it looked, his touch making her warmer still as he cupped her breasts, squeezing them as he pulled her back, mouth at her shoulder, adoring her in the mirror with his eyes.

One of his hands went to his khakis and he undid them. "Right here," he murmured. "I want to make love to you this first time right here in front of the mirror."

"Yesss," she whispered, and he pressed himself to her, his tip sliding up and down against her pussy lips before he slid into her. "Oh.... oh, Paul..."

He was big, almost too big, and there was going to be some soreness, but the way he stretched her was like a song reaching the hook, the music just right. She arched up onto her toes as he filled her with inch after inch of him, her hands reaching back behind her head to his, clutching at his hair as he watched himself in the mirror making love to her, his eyes dark, thoughtful, no doubt memorizing every moment of this like she was.

Paul brought a hand down to her mound and her clit, and Summer gasped, "Yesss, like that, just like that, gentle this first time, please..."

"Anything you want, always," he whispered against her neck, and he was so gentle, rocking with her, letting her get used to him. But she was proud too, taking every inch of him inside her, bulging with him. Every. Inch. Never had she been so filled, not by the biggest of her toys, but the pleasure that soon erupted from her wasn't just from the size of him, but the love, the energy, the need finally realized. There was no coming back from lovemaking like this, because that was exactly what they were creating, love, love and a bond between their souls that would never be broken.

Summer came for him with a cry, no words, just a noise. "Ahhhhh!" Paul moved faster, but never too much for her, always careful, always loving. His fingers on her clit were magic, and here he was a little rougher, pinching, tweaking just enough to make waves of pleasure crash through her. He knew her body so well already, could twist her into knots without an effort, and she loved him for it so much.

She twisted her head, and he was there, kissing her with every inch of him buried inside her. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she babbled.

"I love you too, I love you so goddamn much, Summer," he breathed and he moved with more purpose, needing, his moment on them, and her only regret was that she couldn't be off the pill for a few months yet, not until she was sure the baby would come after graduation, because that was what she wanted from this man, a baby, a family, a life together.

He clutched her tight, their eyes going as one to the mirror as he released, his cock straining inside her to fulfill its purpose, coming, coming, coming so much for her. She cried then, happy tears, and with one hand, she reached behind her for his face. With the other, Summer reached towards the mirror, towards the woman there looking back at her, happy and proud, ready to begin this strange new journey with her man.

They cleaned up in the shower, Paul so attentive, so worshipful. He cleaned up not just her pussy, but her entire body, taking his time about it, running the soapy washcloth over her arms, her legs, her breasts, her tummy, her back. He even got under her pits, which made her laugh, and the crack of her ass, which made her moan when he rinsed her off and slid his tongue against her bud, a new experience for her. He capped it off by washing her hair, a slow, luxurious form of love that sent new thrills up and down her spine as he massaged her scalp with her favorite shampoo. She turned under the showerhead's spray, rinsing off as he watched.

When they stepped out, she dried her hair while he went downstairs to fix a snack for the two of them, a plate of blueberries, strawberries, crackers, and cheese. By the time he returned, Summer was resting in the middle of the bed, nude, the covers drawn down to her feet so she could show herself off to him, playing with herself. He set the tray down on an end table, picked up a strawberry, and placed it between his lips before crawling on the bed towards her. She accepted the treat with a sparkle in her eyes and a warmth in her soul that would never go out.

And then he was on her, diving down, eating her out with a passion. What they'd done in the bathroom was lovemaking. This... this was need coming out to play. Paul ate Summer like he was angry with her pussy, licking it fast, sucking at her clit, nibbling at it and making her claw at the pillows and bedspread. When he'd finally had enough of the foreplay, he mounted her, grabbing her by the legs and bringing them nearly to her big tits, her feet kicking in midair as he drove into her, his face locked in a mask of pleasure.

"Fuck me," Summer begged. "Fuck me like I'm your whore, Paul, do whatever you want to me, make me yours, I want it rough, I want it sweet, I want it every way I can have it."

"You're mine," he snarled.

"Yessss, I'm yours, I'm yours, love me, fuck me, I'm yours!"

He let go of her legs to cup her face and her neck with his big rough hands. He didn't choke her, but the pressure of his strong hands on her neck was enough to send her spiraling into an orgasm as he pounded into her, her cry of pleasure filling the otherwise empty house. He grinned savagely at that and kissed her, his tongue sliding into her mouth and met with her own.

He pulled out and flipped Summer over, getting her on her hands and knees before driving his cock back into her well-used pussy. She would be sore from this the next day, but oh God, in the moment, it was so good, so fucking good. He used her the way she'd always wanted a guy to use her, not as some quick pump and an awkward "was it good for you?" by her ex-boyfriends, but as a man who knew what he was capable of doing. He gripped her by the shoulder and the waist, plunging back and forth inside her, her staccato gasps and moans the closest she could come to language as her pleasure washed over her twice more.

When Paul slipped free of her, it was Summer's turn. She whipped around as fast as her exhausted body would allow, and she growled, "On your back."

Paul grinned lopsidedly at her, a smirk, and dropped onto his back so she could ride him, her hips flexing, her body undulating, her hands in her hair, tugging at it as she fucked him. At that angle, he was rubbing her spot nonstop, and his fingers at her clit brought her there again fast, her tits bouncing as she threw her head back and wailed out her wordless pleasure, her joy, her love.

She collapsed onto him, kissing him frantically, her body jerking erratically, out of her control. He took over in the last, wrapping his arms around her, holding his forehead to hers as she whimpered his name, needing him to come, needing to feel him one more time inside her. Her eyes closed when he breathed her name, and his warmth filled her again.

* * *

Paul told her the plan that night while he made dinner, stir fry so spicy both of them broke out in a sweat eating it. It was her favorite meal of their time together that wonderful summer, a perfect cap to the day's sweaty and frenetic lovemaking.

"I can't be with you the whole time you travel to England. But I was thinking about us needing to talk to your parents and I can't see having that conversation over the phone. So, maybe I take a Friday and a Monday off, and I fly there to see you."

"Yes. Yes," Summer said, emphatically, and oh how fast the heat hit her eyes. She shot up and rushed to him, hugging him hard and kissing him everywhere, his lips, his chin, his forehead, his cheeks. "Yes, I want you with me as much as possible. I... I... yes."

Like him, she knew her parents already knew, but they didn't say anything to her about it. They did, however, drop lots of pointed, amused comments, like, "Did Paul stop over again to cook you dinner? That's so sweet," and "Mrs. Wells saw you two walking together. Getting some sunshine?"

They knew. Of course they knew. Subtle, she and Paul were not.

As it turned out, he could get a ticket for the very same flight as Summer, and did, although he had to schedule a return trip for the following Monday. They promised each other someday they'd return there and take a real vacation there, just the two of them.

They were scheduled to fly out the day after her finals. Summer wasn't too nervous about her tests. She'd flown through the summer lessons, despite her new man-candy distraction, and even if she did dismally on the tests, she would still pass with a pretty acceptable grade. That was a moot point, though, as she nailed the tests too, grinning the entire time.

What wasn't so easy was what came after. Maddox, who still sat next to her in class, finished just as she was bringing her own test up to the professor. He caught up to Summer outside the building as she hurried towards the parking lot, a familiar man leaning against his Challenger and grinning at her. Paul's presence made her heart swell, the best surprise of the day, even as her heart broke a little for Maddox.

"Summer, wait," the young man said.

She turned her head towards him, and her smile was much more natural and sincere than it had been with him in weeks. "How'd you do on the test?"

"I think I aced it. You?"

"I don't know that I did that good, but I think I did all right. I'm sorry, but I have to go. That's my boyfriend by the truck."

"That's Paul?" Maddox asked. "The creepy older guy?"

"He's not creepy. He's a man, Maddox. He's everything I want. I'm sorry I can't be what you want me to be, but there's someone out there for you too. You just... you have to have the guts to let me go."

"I... I tried so hard with you," Maddox said. "What did I do wrong? Why can't it be me?"

"I've told you the answer to that so many times now," she said. Paul's smile had given way to something more contemplative as they started walking towards him again.

"Aren't I a nice guy?" Maddox demanded.

"No. Not when you act like this." She sighed. "Being a nice guy means listening to a woman. Hearing her, even if what she has to say doesn't line up with what you want. So hear me out. Be you. Be honest. Don't try so hard to please whoever it is you try to date next. Don't get obsessed. Obsessed isn't sexy. Clingy isn't sexy. Be happy with yourself, and some woman will se that and want you to make her happy too."

Maddox was silent. She didn't know what to expect from him. She figured he would either call her a bitch or put on some veneer of stoicness and tell Paul to look after her. But instead, Maddox surprised her. "You're right," he said. "I hear you. And I'll try with whoever comes next. I really do hope he makes you happy. See you around, Summer."

"See you, Maddox," Summer said.

Maddox gave Paul a wave and a tight smile before peeling off across the grass towards the cafeteria. Summer and Paul both watched him go.

When Summer came to Paul and hugged him tight, he stroked her hair. "That guy going to be okay?" he asked.

"I don't know, but I hope so." She pulled back, looked him in the eyes, and he kissed her slow and sweet.

* * *

When Leon and Michelle saw not just their daughter, but the man she walked with, her arm looped through Paul's, they turned towards each other, Michelle grinning, Leon sighing and shaking his head.

"Oh God. I lost five bucks on the two of you," Leon called.

Summer, who up to that point had been white as a ghost and not entirely certain that she wasn't still stuck on the hellscape that was their international flight, even if it hadn't really been quite as bad as she'd feared, now cried and ran to them. Her mother got to her first and hugged her tight, holding her close. Then her father was there, hugging the both of them, and holding out a hand to shake with an amused Paul.

"She said you'd come with her. I thought that was crazy," Leon said.

"I kinda figured you might skin me alive for, ah, dating her," Paul said as they shook.

"Still giving it some thought," Leon said.

"Don't believe him," Michelle said hoarsely, stepping back and sniffing as she rubbed her hands up and down Summer's shoulders. "We heard, and your dad's first response was, 'Well, we lit the fuse on that one, didn't we?'"

Summer turned towards Paul and grinned. "We said kind of the same thing to each other."

They told a PG-rated version of their story as luggage was fetched. Paul didn't have much, since he wouldn't be staying long, to her parents' genuine chagrin. That made him feel immensely better. Already, his presence had been accepted. Already, he was welcome into their family.

He did bring one important thing with him, and as he helped Leon load the luggage into the back of their car, Paul surreptitiously checked to make sure it was still there, a small, square box, lined in velvet. He wasn't sure when he packed it that England would be the right time or place to ask the most important question of his life, but with Leon giving him an appraising look and a hint of a smile, Paul knew one thing -- he was right where he was supposed to be.