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Erotica | Stepmom | Stepson | Taboo | Cheating | Forbidden Kiss | Car Intimacy | Risky Attraction

Alone with My Stepson — 4

One innocent lunch turned dangerous when his foot touched mine under the table — and I didn’t pull away.

PART 3

He swallowed and said, “Eat.” “You’re hungry, remember?”

I ate.

The pizza was just right—the crust was crispy and blackened, the sauce was tangy and sweet, and the cheese was cheesy and hot.

After a few minutes we sat in silence and the sharing of food helped to defuse the tension.

For a few minutes, it made us feel like we were just two people having lunch.

Then his foot was touching mine under the table.

I froze mid-chew.

He didn’t acknowledge it.

Kept eating.

Focussed on his pizza.

His foot remained in place, though—the side of his sneaker was lightly touching the side of my ankle.

Unmoving.

Undemanding.

Just… there.

I could have pulled away.

Should have separated from the group.

I tensed my leg muscles to move.

I stayed.

The touch was so light.

So innocent, technically.

Only a shoe to my ankle.

However, all my nerve endings had moved to that one point of contact.

Heat radiated up through my calf, my knee, my thigh.

I felt flushed.

A little dizzy.

“Good pizza,” said Nathan.

“Yeah.”

My voice quivered a little.

I cleared my throat.

“Good pizza.”

He smiled.

Not the bold, assertive grin of the past.

Not the assertive, confident smile of the past.

Something softer.

Almost tender.

After lunch, we walked back to the car.

The morning clouds had lifted and the parking lot was hot.

I arrived at the passenger door with my keys, but no, he had the keys.

He was trying to unlock the driver's side.

“Do you want to drive?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

We got in.

Now the car had a pizza aroma, which was being overpowered by pine tree air freshener and garlic and oregano.

Mid-song, something slow and acoustic, Nathan started the engine and the radio came on.

“Not yet,” he said, “we don't have to go home yet.”

“Where else would we go?

“Anywhere.

The lake.

The mall.

I don't care.

I just…”

He pounded his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Fifteen minutes in the kitchen is not enough time, I'm tired of you.”

The lake.

We had been to the lake once before, last summer.

Mark had been home.

They had been grilling burgers while I was swimming, and Nathan had challenged me to a race across the swim area.

I had won—just a little—and he had splashed water in my face like a twelve year old, and Mark had laughed from the shore, already on a work call.

“Lake,” I said myself.

He backed up the car.

The lake was 15 minutes away from Giovanni's.

A small public access with a rickety dock that was no longer maintained and a gravel parking lot.

We had parked under a willow tree with its branches touching the car, forming a green curtain around the car.

I could see the water sparkling in the afternoon sun, through the window.

Nathan shut down the engine.

There was a silence that followed, except for the ticking of the cooling motor and the distant cry of a gull.

“In high school I used to come here,” he said.

“When I had to think.”

“About what?”

“Everything.

My parents' divorce, why my dad was not around, what I was going to do with my life.”

He turned around to look at me.

“Now I'm thinking of you.”

I felt my heart like a bird in a cage in my chest.

“Nathan…”

“Say the word and I won't say it again.

We'll go home and pretend it never happened and I'll be the perfect stepson and you can go back to your showers and your protein bars and your lonely bed.”

The words hit hard.

True and brutal.

A portrait of my life painted in four brushstrokes.

“So if I don't say 'stop,' what do you think I'm going to do?

I was not able to catch the question.

Hanging in the air between us.

His eyes darkened.

The blue turning darker to a stormy hue.

Then I'm going to kiss you.”

My lips parted.

Dry.

I ran my tongue over them, and I watched his eyes follow my tongue.

“No, we can't,” I whispered.

“You didn't say STOP.”

“It's now or never.”

“No, you're not saying that you should say it, that's different.”

He was a sharp one, God.

Annoyingly, devastatingly perceptive.

He could see through all my defenses.

His hand moved.

Slow, giving me plenty of time to flinch away.

I didn’t.

His fingers touched my jaw, warm and gentle, tilting my face towards his.

It was an electric touch, a static shock that ran down my neck and through my shoulders like a shiver.

“One kiss,” he said, “I will give you.”

His voice was lowered, more coarse, more unruly.

“That's it, if you don't like it I won't talk about it again.”

“But if I don't hate it?

He smiled.

That smile that crackled ice.

“Let’s see, we'll work it out.”

I should have said no.

I should have shoved him away.

I should have gotten out of the car and walked away from there and called a friend to pick me up and spent the rest of the day pretending that this never happened.

Rather, I bent over.

His first kiss was just a fleeting moment.

A question.

His mouth was warm and dry and had a slight garlicky taste.

He didn’t push.

Didn’t grab.

Just stayed there, giving me the power to decide.

I shut my eyes and drew near.

The kiss deepened.

His fingers gripped the back of my head, the way they did, and my chest ached.

My other hand was on his waist, under the curve of his hip through his sweater.

Not pulling.

Not demanding.

Being there, a steady pressure that grounded me, while the rest of the world tilted sideways.

His tongue ran down the crease of my lips.

This time a request.

I opened for him without a thought and then he was in, exploring, tasting me, and he had been imagining this for a long, long time.

PART 5