Steele and I lie tangled up in each other at the water's edge for over an hour. Except it seems like mere moments. When we were twelve years old time also used to disintegrate for us like this. I figured it was part of being a kid, but now I get it. When you're with the one you're meant for, time stops existing. You can spend hours completely comfortable, talking or quiet, fucking or cuddling and whatever you're doing they pass way too rapidly.

I can't help thinking about Rod and I'm sure Steele is too. How we lay on our backs looking up at the clouds while Rod scampered around in the water, then ran up the shore to shower us with coat spray. I wish he was here with us again. That would make everything completely perfect.

“We should get back,” I murmur at last, wondering why. Because I'd much rather spend every instant alone with Steele.

“Why?” Steele grunts, verbalizing my thought.

He doesn't move from his back. One hand behind his head, the other arm wrapping me so his fingers caress the side of my breast.

“Mother.”

“Hmph.” Is his only response.

“I know,” I say. “But I can't help it. It must be some kind of brainwashing from childhood that I'm all on edge if I don't do what she wants. You know she'd kill us if she knew.”

“I don't care,” Steele replies, his free hand coming down to curl at a tendril of my mussed up hair. “You were mine before they ever started their affair.”

“Yours?” I repeat, acting outraged but really I'm delighted. We're on the same page here. Steele felt the same as me back then. And feels the same now.

“Yeah, mine,” he growls, rolling over and throwing his heavy thigh over my hip, then squeezing my breast possessively.

I laugh and wriggle away before we go too far again. But my pussy is definitely aching with needy throbs that overtake the soreness from the pounding he just gave me.

“Anyway we don't know how long they were at it in secret.”

“Yeah we do,” Steele tells me. “I knew. I heard them in my dad's office when I came home from school. She came out with her buttons done up wrong.”

“You never told me.”

I yank my limbs out from under him and sit up. Suddenly I feel naked, my full breasts swaying over his face. I pull my tee shirt out from under his shoulder and tug it over my head, irritation flaring at every cell.

“No. I didn't want you to be any more upset than you already were.”

“Didn't you think it would have helped me to know?”

“How?”

“I dunno, maybe I wouldn't have blamed myself for her meanness toward me.”

“Babe, you don't ever have to blame yourself for another person's attitude. That's on them, not you.”

I get to my feet and pull my underwear on while Steele lies on his back watching me, his eyelids at half mast with renewed desire. Somehow that bugs me too. Him wanting my body right now, when we're fighting.

“Are you coming?” I snap, ready to walk away.

Only then does he get to his feet and catch up to me. When he takes my hand I tug it out of his grasp. Okay, I'm being a brat but I'm upset and still processing it. Steele reaches out and firmly clasps my hand back into his huge one, so his fingers hold me pinned and I can't tug away from him again. I surrender to him but walk in silent fuming, all the way home.

As we approach the house we each naturally drop the other's hand. It's as if we both realize that our parents aren't ready to accept our relationship. Perhaps they never will be.

“What is it, baby?' he says. “You've been quiet the whole way, talk to me.”

“Honestly? Can I be completely honest?”

“I thought we always were totally up front with each other. Are you still upset that I didn't tell you about our parents fling? I was only trying to protect you. I''ll always do that before seeing you hurting, it's just who I am.”

“I know that. I'm sorry. But this is so wrong, Steele. I love you, but it's impossible.”

“That's ridiculous, Babe,” Steele insists. “If we hadn't been teenagers it would have been you and I getting married before our parents ever even met. I'd have been married to you before my father snatched up your Mom.”

“That's crazy talk,” I gasp.

“Why's that, Babe?”

“You mean you'd have asked me to marry you?” I feel my cheeks flood with heat. I must be bright red with sudden shyness.

“Who knows what would have happened if you hadn't taken off so suddenly?” Steele shrugs.

“You're still mad about that,” I say, only now realizing how much he must have suffered losing first Rod, then me right after. Everything he loved gone in the space of a week.

“Judas Fucking Priest,” he snarls.

“What? What is it?” I jump at the fierce tone in his croaked voice. My eyes fly up to his face and see he's fixed on some guy on a bike up ahead, parked outside our house. “Who's that?”

The guy sitting straddled across the low slung bike looks dangerous. It's like he's holding the black and chrome machine clamped between his powerful thick thighs, which are wrapped in dark loose jeans slung low and held up by a heavily studded belt. His worn boots seem very big, as are the muscles rippling under the tight black tee. I can see the carving of every last ab through the fabric. He spots us and his face lights up in a grin. The man immediately becomes less badass, but still risky with that hint of something wild, never to be tamed, screaming out from every pore of him.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Bro?” Steele says when we're ten feet away from the guy.

“I was in the vicinity and I thought I'd stop by. See how the fuck you're hanging, Dude. It's been a while.” His voice all husky, like he's inhaled all the grit from the road.

“You were in the vicinity?”

“Yeah, well, I was in the next State and I thought, fuckit, let's take a detour to see an old army bud.”

“Nice to meet you at last.”

He sticks out his hand to me. His greenish eyes have been snapping from Steele over to me every few seconds, drawn back like he's falling into a black hole.

“Scherri,” I tell him, reluctantly presenting my hand which he consumes in his huge one. Afraid that I may not get it back from his powerful grasp.

At that moment Mom throws the door opens

“Scheherazade, are you and your brother coming in or do you intend to stand on the sidewalk gossiping all day?” she hollers in her best classy voice, before adding. “You aren't here to socialize with boys. You came to visit your Grandmother.”

“Ohmigod, you're- how did I miss putting that together?” I whisper, my eyes going round as I stare up at the rebel still clasping my small hand in both of his.

His gaze fixed on me, ripping right through any barrier I might put up. “- you're Bolt.”