In case I hadn’t noticed…

She was all the fuck I had noticed. That was the goddamned problem.

I had eleven years on her. I was supposed to be the grown-up, the responsible one in her life. I had always been the one man she could depend on, and yet I knew I’d hurt her badly, maybe broken her trust beyond repair… She’d felt completely abandoned when I’d left for Brown. So much so, that years later, when it was her turn to leave for college, she hadn’t even said goodbye.

Now she’d grown up, and clearly didn’t need me anymore, but she’d come home feeling like she had to prove herself anyway. I felt like I was betraying her yet again, by looking at her the way I was… by feeling the way I did… I peeled off my wet swim trunks and threw them over the side of the tub. I turned on the shower and stepped under the cooling blast.

I’d kept my distance all evening, even in the pool while the others had splashed and dunked each other playfully. I was glad to see she and Dean had reconnected. Glad, too, that he’d reached out to me for help when his drinking had gotten out of control. The last thing I wanted was for him to end up the way his father had. But he was sober now, finally happy and achieving his dreams. He was becoming the brother Maggie had deserved all along…

I’d watched as Ryan had put his arm comfortably around Maggie’s waist and they’d laughed together. They had been close, almost like brother and sister themselves growing up. It had been natural enough… they were close in age. I’d often wondered if they wouldn’t end up together one day…

I’d liked the idea well enough, back when they were kids and I was the eldest in the group. But somehow… seeing them together tonight… They were so easy together, so uncomplicated… laughing and teasing. Maggie was beautiful, her eyes flashing, her long silky hair licking at the delicious tips of her breasts… She had glanced at me, but she’d always looked away.

There was a wall between us. And I didn’t fucking like it. I wanted her laughing in my arms. I wanted to touch her skin and stroke her hair. I wanted her to open up to me, to trust me the way she did Ryan. I wanted to take care of her the way that I used to, and I wanted her to need me, the way it had always been.

Except that she didn’t. And it wasn’t. Nothing was the same as it used to be, and it was my fault, not hers. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t see little Mags anymore. One look at her in that fucking hot bikini, dripping wet and sexy as hell, and I knew I’d never see her the same way again. I’d kept my distance in the pool because my cock had been hard as fuck from the minute I’d seen her in those boots. And I’d hardly dared speak to her over dinner. I knew she’d see it in my eyes, hear it in the timbre of my voice. I was a man, and she was no longer a little girl. I wanted everything a man wants with a woman, and that very thing was a betrayal in itself. I hoped she still trusted me. I knew that Dean did. And if my brother Ryan had intentions of his own towards Maggie…

It was for the best she’d refused my invitation to stay in the main house. I’d regretted it the minute I’d said it… Almost.

No, the best thing I could do for everyone was to stay the hell away from her. She didn’t plan on staying in Southlake long anyway. She had a world to change, out there waiting for her, and enough ambition to probably do it. The best thing for both of us was to simply leave her alone. I toweled off roughly, working hard to ignore the throbbing ache of my erection.

I climbed into bed that night, imagining her alone in the cottage… just down the hill. And I knew it was going to be a long, hot, fucking night.

* * *

“It’s hot out tonight,” she said, stretching out beside me in the grass. She was wearing a tiny little denim skirt and those fucking delicious boots… She licked at a long, frozen ice pop. Her lips were bright red and I knew they would taste like cherries…

Somewhere inside I knew I was dreaming. I rolled over struggling to wake up, but I could still feel her next to me, fully grown and fully ready. I could smell the scent of her hair…

She lifted one long leg and pointed her boot to the sky. “That’s Scorpius… there… near the center of the Milky Way. I used to look up into the stars when I was little and wonder if there was someone out there looking back. My mother maybe… or my dad, after he died…”

I rolled onto my side to watch her. Her hair splayed out over the soft, cool grass. But the air was hot and there were rumbles of thunder in the distance. A damp, sticky breeze blew over us and I pushed her hair off her forehead. She looked up at me with those enormous brown eyes and smiled, her lips parted, delicious…

“I want you, Joe,” she said softly. “I’ve loved you forever, and now I’m here…” She touched the cold, sweet melting ice to my lips and smiled. “Taste,” she said, and I did. She smiled again as she watched me. “Do you want me, too?” she asked huskily.

I watched as she reached down between her legs, and drew a trail up the inside of her thigh with the very tip of the ice pop. I saw her flesh tighten as it melted and left a delicate, dripping pink line behind. She raised her legs and I saw she was naked under the denim skirt. She spread her legs wider and moaned, catching her lip in her teeth as she pushed the cherry tip just inside her pussy…

I was over her then, using my hand instead… I pushed the ice further inside her, pumping it back and forth until the heat of her body melted it away. Then I leaned in and lapped away at the sticky, delicious fluid. She wrapped her legs around my neck and rode me until I’d licked her clean… Then I spread her apart with my hands and pushed ten long inches of hard, needy cock inside her. She was hot and cold at the same time, tight and wet… The head of my cock had her stretched to the max… I felt wetness flood us both as she clamped down, and I…

Woke up… Gasping and aching with a fantasy I shouldn’t have and a need I didn’t dare satisfy. I rolled onto my side and worked to slow the pounding in my chest. Sweat ran, without the power to cool me.

The air around me was thick and heavy. And thunder rolled darkly in the distance…