Chapter 1 - Table for Two

The house was quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioner. Mom had left for her third-shift job at the plant an hour ago, and the night felt thick and still. Eighteen-year-old Ashley lay in her bed in just a thin tank top and panties, the summer heat making the fabric cling to her skin. She had been staring at the ceiling for a while, her mind circling the same thought it had been circling for weeks.

Her step-dad, Mike.

She had watched him all summer. The way his work shirts stretched across his shoulders when he came home from first shift. The way his jeans sat low on his hips when he changed in the laundry room with the door half open. She had heard her mom on the phone more than once, laughing in that tired, affectionate way about how Mike always slept naked and how she never had to worry about cold feet because he put off heat like a furnace. Ashley had filed that detail away. Tonight she decided she was done just thinking about it.

She slipped out of bed barefoot. The hallway was dark. Mike’s door was cracked the way he always left it. She eased it open just enough to slip through and closed it behind her without a sound.

The room smelled like him—soap, clean sweat, and the faint leftover scent of the cologne he wore to work. Moonlight came through the blinds in thin stripes. Mike was on his back, one arm flung over his head, the sheet kicked all the way down to the foot of the bed. He was completely naked.

Ashley stopped at the edge of the bed and just looked.

He was bigger than she had pictured. Even soft, his cock was thick and heavy, lying against his thigh. The rest of him matched what she had imagined: broad chest with a light dusting of dark hair, flat stomach, strong thighs, the kind of body that came from years of factory work and lifting. She felt heat pool low in her belly. Her nipples tightened under the thin tank top.

She climbed onto the mattress carefully, the bed barely dipping under her weight. For a long moment she just hovered over him, breathing, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. Then she lowered her head.