“She made it off okay?” My stepmother inquired about Naomi as she let her hair down, a thick, dark mass unrolling down her back, long enough to begin spreading out into the water behind her like a fan.

“Fine.” I tried to be casual—about Naomi, about wetting my stepmother’s hair as she tilted her head back and arched, her nipples pointing skyward—but I was feeling anything but. Whatever had happened the night before had changed me, but somehow…somehow it had changed the way my stepmother looked at me too.

“It’s hard, being away from your lover that way.”

Lover.

It even changed the way she spoke to me.

I swallowed, soaping up her hair, but didn’t respond. She kept talking anyway.

“You miss their company, of course, but there’s this primal sort of longing that just never goes away.” She shifted in the water, hands behind her, body stretching forward, putting herself on display for me. My gaze was drawn between the swell of her thighs, and instead of wondering what it might feel like, this time I knew—although it didn’t lessen my desire, as I once thought knowing might do. In fact, it seemed to make it worse.

“Is there?” I used my fingers to scrub her scalp, trying to keep my composure, trying to keep up the pretense we always had, when she gave a soft sigh, a small moan.

“Oh, baby, that feels so good,” she murmured, arching more, and my cock jumped in my pants like a snake trying to bite. “Do it harder.”

Oh, hell.

Instead, I took the cup I used to rinse her hair and started pouring water, trying to wash it away, the feelings I knew I shouldn’t be having. Her sounds didn’t stop, though…she kept on, arching, moaning, mmmmm-ing until my erection was a steel bar in my pants.

“Was that the phone?” I asked weakly as she opened her eyes, flushing the excess water from her hair as she stood. I hadn’t heard anything but the sounds of my stepmother’s pleasure but wanted any excuse now to leave temptation behind, because I knew, somehow, where we were headed, and there was just no going back.

“Towel?” She held her hand out for it and I gave it to her as she stepped from the tub, her body deliciously sleek and wet. She rubbed her hair for a moment, looking at me, something in her eyes I’d never seen before, and then she handed the towel back.

“All the hot water’s made me faint,” she murmured. “Will you dry me?”

It was the worst sort of feminine excuse, and it worked on me the way it had worked on every man through the eons. I took the towel and tried to look away as I rubbed her dry, but it was no use. The material rubbing over her skin made her nipples hard, and I stared at the puckered circles around them, fascinated by this development. Naomi had been one night in the dark, but this woman’s body was mine to gaze upon at my leisure. When I dabbed the towel meekly at the hair between my stepmother’s legs, she put one foot up on the edge of the high tub and a hand on her hip.

“You can do better than that,” she assured me.

I stared—the soft, open pink of her flesh was a siren’s call, and I leaned in closer as if to hear it better. She was right, there was water still beading in the wiry hair, and a wetness inside that glistened in the light.

“Do you like what you see?” Her hand moved in my hair, her nails softly raking my scalp, making me shiver. I felt like an obedient dog who would do anything…anything…