“You’re quiet tonight,” Daryl said after nailing his ninth consecutive jump shot.

“Just tired, I guess,” I shrugged, retrieving the bounce from beneath the backboard and passing it back to him. “Keep going; you’re on a roll.”

He cocked his wiry frame and smoothly released the ball in a vaulting arc. The net whooshed without moving and I gave a whoop of approval, hoping that would shut him up about my being quiet.

“Let’s quit while I’m ahead, huh?” He wiped his blond brow with the hem of his t-shirt. “I could go for some of your Mom’s lemonade.”

While we walked home from the outdoor courts he did most of the talking, full of his weekend at the beach and gossip about the crowd he and his cousin hung out with, especially one particular girl who had caught his eye.

I stifled a yawn. Daryl had a new crush every season. I was his platonic best bud, his constant confidante. Plus, I truly was tired. It was Sunday night and I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.

It was impossible to resist a furtive glance at the Weston house as we approached mine, a glance that took in the occupied driveway, then an opened window on the upper floor. Flashbacks of a warm, tanned hand reaching for a zipper, a quietly authoritative voice goading me to touch myself, and a pair of strong arms lifting me from the water momentarily muffled Daryl's chattiness.

"Yona? Come on, let's go; I'm parched here." He had climbed the porch stairs and was holding the back door open.

The sweet taste of secrecy bubbled in my mouth, and I swallowed hard to keep it from spilling. No way could I tell my hoops companion about what I had done with Mr. Weston in the hidden pool while Daryl was auditioning his own summer romance. Friendship could only go so far.

***

I couldn’t tell anyone. Not at work, not my other friends, and certainly no one at home.

Mike caught me skinny dipping in his pool last Saturday evening, and he actually joined me.

Sheer adrenaline powered me through the week since then. I would wake before the sun rose, work nonstop without tiring and walk without my feet touching the ground, it seemed.

He's every bit as sexy without his clothes as in them. I've never seen a man get himself off before and it made me come at least three times that night.

Only when I was alone did I indulge in the besotted grin that constantly threatened to sabotage me in the presence of others, and replay all the forbidden things I had seen and heard and felt at the house next door. At night those memories tossed me stripped from the waist down on my bed until exhaustion finally took its toll.

The best part? He wants me to come back this weekend. I can't wait, can't wait, can't wait...

Friday seemed to drag on forever, and the unwelcome guest of doubt darkened my mental threshold. What if he changed his mind? Or forgot?

At 11:41am Saturday, the neighbor I had seduced texted me with a time to meet him that evening. Overjoyed didn’t begin to describe my reaction, but it was soon tag-teamed with dread.

What if he wants to tell me it was all a mistake?

***

Mike met me on the veranda when I arrived. I wasn’t sure how to greet him or if I should show any display of affection. Surely a smile would say it all.

He looked happier than I remembered seeing him in a long time. My shyness dissolved and I threw my arms about him. He hugged me lightly and led me into the house.

“How adventurous do you feel?” he asked, his arm still around my shoulders.

Wow. He was cutting straight to the chase this time. I guess we won’t be talking about what we’ve done, after all. We must have talked everything out before it started, and from now on it's just lustful fun.

“Surprise me,” I gulped, trying to sound casual.

“All right then.” We moved past the living area through a door I had only seen closed on my few previous visits.

“Nice workout room,” I remarked. So this was how he kept fine form in spite of the desk job. “Oh, you even keep fresh flowers in here; what a classy touch.” I couldn't resist fondling the colorful blooms that posed regally in their vase. "They're beautiful."

“For my beautiful company,” he nuzzled into my hair, embracing me from behind.

I blushed profusely, tongue tied. The butterflies in my stomach took flight en masse as the warmth of his forearms grazed my bare midriff.

“What do you think of the layout?”

"Very nice," my voice cracked at last. Most of the gear was as expected. Streamlined, minimalist, functional.

Except for one bizarre behemoth in a far corner. “What is this contraption?” I giggled at what looked like a deconstructed chair with a black stack of rectangular weights next to it. “It looks like some medieval interrogation device.”

“Leg machine of a more ancient generation. Monstrous, isn’t it? It came with the house; that’s how old it is." He let me go and gestured toward it with a flourish. "Care to try it? Find out how well all that swimming has developed you?”

“Guess so. How does it work?”

“Give you a hint. This one works even better once your clothes are off.”

Dignified Mr. Weston using an adolescent’s line? It was disorienting.

He must have seen the change in my expression, because he qualified, “Only if you’re comfortable with that, of course,” then sat on the bench press as my audience of one.

What did you think he was going to ask you to do, spot him while he did a set of squat thrusts? Fighting the natural inclination to turn my back, I unraveled the knot anchoring the short, sheer pareu. Then I tugged the strings of the bikini top until it tumbled from my breasts, and hooked my thumbs into its brief.

He eased his palms over my wrists. "Let me?"

I let go and felt his fingertips gather beneath the elastic at my outer hips. They slowly lowered the snug spandex band until it cradled mid-thigh, paused for effect while he leaned in to kiss the tender flat of my lower belly, then tugged it to my knees and let it fall in a twist around my ankles. His eyes settled as appreciatively over my budding curves as on that first night when I dropped the towel in front of him.

“Your turn?” I implored, stepping free unsteadily, still feeling a flutter from where his lips had been.

“Later,” he promised. “You can have a seat.”

“What exactly do I do here?” The seat portion was obvious, but I was guessing at where my legs went. I lifted them extended forward onto individual booms outfitted with boxy, thick pads inside the knees. While I tested the slight play in these, he walked behind me.

“You’re doing fine. Lean on the backrest; that’s it. Do you see those handles at your hips? Grab onto those, please.”

I did. Something blotted out the room’s light and I realized he had tied a scarf over my eyes. My insides swerved like a Ferrari ascending a frozen switchback.

I heard the clank of a lever. The booms swung outward and widened my legs as far as they would stretch. A quick, metallic scrape followed. When I tried to push them back together, my knees strained in futility against the padding. I felt utterly exposed. And indecently aroused.

“Not quite as strong as you thought you were? You make up for it in flexibility, though,” he observed lightly.

The drag of furniture legs over the floor told me that Mike was somewhere between my hyper extended thighs.

“You will let me know if you’re uncomfortable, won’t you?”

“Yes,” I blinked, lashes whisking against the dark silk.

“Not now?”

“No, I’m...fine.” I was tingling like crazy and was sure he would be able to tell from the roseate blush over my no longer secret folds.

"Do you recognize this?" His murmur sent a thrill to my groin.

A whisper of leaves stirred the air, then a subtle, familiar scent filled my nostrils.

I inclined my head toward the fragrance and my lips encountered cool, velvety petals that kissed them back, then flirted leisurely over my chin.

The rose traced along the dip of my throat and skimmed the collarbones. It sailed over the top swells that pitched with each breath, polishing one nipple into a diamond-cut state, plunged into the hollow between and surfed the neighboring crest to give equal time to its companion, then paid homage to the sensitive, shiver inducing lower curves.

"You have such pretty breasts, Fiona. Do you play with them when you're alone and doing what you did for me last week?"

"No, my touch does nothing for them," I said uselessly, then quickly amended, "but yours would be different. This is different."

"I can tell," he soothed, "and I'm just getting started."

His proxy fingertip swooped to my belly button, detoured to genuflect at the ridges of hip bone, curved teasingly over my abdomen and breached the tan line boundaries into the paleness of my pelvic cradle.

I felt it circumnavigate my own petals and zigzag down a quivering inner thigh. Then it reversed its course in a more direct line, pausing at the pout of my outer lips.

Was he really going to...ohhh...The idea was overwhelming.

I squirmed with delight as the rose's pliant but firm layers landed gently against mine, and began to play in a manner sure to scandalize its vase mates. I had never felt anything like it before. It was as if I were being slowly siphoned into a fragrant cloud that was going to take its infinite time with me.

He guided the bloom in deft vertical strokes along my cleft. My pulse fluttered in response. "Would you rather have it this way," he offered, "or this way..."

And the petals formed a silken arc over my swollen nub and began to swirl in place, alternating directions. The sensation was that of the softest mouth imaginable nibbling with the most deliberate open lipped tenderness.

"Yes," I gasped. "Like this. Please."

His answer was to continue as requested, drawing me deeper into his remote but intimate floral embrace.

Little by little, the awareness of my fingers tightening on the hand grips and shut lids squeezing behind the scarf binding bled away and shifted in ever more concentrated spirals around the contact point from where relentless tendrils of craving coiled all conscious thought into captivity. Reflexively my thigh muscles alternately tensed and widened in an attempt to gain greater traction in that ethereal mist. Unable to move the impossibly weighted booms on which they rested, their isometric flexing was barely enough to interplay with the elusive, velvet-mouthed spin.

The slow progression of desire from such featherweight friction made me crave for more. I didn't want it to stop, but didn't know how much longer I could bear to be teased to such a deep, exquisite ache. My abdominal wall rippled with the effort to lunge my hips aggressively toward the tantalizing botanical tongues. Melted syrups spilled and trickled over the seat cushion.

Even over the rasp of my breathing, I could hear his zipper being drawn down. Though the sensation was not keeping pace with the pressure to which my need was accustomed, that sound served as the starting gun for my imagination to sprint, meet it halfway, and carry it across the finish line.

How does he feel? How hard is this making him, and will he let me reciprocate? Does he want to goad me into coming this way, or discard the glazed rose and edge his tongue over...? My legs quivered within their confines. Will he take himself in his hand, or will he be tempted for something more...all he has to do is lean forward, just a little...

In my wildest, most uninhibited dreams I had never felt so ready to be taken, ever, and that thought was the last straw as a sudden time-lapse flowering burst within and opened my lips to their fullest. I broke in wild, frenzied spasms against the impossibly soft surge. No name, no words could be formed, only primitive chants synchronized with the crushing answers to his gently insistent touch, until both blossoms were equally saturated with dew.

At first he didn’t stop and I winced, too sensitive to come again, then he left it alone. Before I could even let go of the handles, I heard the clank of his loosened belt and the swoosh of rapidly lowered drawers. A warm splash bathed my breasts as he sucked in a sharp breath and let it out in a muted groan.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I made a mess of you.”

“Don’t be.” I hastened to pull the scarf away and gazed at him, enraptured. His shirt was opened; his hand was swiftly tucking his receding hardness into his briefs. “I love that you couldn’t hold back. It’s very sexy,” I confessed, surprising myself.

“If you could have seen how you looked just now...” He handed me a towel but I just held it and looked down with satisfaction at the opaque icing dappled over my shuddering twins. “You can shower it off,” he offered, releasing the lever and enabling me to climb from the improvised restraints.

My legs were still trembling, and I swayed and toppled into him, smearing his slickness between our chests.

“Now you'll have to do it for me.” I held onto him tightly, looking up into the dark quicksand of his eyes and finding it difficult to regain my balance.

Upstairs, he ran the water while he undressed. I was wearing only what he had spent onto my skin as he lost control.

We stepped into the stall, soaping ourselves, then one another, under a pressurized tropical rain. Before long, saraband strokes accelerated as slippery hands inched closer to intimate zones.

As he hardened again, I slipped behind his back and curled my palm around him, thinking the leverage might feel more natural. No, that wasn’t completely true. I wanted to feel as much of his skin against mine as possible.

“Show me what to do,” I begged softly. “You were so good to me earlier.”

He wrapped his fingers over mine, compressed and guided them over his rock solid shaft according to his liking. It was a thrilling reversal of that first time, when his hand had claimed sole possession and blocked my questing one. The way his skin moved with such ease over his rigid core was a new and strange feeling. His pacing quickly turned aggressive and once again I marveled that it didn’t hurt him.

Trying to counterbalance the roughness, I found myself touching his inner thighs lightly with my other hand, darting over his thick root during his upstrokes, teasing his tightening ball sac. I pressed my cheek into the hollow of his shoulder blades, condensing the long months of unrequited lust into each caress.

I felt his frame tense in anticipation, sensed the low groan originating in his diaphragm and reverberating through our welded torsos. With his free hand he braced against the stone wall to steady himself as his climax surged and a second, thicker consistency of wetness trickled onto our fingers.

His grip loosened; my fingers slipped reluctantly away from the object of their carnal affection. Before disengaging myself from him, I grazed his shoulder with a brief kiss he probably didn't feel. Hoping I hadn't gone too far, I stepped onto the mat and began to dry off.

"Not too much," he warned after a minute or so.

I suddenly understood, put the towel down, and slid into the bikini which he had prudently hung in the stall before we began to splash about.

Fireflies glinted under the trellis as he walked me outside into the darkness which had cloaked the summer landscape and its comforting bucolic sounds. The wet waves of my long hair streamed uncomfortably down my back, but Mike was right. As far as Mom knew, I was going for a swim, and it simply wouldn’t do to return home as dry as when I had left.

To be continued

Author's Note: A pareu is a wraparound skirt or coverup, but you probably knew that already.