“Closer.” My throat bobbed with a swallow.

The camera wobbled as Mom stood up and walked over to them. The more I saw, the less I felt like I was in control over the Van Der Zee situation. Luna was fucking glowing. There was no mistaking the grin stamped on her face.

“What do you think about this one, Germs?” Edie plucked one seashell from the pile and creased her nose. Luna rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Yeah, it’s meh, right? I thought so, too,” Edie said. She was about to throw it to the ocean—watching them for a couple of minutes, I noticed the shells that were deemed unworthy were thrown back to where they’d come from.

At the last minute, Luna stopped Edie, jumping up to her feet and holding Edie’s fist, shaking her head. Edie opened her hand, allowing Luna to take the shell from her hand.

“What is it?” she asked. They were so busy sorting through their shells, they hadn’t even noticed my mom was documenting the whole thing. Luna pointed at the shell, then arched one eyebrow.

“It’s broken,” Edie said. Luna nodded again. I wasn’t following.

“You want to keep it because it’s broken.” A smile spread across the blonde teenager’s face.

Luna shrugged.

“That’s beautiful of you, Germs.” Edie rubbed Luna’s arm before realizing what she was doing. She withdrew her hand quickly. I didn’t know why, but I made a mental note to tell Edie she can always touch Luna. If there was one thing I was good at, it was hugging the shit out of my daughter. She wasn’t scared of affection when it was given by the right person.

“Hey, I have an idea. Can you give it to me? I promise I’ll keep it safe and give it back,” Edie said. Luna hesitated, but dropped the shell in Edie’s palm.

They shared a smile. I collapsed on my couch, watching as history unfolded. The camera spun, my mother appearing again, this time with the hugest grin.

“Edie is the best thing to ever happen to this family, Trent.”

My mother was wrong, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her who Edie really was.

The end of her son.

Luna came back home full of stories she couldn’t tell. My mother suggested she put her in the bath and make dinner for her, and I jumped on the opportunity to get out of the house and sort through the jumbled mess that were my thoughts.

“Edie is still there, surfing, bless her heart.” Trish frowned, twisting her David Yurman watch. If only she knew that was the same girl who grabbed her bag all those weeks ago. “Actually, I think she might be leaving right about now. The sun is beginning to set.”

Without thinking much about what I was doing, I slid into my sports gear and went downstairs. I told myself I was going to jog on the beach again, but that was total bullshit.

I was going there to find her.

I was going there to catch her.

And once I had…what the fuck would I do with her?

Spotting her was easy. She was the only person left on the beach. The promenade was still bustling with people, rich and colorful like a festival, but all the surfers and tanning ladies were long gone now. She was lying face up to the sunset, her head resting on her black backpack, with nothing but her bikini. Her surfer top was discarded along with her sunglasses, the cool sand pressed against her skin. Her eyes were closed, and she was mouthing the words to whatever song she was listening to in her earbuds. Her yellow-ish surfboard was there beside her, like a loyal companion. A living entity. Like a pet.

I closed the distance between us, simply watching her. Standing over her. Fuck, I was one step away from a restraining order, but it was hard not to look. She revived something in me, just as she had with Luna. I didn’t know what it was, but I relished the unsolicited warmth that came with it. What was really shitty, though, was that both Luna and I were fucked, because this girl had her heart somewhere else.

And that might compromise my daughter and me in the process.

“Holy shit!” Her voice pitched high, and she was up in a second, yanking her earbuds out and slamming them against her backpack. “You have to stop sneaking up on me like Pervy McCreepson, dude. What are you doing here?”

I don’t fucking know, but you need to make me leave.

Everything about her felt ripe. She was alluring, more than just physically. Like an old song with a sweet memory stapled to it. Or like a first. First beer. First joint. First kiss. I knew she was going to haunt me to my grave if I didn’t do something about it—and would do worse to me if I acted on it.

I watched her tits rising and falling, the way she sucked in a desperate breath when I stepped toward her with confidence I wasn’t entirely feeling for the first time in years. She backed away slowly. The beach was deserted. The sun had already set. I was cornering her, probably scaring the shit out of her, and I was too fucked to care. I wanted to get wet and let the tide wash over me without dipping a toe in the ocean.

I wanted what was forbidden, and wrong, and fucking crazy.

I wanted my partner’s daughter, who was nearly half my age.

The tango stopped when her back clashed against the blue-painted lifeguard station. Her spine hit the wooden rails and she had nowhere to go. I got in her face, inhaling her. The sea, fresh sweat, and her singular sweet scent drove me up the wall. I wanted to bury my nose in her wind-tossed hair and never come up for air. And I wanted to kiss her, which was insane, because I never wanted to kiss anyone.

I cupped her cheek in my ravenous palm, and it was cold. Her whole body was shivering. I was wearing a long dri-fit shirt, but she was still in a bikini. I looked down like the fucking asshole I was. Her nipples were puckered and hard, pointing at me. My hand moved from her cheek slowly to her neck. She didn’t withdraw or look away. I caressed her soft skin, moving down to her collarbone, then flicked one of her nipples through the fabric of her bikini. I stared at her silently, too hot to feel the shame accompanying messing around with a teenager.

She looked up, fear and lust swimming in her pupils, their bottomless depth luring me to jump in.

“Again,” she breathed, her pulse quickening under my palm. I felt her body moving against mine, even though we didn’t touch, and fuck, this wasn’t good news for my cock.

Defrosting. She was getting warmer.

Not breaking eye contact, I brushed my thumb against her nipple again. She groaned, lifting her arms to touch me. I took a step back and tsked.

“It’s not fair that you’re the only one to have fun,” she groaned in frustration, her body still tilted toward mine.

I arched an eyebrow. “You think it’s going to be fun to go back home with blue balls?”

“They don’t have to be blue.”

“Unfortunately for me, they do.”

“Your funeral.”

“The things I want to do to you…” I trailed off, exhaling my hot breath on her cold skin, “will undo you.”

She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Again.”

I was going to hell for this, but I flicked my thumb against her right nipple for the third time, watching her hips roll to chase something that wasn’t there. I wasn’t close enough for her to rub against me, and not because I didn’t want to be. If we got close, I’d lose control. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not when so much was at stake.

“Again,” she moaned.

I did it again.

“Again…and again and again and again.”

I used my thumb and forefinger to rub her right nipple through her bikini, watching her throw her head back, her mouth falling open in pleasure. I leaned against her without meaning to, just an inch. Then another inch, when her hard nipple got so tight and sensitive, I found myself twisting it a little to amplify her pleasure. I wanted to get her off so bad, but somehow, taking her in both hands and claiming her felt too final. A point of no return.

“How can it feel this good?” she nearly protested, reaching with her hand to touch me again. I moved away quickly, still playing with her tit.

“Because it’s different when you’re in the hands of a man.”

“Show me.”

I didn’t answer.

“Please,” she purred, and this time she managed to glide her bikini-ed groin over my training shorts. Fuck, I wasn’t sure if it was the ocean or her, but something there was damp.

That’s when I lost it.

I closed the distance between us, allowing her to grind on me freely, like I was a fucking stripper pole, while playing with both her tits, watching her as my dick grew impossibly hard. Already, the strain in my balls felt like too much. I‘m not much of a foreplay guy, but here I was getting hot slowly and steadily, being led by the fucking cock to something that wouldn’t materialize.

“I’m coming,” she said, her legs clenching around my thigh. My cock poked at her inner thigh, and she knew it, because she goddamn rubbed against it even more, the friction making a little pre-cum leak. It made my crown stick to my briefs and this really was getting out of control.

“Tell me why you need twelve thousand dollars a month, and I will let you,” I hissed in her face, careful to leave enough space for her not to try to kiss me. She whimpered, riding my thigh like a fucking rodeo, rubbing her clit on my quad, her eyes shut. She was inside the moment, in a bubble, and didn’t want me to burst it.

“Answer me, now.”

“Trent…”

“Who is giving you trouble?” Who the fuck am I going to need to end? “Why do you need to come up with this kind of money?”

Nothing.

She was getting close. Her thighs were quivering, and now I knew it wasn’t the fucking ocean. It was her. “Spit it out.”

“No.”

“Edie.”

“No.”

I withdrew from her in a hot second, leaving her to fall to the sand, panting and aroused. Her hair was all over her face, her bikini bottoms had a small spot of arousal and her nipples were so hard she could probably cut me to a bleeding point with them.

I frowned. “One last chance, Edie.”