I can't even begin to describe how ashamed I feel after Doctor Storm leaves.

Dad takes Amelia to school, and tries to coerce me to go too, but I tell him I need more rest. The truth is, I'm so disgusted with myself, and I need proper time to heal from the shame I feel. Doctor Storm rejected me. I stood right there, naked, pulsing, yet he wouldn't even touch me with a ten-foot pole.

As much as I hate to admit it, it puts a lot of things into perspective. Nothing between us might work out, and I've spent all this time pinning for the wrong man. It made me mad as hell, and deeply sad. I want him so bad. I want him, I want him, I want him!

Two days later which was a Saturday, Dad walks in that morning to announce that Doctor Storm would be joining us for dinner. "He declined, but I persuaded him anyway. Get dressed. We're going shopping."

In truth, I've given up on Doctor Storm, and I'm much too comfortable, catching an hour more of sleep to care about him coming over for dinner. But Dad is giving me this suspicious look, and I didn't want him to sense that something was wrong.

"I'll be down in an hour," I sulk.

"You're not excited," he points out, his eyes crinkling. "Did something happen a few days back with Max?"

"What?" I mock-gasped, giving him a death stare. "Dad, what are you implying here?"

He raises his hands innocently. "I'm just..." he sighs and gestures to the door. "I'm sorry. I'll wait downstairs for you."

"Good."

When we get back from shopping, Dad forces me to help him out in the kitchen. We're just about to cut the chicken stripes when we hear Amelia squeal out excitedly. "Doctor Storm!"

My stomach drops as Dad and I share a look. He beams, while I swallow painfully.

He's here.

---------------------

Dinner is a battle.

I've never felt so awkward in my entire life, and what makes it worse is Dad asking me politely to sit next to Doctor Storm, so Amelia won't disturb him so much. Doctor Storm avoids my eyes for most of the time, until Dad asks me to pour him more wine.

"More wine, Max? Theresa, please help him."

I remove the cover from the wine bottle and pour until Doctor Storm says it's enough.

"Thank you, Theresa," he says, meeting my eyes for the first time this evening.

We have never been this formal. Never. And it's hard to tell if Dad notices the tension at all. He's so engrossed in telling Doctor Storm about his bank job and the crazy shenanigans that go on there. When he reveals how he caught his manager making out aggressively with a security man, how he wouldn't even blame her because she was almost forty and recently divorced and needed the rebound, I just about face plant in my casserole.

Dr Storm pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I, um. I got the marks back for that essay, Dad." Need a subject change, STAT. "The one about Ancient Rome?"

"Oh, yeah? How'd you do, pumpkin?"

"Good! Good, I..."

I ramble on about my coursework, but my voice is fuzzy in my own ears, because every time Doctor Storm and I make eye contact accidentally, my whole body perks up and warmth pools low in my belly. My breaths come faster, my cheeks flush. And he knows. A faint smile plays around his mouth for the whole freaking dinner, the jerk.

I love it, though.

I do?

I'm still salty about our last encounter but I can't keep being annoyed with him. I love this. Love him. And it's definitely me that he's been distracted by lately, not some other woman-I'm sure of it. The second I felt his hungry eyes on me, all that earlier anger evaporated like a fine mist.

We've been on a collision course for a long time now.

I hope he's ready.

Because I'm not giving up on him that easily.

By the time I tuck Amelia into bed and go back down to the den to watch a movie, I'm slick and aching beneath my shorts. Is this how I normally walk? What do I normally do with my arms? Ugh. I'm like an alien in a skinsuit, trying to get all my limbs to function.

Lord, help me.

"Hey, you know what I found in a drawer the other day?" Dad wanders to the bookshelves lining the den walls. This room is where he keeps all the mint-condition comics and first edition paperbacks that he loves, and that my mother used to shame him for before she left us. Good riddance.

When he spins around and waves a battered old stethoscope, I choke back a groan. Not here. We can't play those games here.

...Can we?

"Remember when you wanted to be a doctor, pumpkin? So you could work with Max all the time?"

"Sure." I cross to my dad and pluck the stethoscope from his hand. There's a heavy silence behind us as Max sets up the movie. "I was a kid, though. As soon as I realized how crazy the Doc's job is, I changed my mind."

"Smart girl," the man in question says quietly. I don't turn around to check his expression. I can't.

Instead, I pop the stethoscope in my ears. "Think I still remember this, though. Picked up a few tricks of the trade. Come here, Dad."

There's a steady woomf... woomf... woomf... through the cotton of my father's shirt. When he chortles, it echoes weirdly in my ears.

With the movie playing, we drift to our usual spots: Dad takes his armchair, a mug of decaf on the little table beside him and a blanket thrown across his lap, and Dr Storm and I sink onto the sofa. As always, Dad rambles on and on about his college days, and the number of girls who swooned over him, while Dr Storm listened attentively. We sit at opposite ends, with miles and miles of respectable wilderness between us. Soon Dad begins to doze off, and I tap him to go inside and sleep.

He wishes us a good night and heads upstairs.

Alone with Doctor Storm for the second time in a week. This time, there is radio silence.

"Um," the words come out of his mouth slowly. "About last time, Theresa..."

I don't want to hear a thing. "It's fine, Max. I'm..." the tears escape my eyes before I can help it, and through my peripheral vision, I can tell he's stunned. "I dont know what came over me, and I sincerely apologize..."

"No, no, no. It's fine." Strong hands grip my hips, and I muffle a squeak as he tips me into his lap. I can't believe this is happening. He wipes my eyes with his hand, eyes burning, and he's so big. He takes up half the sofa-and all the air in the room. "I was harsh, I realized. I've never had a woman want me...want me so badly. And you're so...young."

"You think I don't know what I want, do you?"

He shakes his head. "I know you're nineteen, and you're a legal adult who can decide things for herself, but Theresa...your father. He's my best friend."

"I don't care," I exhale. "I want you."

He sighs. "You're so stubborn. Want to play a game?"

I shrug. "Was waiting for you to finally admit that the movie was boring anyway."

He guffaws as the movie flares back at full volume. My breath catches as I squirm in his lap, and he tugs the blanket out from under me, then tosses it over both of us.

The soft lighting of the den goes hazy. He's solid, surrounding me.

Is this real? Fuck.

Max's thighs are so solid, and his body is so warm. How many times have I pictured this? How many times have I wondered how he'd feel, how he'd smell?

The other day upstairs, I couldn't get enough of his cologne. It haunts my dreams. Smells like chocolate, and roses, and a lavender dream.

"The rules go like this...first, we establish a baseline." His words are like quiet music, soft, melodious against my temple, barely audible over the movie. But his voice is ragged; his chest heaves. The metal disc of the stethoscope is cool through my thin black t-shirt, and I arch automatically into the touch. "Good girl. That's it. Alright, your heart rate is a little elevated."

No shit.

Glass shatters in the movie. Bullets pop, and upstairs Dad and Amelia must be in Dreamland.

Is this really happening? But yes-I can feel my heart racing faster, gathering speed the longer the doctor touches me.

"Now, let's discuss your shorts." A big hand slips under the blanket and glides down my knees to my innermost thighs, a finger finding my pussy, and sinking in. He jerks my hips forward by an inch, and my gasp cuts through the air, my throat dry, breathing ragged. "You are a naughty, naughty girl. Did you wear this to torture me? Answer me."

"Yes," I manage after two gulped breaths. "I wore it for you." With no panties. Never said I wouldn't play dirty.

And though Dr Storm's expression is hard, his green eyes narrowed, he loves this too. I know he does. I know this man better than I know myself, and besides-there's a giant clue digging into my butt cheek.

A boner.

"You want me that bad, Theresa? You want me worked up, right? Feral, agitated, hopelessly turned on, huh?"

My lips part as he shifts the stethoscope, listening to my heart pound as I answer. As if I'd lie right now. "Y-yes."

"Say it. I want to hear every word."

"I wore shorts to turn you on, Dr Storm. Every time." Excitement flourishes in my stomach, and I ride it like a tidal wave. "I wore it so you could..."

He waits, bristling with impatience as I trail off. A muscle leaps in his jaw, and his whole sculpted body is tense beneath me. "So I could what, Theresa? So I could what?"

The silence is so loud, the tension so thick, his eyes so intense, so needy to hear the words, I feel my toes curl.

"So, you could put your hand up there, Dr Storm. So, you could touch me."

The movie goes quiet, and we sit together in stunned silence, my dad snoring softly in his armchair. We did it; we finally crossed the line and admitted it out loud. There's no way of explaining those words away; no laughing this off as an innocent game.

No pretending this never happened. No turning back.

The quiet drags on, and the longer it lasts, the colder I go, shrinking into myself on his lap. Has he changed his mind already? Did I go too far? I'll die if he regrets this. If he rejects me again.

But then Dr Storm inhales deeply through his nose, gripping my hip tightly beneath the blanket. The soundtrack blares again from the TV screen. His gaze roams over my face, my lips, my body, and his expression is so possessive that I can't breathe. Can't breathe.

This is it. With his hands on me... his eyes on me... it's finally happening. At last.

"Well, then," my father's best friend rasps, and the roughness of his voice makes my nipples press against my t-shirt. "Let's move to the next phase."

I'm a very disgusting man.

Thinking about my best friend's daughter was never enough.

Lusting over her body - her perfect-sized boobs, her perfect sturdy legs, her prim-shaped ass and big smile, and eventually jerking over to her pictures which I have saved on my phone every fucking night.

It was never enough.

And now I'm here, pawing at her while he snores loudly upstairs.

Grinding her perfect ass into my lap. Playing messed up games with a stethoscope?

I should be ashamed of myself.

I am ashamed of myself.

Don't know how I'll ever look in a mirror again after this.

Theresa may be nineteen, a legal adult, and has already given me her consent.

But she's way too young for me; way too off limits.

I'll be fucking forty in a few months' time.

Sadly, it's not enough to stop me, though. Not when I've been dreaming of her every night for months. Not when I barely managed to shrug her off a few days ago.

"Let's go on to the next phase, Theresa." Her throat shifts as she swallows, her breaths coming fast and shallow. She's practically panting, squirming on my thighs, and the sight of her chest rising and falling like that is hypnotic.

Goosebumps prickle over her skin as I place the stethoscope on her chest, right above her neckline. Woomf, woomf, woomf, her heart goes, pounding out an erratic rhythm.

When I rock up beneath her, rubbing our bodies together, her heart skips a beat. Christ.

"You like that," I grit out, my head swimming with triumph. She really wants this? She wants me the same way I want her? "Be honest, Theresa. I can hear it. Your heartbeat. Your body gives you away."

Just like mine is announcing my interest, loud and proud, prodding up beneath her like I might skewer through her clothes. No spare brain cells to be embarrassed right now.

"There are more signs than that, Doc," she whispers, and her cheeks are so bright. She's burning up, lit only by a few dim lamps and the flickering light of the TV screen. "If you go looking for them."

Fuck.

The blanket brushes against my knuckles as I shift my hand beneath the fabric. Soft thighs part, welcoming me in between.

"This is wrong," I mutter, and Theresa rolls her eyes. Twitches her hips.

"I don't care. It doesn't feel wrong."

Yes, it does. Deliciously, perfectly wrong. And it's so messed up, but when I glance over her shoulder to look towards the stairs, the reminder that her father is asleep probing my skin once again, my cock throbs with how badly I want this.

My fingertips trail along silky skin. So warm. Butter-soft.

The damn stethoscope is still in my ears. Theresa takes the end and presses it harder against her chest, slipping it under the neckline of her shirt.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

My middle finger brushes against damp cotton panties, and her gasp echoes through the den.

Thud-thud-thud-

I yank the stethoscope out of my ears and toss it to the sofa. Need both hands for this; need to focus.

"Theresa," I growl, so quiet that she leans forward, straining to hear. Her hips shift restlessly, chasing my featherlight touch, and her legs part wider as I slip one finger inside her panties.

She groans, then claps a hand over her mouth, but it was loud. Too loud.

We both freeze, staring at the armchair together. Two actors argue on screen, and a clock ticks on the wall.

Upstairs, not a single soul stirs.

Christ, Daniel sleeps like a fucking horse. The heavy snore reverberates throughout the house, music to my ears. I sag with relief, a bead of sweat trickling down my spine, and when we turn back to our game, this time our hands are rougher. Desperate.

The blanket rustles, one end slipping onto the floor. So much intensity. So much passion.

In all of my almost forty years.

"Fuck, Theresa." I don't recognize myself as I grit the words against her hair. As I roam beneath her skirt, touching with greedy fingers. "Look at you. All soaked for Daddy. So wet and needy. So ready. So perfect. Tell Daddy what you want. Come on, tell me."

I shouldn't talk like this. Shouldn't stroke between her legs. What the hell has come over me?

Whatever it is, Theresa is in its grip too, because she nods feverishly, scrabbling at my shoulders, lip drawn between her teeth. Her hips rock against my hand, urging me on. My fingers skate across her slick heat, the sounds faint beneath the blanket.

We're breathing hard together, sucking down air. "This is mine," I hear myself say, the words dredged up from deep in my chest. One hand cups her pussy, and I squeeze until she whimpers. "This is mine, Theresa. Do you understand?"

"Holy shit," she mumbles, and I'll take that as a yes. When I press two fingers inside her, Theresa tips back her head, lips parting on a silent cry.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The word pulses in my ears.

Her body grips me tightly, and a faint warning bell clangs in the back of my mind. The way she's strangling my fingers, the hazy shock in her eyes... she has done this before, right? Because if she hasn't...

Well. I'm more of a bastard than I realized.

"Theresa," I say slowly, fingers pumping between her legs. Dread crawls up my throat. "Are you...? Have you ever...?"

Fingers tighten where they grip my collar, and her blonde hair is in disarray. She won't look at me, but her words are firm. "Don't you dare, Dr Storm. Don't freak out on me now. I'll never forgive you."

Jesus Christ. My hand stops moving under the blanket.

My best friend's daughter. And she's-she was-thank god we didn't-

"Doc," Theresa hisses. "Don't you dare."

The snoring upstairs stops, and I want to kick my own ass. "You deserve so much better than this," I tell his daughter quietly. "Your first time... Jesus, Theresa."

"It's my decision," she says, scowling at my collarbone. "You're what I want, Dr Storm. You're still what I want, even if you're going to be a giant judgy walnut about it."

My surprised laugh turns into a cough. The snoring continues.

And my heart drums as slowly, so slowly, my hand starts moving again under the blanket. Fingertips slide through slick folds.

"Yes," Theresa whispers, eyes screwed shut as she rolls her hips. When she presses her face against my throat; when I feel the brush of lips, the scrape of teeth, I send up a fervent prayer to any deities who might be listening.

I know I don't deserve this, but I want her. No, I need her.

Theresa is my oxygen. I want every detail of this moment seared into my brain.

"That's it, darling girl. Ride my hand. Just like that."

She quakes and whimpers, and I fucking love it. There's another fight scene in the movie, with thuds and grunts floating from the screen.

"Do you feel what you do to me?" I rock up beneath her, tilting her in my lap, and Theresa clutches my shoulders for balance, still writhing against my hand. "Christ, I want you. Need to bury myself inside you, Theresa-"

Daniel suddenly coughs, sheets ruffling, and we both turn to stone. Her snug channel flutters around my fingers, her slickness is smeared down to my wrist, and we're both red-faced and disheveled. If he comes down now...

Holding my breath, I draw my hand from between his daughter's legs. She slithers off my lap to the side, silent except for the rustle of fabric, and leaves the blanket behind to hide my ruined state.

Theresa looks shell-shocked as she huddles at the end of the sofa.

She manages a wobbly smile, squeezing a cushion in her lap.

We don't look at each other for the rest of the movie, and when we say goodnight two hours later at her father's doorway, we're painfully formal.

I have a problem.

A delicate, ridiculously sweet problem.

Because since Dr Storm touched me last night and left me aching, since we came so freaking close and yet fell so far short, I've been in one seriously foul mood.

"What's wrong?" Casey Evans, my boyfriend asks on our way back home from school. Casey and I have been together for three months, and it's been hell trying to force myself to develop feelings for him, while actively lusting over Doctor Storm.

And now, as I sit in his car, meeting his gaze, a part of me feels sorry as I realize that I'll never feel anything remotely strong to what I feel for Doctor Storm for this equally amazing man. Though we've been dating for three months, Casey has never pestered me for sex. He understands me. Has always been there for me. Sometimes I curse the heavens for bringing me across Doctor Storm, because if Doctor Storm wasn't in the picture, I would have fought myself harder to love Casey. "Um, nothing."

"That's a lie, babe and you know it," he says gently. "Is it still the fall? Is it affecting you that badly?"

I've healed from the bad fall I orchestrated to get Doctor Storm's attention, but his question shines light on a new idea. "Yeah," I say, nodding. "I still feel pain in my waist joints. Can we stop by at Doctor Storm's? I won't take long, I promise."

"Anything for you, my love."

I might regret this later, I know. But Doctor Storm started this fire. He can freaking quench it.

Pure, molten frustration swirls in me as Casey speeds the whole way there. Sparks surge through my veins when we pull up in the hospital Doctor Storm works in. I feel Casey's eyes drill holes into me as I make my way inside while he waits in the car, and a swoosh of guilt seizes me once again. But when I step into the bright hospital lobby and smell the tang of cleaning spray, I'm seized with a new fear. What if Doctor Storm has changed his mind? What if he sends me home without doing anything? Without touching me?

No. This needs to happen.

I need to see it through. No matter what.

There's a line already at the reception desk, but I march past to the map on the wall. Carts of medical supplies trundle past, pushed by porters in navy scrubs, and the tannoy reminds us all about the fire exits.

I've been here recently, damn it. Why can't I learn the layout? And why do all the corridors in this goddamn building look exactly the same?

Grumble, grumble, grumble. If he's not here, I'm gonna cry.

After several minutes of scowling at the map, I give up and pick a random corridor, my shoes squeaking against the linoleum. If all else fails, I'll close my eyes and let my pussy lead me there, because by the feel of it... the doctor's got us tethered on a string.

* * *

Dr Storm has a brass name plaque on his office door, and one of those flip signs that says 'Do Not Disturb'. I'd turn around on the spot, sweet aching or no, because I've been raised to respect doctors' time-except his door is propped open and I can see him in there, clicking away at his computer and sighing.

There's no patient in there. No one to bother except him.

I nibble my bottom lip and knock. "Um. Dr Storm?"

Our family friend rockets out of his desk chair, wheels clattering across the floor. Those green eyes are wide, and he stares at me like he's seen a ghost. "...Theresa? What are you doing here?"

Is it really so shocking that I'd be here? After yesterday? Oh god, did I blow what happened between us way out of proportion?

"Theresa," the doctor says, then snaps back to life. He crosses the room in a few strides, then ushers me inside and closes the door behind us. The lock thuds into place.

My mouth is dry.

He looks different here. I knew that, obviously; I saw him at work the other day, but that was before... well. Before.

And today, in his full doctor garb, Dr Storm looks like all my Christmases and birthdays have come at once. The pristine white coat clings to his broad shoulders; his charcoal tie draws a line down that toned stomach. Even the shadows under his eyes are doing something for me. The threads of silver at his temples make my tummy flip.

"Um." I smooth both hands down my front, second guessing my outfit choices. Maybe wearing the skirt and knee-highs again is pushing my luck, because Dr Storm glances down my body, then looks troubled by what he finds. "Should I have made an appointment or something?"

Green eyes meet mine, then soften. "Of course not, Theresa. You're always welcome here," he says, then visibly remembering his job, the doctor adds: "Even when I'm with patient or - "

I hold up one palm, fighting a grin. "I get it, Doc. You're forever loyal to my father."

The smile that spreads on his face is worth getting lost for twenty minutes in the hospital corridors just to see the blush spreading over his cheeks. He shrugs helplessly. "I didn't think I'd see you again, Theresa. At least not...so soon."

What? Why not?

Numbness spreads through my fingers and toes, but I'm proud to say that I act normal. Like my whole world isn't crashing down around my ears. Like my sweet boyfriend isn't waiting for me in the parking lot, clueless as fuck. "As in... you didn't want me to come? You regret what happened yesterday?"

Will I die of this sweet ache?

"I-regret? Theresa, come on." Dr Strom glares at me like I'm the one who's being confusing as hell. "Of course I don't regret it one bit. That was-I will treasure that memory, even if we don't... even if we never..."

A heavy sigh of relief gusts out of me, and I'm surprised the posters don't flap against the walls. This idiot.

"I liked it," I say, cutting across whatever noble meltdown he's having. "No, I loved it. I want to do it again and again, and I want to get to the best part this time. Don't you?"

That perfect chest rises and falls. Little ID cards and a dangling watch hang from his lapel like medals.

"Your father told me about your boyfriend..." Dr Storm begins cautiously, and I close my eyes. I don't find Casey a serious hurdle. I can always break up with him. Dad is the main hurdle. The only hurdle, really, because if we'd met any other way, you bet your ass I'd have thrown myself into the doctor's arms long ago. "Are things serious between you two?"

"No," I say flatly.

He stares at me for a few minutes. "When were you planning on telling me about him?"

I shrug. "Probably never? Casey and I aren't serious. He's not going to be a problem, trust me."

"Do you love him? Your father seems to be quite taken by him..."

"Dad wants me to be happy." Even as I say the words, I will myself to believe them. "But he has to understand that I'm old enough to make my own choices. He'll get over Casey eventually. Maybe he'll be shocked at first, but it'll be fine. It will be fine."

Please, god. Let this all be fine.

"He trusts you more than he trusts Casey. He likes you more than Casey," I whisper.

Dr Storm snorts. "That's only a matter of time. He wouldn't be so pleased if he finds out what we...um...what we did - "

"Who's going to tell him? Definitely not me."

"Definitely not me either. Alright, well... forget your father. Are you sure, Theresa? Because," he says, steering me back toward the examination bench, that hungry glint back in his eye, "I won't be an experiment. This won't happen once or twice, then never again. If we start this, we're in this. Do you understand?"

I nod as my ass hits the bench. He grips my hips and lifts me up, muscles flexing, and Jeez Louise, how's a girl supposed to think straight when that happens?

"These socks," the doctor says, circling one fingertip on my knee before nudging my legs open, "are an act of war."

My spluttered laugh is met with a crinkle-eyed smile. There he is. There's the man I've loved for years.

And though we haven't settled any details, though my father and boyfriend is a hurdle, whether we like it or not... I'm lighter than air as I beam at Dr Storm. He steps between my spread thighs, then bends his face to mine.

"Theresa," he says against my parted lips. His kiss is long and hard and hungry, and my insides fizz as his tongue strokes mine. "Christ, Theresa. How will I ever deserve you?"

My head swims, and I grip the sides of his white coat for balance. But one idea presents itself, right as my pulse throbs between my legs: "You left me aching yesterday, Doc. Why don't you start there?"

His smile is wolfish. "You're right, Theresa. Let's take it again. From the top. And this time? I'll make sure we finish off."