He began spending an inordinate amount of time at my place. I asked him at one point if his parents weren't going to miss him, but he told me they were in the States for the summer visiting his aunt - that that was why they had bogarted all of his time when he first came home - they were trying to fit in a summer vacation's worth of stuff into less than a week before they left, and they wouldn't be home until he'd already gone back to school.

"Why didn't you go?" I asked from my perch on one of the lounge chairs around the big pool the evening before he made that fateful - and horribly enticing - statement to me.

He was holding himself up in the water with his arms folded on the edge of the pool so he could talk to me, giving me an altogether too sexy look at his muscular arms, strong neck and that beautiful face of his, damp ringlets framing it beautifully. It was his pre-dinner swim, and, although I had done my best to avoid being near him when he swam, he had requested the honor of my company - in just those words, and with an exaggeratedly low, courtly bow. He'd even gone so far as to lead me out to the lounge chair, providing me with a glass of wine and himself with a pint of Guinness, which I had begun to stock again in deference to him, before diving into the water.

He shrugged. "Been there, done that. They're going to do all the touristy stuff I've already done. I'm not much into seeing Disneyland again."

I nodded. He was a bit old for that. "What are you going to do for the rest of the summer before school resumes?"

He looked confused. "Work here. Hang out -"

"But Oakely, love, I told you that I didn't think I had enough work for you around here for the whole of the summer."

He smiled broadly - and a little hungrily for my comfort. "Oh, there are tons of things around here that can keep me busy. Don't you worry."

I didn't. I just didn't want him to be bored hanging around me - or worse, to think that I might be one of the things he could do.

"It's bloody hot out today. You should join me in the pool."

I shook my head. "I'm fine, thanks."

He splashed a little water towards me. "Wouldn't you feel better if you cooled down in here with me?"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that cooling down wasn't what I would like to do with him, but I managed to stifle the impulse. Barely.

But Oakley was not to be denied, and kept splashing water towards me playfully.

I really didn't mind getting wet, but I cautioned him that he would have been in big trouble if I'd had my iPad in my lap and he'd gotten it soaked.

"But it didn't?" he asked, effortlessly levering himself out of the pool without bothering with the stairs.

Show off.

"No - it's in the living room. I don't have any electronics on me -"

Once I told him there wasn't anything valuable around me, the big lumbering jerk came to stand right next to me and shake like a shaggy dog, which got me just that much more soaked.

"Stop being a tit, Oakley!" I yelled, but I was laughing as I did it, so it kind of ruined the effect.

With an evil chuckle, he reached down and hauled me up against him and my light summer blouse and shorts were quickly even more drenched than they had been.

His hands were everywhere on me, not groping at all but trying to press all of me to him to get me even wetter.

And he was, only not in the way he intended. At least not overtly, anyway.

Finally, unable to bear him touching me that way any longer, or being held so tightly to him, either, I said loudly, "All right, all right. You've made your point! I'll go get into my suit."

And he certainly had made his point quite blatantly. It was poking indecently into my stomach, and when I turned abruptly in his arms just before he let me go with a lurch, up against the curve of my back. Big, strong hands that had been up around my shoulder blades suddenly weren't there any longer - one was splayed on my tummy, the other inadvertently capturing a breast that had been peaked for some time before the cold water hit it, but he didn't need to know that.

I pushed almost frantically against his hold and he let me go, and I practically ran to my bedroom, not sure if I was ever going to come out again. But I had to. I certainly didn't want him coming in to get me.

I found the frumpiest, ugliest suit I owned - an all black one with a completely unflattering skirt piped in white and a prefab bustline. It looked even worse than it might have on me because I'd lost so much weight.

I wouldn't be diving into the pool in this - if I did, when I came up the suit would have been around my waist - if I was lucky. I'd just have to go somewhere and get a new - just as ugly - suit to wear around Oakley, since he was insisting upon having company in the pool.

His nibs was not at all happy with my choice of garment and he let me know it the moment he saw me from his perch on the end of my lounger. "You look like my grandmother! You have other, prettier suits - I've seen you in them. Why don't you wear one of them?"

"I've lost some weight. This is the smallest size suit I own." It was a tiny lie, as lies went. I needed this one to maintain my sanity around him.

If he thought I was going to give him a fashion show, he had another thing coming. I walked to the edge of the pool and dipped my toe in. Frigid. Just like he and Paul liked it.

I wasn't paying any attention to where Oakley was, and when his arm slipped around my waist suddenly I very nearly pitched head first into the water, but that muscled arm saved me.

He had been smiling when he'd done it, but the smile ran from his face when his hands began to cup my curves - curves that were dramatically less acute than they had been before Paul died.

"Jesus, have you eaten anything at all in the past year?" he asked, sounding alarmed.

"Yes, I have," I answered staunchly, not looking up at him.

Suddenly I found myself being herded into the kitchen. Oakley got a plate down and served me up a large helping of the chicken salad I had made for us as a light, cool meal in this heat. He added a pastry and some crisps and poured me a half glass of wine then sat me down at the snack bar as if he thought I'd faint at any given moment.

"I want you to eat every bit of it, yeah?"

He must not have appreciated my patronizing smile one bit, because he repeated himself more firmly. "Every bit, or I'll feed it to you myself."

To throw myself off from reacting in the way I wanted to to this new facet of his personality, I teased, "Geez, Oakley, you must thrill all the little girls' hearts being all dominant like that."

I was unprepared for what he said then. "I've never felt dominant towards any of them."

I wasn't going to touch that for all the tea in England.

He got himself a plateful of dinner, too, and sat down to keep me company. The only other seat in the kitchen was at the snack bar, right next to me, and he sat with his legs spread so widely that there was no way our thighs didn't touch every few seconds or so, any time either of us moved in the least.

I had eaten about half of what he'd given me - all of the pastry, of course - I still had my priorities - and some of the chips when I stood up and brought my bowl to the sink.

"You're not done." He abandoned his own dinner in favor of coming to stand next to me to tower over and glower down at me as if he thought that was going to make me knuckle under magically just by virtue of him doing that.

But I wasn't one of the co-eds he'd obviously been cutting his D/s teeth on, and I leaned against the counter and stared right back up at him. "I've eaten more than I wanted to. More than I've eaten -" I swallowed hard " - in a very long time."

His usually sunny face darkened at that statement. "Well, that stops now, and if I have to be here to make sure you eat every single meal then I will."

"Stop that right now, Oakley." I was very serious and glared up at him. I did not want him getting the idea that he could be dominant with me.

He looked quite sternly right back down at me, and I had a feeling that his frown was way more effective than my own. "You're much, much too thin. I'm going to make sure that you eat more healthily."

"You and whose army?" I growled, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I don't need any army," he stated, the blithely rocked my world with his next sentences. "I know what the hairbrush in the cubby of your headboard is for - and it's not your hair - and I know about the paddles and belts and straps and the school disciplinary cane that are all hanging on a hook in the closet, too." He saw the horror on my face and continued, "And I didn't snoop - Paul brought me in there when we were trying to declutter the house when he went on that cleaning binge couple of years ago. I think he'd forgotten entirely that they were there."

I didn't so much as flinch, deliberately clenching a mouth closed that wanted to hang open, although I was absolutely horrified to realize what he knew about my intimate life with my husband. I deliberately kept my voice extremely soft and calm. "I would be very careful if I were you, Oakley. You are very close to being disinvited from ever coming to this house again."

He looked startled and just as horrified as I felt at my little pronouncement, and I counted that as a victory and intended to press what little advantage I had while I still had it. "You have no right to make rules for me, much less to actually punish me, as you are not my dominant and you never will be. If you should take it into your head use one of those implements on me - or even just your hand - I will have you brought up on assault charges so fast it'll make your head swim."

I knew there was no way I could stop him from doing so if he got it in his head - he had me completely overwhelmed in regards to size and strength, and I felt I had to say something dramatic that would get his attention.

Whether or not I'd go through with that threat if he actually did do that, I was ashamed to realize that I really didn't know. I wanted to think I would, but I knew I couldn't say it for sure.

His mouth was open, but nothing was coming out as he stared down at me, looking like he was fighting with himself about something, probably trying to decide whether I was serious about what I'd just said or not.

Before he could come up with anything, I continued, "I think it might be better if you left, Oakley. Take your choice of pudding with you for the ride home. But I think you need to cool off a bit. I'll see you in the morning." With that, I strode boldly into my bedroom and closed the door, setting the lock quietly and getting dressed - fully dressed - in my bathroom, which put a second locked door between us.

I hadn't heard his car leave, so when I emerged from the bathroom, I knew he was probably still in the house. As I turned on the TV, I both heard and saw him step up to the door to my bedroom, noting his shadow under the door with baited breath. I watched the doorknob but he didn't try it. He just stood there for a few seconds, then turned and left. Minutes later, I heard his car start down the long lane towards the main road and heaved a huge sigh of relief, wondering if he'd even bother to come back, and very sure I shouldn't want him to come back.

But I did anyways.

He had arrived bright and early as usual this morning, and just after breakfast he caught a hold of my wrist as I was about to get up to tackle the dishes.

"I'm sorry about last night," his voice was low and his tone heartfelt, "I was just startled by how thin you've gotten, and I want to take good care of you like I promised Paul I would." He was no longer holding me, but was tracing his fingertips on the delicate skin on the inside of my wrist.

"Oh, Oakley, you're so sweet, but I'm a grown woman and I can take care of myself. Really."

His jaw jutted out stubbornly and his lips were a thin line. "It doesn't seem to me that you're doing a very good job of it."

I didn't know what to say to that - especially considering he was right - so I didn't say anything.

And then he came out with, "Besides, you were a grown woman with Paul, too, and you let him spank you."

"Oakley!" I tried to snatch my hand away from him, but he was too damned fast. My face was neon red, I knew it, and that was not my best color. I couldn't even begin to think of what to say to him. Should I deny it? Should I just order him out of my house once and for all, telling him not to come back, as much as I was - surprisingly - loathe to do that?

"I saw you over his lap once."

With that little bombshell, suddenly this small snack bar area had become entirely too much so for the two of us - he was way too close to me for my comfort.

I immediately began to rack my brain as to when that might have occurred but came up with nothing.

As if he'd read my mind, he explained, "It was the morning about four years ago when my car died just up the road from your lane and I had to walk in. I could hear you yelling, and I began to run, thinking something was terribly wrong, but then I saw you two in the garden, and I knew."

Don't ask him. Don't ask him. Don't ask him.

"You knew what?"

He colored for a change. "That it was something . . . very intimate between you two and not meant for my eyes, although I couldn't look away. I was very . . . conflicted about it at first. You never acted beaten down, ever, as if he'd taken his fists to you, I never saw any evidence of bruising or anything like that or I would have beaten the shit out of him myself. It was Paul making you yell like that and because it was him I knew that you weren't in any danger. You only ever seemed so . . . so unbelievably happy with him." He sounded wistful. "And when he stopped, I saw how he hugged you and soothed you -"

I tried to play it off as him misinterpreting what was happening between the two of us. "I don't know what you think you saw or heard -"

Oakley stood to his full height, millimeters from being pressed up against me, still shackling my wrist with surprisingly gentle fingers. "I saw you bare bottomed over his lap. You were wearing those that pink nightshirt you like - the one with the tiny roses on it, and it was bunched up at your waist. Your panties were a scrap of some light color at your ankles, at first, before you kicked them off while he was spanking you. You were facing away from me. I could see his hand falling on your bottom - I could hear the crack of it from across the lawn as your skin got redder and redder - and I could hear you begging him to stop -"

"Dear God, would you stop already?" I groaned, closing my eyes on the memory. I knew exactly the incident to which he was referring - and exactly how Paul had "soothed" me afterwards, too.

He smiled down at me and despite his lightly teasing tone, I couldn't hear any censure in it at all. "You didn't use quite those words, but that was definitely the gist of it anyway."

I pushed the chair back from the snack bar, and well away from him before I stood up, surprised that he had let me go that easily, carefully notlooking at him as I turned my back to him.

"As I said, there were never any bruises anywhere I could see - even when you were in your bathing suit." Good Lord, was he still talking? I was blushing so hard I felt faint. "Were the times you refused to swim with me when I might have seen evidence that you'd been spanked?" he asked suddenly.

The question threw me off guard. I should never even have attempted to answer it, but I was so flustered I did it automatically, without thinking. "Yes . . . no . . . I don't know. I don't remember. Possibly." I was still trying to wrestle with the idea that he had seen us that morning. When he'd appeared at the door suddenly, so soon after my punishment and . . . afterwards, Paul had tried to tell me that he couldn't possibly have, but I knew.

I knew.

"Where are you going?"

"To get dressed."

"You haven't had a swim yet."

"I don't care to, thank you."