I took my time going back. I could hear he was in the pool splashing around. When I came out, I was fully dressed.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable when I told you - you know. What I saw," he said immediately when I reappeared.

I closed my eyes, knowing my face was rapidly growing that unbecoming shade of red again, as it seemed to perpetually around him lately. "I'm not going to discuss that topic with you, Oakley. It's inappropriate."

He hoisted himself out of the pool in one fluid, graceful movement, and as he padded over to the chair he had been using, which was next to mine, to get his towel, my mind forced me to do something I had - until that moment - consciously refused to do - consider the physical differences between Oakley and my husband.

Their personalities were startlingly similar - if Oakley did still suffer from the overconfidence of youth - but in regards to their bodies, they couldn't have been much more different.

Paul had been relatively small and sickly from the moment I'd met him. We'd had a couple good years and then his chronic disease had begun getting the better of him. He had never been the strongest man - because of his illness - and he'd begun wasting away before my eyes almost from the moment we'd gotten married.

Not that I had ever, ever, ever regretted even a second of my time with him. What he lacked in muscle power he more than made up for in enthusiasm and imagination. He found ways for us to do what seemed impossible, and most of the time - especially at first - I thought I was going to die happily in his arms and the cause of death would have had to have been listed as the orgasms he unselfishly bestowed upon me.

But that was a long, dry while ago, and I had never felt the lack of intimacy quite as acutely as I did now, here, with that fine specimen of young manhood standing next to me, so close he dripped on me every time he moved.

Oakley, on the other hand, was in peak physical condition. He ran miles every morning - said it cleared his head - and I don't think I'd ever seen him physically tired in all the years I'd known him, despite the fact that Paul used to work him hard in the summer sun - lifting, toting, digging. Regardless of what my husband put him through all day, he was always fresh as a daisy, swimming further miles in the pool. For all his whipcord leanness, he had the strength and stamina of an ox, all of those youthful muscles clearly delineated with every sure movement of that lithe body of his.

It was almost enough to have me cumming just from thinking about him.

Sensing he might have been going to touch me or make some such other awkward move towards deepening our relationship, somehow, I practically skittered away from him and asked him to tackle the back garden today - which would take him further away from me, so that I wouldn't be tempted to look out the window to watch that perfect body of his every time I was bored.

Which was with growing frequency, I was ashamed to say.

Also in the name of keeping things on more neutral territory, I brought his snacks and lunch to him, begging off staying to eat with him, rather than having him come inside the house. I was getting the feeling that having a bed be anywhere near our vicinity might not be the best idea. Not that I was afraid of him - I wasn't. I just didn't want him to overstep himself.

No, that was a lie. I was very worried that he was going to do exactly that, and that I was going to knuckle under like a tadpole facing a steamroller.

"Do you want to watch a movie?"

It was after dinner and we had gathered in the living room, as had been Paul's and my habit. We watched a Sci-Fi-fest, starting with the two new Star Trek movies reboots, then segueing into Gravity. By the time we were done, though, it was very late.

"Would you mind if I stayed here tonight?" he asked.

NO! NO! That's a TERRIBLE IDEA! my mind screamed. HORRIBLE!

Really. DON'T do it.

I hadn't offered to let him and he hadn't asked to stay overnight at all this summer, and I had wondered what I'd say to him if and when he did ask. "You'll have to make your own bed - they're stripped up there."

"That's fine," he answered, not sounding discouraged in the least.

I got him fresh sheets and a fresh set of towels. "You remember where the new guest toothbrushes are and the toothpaste?"

Oakley nodded. "I think there's still one of mine floating around somewhere in the bathroom."

We said our goodnights and he headed upstairs, but I could hear him coming down again to use the loo. Not really expecting him to come back out to the living room, I had doffed my robe and was curled up in my chair with my nondescript cotton knit nightie pulled down so that it covered my bent legs, a season at a time of How I Met Your Mother repeats playing through the Roku so I didn't have to think about what I was watching, not wanting to head into my bedroom quite yet since I'd end up doing the same thing in there, just lying down, feeling lonely and bored.

And horny. I could hardly forget horny - my body wasn't about to let me forget it.

When he was done, he did come out to stand in the living room, bare foot and wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms that I tried not to notice hanging almost obscenely low on his hips, revealing a clearly defined Apollo's belt that had me swallowing dryly and compulsively while trying not to stare and failing badly at it. "You're not going to bed?"

"I'm not sleepy," I said on a yawn.

He smiled at my body blatantly contradicting my words.

"I'm tired," I explained, "but not sleepy."

"How long has it been since you got a good night's sleep?" He leaned his shoulder against the doorway, arms folded over that perfect chest, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, balancing his foot on his toes, and looking entirely too adult - too manly - for my comfort.

I tried not to notice how his every move seemed to pull the pajama bottoms tight over his crotch, revealing a part of him I shouldn't have been looking at.

Trying to concentrate on his question instead of his genitals, I realized it was something I had really refused to consider. "A year . . . or two.."

Or three. Or four, I added in my head.

Oakley's usually fair face darkened. "That's not good. Did you tell your doctor?"

I smiled. It was so cute that he apparently cared that much. "Yes, and she gave me various pills that either put me out for weeks on end or didn't do a thing for me. I don't like artificial sleep remedies. They make me feel logy for long after they should, as if I don't metabolize them well."

At that was when he'd said it, without missing a beat, completely casual as if he was telling me that he was tall. Or blonde.

Or horny.

"I can help you with that, you know."

I cocked my head at him, trying to discern whether or not he was serious. As much as I wanted to ask him how he intended to accomplish that, I thought I had a pretty good idea what he was going to say and managed to get out, "I think I'll be okay, really, but thank you," somehow instead, despite the way my body began to throb at the visions of just how he might help me began to dance through my brain.

He took a step or two towards me to stand directly in front of my chair. Then he did something I didn't see coming. He leaned gracefully down to lift me up bodily, turning with me so that he could sit in my chair, then setting me down on his lap.

I immediately began to struggle, but he wouldn't allow me to go anywhere, his arms tightening around me just enough that mine were rendered useless and my legs were still held bent not only by my nightie but by him, too, so they were also effectively neutralized.

"Relax," he encouraged softly. "I wouldn't hurt you; I hope you already know that."

"This from the man who all but threatened to spank me yesterday . . . " For the record not the best conversational gambit, considering the fact that I was supposedly trying to forget what had happened then.

Although it was just about the only thing I'd thought about since he'd left last night.

His hand rubbed my back lazily, with just the right amount of soothing pressure, although I was all to uncomfortably aware of the strength that lay behind his tender motions. "You of all people know that there's a big difference between spanking someone and hurting them maliciously," he chided, his chin resting atop my head.

I swallowed a the huge lump that suddenly appeared in my throat and tried not to think how he knew that, much less that he knew to point it out to me in that tone.

Hadn't I scolded him yesterday for trying to dom me?

I pulled away - as far as he would let me which wasn't far - and gave him a disbelieving look. "Are you trying to tell me about D/s relationships?"

He just grinned unrepentantly at my outrage. "I just wanted you to know that I know there's a difference - a big difference."

"Good for you. Let me up." My tone was as no nonsense as I could manage.

Those lean, strong arms around me neither contracted nor loosened at my words, and my body sought to betray me yet again as I yawned loudly while he continued to hold me.

It was - I was alarmed to realize - the first time in a long time I'd felt safe - really bone-deep safe, and my body desperately - more than anything I'd wanted in a very long time - wanted to collapse against him, to let him hold me tight - and much, much more. Why Oakley would inspire me to feel that way I don't know. It was how Paul had always been able to make me feel, even though he'd never been in the physical condition that would have been necessary to back it up.

Oakely certainly was. He was fully able to back up anything he said, and it seemed he had the interest in doing so, too.

But he needed to find a nice young girl, establish a good, trusting relationship with her and then try his hand at domming her - if that was what she wanted.

I didn't want him practicing his D/s techniques on me . . . at least that was what I kept trying to tell myself.

Unfortunately it wasn't taking, especially not when being held in his arms felt so damned good. It had been so long - so very long - since I'd been hugged or held by a man - Paul had been rendered incapable of doing so by his disease long before I lost him - it was very hard to resist the temptation to do as he'd suggested and relax.

"Oakley, let me up," I tried again, with only a bit more conviction than the first time, although it didn't get me any further than it did the last. He was determined to hold me.

He didn't answer me immediately, but instead set the chair to rocking slowly, soothingly, doing nothing more than simply keeping mere there, rubbing my back and rocking us.

I kept trying, at first, to escape him, but he gently but inexorably stayed every attempt and, in an embarrassingly short amount of time, his mere closeness, his surprisingly soothing presence got me to unwind and melt bonelessly against him when trying to overwhelm or overpower me - to dom me into it - would only have resulted in me getting angry. It was the first time I could remember since Paul had died that I had truly allowed myself to lower the myriad walls I had set up to guard myself and my bleeding, wounded heart and just . . . be - not worry about having lost Paul, not worrying about myself or the house or bills or anything.

My entire world became encompassed within his arms as the sound of his slow, deep breathing encouraged mine to synch with it.

After long moments, he tipped my head up so that he could look into my eyes, and I knew mine were deeply unfocused. "Better?"

It wasn't easy - after having let go so thoroughly - to marshal my wits about me again, I was horrified to realize. "Yes, thank you." My voice sounded foreign to even my own ears - hoarse, untried, unpracticed.

"Good."

When I would have begun to struggle against him again, he pre-empted me by standing with me in his arms and walking with me into my bedroom.

I tensed automatically. "Oakley, I -"

"Shhhh. You don't have to say or do anything. Just let me take care of you. You need to get some sleep - you're dead on your feet. I can think of a lot of different ways to get you there but none of them as pleasant as what I intend to do."

His voice was low and hypnotic and tinged with just the slightest bit of sternness, as if he'd realized he'd overstepped his bounds last night and was dialing it way back.

And it was working all too well, dammit. The man was a natural - he hit just the right tone and said just the right words.

In other words, even before he'd touched me intimately, I was well and thoroughly screwed.