He walked out into the August heat. She stood in the doorway, watching him go. And for the first time, she had nothing to say. No lesson to give. No game to play.

She laughed. “Fine. The word of a nineteen-year-old. No. I want you to show me. Not as a stepson. As a man.”

Ashley Tee (as told to)

She froze. The mask slipped. For a moment, he saw not the seductress, but a lonely woman who had miscalculated.