Isla sat at the lake's edge with Elle. They reclined haphazardly in their lounge chairs, baking in the mid-afternoon June sun. It was the kind of heat you could hear. The air pulsed in a frenzied static over the calm and steady lap of water underneath the pier.

"I'm gonna die," Elle sighed dramatically, adjusting her large black sunglasses and reaching down for her cucumber water.

Isla grunted in agreement. She was too close to heatstroke for words.

They relapsed into silence and some time later - it could have been minutes or an hour - the crunch of tires on gravel cut through the choir of cicadas and Alabama bullfrogs. Isla turned and peered over the top of her aviators to see a black Ford F-150 pull up in the driveway.

"Your dad's here," she said to Elle, keeping her voice steady as she watched him slam the door behind him.

Steven stopped when he noticed Isla watching him. They were too far away to speak and, in a panic, she gave an inelegant half-wave. He returned it with a terse nod before dropping the tailgate. Grumpy daddy vibes rolled off him so thick that Isla reflexively gripped the top of her chair, the plastic weaving squeaking under her hands.

Elle waved off the mention of him with her ballet slipper-pink manicure.

"Don't worry about him. He'll be gone by dinner. The internet's out at the house so he's doing some work here."

Isla snorted. She had known the girl since college, but she sometimes couldn't get over the things that Elle said like they were normal.

Oh, yes, the internet is out at the main house so Dad's coming to use the internet at the lake house.

Isla had grown up in a farmhouse so old it had been retrofitted for electricity.

Steven hauled a huge cardboard box out of the truck bed with masculine grace. Isla had a flashback to the boys she'd grown up around in her farm town. The way they'd carried their bodies with familiarity because they used them.

While Isla tried not to over-analyze her vagina too much, this cavewoman response made her feel basic. Like she was attracted to the pumpkin spice latte of masculinity.

Tall strong man who can build you a fence real real good.

Elle's dad certainly fit the bill. He owned a construction company and looked every inch of it.

Today, Steven was wearing his standard uniform of Exhausted Black T-shirt and Jeans. A businessman without any of the polish. Isla couldn't see his face clearly from here, but she knew from work yesterday that his black hair was almost shaggy and his beard leaned toward scruffy.

Christ alive, it did it for her.

The screen door creaked as Steven elbowed and kicked it open in one smooth motion. Her compulsion flared up again. The one that felt like fire ants in her chest and constantly dragged her into the same room as him.

"I have to pee," Isla lied.

"Bring more beer," Elle ordered drowsily.

"Sure thing."

Isla didn't take her eyes off the screen door as it swung shut.

The Bermuda grass warmed her feet as she walked toward the house. It was like her body didn't belong to her anymore. She halfway wanted Elle to interrupt her possession so she couldn't be alone inside with him. She didn't exactly function well in states of desperation.

Isla shut the door softly behind her and followed Steven's sounds up the stairs. The carpet ate her footsteps. She was silent as she stepped into the room and leaned against the doorjamb. It took a moment before he looked up from his desk and noticed her.

"Jesus Christ.” He flinched so hard his chair rolled back.

Isla shrugged.

"Nah, just me."

Steven almost laughed but he choked it off. She swore she saw a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He made a point of not looking at her as he removed folders from the box.

She crossed her arms over her red and white polka-dotted bikini. It was a retro, high-waisted number that covered a lot, but still. She was a curvier girl and the retro vibe might give her confidence by the water, but standing here in front of Steven in broad daylight, she suddenly just felt awkward in her stretchy water-absorbent underwear.

"Can I help you?" he asked after a stretch of silence. He used his business voice, the infuriatingly polite one he used when they saw each other at work, when he'd shake her hand and call her Ms. Taylor.

"Just came to say hi."

Isla pretended to test the structural integrity of the door hinges by tapping one.

Steven stopped shuffling papers to cut his eyes up at Isla in a way that told her he knew she was lying too. They didn't 'just say hi.'

Not anymore, anyway.

When she'd first started at BuildGreen seven years ago, there'd been a transition in her mind from Mr. Bridges, Elle's dad, to Steven From Work. Isla had liked Steven From Work because he talked to her like Isla the Site Engineer. He was solemn-faced but she made him laugh from his chest. She became the known go-between for coworkers who were scared of him. He respected her and she softened him.

And this had been their dynamic until last December when Isla the Site Engineer bumped into Steven From Work at the company Christmas party. They'd landed under some mistletoe inexplicably placed in the restaurant's restroom hallway. She'd been drunk enough to playfully demand a kiss on the cheek. He'd been drunk enough to roll his eyes and laugh. And she'd been drunk enough to not let him pass until he'd begrudgingly bent down to oblige.

Only neither of them had veered off course and their lips collided.

The kiss had been soft - borderline chaste. But still.

It was Steven From Work. Except it was Elle's dad. She'd known she should have pulled away, but liked his mouth and he wasn't pulling away either.

Isla had felt a tendril unfurl from some part of himself he kept locked away. It had snaked toward the darker corner of her soul where she hid the feelings she'd been smothering with a pillow.

And for the last six months, she'd been surviving but manic. Branded and holding a piece of him with no clear rules of engagement. She'd be working and then break into a cold sweat when she remembered his coarse black hair between her fingers. How softly he'd gripped the small of her back.

"That's a lot of work for a Saturday," Isla tried again.

"Well... you know..."

Another stretch of silence in which Steven clearly wanted her to leave. He pulled a massive accordion folder out of the file box and Isla recognized the logo.

"Is it the Hooper building?"

Steven dropped the papers he was holding and ran his hands roughly over his face.

"What are you really doing?" he asked from underneath them. He sounded like he was close to begging for mercy.

Isla only had honesty.

"I don't know."

Isla was so far outside of herself. She was normally decisive and quick to find a solution. She had authority, at work and with friends. She was the kind of person people came to with problems because she was a fixer.

Right now she just felt young.

Not youthful.

Petulant.

Even though he hadn't denied her anything because she couldn't even ask yet.

Steven sat up and leaned his elbows on his desk. He pulled at his hair, making it stand on end.

"Isla, I really think you should go."

She might have, except that, for the first time in months, he'd used her name.

Not you. Not Ms. Taylor.

When he said 'Isla' it rasped like a drawer opening, wood rubbing against wood. His tongue hung on the 'L'.

It froze her in place at the door.

"What we did..." he began. "No, what I did was inappro..."

Isla cut him off with a buzzer sound. She wouldn't let him backpedal, not for her sake.

"Isla, I..."

"Nope," she cut him off again.

He raised his hands like Isla would hear reason if he spoke with them.

"I shouldn't have..."

She made the sound again and Steven threw his hands in the air.

"Will you just..."

"I still think about it,” Isla interrupted. “Every single day…"

She'd grown up with confession. She knew how blunt and heavy a spoken sin could feel. But those were confessed up close, in whispers. Her words felt all the more stark and naked spoken in daylight at full volume.

Steven swallowed and his Adam's apple strained.

Her confession kept tumbling out. "... and I think I'm gonna go crazy if I can't kiss you again..."

Steven jumped up at the word 'kiss' and crossed the room in a few steps. He looked outside both ways before shutting the door.

"Don't say that so loud."

"What? That we kissed."

He stood so close she could smell him and she wanted to scream.

"Isla..." He sagged against the door a little. When he looked down at her she could see the worry lines at the corner of his eyes. Dark blue with eyelashes so long they tangled at the edges.

There was the compulsion again. To be close. To touch.

Her hand reached out for the smooth plane of his stomach. He grabbed her wrist to stop her. His other hand hovered, wanting to push her away but not sure where to touch with all her bare skin.

"I touch myself. All the time. Thinking about it."

God, she'd forgotten how good confession felt. To not carry the guilt alone.

"Jesus," he hissed.

Steven flushed across his face and down his neck, his breathing noticeable now.

"We can't do this," he said with certainty.

"Why not? I'm single. You're single."

He flexed his fists in frustration, like he always did when she was being purposely obtuse.

"I'm too old for this," he muttered to the ceiling.

"God, you're right," she gave a fake cringe. "You're practically dead."

Steven let himself laugh this time.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"47."

That was barely anything.

"I'm older than Elle. I'm 29."

Steven shuddered at her name.

"That's why we shouldn't..."

His words dried up as Isla leaned into him, reaching past him to lock the door with a solid click.

When her hand left the knob, she traced it up his arm and over the slope of his shoulder. He didn't stop her. He just closed his eyes and shuddered. She wrapped her arms around his neck and his lips parted slightly. His hands gripped her waist and he pulled her hips into his. Isla let her body relax against his, one of his legs settled between her thighs.

She breathed in and when she exhaled it was almost a moan. She had to stop her hips from instinctively working against his leg. It had been a while since she'd had anything besides her hands and depraved thoughts.

He put his mouth to her hair and the heat of his breath in her scalp set off a supernova inside Isla. She frantically pushed his shirt up over his head. She ran her hands over his chest, tracing the pattern of black hair on his chest and down his stomach.

"You should tell me to stop," he panted.

Isla laughed this time. As though he were the one out of control. She'd kill for that to be the case.

"Sure," she lied before she kissed him.

If kissing him by accident before had been life-altering, then kissing him now - sober and on purpose - was earth-shattering.

Steven kissed the way he talked - wide and loose.

His calloused hands cupped the delicate skin along her jawbone. She wanted them on the intimate parts of her. She guided one of them between her legs and, at his touch, the floor slanted beneath them. The kiss grew messy, all lips and teeth. Warmth spread down her limbs and pooled between her legs where he cupped her, his fingers and palm working against the fabric of her swimsuit.

Isla needed him touching every inch of her. She bowed her head and pressed it into his chest moved to show him she wanted him to undo the knot of her halter top.

He paused with indecision for only a second before starting to work at the knot.

"Why is this so tight?" Steven asked as he pulled helplessly at it.

Isla pressed harder into his chest as though it would help it come undone any quicker.

"To protect my virtue."

He laughed easily into her hair and when the knot finally came undone, he left a trail of hot wet kisses down her shoulder as the straps fell. She raised her arms so he could pull her top off completely.

Out of a habit she didn't realize she had, she closed her eyes as the top came up. When she opened them again, he was staring at her, her top fisted in his hands.

"What?" Isla asked.

"You look..."

He stopped himself and shook his head.

Isla grabbed his face in her hand. She relished the sound and the feel of his scruff scraping under her fingertips.

"I look what?"

She would drag every lustful comment out of him kicking and screaming if she had to.

"You look good," he conceded.

She squeezed his cheeks until he made a fish mouth.

"How good?"

He pulled her hand off his face and put it on the crotch of his pants so she could feel for herself.

"Really fucking good," he growled.

Isla kissed Steven again, their bare chests pressed together. Her nipples hardened as they brushed against his chest hair. Isla broke their kiss to take a step back. Steven made a noise in protest and reached for her again.

"Come here." 

She smiled, pulling him with her toward his desk. "Sit down," she commanded. He obeyed, collapsing easily back onto the desk as she pushed him down. She wanted to straddle him but there were papers everywhere. "Why is your desk so messy?"

She stared at it, doing sex Tetris in her mind to try and triangulate a position that wouldn't knock everything over.

"Because I work," he whispered back, hauling her onto his lap. Towers of papers slid off the desk. Cups of paperclips and pens spilled onto the carpet.

The body-positive mantras she shouted at herself every morning in the mirror were helpful, but their efficacy paled in comparison to Steven's hands grabbing her ass and thighs with such sheer appreciation.

With her knees finally having something to work with, Isla used the desktop and his shoulders to grind against him as her body wanted.

"Holy shit," Isla panted. The friction between fabric and crotches and the shape of his cock underneath her lit her on fire. She was about to come just from dry humping him, something she hadn't done since high school. She'd forgotten this was even an option.

Isla stopped herself and clumsily climbed off him. She was so close to orgasm her body could barely function.

"Take off your pants," she panted like she'd been running. She wanted to help him, to undress him, but it was all she could do to stay upright while taking off her swimsuit bottoms.

He worked at his fly for a second, then froze.

"I don’t have anything for..."

She snapped and motioned for him to keep the ball rolling.

"I have an IUD. Get inside me."

She'd tell him how grateful he needed to be for his company's comprehensive health insurance plan later.

He got his pants halfway down his thighs before Isla grabbed his cock and held it upright for her to slide onto.

"Holy shit," she groaned. Steven was a tall, broad, and hung accordingly.

Isla laced her fingers behind his neck for leverage as she slid down him, inch by inch.

"Holy fuck," she gasped when she'd taken him to the hilt. "God, you feel good," she said as Steven's hands gripped at her hips.

He grabbed her cheeks with one of his hands and her lips puckered in a fish face.

"How good?"

She felt his cock twitch inside her and she clamped down with her kegels.

"Really fucking good."

They moved against each other slowly at first while his thumb traced over her clitoris. Her grip on his neck tightened as she clenched around his cock. She gasped, open-mouthed and silent, as he pressed his face into her neck, his teeth against her pulsing jugular.

It turned into fucking, their thrusts wide more than a little desperate. He held her waist firmly in place and thrust into her now. This wasn't something he was letting happen to him. He was doing this with her now.

Steven pushed off the desk and held her up by her ass. His shoulders flexed and this brought some kind of sound out of her. Isla held onto him midair.

He put her down on the desk and, as she lay flat, she could feel him go deeper inside her with the new angle. Her fingertips grazed his sternum. She wanted to grab fistfuls of chest hair. She wanted to inflict pain that felt as good as hers.

Without warning, Steven gave one solid thrust. Isla's knees came up to her ears and she grabbed them, pulling her legs apart, wide and open.

With her hips, she told him, Here. Take me here. As deep as you can.

She wanted to rip herself in half at the seam so he could fuck her all the way to her center.

Isla stared over the slope of her body, between her breasts and over her stomach. She wanted to frame this image. Him gripping her hips, hair falling in his ruddy face while his entire body worked toward where their hips met. Every other function eschewed for this.

Then there it was, that moment she realized her orgasm was coming. She sat up and pulled herself up toward him. When she came, she wanted to be in his face. He'd barely looked at her in months and she wanted him to bear witness, to see exactly what he could do to her.

Once, twice, three times he crushed into her, mouth open and teeth bared as he came. She rose to meet him each time, her body taking in everything it could give her. She reached between her legs and barely had to touch her clitoris before she came so hard she astral projected.

It took several breaths before her soul returned to her body. When it did, there was only enough of her to notice small things.

The feeling of his leg hair on the inside of her thighs.

The smell of his neck.

Their bodies slick with sweat.

Steven kissed her again and there was that feeling of being branded, pieces deep inside them unfurling. The sound of Elle opening the front door below broke the spell and spurred them to action. They smiled when they kept catching the other looking as they dressed.

He took the straps from her and a shiver ran down her spine as he tied them.

She pulled away from him while her body still belonged to her again.

"You're leaking out of me," she confessed, shutting the door quietly behind her.

---

For the rest of the afternoon, Isla sat in her lounge chair and pretended to be functional. She watched for any sign of Steven from the house. Was he working? Pacing? Replaying their sex over and over in his mind.

How could he possibly focus? She wasn't even doing anything and she couldn't focus. It was all she could do to appear human in front of Elle while she could feel the hole his cock had burrowed between her legs.

All she could think about was when this would happen again.

Because it would happen again.

Isla squirmed into her chair and pressed her knees together at the lightning strike memory of his hands on her hips. His voice low in her ear.

A hot flash swept over Isla. She stood up and walked to the edge of the pier.

"What are you doing?" Elle asked.

"Fuck if I know."

Isla jumped in the water feet first.