Taking Care of Neighbor's Daughter

Andre was forty-two, divorced two years, and the kind of man neighbors called when a hinge sagged or a pipe sweated. He lived alone in the cedar-sided house with the wide porch, tools in labeled drawers, coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in. When Silas knocked that Thursday with a suitcase already in the car, the request was simple. Two weeks in Chicago. A contract that would not wait. His daughter Joanna was home from college for the summer—twenty-one, a junior, perfectly capable of feeding herself—but the water heater had been sulking and the back door stuck in humidity, and Silas did not like the idea of her rattling around an empty house if something failed at midnight.

“She can stay in your spare room,” Silas said. “She knows you. She’s comfortable. I’ll owe you.”

Andre had known her as an adult neighbor for three summers running, ever since she came home after her freshman year and started waving from the driveway like a person with her own life. He had noticed, the way a man notices, that she had settled into her body and her laugh. He had also kept his hands on other people’s fences. He said yes because the favor was ordinary and Silas was decent.

Joanna arrived after dinner with a duffel and a canvas tote, hair still damp, a cotton sundress brushing her knees. She was tall for the doorway, brown-eyed, mouth quick to smile, and she looked straight at him when he took the bag.

“Dad’s already gone,” she said. “Thanks for this. I won’t be a pain.”

She was a particular kind of pain within the hour. Not the kind that broke glass. The kind that stood too near in the kitchen while he found her a mug, asking where things lived when the cabinet was obvious, her bare arm grazing his when she reached. She talked about her seminar, her roommate, the walk-up she would return to in the fall. Adult hours. Adult rent. She laughed at his short answers and did not step back when their fingers met over the sugar bowl.

By the time the dishes were done, the spare room felt like a courtesy neither of them quite believed. She sat on his couch with her legs tucked under her and watched him the way people watch a decision they have already made.

“I’ve thought about you,” she said, plain as the weather. “Not when I was a kid. After I turned eighteen. Every summer since, you were out there fixing someone’s porch and I didn’t know what to do with how I looked at you. I’m twenty-one now. I figured I should stop pretending.”

Andre set his glass of water down. The house held its breath. Down the hall the spare-room door stood open, sheets turned back, a lamp already on.

“Your father asked me to look after you.”

“I know.” She did not blink. “I’m asking you to let me stay close enough that you have to notice. That’s all. Tonight.”

He noticed. The line of her throat. The way the dress had ridden when she crossed the room. He told himself noticing was as far as it would go, and he showed her the towels, and he went to bed alone with the knowledge sitting warm and unhelpful behind his ribs.

The next days made a liar of that promise without quite breaking it. Mornings she came out in tiny cotton shorts and a thin tank, hair piled up, asking if he wanted eggs while the straps slipped and she did not fix them. She ate across from him at the small table, knees bumping his under the wood, and talked about nothing that mattered so she could watch his mouth. Afternoons he worked a neighbor’s deck two streets over and came home to find her reading on his porch, ankles crossed, a sheen of heat on her collarbones. She had started leaving the spare-room door ajar. He had started not closing his.

Evenings they cooked. She was bad at it and unashamed, standing at his elbow while onions went soft, hip against his hip as if the kitchen were narrower than it was. Once she reached past him for the salt and stayed there, chest against his arm, breath at his shoulder, until he had to set the spoon down and step away or do something he had not yet said out loud. She smiled at the retreat like it was a compliment.

Late, after the dishes, they talked. She wanted to know about the divorce without prying at the wound, and he gave her the clean version: two people who had run out of reasons, no children, a house that had gone quiet before the papers did. She told him about boys at college who rushed and boys who performed and none who had ever been let all the way in. She said it lightly the first time, then less lightly the second, her bare foot resting against his shin on the couch while a movie neither of them watched threw blue light over the room. Her toes flexed. He did not move his leg.

On the fourth night she wore the tank without a bra and pretended the house was warm, which it was, and sat closer than the cushion required. When she laughed she put her hand on his wrist and left it there, thumb drawing a small circle over the tendon. Andre felt the circle in his stomach. He was old enough to know the difference between a girl’s experiment and a woman’s choice, and Joanna was making the second with her eyes open, twenty-one and home for the summer and looking at him like the spare room had only ever been a story they were telling her father.

“You keep almost,” she said, voice low. “Then you remember you’re supposed to be good.”

“I am supposed to be good.”

“You’re supposed to take care of me.” Her fingers tightened once, gentle, and let go. “I’m not confused about what I want that to mean. I’m just waiting for you to stop being scared of it.”

He did not touch her that night either. He lay awake listening to the old house tick, hard under the sheet, furious with himself for wanting a woman who had trusted him with a roof and a locked door. In the morning she smiled at him over coffee like the waiting was part of the pleasure, and he understood that she was not going to force the door. She was going to stand in it until he walked through.

The storm came on the sixth night. It shouldered in off the hills after supper, thunder rolling the windows, rain hammering the porch roof until the world outside vanished. They had eaten pasta and salad. Neither of them had touched wine. The power flickered and held. Joanna stood at the living-room window in those same small shorts and a white tank gone nearly transparent where the humidity had found it, arms folded under her breasts, watching the yard drown.

“Come sit,” Andre said.

She came. She did not take the far cushion. She folded onto the couch beside him, knee against his thigh, and for a while they listened to the rain and did not perform ease. When she spoke, the teasing had gone out of her voice.

“I need to tell you something before I lose my nerve.” She looked at her hands, then at him. “I’m still a virgin. Not because I’m precious about it. Because I didn’t want the first time to be some rushed thing with someone who wouldn’t know what he was doing and wouldn’t care after. I want it to be with a man who’s done this, who can be careful and still want me like he means it. Someone I trust.” Her mouth tilted, shy and certain at once. “I trust you. I’ve wanted you since I was eighteen and old enough to know what wanting was. I’m twenty-one. I’m asking. If you don’t want me, say so and I’ll sleep in the spare room and we’ll pretend I was only bored. But don’t tell me it’s about my father. This is about us.”

Andre felt the confession land in the quiet between thunderclaps. He had spent days pretending the heat in the house was weather. He looked at her—flushed, steady, adult, waiting without flinching—and the pretense finally failed.

“I’ve wanted you,” he said. “Longer than I had any right to say out loud. Since you came home grown and started looking at me like that. I kept it down because you were Silas’s daughter and I was the man next door and that felt like a line. It still is a line.” He reached, slow enough that she could refuse, and set his palm against her cheek. Her skin was warm. She leaned into it at once. “If we cross it, we cross it awake. Both of us. No maybe later. You tell me if anything is too much. You can stop me with one word.”

“I know.” She turned her face and kissed the center of his palm, a small deliberate press. “I want to cross it. Tonight. With you.”

He kissed her then, because the choosing had been said and the storm had taken the rest of the world away. Her mouth opened under his with a sound that was half relief and half hunger, inexperienced and eager, her hands coming up to his shoulders like she had been holding them back for days. The kiss went deep. Rain beat the glass. When they broke for air she was smiling, wrecked already, and she nodded once, sure.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. Show me.”

She slid off the couch before he could decide the order of things, knees finding the rug between his feet, looking up with her hands on his thighs and a flush climbing her throat. The lamp threw gold across her face. Thunder muttered and moved on.

“I’ve never done this either,” she said. “Tell me if I’m wrong. I want to. I want to taste you before anything else.”

Andre’s pulse kicked hard. He cupped the back of her head, not pushing, only grounding. “You won’t be wrong. Slow. Use your hand with your mouth. Watch your teeth. Breathe through your nose when you can. If you need to stop, you stop. Understand?”

“Yes.” She undid his belt with fingers that trembled and did not quit. The button. The zipper. She drew him out and went still for a second, eyes wide, a soft astonished breath. Then she smiled, shy and filthy at once, and wrapped her hand around him the way he had told her, testing the weight, the heat. “You’re— God. Okay.”

Her first lick was hesitant, a flat stroke of tongue along the underside, tasting, learning. The second was surer. She took the head into her mouth and hummed at the salt of him, cheeks hollowing on instinct, then pulled off to look up, checking. He nodded, thumb stroking her hair.

“Just like that. A little deeper when you want. Hollow your cheeks. Good girl.”

The praise undid something in her. She went down again with more intent, messy and enthusiastic, saliva slicking her fist as she worked what she could not yet take. She gagged once, pulled back, laughed breathlessly against his thigh, and tried again, slower, finding a rhythm that was hers: mouth and hand together, tongue swirling, eyes flicking up to watch what she did to his face. Andre groaned, low, and the sound made her press closer, eager to earn it. He guided her with a light pressure at the nape, showing her the pace, never forcing the depth.

“Relax your jaw. There. Fuck, Joanna. Your mouth—”

She moaned around him at the words, the vibration running straight up his spine, and bobbed with new hunger, sloppy and devoted, one hand braced on his thigh, the other stroking in time. Spit shone on her chin. She looked ruined already and proud of it, twenty-one and on her knees in his living room because she had asked to be. He lasted longer than he expected and not nearly as long as he wanted. When the heat coiled too tight he eased her off, chest heaving.

“Not yet,” he said, rough. “I want to taste you. I want you coming on my mouth before I ever get inside you.”

She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, dazed and grinning, and let him pull her up onto the couch. He laid her back against the cushions, hooked his fingers in the tiny shorts, and paused.

“Yes?”

“Yes. Please. Take them off.”

He drew the shorts and her panties down her legs and dropped them somewhere the storm did not care about. She was bare under the tank, flushed pink, already wet enough that the lamplight caught it. Andre settled between her thighs, big hands spreading her gently, and looked his fill until she squirmed.

“Andre.”

“I’m looking at you.” He kissed the inside of one knee, then higher, stubble rasping soft skin, until his mouth hovered where she was hottest. “Breathe.”

The first stroke of his tongue was slow and broad, learning her the way she had learned him. She jolted, a sharp little cry, fingers flying to his hair. He did it again, patient, parting her with his thumbs, licking through the slick until he found the small swollen point of her and circled it, unhurried, then firmer when her hips chased him. She tasted clean and sweet and desperate. He groaned into her and sealed his mouth over her clit, sucking lightly, tongue flicking, one thick finger easing inside while he watched her face over the plane of her stomach.

“Oh— oh God, that’s—” She laughed once, broken, and then stopped laughing. Her thighs trembled around his ears. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. It’s so much.”

“I’ve got you.” He curled his finger, found the spot that made her back bow, and worked it in time with his tongue. A second finger joined the first when she opened for it, stretching her carefully, getting her ready while he ate her like he had all night and intended to use it. She was loud now, past shy, rocking against his mouth, tank rucked up under her breasts, nipples tight, rain and thunder nothing compared with the wet sounds between her legs. He stayed with her through the climb, steady pressure, no teasing left, until she broke with a sobbed cry, pulsing around his fingers, thighs clamping, one hand fisted in his hair hard enough to sting. He licked her through it, gentler as the shocks ebbed, kissing her swollen cunt until she tugged him up, breathless and shining.

“Come here,” she said. “I want to see you. I want you in me. I’m ready. I want it.”

He kissed her so she could taste herself, deep and filthy, and she kissed back like the flavor undid her all over again. Then he stripped the tank off her, shed his own clothes, and covered her on the couch, bracing his weight on his forearms so he could watch her face. His cock rested against her, hot and heavy. She reached between them and guided him, bold even shaking.

“Slow,” he said. “You tell me.”

“Slow. Then not slow. I trust you.”

He pushed in by inches. She was tight, soaking, a living grip that stole his breath. Her eyes went wide at the stretch. A wince flickered and passed. She nodded, frantic little nods, nails in his shoulders.

“Okay. Okay, more. I want all of it. Don’t stop unless I say.”

He sank deeper, pausing when she needed the pause, kissing her mouth, her cheek, the corner of her eye, murmuring that she was doing so well, that she felt incredible, that he had her. When he was seated to the hilt she made a sound he would hear for the rest of his life, half pain already turning to wonder, and her legs came up around his waist.

“Move,” she whispered. “Please move. I need to feel you move.”

He drew back and thrust, shallow at first, then longer as her body learned him. Missionary, face to face, because he had wanted to see every change in her—the part of her lips, the flutter of her lashes, the moment the discomfort melted into hunger. It melted. She started meeting him, clumsy then sure, hips lifting, a broken litany of yes and his name and harder. The couch creaked. Rain lashed the windows. He fucked her with controlled strokes that still shook the frame, one hand under her ass to angle her, the head of his cock dragging where she was most sensitive, and watched her come apart under the care of it.

“Look at me,” he said, and she did, eyes wet and fierce. “That’s it. Take it. You feel so fucking good, Joanna. So tight around me. My good girl.”

“Yours,” she gasped, and the word snapped something in both of them. She came again with him buried deep, clenching in long pulses, crying out against his mouth, and he held still through it, grinding, letting her use him, swearing softly at how perfectly she gripped. When she sagged, laughing and wrecked, he kissed her forehead.

“Not done,” she said, voice hoarse and bright. “I want you behind me. I want it harder. I can take it. I want to.”

He pulled out carefully, helped her onto her knees on the cushions, chest down, ass up, and the sight of her like that—flushed, open, glistening, looking back over her shoulder with her hair a mess—nearly ended him. He ran a hand down her spine.

“Still yes?”

“Yes. Fuck me. I want to feel you lose it.”

He pushed back in in one long stroke and she moaned, loud, pushing onto him before he could set the pace. Doggy on the old couch, his hands on her hips, her fingers knotted in a cushion. He gave her what she asked for. Harder. Deeper. The wet slap of skin filled the room under the rain. She shoved back to meet every thrust, greedy, chanting his name, ass bouncing against his hips, and he watched himself disappear into her and felt feral with it, careful only in the way that kept her safe and not at all in the way that kept him gentle.

“Fuck, look at you,” he growled. “Taking my cock like you were made for it. Push back. Just like that. Good— Christ, Joanna—”

“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Harder. I can feel you everywhere. I’m gonna— Andre, I’m—”

She came a third time with a raw, shocked wail, cunt fluttering wildly around him, and the clutch of it dragged him over. He drove in deep and spilled with a broken groan, hips jerking, filling her in hot pulses while she trembled and kept pushing back, milking him, both of them lost, sweaty, swearing, laughing in the wreckage of it. He folded over her back, mouth at her shoulder, still inside, both of them shaking.

They stayed like that until the aftershocks faded and the storm softened to a steady drum. He eased out, turned her, and gathered her against his chest on the ruined cushions. She was glowing, thoroughly used, smiling into his skin with her eyes half closed. His hand stroked her hair. Neither of them spoke for a long while. The rain did the talking.

When her breathing evened and a shiver passed through her, he stood, gathered her up—light enough, trusting, arms around his neck—and carried her down the hall to his bed. Not the spare room. His. He laid her on the cool sheets, slid in beside her, and pulled the blanket over both of them. She fitted herself to his side at once, one leg over his, cheek on his chest, already halfway to sleep and smiling still.

“Stay,” she murmured.

“I’m here.”

They slept tangled, the house quiet around them, the storm spent.

Morning came pale through the curtains. Andre woke to weight and warmth and the particular silence of a room that had been loud and was not anymore. Joanna was propped on an elbow, watching him, hair wild, mouth soft. When his eyes opened she gave him a shy smile that did not hide the eagerness under it—the look of a woman who had been taken care of and fully intended to be taken care of again, for as many mornings as the two weeks held.

She did not speak. He did not either. Her fingers found his on the sheet and stayed. Outside, a bird tried a note and thought better of it. The house held still. In the quiet, her smile remained, and the morning did not ask them for anything more.