“Take it, take it, take it, take it,” he whispered over and over, and I took it all, like a good girl, swallowing and swallowing, looking up at his face twisted in pleasure as he shuddered and panted against me. I didn’t realize until later that I’d been making that same little humming noise in my throat that I remembered Mrs. B always did.

“Oh baby, come here,” he murmured, gathering me up, sitting me on the counter again on the towel and pulling me close. My pussy felt juicy and swollen beneath me, exposed and vulnerable, and I remembered the feeling well from the very first time I’d shaved-when Mrs. B had shaved me and made me come that day with the shower massage, my body’s betrayal.

He pushed my hair out of my face and kissed my cheeks, my lips, cupping my face in his hands. “I love you, Veronica. No matter what happens, I love you,

and I’m never, ever going to leave you.” I held onto him and felt it for the first time. It was not just reassuring, but real. I knew it was true, and it was enough.

It would have to be.

Chapter Three

If I thought I’d been unprepared for seeing Gretchen again, nothing could have prepared me for walking back into the house I’d shared with the Baumgartners that week and seeing Mrs. B in her black bikini, smiling warmly and opening the door to my tentative knock.

I’d spent the whole flight remembering that week in December, as I watched the snow covered ground give way to clouds and then eventually descend into sand. Of course, they must have planned it. I knew that now, although I hadn’t consciously realized it then. They asked me to come under the pretense of babysitting the kids, but that isn’t really why I’d been invited along. It had been planned from the beginning.