"I've been watching you, baby."

His voice was low and rough and Charlotte gazed down to see his expression full of need. She nodded. "Okay-"

"I've watched you work in your garden, eat with your kids. I've seen how much you love them, how much you give them." Joe paused and made sure his eyes were locked on hers. "Tonight wasn't the first night I've watched you with my binoculars. I've seen you masturbate, Charlotte "

A hum of terror moved through her body, starting at her toes and rushing up to her brain until she feared her head would explode. He'd seen her?

"I watched you write in your diary the other night. I watched you make yourself come."

"Oh, my God!" She tried to get up. His hand clamped down on her thigh.

"It was the sexiest thing I've ever seen a woman do in my entire life. I love how hot you are, Charlotte."

She barely had the courage to look at him. Kurt had been so disgusted with her that he couldn't even discuss this, and Joe thought she was hot?

"What were you writing about baby? Tell me." His fingers continued their soft slide into the vee of her legs.

"I… nothing."

"Tell me."

"Poetry. I write a little poetry." Her heart hammered and her hands began to sweat.

"Really? What kind of poetry?" He stroked the sensitive skin at the juncture of her legs, and his touch felt like magic, like a familiar dream…

"Erotic poetry-" she breathed, arching her neck with the pleasure. "About you and me, mostly."

His fingers spread, separating the puffy lips of her sex. She could feel herself opening to him as her legs fell apart, her arms fell to her sides-hands loose and palms up. Her breath was coming fast and shallow.

"Do you have any memorized?" Joe sat up and leaned close. His hand remained just at the opening of her, toying with her, teasing her until she knew she was wetter than the kitchen faucet.

"Of course I have them memorized. I wrote them- ahh!" His finger scarcely brushed over her erect clitoris and she saw black spots dance in her vision.

"I want to hear one. The hottest one you've ever written. Give it to me." His soft lips were grazing her face, her temples, her hair, the side of her neck.

She was having trouble concentrating. "How about something short and to the point?"

He chuckled against the juncture of her neck and shoulders, and his goatee tickled her. Then his fingers slid more purposefully over her clit, and she gasped.

"Go for it," he said.

"It's called 'NicePants.'"

"I like it already. Let's hear it." His warm lips and tongue were now trailing down her shoulder to her upper arm, the robe falling away as he went, his fingers still coaxing her, pinching her, flicking at her.

She could barely get the words to form." Nice Pants,' by Charlotte Tasker," she whispered. Just then, a finger slid inside her and she bucked from the invasion.

"I'm listening," he said, his voice muffled by the flesh of her breasts.

"It's only two lines…"

Two long fingers slid into her. "Uh-huh."

His lips and teeth tugged on a nipple while she felt what she swore were at least eight fingers all over her between her legs-on her clitoris, inside her pussy, pressing into her bottom.

She rose up so he could get at anything he might want; then she shouted out:

"Nice pants.

Take them off!"

Joe's laughter rumbled into her skin as she came. He was all over her then, wrapped around her, holding her tight as she rode through die rough pleasure. It was intense, complete, and so familiar.

When she regained some sense of where she was, Charlotte noticed Joe struggling to remove his boxers. She gave him a hand, then put both hands on his ass.

"You have real talent, Charlotte."

She giggled. "So do you, Joe."

His mouth crushed hers. She drowned in his kiss, his heat. And as he untied her belt and slid the robe completely from her body, Charlotte felt the years fall away, felt her heart come to life and her body unfurl like a flower. In her mind's eye that's exactly what she witnessed: Charlotte Tasker, business owner, scout leader, widowed mother of two, was a deep red rose captured in time-lapse photography, opening into full bloom in this man's hands-only for this one man.

Joe broke the kiss to cradle her face and look her square in the eye. "You were a virgin that day, but you came so much. You can't help it, can you, Charlotte? You really are a sex goddess. You were made for sex, weren't you?"

She nodded, so full of desire, so ready for whatever he was about to ask of her-and so excited by the way he spoke-to her…

It seemed that Joe was as raw with his words as he was thirteen years before-raw power, raw sexuality. She thanked God that the years hadn't changed that.

"I want you to do something for me." Joe broke out into a lopsided grin. "Will you?"

She nodded again.

"I want you to be the little soccer mom slut that you really are."

Charlotte heard her own gasp, felt the lightning bolt of sexual greed strike her down.

"Nobody will know. It'll be our secret. Just be who you really are, for me tonight, because I have to tell you, Charlotte-I fuckin' love it."

Joe eased her down onto the SpongeBob sleeping bag covered her with the hard glory of his body, and kissed her ferociously, his lips crushed against hers. Charlotte welcomed Joe into her arms, into the arms of the little slut she was.

How could a man feel so grounded and be flying at the same time? Joe couldn't grasp it, but there he was, inside Charlotte at long last, flesh to flesh, his body soaring through space even as his heart hit the ground with an audiblethud.

He was home.

Charlotte was with him, right there with him, her eyes locked on his as he took her. He felt the force of her welcome, her love, as her legs opened wide beneath him.

The impulse to drive into her was unstoppable. The surge of power that coursed through him was equaled only by tenderness he felt for her. She was his safe haven, his perfect fit, his lover. And he would die before he'd let her go again.

Joe smiled when she shouted out his name. She'd been shouting his name so often and with so much gusto that he feared she'd wake everyone in Hayden Heights. He tried to keep his mouth on hers but couldn't stop himself from occasionally making a detour to bite those tasty cherry nipples.

He also needed to keep his mouth free to talk to her. It didn't take a genius to see that words did the trick for Charlotte. Every time he said something even remotely racy to her, her eyes flashed and her body clenched him tight.

"Come for me, you beautiful, sweet, sexy little soccer mom slut."

There she went again, his cock the lucky recipient of the wet velvet vise treatment he hoped to God would be his for the taking the rest of his life.

"You can't stop, can you, Charlotte? Tell me you want some more."

He reached down into the slippery juncture of their bodies and found the hard little peak uncovered by her position. He circled his fingertip around it.

"I want more!" She wrapped her legs around his butt and squirmed to meet his thrusts.

"How much more?"

"I want everything! I want you, Joe!"

He slammed his lips on hers, his wide mouth engulfing her from her silky upper lip to her adorable chin. He felt her bring her arms around his body and squeeze. He tasted tears, but he didn't know which of them was crying. And he kissed her hard and breathed her in and got lost in the scent of their union-skin and sweat and summer air and honeysuckle-and knew this was the only real thing he'd ever known. He soared higher and then exploded inside her-giving her everything. He gave her himself. Just as she'd asked.