Chapter 2: The Burns
The golden afternoon light that had gilded the pool deck was gone, replaced by the deeper, softer glow of early evening streaming through the sheer curtains of their Brooklyn living room. Elias lay sprawled on the large, plush sectional, a faux-fur blanket tangled around his legs, his phone a dead weight in his hand. He hadn’t read a single word on the screen for the past forty minutes. The text blurred into meaningless symbols, his brain incapable of processing anything beyond the memory of heat, and tightness, and the seismic, soul-scorching release of filling his mother.
The scent of her still clung to him—coconut sunscreen, her honey-vanilla perfume, and beneath it, the musky, intimate smell of sex. Of their sex. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her body around him, the incredible, wet clutch of her as he came. A shiver that had nothing to do with the room’s temperature ran through him. His cock, spent and softened, gave a traitorous twitch beneath his sweatpants at the memory alone.
From the kitchen, the low, smooth cadence of a vintage jazz trumpet floated, punctuated by the soft clink of glassware. He could hear her humming along, the sound a gentle vibration in the quiet apartment. Then, the light, deliberate tap of her heels on the hardwood floor.
She walked into the living room, and the air changed.
She had changed out of the ruined bikini. Now she wore a silk robe, the color of dark champagne, tied loosely at her waist. It was short, ending mid-thigh, and where it gaped open with her movement, he could see the shadowed valley between her breasts, the smooth plane of her stomach. Beneath it, he knew she wore nothing. Her hair, still damp from the shower, fell in dark waves around her shoulders. And her glasses—those black-rimmed frames—were perched on her nose, making her look both studious and obscenely wanton.
She carried two glasses of amber liquid. Ice cubes clinked softly.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she said, her voice a warm alto that curled around him like smoke.
She placed one glass on the coffee table near his feet, then settled herself on the opposite end of the sectional, tucking her legs beneath her. The robe fell open further, revealing the entire length of her sleek, toned thigh. She made no move to close it.
Elias finally looked up from his phone, meeting her eyes. The magnetic pull was immediate, a physical yank in his gut. In the soft light, her emerald eyes were knowing, soft, and utterly calm.
“I…” he began, then stopped. His voice was rough, unused. He cleared his throat. “I’m not thinking. I’m… replaying.”
A small, knowing smile touched her lips. She took a slow sip of her whiskey, her eyes never leaving his over the rim of the glass. “Good scenes, I hope.”
“The best.” The admission was quiet, honest. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, grabbing his own glass. The whiskey was smooth, smoky, burning a welcome path down his throat. It grounded him a little. “The only scenes.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, the jazz filling the space between them. The city’s eternal murmur was a distant bassline. Here, in this room scented with sex and perfume and old books, was a new universe, one they had created with a single, irreversible act.
“It happened,” he said, not looking at her, staring into his glass.
“It did.”
“We… I…”
“You made love to me,” she finished, her voice gentle but firm. “On the pool deck. In the afternoon sun. For the first time.”
The phrase made love struck him. It was so at odds with the raw, frantic fucking it had been, and yet, it was more accurate. It had contained every shred of love he possessed.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said, finally turning his gaze to her. The conflict was there, plain in his hazel eyes. “The flirting… the touching… I never meant for it to go that far.”
She tilted her head, setting her glass down. She unpinned her hair, letting it fall around her face before pushing the glasses up her nose. “Did you hate it?”
“You know I didn’t.”
“Did it feel wrong?”
He hesitated. “Yes. And no. It felt… inevitable.”
“It was,” she said simply. She uncurled her legs and shifted closer, the silk whispering. She didn’t touch him, but her proximity was a tangible heat. “Elias, look at me. I’m thirty-six. I’ve lived. I’ve loved. I’ve lost. I know what regret feels like. What shame feels like.” She reached out then, her fingertips brushing the back of his hand where it rested on his knee. The contact was electric. “What we did out there… there’s not a single cell in my body that regrets it. I feel… lit up. Alive in a way I haven’t felt in years.”
“But I’m your son,” he whispered, the core of the turmoil.
“You are. My beautiful, caring, brilliant son. Who looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world. Who touches me with more reverence and passion than any man ever has. Who, just hours ago, gave me the most powerful orgasm of my life while holding me like I was porcelain.” Her voice wavered, thick with emotion. “That doesn’t feel wrong to me. It feels like a miracle I was too stupid to see coming.”
He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers with hers. Her hand was small in his, delicate but strong. “People would call it sick. Degenerate.”
“People aren’t here,” she said sharply, her grip tightening. “People didn’t watch my husband die slowly and painfully. People didn’t hold this house together through the grief. People haven’t spent the last two years falling in love with the man you’ve become, living with your kindness, your strength, your… your damn goodness, Elias. This, between us… it grew out of that. Out of love and loneliness and an attraction I tried to ignore until I couldn’t breathe from ignoring it.”
She was crying now, silent tears tracking through her perfect makeup. He moved instinctively, closing the distance between them, pulling her into his arms. She came willingly, collapsing against his chest, her face buried in his neck. He held her, breathing in the clean scent of her hair, feeling the tremors that ran through her.
“I’m not sorry,” she mumbled into his skin. “I can’t be. Don’t ask me to be.”
“I’m not asking,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “I’m… I’m just grappling. This is a big fucking door we just kicked off its hinges, Ma.”
A wet chuckle escaped her. “Language.”
He smiled, a real one, for the first time since they’d come inside. “You just gave a speech about us fucking on the patio, and you’re scolding me for swearing?”
She pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, smudging her eyeliner. She looked vulnerable and beautiful and defiant. “It’s my job to scold you. It’s also apparently my job to come on your cock. Multitasking.”
The crude, sudden words, delivered in her sweet, maternal tone, sent another jolt through him. His breath hitched. The conflict in his eyes didn’t vanish, but it was joined by a dark, smoldering ember of pure want.
She saw it. Her tears stopped. That sly, brazen look he was coming to crave returned. She traced a finger down the center of his chest, over his t-shirt.
“You liked it,” she stated, her voice dropping to a husky register. “Don’t bother denying it. I felt you. I felt all of you. The way you pulsed. The… the amount. My God, Elias.” A blush crept up her neck. “No one has ever… filled me like that. It was incredible.”
He remembered. The sensation of unleashing what felt like a torrent, an endless flood. The way her eyes had rolled back in her head as she felt it. The warmth spreading inside her. “I couldn’t stop,” he admitted, his own face heating.
“I didn’t want you to stop.” Her finger hooked into the neckline of his shirt. “I want to know… was that normal? For you?”
He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I’ve never… measured. But it’s always been… a lot. And since… since things with us started getting intense, it’s like it’s gotten more.” He looked at her, a new thought occurring. “You’re not… you know…”
“Pregnant?” She laughed, a light, genuine sound. “Sweetheart, I’ve been sterile since I was twenty-eight. Ovarian cysts. I never told you because it wasn’t relevant. It meant I could never give you a sibling. It also means,” she added, her gaze locking onto his, “that you never, ever have to pull out. Not with me. That’s just for us. A part of our… thing.”
The implication sank in, profound and deeply erotic. The last barrier, the practical one, dissolved. He could come inside her every time. The thought made him harden fully, pressing insistently against his sweatpants.
She felt the movement against her thigh where she was perched beside him. Her eyes darkened. “See?” she whispered. “Your body knows what it wants. Even if your mind is still catching up.”
She leaned in, her lips a breath from his. “Let me help your mind catch up.”
She kissed him. It was slower than the desperate kiss by the pool, more exploratory. A reaffirmation. Her lips were soft, parting for him, and he tasted whiskey and mint. His hands came up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. The kiss deepened, becoming hungrier, a silent conversation of tongues and shared breath that spoke of possession and wonder.
When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily. Her glasses were slightly fogged.
“Talk to me,” she said, resting her forehead against his. “Tell me what you’re thinking now. Right now.”
“I’m thinking,” he said, his voice low, “that I want to do it again. I’m thinking that I’m terrified of that want. I’m thinking that you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, and the fact that you’re mine in this way feels like I’ve stolen something from heaven. I’m thinking that I want to taste you. Everywhere. I’m thinking that I want to bend you over this couch and fuck you until you forget your own name, and then I want to hold you and watch old movies.”
She listened, her eyes wide, drinking in his words. A slow smile spread across her face, radiant and happy. “All of that,” she said. “We can do all of that. The movies, the fucking… the order doesn’t matter.” She brushed his tousled hair back from his forehead. “The fear… that’s okay. I’m a little scared too. But it’s a good fear. Like standing at the edge of something wonderful.”
“It is wonderful,” he conceded, the truth of it settling into his bones. The guilt was still there, a cold, small knot, but it was being surrounded, outnumbered by the warmth of her, by the rightness of her in his arms, by the blinding intensity of the pleasure they’d shared.
Her hand slipped from his face, trailing down his neck, over his chest, down his stomach. Her fingertips danced along the waistband of his sweatpants. “This fear… does it feel like this?” Her hand palmed him through the fabric, feeling his thick, hard length.
He hissed, hips bucking involuntarily into her touch. “No. That’s not fear.”
“What is it?” She squeezed gently, her eyes gleaming behind her lenses.
“Want,” he grunted. “Need.”
“For me?”
“Only for you. Only ever for you, Mum.”
The word, a title of familial love, now soaked in carnal meaning, seemed to ignite her. A flash of pure, unadulterated lust crossed her features. She shifted, pushing him back gently against the cushions. “Then let me take care of that need. Let me show you how sure I am.”
She slid off the couch, sinking to her knees on the plush rug between his legs. The sight stole the air from his lungs. Marisol Vance, on her knees before him, her champagne silk robe pooling around her, her incredible cleavage on display, her face looking up at him with a mix of worship and hunger. The black frames of her glasses made the image unbearably erotic.
“Ma,” he breathed, a warning and a plea.
“Shhh,” she soothed, her hands coming to rest on his thighs. “Just let me love you. This way. Let me thank you for today.”
Her hands hooked into the waistband of his sweatpants and the boxer briefs beneath. In one smooth, deliberate motion, she pulled them down, freeing him.
His cock sprang out, fully erect, thick and long and already glistening at the tip. The evening light caught the pale, smooth skin, highlighting the prominent veins, the broad head. It was a formidable sight, and her eyes widened appreciatively, a low hum of desire vibrating in her throat.
“Jesus, Elias,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Every time I see it, I can’t believe it’s real. That it’s yours.”
She didn’t touch him with her hands yet. Instead, she leaned forward, placing a soft, lingering kiss on the inside of his thigh. Her lips were warm and soft. He jumped at the sensation, his hands fisting in the blanket beside him. She kissed a trail up his thigh, her breath fanning over his balls, then the other thigh, moving with torturous slowness. She was worshipping him, mapping his flesh with her mouth.
Finally, she turned her head, nuzzling the base of his shaft. She inhaled deeply, her eyes fluttering closed. “You smell like me,” she murmured, her voice thick. “You smell like us.”
Then she looked up, meeting his gaze, her emerald eyes holding his with that supernatural magnetic pull. Holding it, she opened her mouth.
She didn’t just take him in. She presented him with her tongue first, flat and pink, and licked a long, slow stripe from the very base of his cock all the way to the dripping tip. The sensation was electric, a ribbon of fire along his most sensitive nerve. He groaned, his head falling back against the couch.
“Look at me, baby,” she commanded softly.
He forced his head up, his eyes meeting hers again. The connection was devastating. To see his own mother’s face, those intelligent, loving eyes behind her sexy glasses, as her tongue darted out to capture the bead of precum from his slit. She hummed as she tasted him, a sound of pure pleasure that vibrated through his core.
“You taste like you,” she said, a wicked smile on her glossy lips. “Salty. Sweet. Perfect.”
Then she took him into her mouth.
She started with just the head, her lips forming a perfect, tight ‘O’ around the corona. Her tongue swirled around the sensitive underside, flicking at the frenulum. Her hands came up to cradle his balls, rolling them gently in their sac. The dual sensations were overwhelming. Her mouth was hot, wet, and impossibly soft.
“Fuck, Mum,” he gasped, his hips twitching.
She took that as encouragement. She sank deeper, her lips sliding down his considerable length. There was no hesitation, no gagging. She took him with a practiced ease that spoke of her genuine enthusiasm and her hedonistic past. She moved slowly, establishing a rhythm, her head bobbing up and down, her lips sealed tight around him. Each time she went down, she took a little more, until her nose was buried in the coarse hair at his base. She held him there, deep in her throat, for a long, thrilling second before pulling back up with a wet, slurping sound.
“Oh, God,” he chanted, his hands rising to touch her hair but hovering, not daring to push. “Oh, God, just like that.”
She established a steady, deep rhythm. Her technique was not just skilled; it was loving. Every suck was fervent, every lick was adoring. She used her hands in tandem, one stroking the lower part of his shaft in time with her mouth, the other gently massaging his balls. Her eyes remained locked on his, wide and unblinking, reflecting the lamplight and her own deep satisfaction. She was watching his every reaction, devouring his pleasure as eagerly as she was devouring him.
The obscenity of it was breathtaking. The sounds alone—the wet sucks, the soft pops as she released him, her low hums of approval—would have been enough to drive him mad. Combined with the sight, it was transcendent. Her cheeks hollowed with suction. A string of saliva connected her lower lip to his shining cock when she pulled off for a moment to breathe, her chest heaving.
“You’re so good at that,” he rasped, his voice barely recognizable.