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Chastity turned over onto her other shoulder, leaving her pillow behind her. She bit on a nail, before grinning again. He had a great fucking body, too. Lean in all the right places, and with delicious forearms. Her friends never understood her thing for forearms, and maybe it was odd; maybe it was just her little fetish. Everybody had one! But, still, he had delicious forearms, the perfect shape, not too beefy that they looked like rugby balls, like gym rats got, yet still holding within them a sense of strength and power.
But, even beyond his great looks, his perfect body, this outrageously fantastic-to-look-at-man, there was a person with a kind soul and a big heart. He was someone who smiled easily, laughed generously, and gave everything his
all. He didn’t half-ass, and he didn’t make excuses. As far as role models go, he was as good as it got. He was the source of so much of Chastity’s confidence in life, of her ambition, and the fearlessness with which she approached every new challenge, every unexpected hurdle.
Chastity sighed, wondering how on Earth such a seemingly perfect person could exist. Oh, sure, he had his flaws. He enjoyed to play poker, and only when there was money involved, but not excessively, at least. He wasn’t in the hole to loan sharks… that had to count for something, right?
His sense of humor could tend toward blackness, and at inappropriate times (though she didn’t mind that so much). He wasn’t exactly well-read, but it’s not like he was stupid. He wasn’t high-brow, and she knew that he could never get there. He just didn’t have it in him. But that wasn’t altogether a bad thing, was it? Sometimes a little black humor is just what a certain situation needs. Sometimes a little low-brow toilet humor is also appropriate – she was no stranger to how that could defuse a situation in high school, anyway.
She supposed it was her crush on him… no, crush was too soft a word. She supposed it was the fact that she was secretly in love with him that made him seem so great. She knew it was naïve of her, she knew it was silly. There was simply no such thing as a perfect person, or a perfect man. All the magazines said that. All the books said that. Perfect people, and especially perfect men, simply don’t exist.
She conceded that it was the fact that she’d never been with a boy before who made her happy, who made her feel good, also contributed to the dream-like aura that seemed to surround the man. Every boyfriend she’d ever had – she counted three off on her fingers – had wanted nothing more than to win arguments, or a place in her bed.
But, she reconciled, did that really matter?
Chastity shook off the thoughts, decided she’d rather be well-rested before the long drive down to the coast than stay up half the night considering her love for her step-father, and the rather tricky situation that would put her whole family in if it ever got out.
But before she actually tried to go to sleep, she sent a hand south, beneath the elastic lip of her pajama pants. It was a nightly ritual, and thoughts of her step-father topless in the pool flooded hotly into her mind.
* * *
“So how long is the drive?” Chastity asked Matt over breakfast. It was half past seven – way earlier than she liked to get up – and before her on her plate was a piece of toast that looked as dry as the Sahara desert. But, she thought, since it was a special occasion, and since she was about to go on a weekend holiday with her hunky step-father to the beach, she was going to relax a little. She spread butter on her toast generously. No watching the diet this weekend!
“Four hours maybe, depending on the traffic,” he said, looking up over the newspaper. “Could be three and a half if we hit all green on the way out of the city.”
“Think that’s likely?”
“Maybe. It’s Friday, remember, not Saturday, so people won’t really be driving out yet.”
“Is it okay you’ve got the day off?”
“Yeah, I applied for it ages ago.”
“Really?” Chastity asked, her voice hitching high. “So, you’d been planning this trip for a while?”
“Sure. You’ve always said you wanted to learn how to surf. I know how to surf, sort of, but Dylan is practically a semi-pro. He’ll have you riding the waves in no time.”
“Oh,” Chastity said. She hadn’t realized that Matt had planned it so far in advance. He’d remembered that she wanted to learn to surf. It was… well, surprisingly thoughtful. Not surprising of him, she guessed. Just… surprising in general.
“So after this what’s next on the list, then?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Drums, but I can’t teach you that, and we’re definitely not getting a set in this house.”
“Wow,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“I pay attention, sweetheart,” he said, this time not looking up from his newspaper. “You know, listen to you when you speak to me.”
Chastity didn’t let her internal smile break out onto her face. “So are we going to pick Dylan up, or meet him there?”
“Dylan? He never comes into the city. He’s a beach boy through and through.”
“Is he hot?” Chastity asked, teasing.
“What?” her step-father said quickly, looking at her through serious eyes.
“Just a joke, Matt.”
“Right, right,” he said, nodding slowly. “Uh, I don’t know, that’s not really my expertise.” He tapped his ring finger. “Straight as an arrow.”
