expended.
We just did the unthinkable.
After a minute, Tim felt his mom shift position on his bed, sliding up next to him and bringing his head to rest in her lap. She ran one of her hands through his hair softly, as though gently consoling him, making everything okay.
“You should eat your food soon,” she said. “You don’t want it to get cold.”
Tim sat up and stared at her. She didn’t look any different. She still looked like his mom.
“Mom…” It was impossible for him to find the words for what he was feeling. After a second, she reached out her hand and cupped his cheek in it.
Maybe I don’t have to say anything?
“I’ll see you in the morning, honey,” she said. “Any requests for breakfast?”
“Uh… waffles, I guess?”
“You got it.”
Tim tried not to stare at his mother’s breasts as she leaned in close to him and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. Then, without saying another word, she got up and left the room.
He let out a sigh and then collapsed back on his bed. He was tired, but before he went to sleep, he got up and walked over to his plate. His mom had laid out the food for him in separate little sections, keeping the rice from mixing in with the stir fry and the vegetables. It was exactly the way he liked it best.
Tim smiled.
END
FREE EXCERPT FROM ILLICIT INHERITENCE
It’s okay, honey. This will be our little secret.
CHAPTER 1
The sun was setting over the horizon, and John Ludling was about as tired as a person could be. He was jogging down the sidewalk at a medium pace, headed home from the gym after an intense spring afternoon of training, his gym shorts and tank top slightly damp from the exertion.
It still wasn’t enough, he thought to himself. John was only a couple of months away from his high school graduation. His goal, if possible, was to completely reinvent himself by the end of the upcoming summer. That meant eating healthy, pushing himself to get out into new situations, and of course, adding some muscle onto his currently rather scrawny frame.
“Well, there’s always next year,” John muttered. He turned onto the street that led down to his family’s suburban home, and slowed to a walk. He wasn’t entirely dissatisfied with his progress, but the complete overhaul that he’d been aiming for was still outside of his grasp. John had discovered that change, like many people had told him over the course of his life, was very hard to bring about through one’s own force of will.
He cut across his family’s lawn on the way in. His mom’s car was the only one parked in the driveway, which was not at all unusual. The Ludling family was only a family of two, though the amount of love within it could have supported many more.
John had been adopted at an early age, shortly after both of his birth parents were killed in a car accident. His mother, Natalie, had only barely been an adult herself when she’d taken him in. Ever since then it had just been the two of them, though they shared a close enough bond to make it feel like a natural arrangement. Natalie was John’s mom, the only one he’d ever known or needed, and he cared for her more deeply than anyone else.
“Mom, I’m home,” called John as he walked inside. “And I’m sweaty.”
“I can smell that much from over here!” Natalie was standing in front of the kitchen counter, dicing up carrots on a cutting board. “How was your workout?”
John eyed his mom as he shut the door behind him and walked into the living room. She was wearing a thin, long sleeve white blouse and a pair of tight clinging jeans, with a pink apron pulled over. Natalie was an attractive woman, though John did his best not to notice. At times it could be difficult, especially given to how prone his friends were to pointing it out and making inappropriate comments, which always managed to get under John’s skin.
Natalie was short, but she had always carried herself with enough proud,