and continue trying

Her body was taut against mine, every nerve in her trembling as though she were standing at the edge of a cliff. I could feel the staccato rhythm of her heart, the heat of her breath where it spilled ragged into the crook of my neck. My skin prickled with shame and need—shame that it wasn’t my skin at all, need that it was still hers against me.

I pulled back just enough to see her face. The tracks of her tears glistened in the weak hospital light. Her lips were parted, trembling, swollen from that kiss she claimed she couldn’t bear.

“You’re fighting yourself,” I whispered. The rasp of the voice made it sound like a taunt, a husky leer, but my words were ****. “You want me but you hate that you do.”

Her eyes flared. “Don’t,” she snapped, but her voice cracked in the middle. “Don’t make me admit that.”

“I don’t have to make you admit anything,” I said, my hand cupping her cheek. The fingers felt alien—slender, dry, tipped in gold paint—but she didn’t flinch away. She pressed into it, just slightly, as though she craved the touch she claimed she couldn’t stomach.

“God, Steve,” she breathed, shuddering. “You sound like her. You look like her. But when you hold me, I feel like I’m sixteen again, sneaking around behind her back, trying not to get caught.”

The words hit me like a ****. Her confession, raw and twisted, tangled time and identity until my head swam. I leaned closer, lips brushing hers, but stopped short—let her make the choice.

Her eyes searched mine. I saw the storm in them: daughter, wife, widow, orphan. She whispered, “You don’t know how wrong this is.”

I let out a harsh laugh, too throaty in this body. “More wrong than asking me to play house with your father?”

She shut her eyes tight, but her hand slid to my chest anyway, pressing over the swell of Marsha’s implants. My breath caught. The touch wasn’t tender—it was testing, punishing, as if she wanted to remind herself what body she was touching, and still couldn’t stop.

“Andrea…”

Her name came out in that husky smoker’s growl, and something in her broke. She crushed her mouth to mine again, angry, messy, full of grief and hunger.

The kiss was a collision. Teeth clashed, lips dragged, her sob catching in my throat. I grabbed at her waist, **** to feel her through the cotton of her blouse. My hips shifted against her, clumsy, the curves of this body forcing me into rhythms that weren’t mine. It made me groan—a horrible, nasal sound—and she whimpered against my mouth as though it hurt and healed her at once.

Her hands roamed, frantic, as if she were trying to both push me away and pull me closer. She broke from the kiss, panting, eyes wide and wild. “This is her body,” she gasped. “I’m touching my mother’s body.”

“No,” I snarled, clutching her wrists, forcing her to look at me. “You’re touching me.”

Her pupils dilated, her breath came faster, and for one dizzying moment I saw her believe it.

it against the swell of Marsha’s chest. Her fingers trembled as they rested there, brushing the curve, lingering just long enough to make the forbidden feel electric. Her eyes fluttered closed, and I could see the internal war raging behind her lashes—grief, desire, guilt, confusion—all tangled together, raw and trembling.

“You… you shouldn’t,” she gasped, voice breaking, yet her body arched subtly into the touch, pressing closer despite the protests rattling in her mind.

“Neither should I,” I croaked, husky and alien, the sound scraping like a blade across both our nerves. But my hands were drawn to her anyway, fingertips tracing the warmth of her skin over Marsha’s curves. I was learning this body, every swell and hollow, every tender ridge that wasn’t mine—but it was mine now, and it was her, and in that collision, I could feel the lust and fear pounding between us.

She shivered violently, leaning into me, and whispered, “God, Steve… it’s like… I can feel you inside her. It’s… wrong… but I can’t stop it.”

Her confession was a ****. The guilt, the shame, the raw desire—it all painted over the line between past and present. I leaned closer, forehead to forehead, feeling the heat of her breath against my cheek. “I’m still me,” I murmured, almost pleading. “Inside, it’s still Steve. Every inch of this,” I gestured vaguely at my transformed body, “every curve, every line, it’s still me for you.”

Her hands traced the lines of my shoulders, slipping over the softness that hadn’t been there before, her fingers hesitating over Marsha’s folds, memorizing, exploring, daring to touch the forbidden. The psychological tension twisted tighter—her mind screaming mother, her heart whispering husband, and her body… her body betrayed them both.