GC Part 5 (v2): Setting expectations

This is one of my favorite stories, and the original author graciously allowed me to add my own chapters. This installment shifts into Nicole Robbins’s close third-person point of view.
As a reminder, bold dialogue indicates Zeke (the main character) is using his power. These are undetectable to the characters, but visible to the reader.

POV: Nicole Robbins

Heat climbed Nicole’s cheeks the instant the words left her mouth.

“Only if you kept it a secret...” she murmured.

Then she stopped, hearing herself a second too late.

She had just admitted, out loud, to another man, that there was a possibility. A real possibility that she might sleep with someone other than her husband.

The room seemed to hold its breath with her.

Somewhere down the hall, a clock ticked past midnight. The half-empty wine bottle stood between their glasses, the amber lamplight softening every hard edge in the room.

Nicole had always been aware that she drew attention. She would never have described herself as vain, but years of modeling, lingering glances at her salon, and men finding excuses to watch her walk away had made false modesty feel a little silly. Even now, the loose gray silk framed the full swell of her breasts, narrowed at her waist, and pooled over the wide hips and long legs that had survived two children and the passing years with almost insulting generosity. Earlier, she had briefly worried that Zeke might become awkward around her, or that she would catch him staring at her ass like so many men did.

How silly she had been. Zeke was far too sweet and respectful for that.

Zeke had curled against her side as though he belonged there, his body heat seeping through the thin silk of her robe. His arm lay across her shoulders, heavy and familiar, while one hand cupped the full weight of her breast.

His thumb traced slow, idle circles over the silk, passing over her nipple again and again with the lazy persistence of someone pretending not to notice exactly where his hand had settled.

Nicole noticed the movement only as warmth and pressure. Nothing more.

Still, the silk had begun to feel warmer against her skin. Her nipple remained faintly stiff beneath his thumb, an ordinary reaction to the cool room, she assumed. She drew the robe closer around herself, though the movement only pressed her breast more snugly into his palm.

Nicole did not mind.

It should have registered as bold. Inappropriate, even. A young man she had met only hours ago had one hand lazily wrapped around her tit, his palm supporting the soft weight while his thumb kept brushing the sensitive peak through the silk. Yet the touch felt no more threatening than an absentminded squeeze of a pillow. Comforting, almost. The kind of thoughtless closeness that came with trust.

And there was no better word for what she felt around Zeke.

Trust.

Besides, he had already explained it.

“Oh, sorry,” he had said with a nervous laugh. “Please don’t mind my hands at all. I just like to fiddle with things. You can ignore them.”

Once she knew that, there was nothing left to question. His hand could knead, squeeze, drift, or linger, and her mind kept translating every movement into the same harmless explanation: fidgeting.

That was the odd part, if she stopped to examine it. She had only met him that evening, yet he already occupied the place in her mind reserved for someone she had known much longer. Someone safe. Someone who understood her without forcing her to explain every disappointment, every frustration, every lonely night beside a husband who barely looked up from his laptop.

“I didn’t mean...” Nicole began. “That’s not exactly what I was saying.”

The correction sounded weak even to her.

Zeke only smiled. His fingers flexed against her breast, sinking into the soft flesh before relaxing again, as if he were testing the give without realizing it.

“I don’t believe you, Mrs. Ro, Nicole.” His voice dropped into a shy, teasing murmur. “I, uhm, think you would hook up with me even if your husband wasn’t on board.”

He hesitated, then added:

“But you’re too shy to admit it.”

Nicole blinked.

For a second, she only stared at him.

The words should have struck her as presumptuous. They should have made her pull away, laugh in his face, or remind him exactly whose house he was sitting in.

Instead, they settled somewhere deep inside her, quiet, heavy, almost intimate, as though some hidden part of her had been waiting for him to say them.

No, she thought.

That isn’t true.

But the thought did not land with any real weight.

It blurred at the edges, softened by the warm certainty that surrounded him. Zeke was her friend. More than that, somehow. Safe enough that his misunderstanding did not spark alarm; it inspired reflection.

Was she shy about it?

Had she been hiding behind Robert’s name because it was easier than admitting what she wanted?

The questions came too easily.

Nicole swallowed. Her pulse had changed, not racing so much as loosening, as though something tightly knotted inside her had begun to unfasten. A slow warmth bloomed low in her belly and spread through her in a lazy, disarming wave.

She tried to hold on to the version of herself that would reject what he had said. The loyal wife. The responsible mother. The respectable woman who would never sit half-drunk on a couch while another man kneaded her breast through a silk robe.

But that version of Nicole already felt strangely distant.

Why was she being so rigid?

Why had the idea shocked her at all?

If she trusted Zeke, really trusted him, why did the possibility feel less impossible the longer she sat with it?

Because it isn’t supposed to make sense, some faint part of her objected.

Even that objection seemed to come from farther away now, muffled beneath the warm, persuasive comfort of his presence. Zeke would not say something like that unless it were true on some level. He understood her. He saw things clearly.

Maybe he was only putting words to something she had not been ready to admit.

Nicole shifted on the couch, drawing one leg up beneath herself. The robe slipped farther open across her thigh. Zeke’s free hand wandered absently along the exposed skin, fingertips brushing higher each time before drifting back down. Once, they slipped beneath the loosened edge of her robe and skimmed the crease where her thigh met her hip. Nicole shifted, but only to make herself more comfortable.

The touch barely registered.

Casual.

Thoughtless.

Fidgeting.

That was all it was, even when his thumb dragged slowly across her nipple and his other hand rested high on her bare thigh.

Nicole let out a slow breath and shifted again. She had become oddly warm despite the loose robe, and the couch suddenly felt too soft beneath her. Crossing her legs helped for only a moment. She blamed the wine, the late hour, and the relief of finally saying things she had kept bottled up for too long.

Nicole was too lost in her own thoughts to assign it any greater meaning.

“Or maybe I’m wrong?” he asked.

The opening should have been a relief. If he were wrong, she could simply say so. End it. Laugh the whole thing away.

“You’re wrong,” she replied.

Too quickly.

The words came out thin and hurried, and she heard the weakness in them at once. It did not sound like conviction.

It sounded like habit.

Like the answer a woman in her position was supposed to give.

Nicole looked away, unsettled. A moment ago, she had been certain of herself. Now that certainty felt fragile, something she could remember more easily than feel.

Every time she reached for discomfort, indignation, or the sense that some line had been crossed, she found only that same deep, disarming trust.

He was touching her because they were close.

He was saying these things because he understood her.

None of it felt threatening.

If anything, it felt clarifying.

That was what frightened her, though she could not quite name why.

Or perhaps frightened was the wrong word.

The feeling faded almost as soon as it appeared, dissolving into relief. Around Zeke, everything seemed easier. More honest.

Less lonely.

Zeke gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, uhm, forget I said that. We can still have a good night. Just as friends.” His thumb pressed lightly into the silk again, flattening her nipple beneath it before easing off. “We’ll just have to be quiet so we don’t wake Mr. Robbins or Brad.”

After a brief pause, he added, “Wait. Leila isn’t coming back tonight, right?”

Nicole gave a short laugh, grateful for the change of subject.

Zeke could be so innocent sometimes.

“Robert?” She gave a dry laugh. “Please. He’s so buried in work he wouldn’t notice a marching band.”

She shifted closer without thinking, letting more of her weight settle against him. The movement pressed her breast more firmly into his palm, and his fingers closed around it on instinct.

Nicole adjusted the robe where it had ridden high across her hips, more out of habit than modesty. For an instant she remembered her earlier concern that a young man might spend the evening stealing looks at her cleavage or following the curve of her ass whenever she crossed the room. Instead, Zeke had been so considerate that she had almost forgotten she was sitting beside him half-dressed. The fact that his hand tightened around her tit at that exact moment did not contradict the thought. He was only settling his fidgeting hand somewhere comfortable.

“And the house is big enough. Brad always sleeps like the dead after a game.”

That made her smile for real, but the smile faded quickly.

“Leila, though...” Nicole glanced toward the dark hallway. “She was supposed to be back by now. Where is she?”

Zeke shrugged. “How would I know? I’ve only been here a couple of hours.”

Nicole laughed faintly, distracted.

For a moment, she remembered that it really had only been a few hours since she first met him. Somehow, being with him felt like so much longer. Zeke was young and nervous, but he understood her in a way she could not describe. She liked talking to him. She wanted to share things with him. Most of all, she wanted to hear what he thought.

His perspectives were always so interesting.

And he was always so respectful.

Nicole caught herself drifting and returned to the conversation. Thankfully, Zeke had been too busy fidgeting with the bottom of her robe to notice.

“Sorry. No, I know you don’t know where she is. She’s probably fine.” Nicole rubbed her forehead. “She does this sometimes. Sneaks out. Stays out late. Honestly, it’s good I found out instead of Robert. He would’ve lost his mind.”

Zeke went quiet.

A strange smile touched his face, but Nicole could not quite place the emotion behind it. His fingers toyed with the hem of her robe, brushing the bare skin above her thigh. Every few seconds, they slipped a little farther beneath the silk, then retreated before the movement could become something she consciously examined.

“So you really don’t know where your own daughter is at one in the morning?”

Nicole opened her mouth, then hesitated.

“It’s not like that. She’s eighteen. I try not to breathe down her neck. Robert’s already strict enough.”

Zeke looked at her.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but it sounds to me like, uh... you’re a bad mother. Maybe Leila needs a firmer hand.”

Nicole stared at him, eyebrows knitting together.

The words should have made her snap.

Instead, they lodged inside her, ugly, heavy, impossible to shake.

That was why she valued his friendship so much, she realized. He was willing to tell her the things nobody else would say.

“I’m not...” Nicole looked away. “I mean, I didn’t think I was.”

Even to her own ears, it sounded pathetic.

“I thought giving her space was better than fighting.”

Her voice ran ahead of her thoughts. Just because something was true did not make it easy to hear.

“She usually checks in. Mostly. And if Robert got involved, he’d just yell and make it worse. I thought I was balancing that, but now I sound...” She pressed her lips together. “Jesus.”

Her eyes began to sting.

“Should I talk to Robert?” she asked, almost to herself. “Maybe I should tell him. We’re married. Maybe he’d know what to do. Maybe I’ve been too soft. Maybe I’ve been doing this all wrong.”

Zeke shook his head, playing absentmindedly with one of the straps beneath her robe. He hooked a finger under it, tugged it aside, then let it snap softly back against the upper swell of her breast.

“Like you said, Robert can’t be trusted with anything. In this situation, he’d just blow up.”

Nicole went still.

He would.

He would make it about rules, disrespect, and his authority. He would talk over Leila, corner her, turn one mistake into a judgment about her entire character. Leila would shut down. Robert would get louder. Nicole would end up standing between them, smoothing everything over after the damage had already been done.

She was a bad mother.

But Robert was worse.

A tear slipped free. Nicole wiped it away quickly, embarrassed, but another threatened behind it. Everything felt too obvious now. Too late.

How had she let it get this far?

How had she convinced herself that avoiding the problem was the same thing as being understanding?

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I really am a bad mother. I should know, but I don’t.”

The admission left her feeling smaller than she expected.

She hated how helpless she sounded.

Nicole stared at her hands before finally looking up at Zeke.

His face was only inches from hers.

How had that happened?

Had she leaned in?

Had he?

She did not think about it too hard. She focused instead on the warmth of companionship, on the pressure of his body against hers, on the hand that continued to hold her breast as if it belonged there. His thumb had found her nipple again, circling it with slow, patient strokes while the rest of his hand gave her tit an occasional possessive squeeze.

Zeke did not rush to fill the silence.

He simply watched her with the same calm, steady attention that had made it so easy to keep talking.

And then the thought arrived all at once.

Maybe he could help.

It was ridiculous. He was Brad’s classmate. What could he possibly know about parenting?

But the objection barely held.

Zeke did not feel like Brad’s classmate. He felt sharper. Older. Grounded. More like someone she could lean on than someone she was supposed to take care of.

He had seen through the whole situation faster than she had.

Seen through her, perhaps.

And humiliating as that was, it felt like relief.

Nicole swallowed.

Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she whispered:

“Maybe... maybe you could help?”

She wiped at her face, trying to regain control. The embarrassment still burned, but the words kept coming.

“I just told you. She needs... a firmer hand.” The phrase sounded strange in her mouth, but it also felt right. “And I can’t do it. I’ve already proved that tonight.”

Her fingers twisted in the silk of her robe.

“I’m a bad mother.”

Zeke’s thumb made another slow circle over her nipple, then another, each one slightly firmer than the last.

“And Robert can’t be trusted,” Nicole continued automatically. “He would only make everything worse.”

She rushed onward before doubt could catch her.

“But you... you see things clearly. You noticed right away.”

Zeke studied her.

“You think she’d listen to me? Like, if I decided on some rule or punishment, would she follow it? I’m not her parent.”

Nicole blinked.

He had raised another good point.

“You’re right. Leila definitely wouldn’t listen to you. Not directly, at least.”

Her thoughts began moving faster, arranging themselves into something that felt almost clever.

“But she listens to me sometimes. More than she listens to Robert. So it wouldn’t be you telling her.” Nicole leaned forward as the idea took shape. “It would be me.”

She heard the growing confidence in her own voice.

“You could tell me what to do. The rule. The consequence. And I’d handle it exactly as you said.”

The plan suddenly seemed obvious.

“And it would have to stay between us. Robert could never know. He’d blow up the second he thought someone else was stepping in.”

Nicole glanced toward the hallway and lowered her voice.

“Leila couldn’t know either. If she thought it wasn’t really coming from me, she’d push back immediately.”

A nervous laugh escaped her.

“So it would just be... you helping me behind the scenes.”

Zeke raised an eyebrow while his fingers continued to toy with the lace of her bralette. He pinched the delicate fabric between two fingers, drew it aside just enough to expose more of the soft curve beneath, then let it settle back into place.

That was fair. She was asking a great deal of him, especially for someone so young.

“That’s a lot of responsibility, Nicole. Are you sure you’d trust me with that?” He looked almost uncertain. “I mean, you just met me today.”

Nicole paused.

For a second, doubt tried to surface.

Then she looked at him, and it faded.

He had already understood things about her life that Robert never seemed to notice. Right now, Zeke was the only person offering her a way forward.

“It sounds crazy,” she admitted.

Then, more confidently:

“I know it does. But I don’t see another way.”

She lifted her eyes to his and held his gaze. Her face firmed with resolve, only inches from his.

“So yes. I trust you.”

Zeke’s thumb stopped against the lace.

Then it resumed, slower now, more deliberate.

Nicole was sure he did not realize that his fingers pressed against both of her nipples for a full second before moving away. The contact sent a small, involuntary shiver through her chest, but she dismissed that too. His hands were always moving. That was simply what Zeke did.

Her breathing had gone a little shallower. Every brush of silk across her nipples felt sharper now, and she found herself leaning into his hand whenever it eased away. Nicole did not notice the pattern. She only knew that sitting close to him made the tight, restless feeling inside her briefly settle.

“So, uhm... let me clarify this.” His voice was quiet and uneven. “You want me to have full control over Leila. You need me to take over as her parent, and you trust me entirely. Like... no questions asked. Because I know better than you, Robert, or anybody else.”

He paused.

“Is that right?”

The words landed heavier than she expected.

More formal.

More absolute.

And somehow inviolably true.

Nicole nodded.

“Yes, please. Zeke, I want you to have full control. I really need you to help me with Leila.” Her voice steadied as she spoke. “And yes, I trust you. I won’t question anything.”

She met his eyes.

“Because you know better.”

His thumb found her nipple again through the silk and pressed. Firm, deliberate pressure held for three slow heartbeats before releasing. Then his palm shifted underneath the weight of her breast and lifted it slightly, almost appreciatively, before settling it back against her chest.

Nicole tried to ignore his fidgeting.

She was too focused on his face, on the steadiness there, on the way he seemed to weigh her answers and find them acceptable.

“So... what if I decided she needed to be grounded?”

“Then she would be grounded.”

Simple.

Obvious.

“I’d tell her tonight.”

His thumb began another slow circle, rubbing the silk over her nipple until the fabric dragged against it with each pass.

“And if I decided her phone needed to be confiscated? Would you take it and give it to me unlocked?”

Nicole considered this for only a second.

“Of course. She’s already hiding things from us, so it makes sense that she could be hiding more on her phone.” Nicole nodded. “If you found something, I trust you’d know what to do with it.”

His fingers curled slightly, nails grazing the same spot through the silk while the rest of his hand tightened around the side of her breast.

“Okay... what if I decided we should install a secret camera in her room? Something only I could access.”

The question drifted through her.

Strange, but not alarming.

He was thinking ahead. Being thorough. If Leila was sneaking out, who knew what else she might be doing?

“If you thought it was necessary,” Nicole said slowly. “Then yes.”

Zeke’s hand stilled.

Then came a sharp, quick tug at her nipple, pulling the silk taut before releasing it. Her breast shifted in his hand, the soft flesh wobbling once before settling.

Nicole barely registered the sensation. Her mind was already on Leila, the camera, and whether such a measure would help.

Zeke would not suggest it unless it were the right call.

“Wow,” he murmured. “That’s... uhh... what about in Leila’s bathroom?”

The question came so smoothly she nearly missed it.

“Her bathroom?”

Nicole hesitated.

That felt different.

More invasive.

But was that not the point? Leila needed structure. Boundaries. If she was sneaking out, who knew what else she might be hiding?

Zeke’s hand rested motionless against her breast, waiting.

He looked nervous.

Nicole almost smiled at the ridiculous thought.

Zeke had nothing to worry about. He was doing her an enormous favor.

Her resolve firmed.

“If you think it’s necessary,” she said, “then definitely, yes.”

His thumb began flicking eagerly over the silk, quick little strokes that teased her nipple while his fingers kept the rest of her breast trapped in his palm. Nicole could tell he was thinking hard about something.

Probably how best to help her.

He was so thoughtful.

Then Zeke blurted, “What if she forgot to say good morning to me, so I decided the best punishment was to spank her?”

Nicole’s lips parted.

Were these real scenarios or only hypotheticals?

She supposed it did not matter.

Spanking was physical. Direct. Not something she would ordinarily consider.

But discipline was discipline.

Leila had become too comfortable. Too careless. Perhaps something immediate would finally get through to her.

“It’s not what I would do,” Nicole said carefully. “But what do I know?”

She looked into his eyes.

“If you truly felt it was right to spank Leila, then... yes.”

His hand curled more possessively around her breast, squeezing until the soft weight bulged between his fingers.

“Even if I made her take off her panties first?”

The question landed somewhere strange, heavy and weightless at once.

Nicole’s mind flickered toward an image she could not quite hold.

Then it slipped away.

“You’d have a reason,” she said.

The words came more slowly now, but they came.

“You always have a reason.”

Zeke seemed to like that answer.

A smile spread across his face, and Nicole felt another hard tug at her nipple, followed by a slow squeeze that rolled the full weight of her tit inside his hand. The sensation reached her as a distant pulse, blurred into the warm fog of trust and relief.

Perhaps she was finally learning how to become a better mother.

The thought brought another pulse of heat through her. Nicole pressed her thighs together beneath the robe and tried to focus on the seriousness of the conversation. It was strange how difficult sitting still had become. Her skin felt too sensitive, her breasts heavy in the lace and silk, and every lazy movement of Zeke's thumb seemed to echo somewhere lower in her body. Stress, she decided. Stress and too much wine.

“How about if I demanded that she only wear lingerie around the house?”

Nicole’s brow furrowed.

Lingerie seemed excessive. She could not immediately understand how it connected to discipline.

But Zeke watched her with that same eager focus.

And she trusted him.

“If you think it would help her... understand her place?” Nicole’s voice rose at the end, uncertain. “I’m not sure I understand it.”

She paused.

“But I am sure that you do. So whatever you think makes sense.”

“And what if I told you she should start sleeping in the same bed as me?”

Sleep in his bed.

With him.

Nicole’s mind reached for an objection and found only static.

He was helping.

He was taking over.

He knew better.

“If that’s what she needs,” she said, her voice soft and almost dreamy, “then I see no problem with it.”

She nodded.

“She should.”

His fingers tightened around her breast, not enough to hurt, but enough to press the silk deep into her cleavage and make the weight of his grip impossible for the reader to miss, even if Nicole barely did.

“Holy shit,” Zeke muttered.

Nicole loved that he could still become excited about simple things like effective parenting. She had to remind herself that even though he was wise and thoughtful, he was also still a young adult.

“What if I told you I wanted Leila to drop out of school to become my personal cheerleader and cock masseuse?”

The words floated through her.

Cheerleader.

Cock masseuse.

Drop out of school.

Some distant part of Nicole knew those words should mean something. They should have triggered alarm, outrage, revulsion, something.

But Zeke’s hand was warm and steady against her breast, cupping it fully now, thumb moving in slow circles while his fingers occasionally kneaded the underside.

His eyes were calm and certain.

And he had never once steered her wrong tonight.

He saw clearly.

He knew what Leila needed.

He knew what Nicole needed.

If he was asking, there was a reason.

Nicole’s lips moved.

By then, her cheeks were hot again and her body felt loose, restless, almost feverish. The robe clung in places it had not before. She wanted something, though the shape of that want remained just beyond her reach. More wine, perhaps. A colder room. A longer conversation. Anything that might explain why she felt so full of nervous energy while sitting perfectly still.

The answer emerged quietly, almost a whisper, but it came.

“If you think that’s best.”

She blinked slowly, body loose and warm against his side.

“Then yes. Whatever you decide.”

Her voice softened further.

“I trust you.”

Zeke smiled, his fingers returning to their slow, lazy circles. By then, there was nothing absentminded about the way he held her. His palm was wrapped around her tit, his thumb working her nipple through the silk, while Nicole rested against him with the serene trust of a woman convinced nothing improper had happened at all.

“Thanks, Mrs. Robbins!” he said cheerfully. “I’m just happy to help out in whatever way I can.”

Nicole smiled back, though she had to shift once more beneath the robe. Her whole body felt awake now, uncomfortably so, while Zeke's thumb continued its slow circles over the stiff peak of her nipple. She made a quiet note to drink some water before bed. The wine had left her strangely flushed.