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, motherly authority to make up for it. She had large, nicely formed breasts, a fantastic butt that her tight clothes frequently exaggerated, and a fit figure that was almost magical in the way it still managed to have curves in all the right places. Her hair was long, and at the moment she had it woven into an elegant looking braid.

“It was good, I guess.” John walked over and leaned against the back rest of the couch, facing his mom and watching as she slowly made dinner. “I just wish I was seeing more results. I feel like I’m running out of time for the fall.”

“Oh, sweetie…” Natalie set the knife down and wiped her hands on her apron. “It takes time, remember? And you still have a couple of months left.”

She came over and slid up against the couch next to him. The angle that his mom was leaned at made her cleavage look like it was about to explode out of the low cut top of her blouse, and it was a struggle for John not to glance down at it.

“Uh, yeah mom,” he said, feeling her presence next to him. “I guess you’re right.”

Natalie was his mom, and John loved her, but for the past couple of years, their relationship had been growing more complicated with every passing day. Ever since he’d reached maturity, John had been acutely aware of just how sexy and attractive his mother was, to his own shame and embarrassment.

She was in her mid-thirties, but looked as though she was in her mid-twenties, and caught the eyes and attention of men of all ages. Just because John was her son didn’t mean that he didn’t notice her in the same way as other men, even though it made him feel guilty and wrong.