At Peace

  “Sweetheart, you are the biggest fuckin’ pushover I’ve ever seen.”

  I slid my ass down his bed, pulling his shirt down as I did it so as not to expose my panties and begged him, “Please, shoot me.”

  “It’s a six thousand dollar bed, darlin’, I don’t want a bullet hole in it.”

  I glared at him again then I threw my arm over my eyes.

  He pulled the ice cream out of my hand, I felt him turn in the bed then he came back and pulled me into his arms.

  I shifted so my hands were on his chest and I looked up at him.

  “Talk to me,” he ordered quietly.

  “Well,” I pressed closer, “Dane says that Kate and Keira are havin’ loads of fun but it’s all an act. He says they’re sad, just coverin’ it up. He says they want to be home, they’re talkin’ about me all the time. But he reckons they aren’t askin’ to go home because they think I want them to say. And he says I should call, say I want them to come home and that’ll let them off the hook. But if I give them another day there, they do their duty to Dane and his folks but also get to come home to me. Dane drove down too so they’d have an extra car if the kids wanted to go out and do something so he can drive them back.”

  “Good kid,” Mike muttered.

  “Yeah,” I grinned at him, “Kate didn’t inherit much from me but she got my taste in men.”

  Mike burst out laughing and rolled into me, his face going in my neck where he kissed me then his head came up.

  “Kate’s exactly like you.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “Kate. She’s you. Totally.”

  “She looks like Tim.”

  “Yeah, but she acts like you, walks like you, smiles like you. Keira has your smile too.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, honey. They’re gorgeous but when they smile…” he let that hang and he grinned at me.

  I moved my hand from his chest to his face and whispered, “Mike.”

  He turned his head and kissed my palm. Then he dipped his head, touched his mouth to mine and my arms wrapped around him.

  “I like bein’ here, with you,” I said against his mouth.

  His head came up and his eyes caught mine.

  “I like it too, sweetheart.”

  Then for some reason killing a great mood, I blurted, “I didn’t get things sorted with Joe today.”

  His brows drew together and he asked, “You didn’t talk to him?”

  “I did, he kind of… didn’t listen.”

  Mike rolled away to his back but I kept hold of him and went with him as he muttered, “Fuck, Vi.”

  I got up on an elbow and looked down at him. “You can step back, honey, while I sort this out with him.”

  His eyes locked on mine. “You want me to do that?”

  I did, to be fair to him.

  And I didn’t, to be totally selfish.

  “Yes, to be fair to you,” I said and felt his body tense. “No, to be totally selfish,” I finished, voicing my thoughts aloud then I said, “but I know now where Joe’s at and if I wasn’t me, but your friend, I’d advise you to step back.”

  “I gotta worry about this shit?”

  “No.”

  He studied my face then he said, “You sure?”

  “No.”

  He looked at the ceiling. I dropped down and pressed my forehead to his chest.

  After awhile, I felt his hand slide into my hair.

  “This a ‘may the best man win’ situation, sweetheart?”

  “I’m not a prize, Mike,” I told his chest.

  “Yeah you are, Vi, the best fuckin’ prize there is.”

  My head came up and I looked at him. “We’re talkin’ hearts, here. You don’t play games with hearts.”

  He got up on his elbows but didn’t break eye contact as he declared, “You’re wrong. Only games worth playin’ are games of the heart.”

  “Someone loses,” I whispered and he grinned, did an ab curl and his arms wrapped around me.

  He rolled me to my back, covered me with his body and put his mouth to mine before he whispered, “Tonight, I win.”

  Then he kissed me.

  Then he set about winning me.

  At least for the night.

  And he did.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gotta Remind You

  The next morning late, Mike leaving me at his house in his bed after I gave him a drowsy kiss and went back to sleep as he went off to work, I got up, took a shower, got ready for the day at Mike’s house and I went home.

  I had Mooch in one arm, my bag dangling from my hand, my remote and key in my other hand and I let us in, dropping my bag and Mooch who started instantly yapping his puppy yaps toward the kitchen.

  As I closed the door, I turned that way and stared.

  Joe was standing there, hand leaned into the counter, phone to his ear, eyes, or I should say irate eyes, pinning me to the spot.

  “Yeah,” he said into the phone, his eyes never leaving me as I stood frozen, staring at him. “You got it. Don’t worry.” He paused then he said, “Yeah, even when you get back.” He paused again then said, “I’ll tell her.” Another pause then, “Yeah, later girl.”

  Then he flipped his phone shut and tossed it on the counter.

  “What’re you doing here?” I whispered, Mooch somehow reading my tone shut up, sat down by my foot and stared with me at Joe.

  “That was Kate,” he replied, his eyes still skewering me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “She called yesterday, worried about you bein’ alone. We made a deal.”

  This didn’t sound good.

  “You…” I hesitated, “made a deal with my daughter?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, not moving, staying leaned deceptively casually against the counter as he spoke. “She and Keira help me out with my house. I keep close and keep you safe.”

  “You made a deal with my daughters?” I repeated, though with a frightening nuance of change to one word.

  “Works for me, seein’ as I don’t have a kitchen or bathroom or furniture. Now, stayin’ with you, I do.”

  My chest seized tight.

  “Staying with me?” I breathed.

  “She called just now to check in.”

  I looked to his phone then to him, ruing the day that I programmed Joe’s phone number into my girls’ phones.

  “I –”

  Joe cut me off. “You spent the night with him.”

  I pulled myself together and stated, “That isn’t any of your business.”

  “Thought I made myself clear yesterday, Vi.”

  “Yes, you did and I made myself pretty clear too.”

  “Yeah, baby, you did, fuckin’ whimpering the minute my mouth got close.”

  Shit, okay, he kind of had me there.

  “Joe –”

  “I told you not to play that game.”

  “Joe –”

  “You played it.”

  I decided it was a good idea to start retreating so I did. Mooch started yapping. Joe stood there unmoving.

  “I’d like you to leave,” I told him.

  “You forgot,” he said and I stopped moving backward.

  “Forgot what?”

  “Can’t imagine you did. I didn’t. I feel you at night, even fuckin’ smell you, thought it was the same for you.”

  His words and all they meant washed over me and I stopped breathing.

  “Gotta remind you,” he murmured.

  We locked eyes.

  Then he moved.

  I turned and ran.

  Mooch followed me, thinking it was a game.

  It was no game and I was way too slow. Joe caught me, swung me around and then up over his shoulder and stalked into my bedroom.

  “Joe! Put me down!” I demanded, pushing against his back.

  He did. Bending at the waist, he threw me on the bed.

  I turned and got up on all fours, scrambling.

  He
caught my ankles, yanked them, my knees came out from under me and he pulled me to him, twisted me to my back then he landed on top of me.

  “Joe –” I tried but his hand was in my hair, it fisted, he tilted my head and his mouth came down hard on mine.

  Fucking hell, but that was it. It was insane but that was all he had to do.

  He was wrong. I remembered. I remembered every second with him, even the ones when we weren’t having sex, and I missed them. God, so much, I had to bury it, covering it with everything I had so it wouldn’t break me.

  But it all came back, the longing, the hurt, the hunger, everything we were, everything I wanted us to be and it was everything there was.

  We tore at each other’s clothes, yanking them off while we wrestled for supremacy, kissing, licking, biting, touching, scratching.

  “Christ, baby,” Joe growled as my hand wrapped tightly around his hard shaft.

  “I missed you,” I whispered my admission, why, I didn’t know. It just came out of me.

  His face disappeared in my neck and his mouth at my ear, he ordered, “Spread your legs for me, buddy.”

  I did, he slid between then without delay he slammed inside, filling me.

  My hands glided into his overlong hair and I moaned, “Baby.”

  “Wrap your legs around me, honey.”

  I did and used them, heels digging into his back to lift my hips and he went in faster, harder, deeper.

  “Good Christ, you feel good,” he groaned in my ear.

  It was debatable but I figured he felt better, though I wasn’t going to argue the point just then. Instead I wrapped him tighter, his mouth came to mine and he kissed me.

  Not long after, I was close, his mouth was on mine but somehow he could feel it coming.

  “Say my name.”

  “Joe.”

  He ground his cock in deep and demanded, “Who do you belong to?”

  I closed my eyes and whispered, “You, Joe.”

  “That’s it,” he growled against my mouth, driving deep and I felt it as he urged, “come for me, baby.”

  “Okay,” I breathed and came, huge, hard, long, amazing, wrapping him tight, holding him close, pulling him deep as the orgasm he gave me had me in its grip and it was so beautiful, I didn’t want it ever to let me go.

  It did, they always do, even the spectacular ones Joe gave me and I came down in time to listen to and feel Joe’s.

  After, Joe stayed planted deep, his hand tangled in my hair, the other one at my ass, his weight heavy on me, his mouth moving at my neck and it was then I realized I really was a slut.

  Mike and I hadn’t had sex last night but we’d fooled around far more serious than ever before. Mike had given me an orgasm with his mouth and I’d returned the favor. I didn’t know why he pulled back from the act; maybe he sensed I wasn’t ready. But what we did was great, brilliant, he was a gentle lover (as far as I could tell), taking his time, like his stealth kisses, getting off on building the burn, patient but, in the end, demanding.

  I’d liked it a lot.

  But not nearly as much as what I just had.

  Two orgasms from two different men in less than twelve hours.

  Yes, I was a slut.

  When I came to this conclusion, Joe moved, pulling out and moving me with him, righting us in bed, pulling the covers down, sliding us between them, shoving the comforter back and then pulling the sheet up to our waists.

  I didn’t fight, struggle or say anything as he settled me into him. My mind was blank. No, not blank, frozen in disgust at myself.

  Then I came back into the room and I saw that he’d slightly modified our usual position where I had my head to his shoulder, my body pressed to his side.

  He’d pulled me partly over him, my cheek to his chest between his pecs, his fingers had wrapped around my wrist, positioning my arm around his hip, his knee had come up, hooking my leg with it so my calf fell between his legs and I was semi-straddling his thigh.

  I could hear his heart beating, steady, strong. I’d never heard that before or never noticed it and its strength weirdly defined him. Strong, vital and alive.

  And he’d also yanked the sheet over us, to our waists. This was something I did with him in between times, unconsciously doing it, completely comfortable with our nudity while we were in the act but feeling vulnerable when we weren’t. I’d pull the sheet up to our waists, not higher just there. Even after years with Tim, I’d done the same.

  Tim had never pulled the sheet up. Joe noticed and he did.

  And he remembered me, how I felt, even smelled. Like me, he remembered at night when we were apart.

  I sucked in breath.

  His fingers slid into my hair.

  “It’ll take two months to renovate the house,” he said suddenly and I blinked then realized he was starting the conversation in the middle again and my stomach got warm and soft at the memory of something Joe, something I thought I’d never have back and I steeled myself against it but I knew this was a futile effort. “Took ‘em a day to gut it but it’ll take two months to renovate it,” he finished.

  I stayed silent because I didn’t have anything to say but also because my mind was not frozen and blank anymore. Now there was so much in my brain, I couldn’t catch a thought.

  “Girls’re gonna pick carpet, paint, cupboards, shit like that. That’s our deal,” Joe went on.

  God, Keira would freaking love that. Kate too.

  I was screwed.

  “In return, I’m in town, I stay with you.”

  My head came up with that and I looked at him and said, “Joe –”

  I said no more because his hand was still in my hair. It slid to my neck and he yanked me up his body, lifting his thigh to assist him in this endeavor, its hardness pressed between my legs, an area still sensitive which meant this felt good. When my face was close to his, his hand went back into my hair and pulled my mouth down to his to give me a bruising but short open-mouthed kiss.

  “Love it when you say my name, baby,” he muttered against my mouth when he was done. I felt my body soften, my jumbled head going blank again as I stared in his eyes and he went on. “Feel it in my dick every time.”

  My head gave a small jerk and I blurted, “You do?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  I liked it when he grinned. He didn’t do it much so each time it felt like a gift.

  But still, I said, “That’s weird.”

  His grin became soft laughter and he rolled me to my back, mostly covering me with his body, his cocked thigh still pressed high between my legs.

  “You don’t hear it when you say it,” he told me.

  “I do hear it.”

  “No, you’re not a guy so you hear it but you don’t. The way you say ‘Joe’, every man would wish that was their name.”

  “Okay,” I replied because I really didn’t have anything else to say to that statement and because I was busy trying to ignore the lovely squishy feeling that statement made me feel.

  He bent his head and kissed my neck then his hands started roaming and his thigh moved an inch higher.

  I bit my lip.

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah?” he asked my neck.

  “You, um… can’t stay here.” His head came out of my neck, his hands stilled and he looked at me so I forged ahead. “’Cause, um… Dane called and said the girls were fakin’ it, havin’ a good time. He and I made our own deal yesterday. I need to call them like, right now, and ask them to come home. They’ll be back Saturday and I promised Dane and his parents he could sleep on the couch.”

  “So?” Joe asked.

  “So, Dane’ll be sleeping on the couch so you can’t.” This was one of the two reasons he couldn’t, Mike being the other one but I thought I’d start with Dane because mentioning Mike might make Joe mad and Joe naked and mad meant me acting again like a slut (or more like one, whatever that would be).

  “Wasn’t gonna sleep on your couch, buddy,” he told me an
d I blinked then I finally came to myself.

  “You can’t sleep with me.”

  “In your bed right now,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but you carried me to it and threw me in it.”

  “You didn’t struggle much then, Vi, and pointin’ out the obvious, you aren’t doin’ it now.”

  He was right so I pushed off and tried to slide away but he gave me more of his weight which meant resistance was futile.

  So I glared up at him and demanded, “Get off.”

  He looked like he was trying not to laugh, a new look, a good one on him. “Too late.”

  “Off.”

  “You like me here.”

  “Off!” I shouted.

  “You missed me, told me so yourself, buddy.”

  God, I did do that, just blurted it right out.

  I closed my eyes and turned my head away but, even doing this, I could hear his soft laughter and feel it against my body.

  I didn’t want to like it but I did.

  Then something occurred to me and my body got tight and my head righted with a snap, my eyes opening.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “What?” Joe asked.

  “Do you hear that?”

  Joe’s face instantly got serious, his head cocked to listen then he looked at me and his voice was serious too when he asked, “What, buddy?”

  “Nothing,” I told him.

  “Come again?”

  “Nothing!” I cried. “Shit, hearing nothing means Mooch is getting into trouble.”

  If Keira wasn’t around (and she was good with taking care of her dog) then it was me who had to deal with Mooch and Mooch, being a very active puppy, was a lot to deal with.

  I couldn’t do that with a big, naked man on me.

  Then suddenly that big, naked man wasn’t on me. He was at the side of the bed and pulling on his jeans.

  I stared as he walked out of the room.

  Then I pulled the sheet up to my chest, sat up in the bed, bending my knees and watching the door, curious despite myself at what he was going to do. So curious, I didn’t get out of bed, get my clothes on and run far, far away. Instead, I waited.

  Not minutes later, Joe came back with a squirming dog under one arm and my purse in his other hand.

  He dumped Mooch in the bed and my purse on the nightstand.

  Mooch ran to me and jumped up, licking me with his puppy tongue and dousing me with his puppy breath.