Soaring (Magdalene #2)(100)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Fine. I drive.”

“You drive?” I asked. “But it’s mine.”

“I strike you as a man who rides?”

“Jimbo drives the fire truck,” I pointed out.

“Jimbo doesn’t have a vagina.”

My back shot straight. “Really?”

“Your ass is in my Expedition in the passenger seat or in the same place in your Rover,” he declared.

“It’s a new car, Mickey. I love it. It took everything I had to allow Auden to take it for a spin today. I wanna drive.”

“Drive around the next coupla days. Wednesday night, you know your choice.”

He was lucky he was so fabulous for the times when he was so annoying.

“You need to get checked,” I snapped. “You clearly have an overabundance of testosterone in a way it’s harmful to your health.”

“Not sure that can even happen,” he replied smoothly.

“The harmful to your health part is me murdering you.”

“You take me out, it’s back to that toy in your nightstand and I’m thinkin’ you don’t want that.”

My head twitched as I asked, “Have you been snooping?”

“Single woman who goes hot quick, babe, took a guess, I was right and I don’t consider it snooping. More like investigating just in case I’m in the mood to shake things up. Any man has gotta have the tools he needs to get the job done.”

That gave me a shiver along with the premonition of an aneurysm.

“Amy?” he called when I didn’t respond.

“Quiet. I’m trying to think if I’ve seen any Internet cafés I can go to to anonymously order poison off the Web.”

“Toy comes out tomorrow night,” he muttered.

Another shiver.

“Are you done annoying me?” I asked.

His smile was in his voice. “For now.”

“Fine. See you tomorrow night.”

“Charge it up, Amy.”

God, he couldn’t be believed.

The problem was I was thinking I loved that about him.

Along with a variety of other things.

“Whatever. Have a good night.”

“’Night, baby.”

With the call with Mickey done for the night, I tossed the phone on my bed and went back out to my kids.

* * * * *

“Yes,” I breathed, I came, Mickey slid my vibrator away and then he slid inside me. “Yes,” I repeated.

We were on our sides, face to face and I had my leg thrown over Mickey’s hip. Even though it lasted a good long while, Mickey let me finish coming before he kissed me, fucked me and again sent me flying.

Condoms being history, after, it was me cleaning up, slipping on a nightie and back into bed with Mickey where he tangled us together and held me close in the dark.

I was snuggled deep, warmed by his body, replete and half asleep before he spoke.

“See, my heiress likes the way I shake things up.”

I opened my eyes and saw his shadowed throat.

“Shut up, Mickey.”

“Think I’m a year older, you came so long.”

I tipped my head back and glared at him through the dark.

“Shut up, Mickey.”

He bent his head and kissed me. It lasted longer than my orgasm, a lot longer and ended with us tangled up tight, his hand on my behind and me pressed so close it was like I wanted him to absorb me.

“Now, go to sleep, baby,” he ordered when he stopped kissing me.

I tucked my face back in his throat and told him, “You’re most annoying.”

“Good you get off on that.”

He was correct.

I decided silence was in order.

I was as close as I could be without Mickey being inside me.

He still pulled me closer.

“Flash,” he whispered.

“What?” I asked sleepily but still managed to inject tartly.

“Of really fuckin’ happy.”

I wasn’t going to cry.

I was not going to cry.

I didn’t cry.

I pushed even closer, kissed my guy’s throat and whispered, “’Night, honey.”

“’Night, Amy.”

I closed my eyes, settled into Mickey, and experiencing my own flash, I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Mickey and I were on our way back from the movie when he said, “Both your kids came to you last night, so I talked to a coupla buds. They’re good with bein’ on call should I need them at the firehouse.”

He had my hand in his resting on my thigh and he was stroking the side with his thumb.

He also was gently reminding me he wanted to meet my kids.

I liked that but I was nervous about it.

“Next time they come again together, I’ll give them the talk,” I promised.

We’d already had the dating discussion and they were absolutely not under the impression their father and I would get back together.

But Mickey was right. Although I didn’t see them on Monday, they both came over after school the day before and stayed well past dinner. And they didn’t even watch a program they DVRed. We all watched a movie on HBO together.

And it was good. It was easy. It was normal. It was what we had three years ago and it was this way like those three years hadn’t happened.

Of course, Auden and I had our brief discussion and it wasn’t a surprise that Olympia didn’t address it. She shied away from confrontation (except when she was fighting with her brother). Not only her own but others. Something that made what I did make me feel even guiltier because she’d seen a lot of that between Conrad, Martine and me.

She wouldn’t broach it. She’d let it lie and move on.

And Mickey was also right that I should rejoice, build on it, let it be and not worry.

But I was a mother, and as removed from my children as I was, I knew them.

Something else was happening.

Until my last breath I wanted them to feel I was their safe harbor.

I just wanted to know, if that’s why they needed me, what I was harboring them from.

Mickey drove to my place, hit the garage door opener and drove right in. I sat beside him, taking my mind from my thoughts by thinking my house was perfect. In that moment, I was thinking that because it had a two-car garage as well as a smaller one-car one next to it that you could get to with its own opener and through a door from the bigger one to the smaller one inside.

The one-car one was perfect for my Mercedes.

The Rover and my son’s Civic got the big one.

See?

Perfect.

He parked. We got out. We went in.

I was wandering to the kitchen, flipping on the pendant lights, asking Mickey, “Do you want a beer?” when the doorbell rang.