I glared at him through the dark because he was right.
“Fuck,” he muttered, “I can actually feel that angry heat and now I wanna fuck you again.”
“I don’t actually have anything pressing on my schedule for the next oh, I don’t know, eight to nine hours, Mickey.”
“Jesus, you’re a smartass.”
“Bitching about me being a smartass is not fucking me, Mickey.”
I ended that on a gasp because I ended that being flipped to my stomach then Mickey’s hand was yanking up my nightie right before it dove right in my panties. It curled, I spread my legs to give him better access and he found me.
“Where’s the smartass now?” he murmured in my ear.
He didn’t allow me to answer. My clit, still sensitized from earlier, got a tweak from his finger and I had to concentrate on that while my hips twitched.
“Yeah,” he growled with satisfaction.
“You’re annoying,” I breathed, squirming.
“Challenge, Amy. Repeat that when you’re sittin’ on my face in five minutes.”
Oh God.
I kept squirming.
He swept the bedclothes off me.
“Lift your hips, baby. Wanna see that ass working for me.”
Oh God.
I lifted my hips.
Mickey kept at me until he was done with that and he dragged me onto his face.
It took a while to get to the fucking but it was a pleasurable while, and when we were again clothed and tangled under the covers, I had no smartass left in me.
So I fell asleep in the arms of my guy knowing soon we’d be lazing around in the sun of the Florida Keys and I’d be doing it wearing the huge-ass rock he was going to give me.
*
I walked into my house, past my beloved dining room table, straight to the kitchen.
I put my purse and bag on the counter, turned to go to the fridge to assess dinner options and stopped dead.
I stood and stared.
It took a while for me to reanimate my body. But when I did, I shuffled sideways, my gaze glued to the wall beyond the dining room table.
Blindly, I dug into my purse until I found my phone. I activated it without looking at it and continued not to look at it as I did what I had to do by rote, lifted it to my mouth and demanded, “Call, Mickey.”
I put it to my ear.
“Hey,” he greeted after one ring.
“Hey back,” I whispered.
He said nothing.
I stared at the wall.
On it was my Mother’s Day present.
Mickey in cahoots with the kids had arranged for a photographer to come to the house when the bluebells had taken over.
Mickey had been right. When they bloomed they were so profuse it looked like Cliff Blue was floating on a cloud of flowers over the sea.
It was the physical manifestation of my world. The home I shared with my loved ones suspended in beauty.
We’d all got dressed up (kind of, the girls did, the boys wore nice shirts and jeans) and the photographer had taken our picture in front of the house. Mickey and me in the middle pressed close, his arm around my shoulders, mine around his waist. His other arm was around Pippa. My other one was wrapped around Cillian’s chest. He was standing slightly in front of me (something he couldn’t do now since he’d had a growth spurt in the time that had past and was now taller than me). Ash was beside me. She’d been caught laughing, her eyes to the camera, her cheek to my shoulder, her arms around my middle. Auden was standing close on the other side of his sister, holding her hand.
Outside Ash, who was laughing, we were all smiling.
Happy.
Now, printed huge, beautifully framed with two lovely sconces arching over it to make it an even bigger feature than it already was, that picture hung by the dining room table, pictorial evidence I had everything a woman could need.
Me and my family floating on a cloud of blue, blinded by a flash of happy.
Mickey ended the silence.
“You saw it.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
“Same here.”
I smiled and fought back the tears.
It took some time, Mickey gave me that time, and when I succeeded, I asked, “Have a taste for anything for dinner?”
“I’ll get Tink’s, bring it home,” he answered.
“Then we’ll eat Tink’s at the dining room table.”
His voice was soft when he replied, “Works for me.”
It worked for me too. He had his kids. I had mine.
So it worked perfectly.
“See you later, honey,” I said.
“Yeah, baby. See you.”
We hung up.
I walked to the picture and flicked the new light switch that now had five dimmer controls. One for the chandelier over the dining table. One for the kitchen lights. One for the kitchen pendants. One for the living room lights.
And one for my picture.
It was daytime. I didn’t need that light.
But from that day forward, whenever I was home, that picture was lit.
Every day.
Reminding me, even though I knew it down to my soul, that I had all I needed.
*
I wandered down the hall to the den, and once I hit it, I went right to the desk and dumped the bags and my purse on top. I slid the envelope out of one then dug in the other and pulled out the tissue wrapped parcel. I unwrapped it unveiling the pretty frame I’d bought at the reopened shop on the jetty.
I was about to put the picture I’d had printed at Walgreens in it when my phone in my purse rang.
I set aside the frame and picture, dug my phone out, looked at the display and took the call.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Hey back,” Mickey replied. “Listen, babe, you do payroll?”
I looked to the computer on the desk.
The den was the den.
It was also another guest bedroom now that the other side of the room was taken up with a massive, slouchy sectional with a pullout.
Further, it was a family room where Auden and Cillian played Xbox when they were at my place since the girls (and Mickey and I) weren’t big fans of them hogging the TV in the great room.
It also now had shelves on every wall not taken up with windows or the TV, beautiful walnut ones Mickey had put up with the help of Jake (and Cillian and Auden).
And last, it was the office for Donovan Roofing and Contracting.
I was Mickey’s office girl. I did payroll, returned calls (or picked them up when I was at the desk), scheduled Mickey to meet with clients, typed up quotes, ordered materials, sent invoices, dealt with receivables and played bookkeeper (with tutoring from Robin).
Mickey’s business had taken off.
Ralph beat him on some bids but those who paid attention to referrals and online reviews went with Mickey. Not to mention, he’d gotten the roofing contract for the build around the golf course at the Magdalene Club. A huge job. A real coup. Thirty houses and not little ones. Mini-mansions.
In fact, there was so much work Mickey had twenty-eight employees. And his business wasn’t even a year old yet.