Soaring (49 page)

He slid his knees between my legs, settled me in his lap, still connected, and lifted his arm to wrap it around my chest, holding me to him there and at my belly, his breath warm on the skin of my shoulder.

“I can’t give you much, but I can give you this,” he stated thickly.

“Mickey, no—” I started, his words cutting deep, their meaning that all he had to give was good orgasms very much not sitting well with me.

“Shut it, baby, and listen,” he said and since his tone was tender, I let the words slide and did as he asked.

“I made the decision to be my own man a long time ago but that man is based on the man my father taught me to be. I’m a provider. And it isn’t lost on you that I’m strugglin’ with the fact that I’ll never be in a position to provide for you.”

Oh God.

“Mi—”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Amy, shut it.”

I closed my mouth.

“But I can give you this,” he said.

“You’re more than just a fuck, Mickey,” I snapped.

“Baby,” he shoved his face in my neck and tightened his arms around me, “
feel
.”

I felt Mickey holding me, Mickey all around me, Mickey inside me.

I still didn’t get it.

“Honey—”

He again cut me off, “Tonight, you gonna sleep alone?”

I closed my eyes and relaxed in his hold.

I got it.

He felt it.

“Yeah, Amy. This is what I got to give. This progresses, your money, we’re gonna have to have ground rules. But whatever those are, however we work it out, the way this feels with you even after I fucked up, forced a stupid fight, hurt your feelings, what we got, you can only get it from me. Even disconnected, we connected. Even upset, you opened your door to me. Twice. Means what we got means somethin’ to you and no matter what obstacles we face or put up ourselves, you’re gonna work on it with me. I just gotta come to terms with the fact that all I’d want to give you, I can’t give. But you got something from me that you want and you can only get it from me.”

Suddenly, a future with Mickey struck me with blinding clarity.

I had Cliff Blue. I’d paid for it in cash. I’d made it all me.

But Mickey lived in his childhood home he worked hard to keep. It was older, more worn, more lived in, friendlier, more welcoming. It was a family home in a very good neighborhood.

My home was a multi-million dollar show home that I’d made suitable for a family.

If this worked, if we had a future, the decision would have to be made and Mickey wouldn’t want to give up his home, where he grew up, a home he worked a job he hated to provide for his children, and then move them all in with me.

That was just the beginning. Life was life but some of the ways life could sock it to you, I would never feel.

If I had a leak in my roof, I’d hire someone to fix it. If a storm washed half of Cliff Blue into the sea (God forbid), I wouldn’t blink at rebuilding in so far as flying Prentice Cameron from Scotland to oversee it was done correctly.

There were birthdays and Christmases and special occasions where I’d have to curb my generosity and my ability to give it. And if we blended families, this would not only be for him and his children, but to keep things fair, my children as well.

And each time, he’d know. He’d feel it. He’d understand to keep an even keel, my kids would feel it.

And that would eat at him.

It was then I understood why people like me partnered with people like me. Why my mother drilled it into my head at every opportunity just what kind of man I needed to find.

Conrad had fit that bill not only because he was a neurosurgeon who made an excellent salary, but because he came from money. His family was not as wealthy as mine but they were far from hurting. Like me, he’d lived a privileged life and had his own trust fund. He started his practice without crippling student loans to repay because his parents had paid for every penny of his education.

Before I made the decision to move on with Mickey, I needed to know down to my soul that I could give him what he needed and I could accept what he could give me.

It was then I thought of waking up in his bed in his masculine bedroom in his family house in a very nice neighborhood, doing it with Mickey making love to me.

Sure, his fireplace was not as stylish as mine and my daybed would not match his furniture.

But I’d go to sleep in Mickey’s bed with Mickey and wake up with Mickey. A Mickey I hoped was falling in love with me. A Mickey who would never cheat on me. A Mickey who teased me and annoyed me and got me deals on cars I didn’t need because I could afford to overpay. A Mickey who protected me, and even when we were fighting and the sex started rough and distant, it was fabulous and we ended up connected in more ways than just physically.

I had had the partner I was supposed to have and he nearly destroyed me.

And it shook me tremendously to understand that if the good I got from Mickey kept going, got better, I’d give up everything to keep it.

This shook me because the problem with all of that was convincing Mickey to believe it and getting him past any concerns he had about sacrifices I was willing to make to have a man at my side who truly cared, who looked out for me, who I enjoyed annoying me, who made me laugh, made me happy and who was phenomenal in bed.

“Amy,” he called when I didn’t speak.

“Do you understand that will always be just what I need?” I asked.

“I think that’s dawning on me.”

“If this works,” I whispered, “I get to go all out for Christmas. Birthdays, we keep it real. I don’t want to one-up you or make you feel anything but good about what we give the kids and I don’t want you competing with what we give each other. But Christmas, just Christmas, I get to go crazy and we can say it’s from Santa.”

“Crazy in the sense checkin’ off more than a few items on a wish list is a crazy where I can deal. Crazy in the sense you buy each kid a Porsche and take us all on a family cruise of the Caribbean on the staffed yacht you buy me, no.”

“Do you want a yacht?”

“Do you know how steep Magdalene Harbor slip fees are?”

“No.”

“Just sayin’, no, I don’t want a yacht or even a dingy, I gotta pay slip fees and it sits there with me not usin’ it because I’m busy working, with my kids or fuckin’ my woman.”

I started giggling but stopped abruptly and called, “Mickey?”

He didn’t answer. He just tightened his arms around me.

So I kept going.

“I have a lot. I can have most anything I want. But there are only five things in the world that mean so much to me I’d do anything to keep. Auden. Olympia. Lawrie. Robin. And now…you.”

He moved then, sliding me off his cock and shifting to fall back at the same time turning me so when he was on his back in the bed, my weight was on him, chest to chest.

He slid his hands into my hair on either side to hold it away from my face.

“She didn’t,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“She didn’t do anything to keep me.”

I lifted a hand to his stubbly cheek and said softly, “Mickey.”

“Do not take from that I got feelings for her. I don’t. But she burned me, Amy. I heard you about it bein’ an illness but in her case, it’s her that had to find the strength to beat back the symptoms, even if she’ll never have a cure. Already told you I had a woman I couldn’t give what she needed, now you get how deep she scarred me. And I guess it’s eatin’ me I got one I like havin’ that needs nothing from me.”

I stiffened on top of him and said, “Mickey, I think I told you—”

“You did, baby,” he said gently. “But that shit has to sink through scar tissue that’s tough and runs deep. So you gotta keep gettin’ in my face, kickin’ my ass and makin’ that statement until it digs through.”

I glared at him, shifting my hand to his neck and declaring, “I think I’d rather kick
her
ass.”

“Please don’t do that, Amy. You do, she’ll think it’s part of my grand scheme.”

I said nothing even though I was happy to see Mickey was grinning.

Considering his mood seemed to have improved, I demanded, “Do I get Christmas?”

“You get Christmas,” he agreed.

“Thank you,” I snapped, though, I was not only glad he gave me Christmas, I was glad we both thought we’d be together at Christmas, that “we” including Mickey.

He kept grinning. “Told the guys. They’re pretty happy about the new shit that’s coming.”

“Of course they are,” I returned. “It’s a sixty inch TV. A woman is happy with six inches. For a man to get happy, it has to be sixty.”

He burst out laughing.

“Do I speak truth?” I asked.

His brows shot up. “You’d be happy with six inches?”

“I was happy with less than that for sixteen years so I guess the answer is yes.”

He kept laughing but started doing it so hard the bed shook.

In the face of his hilarity, I started grinning and said, “It was amusing, honey, but
not
that amusing.”

He sobered but not entirely, and replied, “Knew that guy had a small dick.”

“Without extensive study, I would hazard to guess that it was average and you’re…not.”

He kept smiling, doing it big, as he returned, “Guess I can give you somethin’ else you can only get from me.”

“Like you didn’t know you were endowed,” I scoffed.

“Never got out a ruler and do my best not to compare.”

“Guys do that all the time,” I told him.

“Uh…no they don’t,” he told me. “And I’m in a rare situation where a guy is doin’ that shit, he gets a look from me he knows if he doesn’t mind his own fuckin’ business, he’s gonna find his nasal passages at the back of his skull.”

My focus shifted to his ear as I mumbled, “I find this interesting.”

“You thought guys stood around comparing dicks?”

I focused back on him. “Actually, yes.”

He grinned at me. “My heiress and her perverted fantasies about guys comparing dicks.”

“It’s not a fantasy, Mickey.”

“Good you got one that’s a winner.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Can we stop talking about this?”

Suddenly, he pulled me close to his face and sobered entirely.

“I’ll try my best not to be a dick, not to bring it up, not to hurt your feelings or make you worry about it. I hate that I made somethin’ good you did that you were excited about, that
I
should have been excited about, into a fight. I may stumble along the way, Amy, but you got my word I’ll work on it.”

That, just that, was all I needed.

I melted into him, glided my hand to his jaw and slid my thumb along his lower lip, replying, “All I can ask, honey.”

He pulled me even closer, touched his lips to mine and then pushed me an inch away.

“Clean up,” he ordered quietly. “Get in one of your nighties and come back to me. Need sleep.”

“Okay, Mickey.”

I bent and gave him my own touch before I lifted up and again glided my thumb over his lower lip. After that, I rolled off, cleaned up, donned a nightgown and went back to him.

Mickey turned out the lights and tangled himself up in me.

I was almost asleep when Mickey mumbled, “My heiress thinks men compare dicks.”

My eyes shot open and I snapped drowsily at his throat, “Stop teasing me when I’m half-asleep.”

He gathered me closer. “You got it, baby.”

I sighed loudly, closed my eyes, snuggled into his heat and fell asleep tangled up in Mickey.

Chapter Twenty-One

Stamp Me Approved

“
Truth be told!
” Mrs. Porter shrieked at the TV.

“Jesus, what is that?” Lawrie asked in my ear as I moved away from the lounge at Dove House with my phone.

“Mrs. Porter.
Wheel of Fortune.
” I shared. “She got it on only the
r
.”

“Impressive,” he replied. “But are your ears bleeding?”

I grinned. “Since they got a TV they can actually see,
Wheel of Fortune
gets extreme. And you don’t want to be anywhere near the lounge during
Jeopardy
.”

I heard Lawrie chuckling.

My grin turned into a smile as I got into a much quieter hall, leaned against a wall between two residents’ rooms and gave him my attention.

“Why are you calling, big brother?”

“The invitation still stands, I’m coming for Thanksgiving.”

I felt joy.

Then I felt fear.

“Mariel?” I asked.

“Only me.”

I felt more fear. “Not the boys?”

“It’s time they got used not having me around, even on special occasions.”

Oh no.

“Lawrie,” I whispered. “Marriage counselling isn’t working?”

“Our counselor never touches us,” he told me. “Never even looks like she’s going to. Last session, she grabbed Mariel’s hand for no purpose except, my guess, to see if she had a pulse.”

I didn’t laugh. His words were funny but the tone he delivered them in was not amusing.

I pushed away from the wall and wandered further down the hall saying, “I’m so sorry.”

“I wanted to know.”

I stopped and braced because now he was being quiet but fierce.

“Wanted to know what, honey?” I asked softly.

“What went wrong,” he answered instantly. “What I was doing that took her away from me. I wanted to know. I didn’t care what it was. How big. How small. How petty. If she’d mentioned some bracelet she had to have that I didn’t notice she’d asked for and I didn’t get her. If she was hurt I stopped telling her she was beautiful. I wanted to know so I could change it. I wanted to know what took away the girl I fell in love with so I could get her back. The girl who made me laugh. The girl who’d ruin a complicated soufflé and toss it in the trash without giving that first shit and pull out Chips Ahoy and slather them in Cool Whip for dessert. Rather than that being something that heralded an ice storm the boys and me would have to endure for a week. The girl who wanted nothing more than to stay in bed naked all day with me. I wanted to know how she became our mother. I wanted to know why she surpassed that until we had nothing.”