by Jayne Rylon
“There? Right there?” he asked, though he already knew the effect he had on her. He couldn’t have missed it when her pussy began to tighten around him, hugging his cock so hard it made it more difficult for him to thrust into her.
Of course, that seemed to spiral Kate’s pleasure higher as he stroked over her tensed muscles.
“Mike,” she whisper-shouted, clutching him tighter to her. “Damn.”
His muscles bunched beneath her hands. He worked hard all day and it showed. At least he had that going for him.
“If you go, you’re going to take me with you. Sorry, I can’t hold out. Not today. Not like this.” He groaned and shuddered as he plunged into her once more.
“Better come with me,” she grumbled.
He understood what she didn’t have the capacity to say right then. It wouldn’t be fair if she was the only one about to lose her mind from his skilled fucking. She liked him to be equally as devastated as she was when she let go like this.
He smiled at her and redoubled his efforts.
Mike leaned against her, trapping her between the rough wall and his taut body. His ass clenched beneath her heels as he rode her, intent on bringing them both as much bliss as possible. And when he added a little grind at the peak of each stroke, being sure to rub her clit as he pressed his dick against the most sensitive place inside her, he knew coming was inevitable for them both.
She tried to warn him she was going to tip, but he shushed her, encouraging her to let go.
So she did. Kate flew apart in his arms, proving again that she was certain he’d support her as she lost herself in the ecstasy he gave her. The thing that never ceased to amaze him was that her pleasure alone was enough to set him off too—the clamping of her pussy around his cock triggered his orgasm.
He bit her shoulder and grunted as he began to flood her, the motions of her involuntary spasms milking him dry. She stared up at the sky, gasping for air to fill her lungs while rapture wrung her entire being.
Her toes curled and her fingers clenched. Then all at once, she relaxed.
Mike nuzzled the crook of her neck as he too began to recover, smooshing them together from collarbones to hips. “Damn, Kate. I needed that. I needed you.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, when it was still too difficult to speak much.
His chest heaved against her as he sucked in a full breath of air, maybe for the first time since Abby had told them there had been an accident.
Though Mike had been supportive of Joe and his move out to Middletown, it wasn’t easy for him. Or for any of the crew. Especially not when the way they dealt with turbulent times had always involved coming together as a group for a physical release as epic, or even more so, than the one he and Kate had just shared.
“You always know where to find me when you need me,” she murmured before kissing him gently. “I promise I’ll always to be here like you’ve always been for me. For all of the crew.”
Mike slipped from her and tucked himself away before straightening her dress. They were still kissing, floating down together, when a loud smack from the direction of the kitchen made them both jump.
“Dad?” The door banged into the grill a second time.
Kate raised a brow, then whispered to Mike. “See?”
Mike only laughed. “We were done.”
She scrubbed her face with her hands as if she could wipe away any traces of the passion they’d shared and leave only happy satisfaction in its place. After verifying her clothes and his own were in order, Mike scooted the grill away from the door enough that Landry could squeeze through the gap.
“What’s up?” Mike asked.
“Klea said Uncle Joe is better now.” Landry reported.
Whether it was the positive news or the way he’d vented his pent-up tension, Mike flashed an honest, relaxed smile. The kind his family expected from him most of the time. “That’s good. Real good.”
“Did you tell him accidents happen? Like that time I hit the baseball through the windshield of Mom’s car and thought you were going to ground me for a million years?”
“I did, yeah.” Mike ruffled Landry’s hair. He was always impressed by the things his son learned from him even without being directly taught. The way he looked after everyone around him was eerily familiar, too. He was going to be a hell of a man one day.
Landry peered beyond them then, squinting at the flash of white in the flower bush. “What’s that?”
Fortunately Kate was faster than him. She lunged for her destroyed underwear, snatched them up, and tucked them into her pocket before their son could get a better look. Thank God it hadn’t been Abby, because she had a better bullshit meter than her brother, even though she was barely a teenager.
“Just a rag.” Kate shrugged casually with one shoulder, her fist still planted in her pocket, obscuring the evidence. “I was cleaning up a few things out here. Let Dad put the grill away and we can go inside. I think there’s still a few slices left if you need an after-dinner snack.”
“Oh yeah!” Landry had already spun around and wandered toward the pizza boxes for a second round. The kid was starting to eat anything and everything in the house.
Sure enough, Abby was inside leaning against the fridge, her arms crossed. When she took in Mike giving Kate one last lingering kiss full of promise to take his time much, much later, the girl shook her head. “You two are so gross.”
Good thing she didn’t yet realize they did more than make out and cuddle on the couch during movie nights.
“Yup. And you just keep right on thinking boys are icky. Until you’re sixty at least. I’m fine with that.” Mike cracked open a beer and downed at least a third in a few huge gulps before asking Landry to hand him a slice of the now-cold pizza.
He smiled when even Kate nibbled at a piece, obviously having worked up a bit of an appetite.
4
Kate tried not to let it bother her that Mike was getting farther and farther from her as each moment passed. But they’d been together for so many years now that it felt like part of her was missing when he wasn’t there. Something important. Like her heart.
She pressed her hand to her middle, annoyed by the tears that sprang to her eyes even as her stomach knotted. It wasn’t like her to be this needy, and it kind of pissed her off. Her emotions were all over the place. What. The. Fuck.
Before she could dwell on it, she heard a rap at the back door. Only a few people used that entrance to their house, and the call that followed made it clear which one of them it was. “Hey, Kate. Open up. I need to look for something in Mike’s office.”
Devon. The lone woman on the Powertools construction crew. She knew a thing or two about being tough.
Kate swallowed the acid that was clawing at her throat and rushed to fling open the gorgeous custom doors the crew had built to let in more light and add yet another special touch to the home they’d created together.
“Sorry, can’t chat.” Devon gave Kate an air kiss as she squeezed past and headed down the hall to Mike’s office as if she lived there. Hell, she’d spent enough time in their house over the years for that to nearly be true, and in the crew everyone was at home in each other’s spaces. But this was a bit much even for Devon, who was more like one of the guys than a member of the wives’ club.
“What’s going on?” Kate trailed behind the petite woman, who made up for her lack of stature with a huge personality and nearly unshakable confidence. “Can I help?”
“Uh, maybe?” Devon plopped into Mike’s seat and flipped open his laptop. “You know the password to this thing?”
“Probably something with the kids’ names.” Kate shrugged.
“Nah. It’ll be yours.” Devon looked up at her with an incredulous stare. “How could you not realize that?”
And when Devon did, she hesitated, her eyes narrowing a bit.
“What?” Kate asked.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so. It’s
just been stressful lately, you know? Tell me what’s wrong with you.” Kate couldn’t handle much more. She already felt off kilter and had been fighting exhaustion for weeks.
“I need the contract for the spray foam insulation guys.” Devon swiped her hand over her face before pecking out a password attempt on Mike’s laptop and hitting enter. Nope. Not that one. “We waited all fucking morning for them and they never showed. They’re blaming the screw up on Mike when they clearly lost our appointment. They’re holding up our timeline. We can’t start putting the place back together until they’re done, and now they’re saying it’s going to take another three weeks to get back on the schedule.”
“Weren’t you already on the verge of being late to deliver the house since you’re down a man with Joe gone?” Kate groaned. Mike prided himself on doing what he promised their clients. He would not be happy about this. But he could only do so much, and be in so many places, at once.
“Yup.” Devon grimaced and then tried another password. Her curse made it clear she’d failed. Of course they could call Mike, and maybe they’d have to in the end, but Kate didn’t want to bug her husband any more than Devon or the rest of the crew obviously cared to either.
“Humor me. Try the kids’ names.” Kate leaned in.
“I did. That was the second one. I’m telling you…” Devon pecked out something else and tapped enter. The computer’s lock screen disappeared. “Bingo!”
“His password was bingo?”
“No…it’s ILoveKate69.”
“Shut up. It is not.” Kate rolled her eyes.
“Totally is.” Devon laughed. “Try it yourself. He’s such a pussy. And extremely predictable.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that or he’ll devise some plan to make you beg next time the crew is playing together.” Kate arched a brow, though her insides were melting from how sweet her husband could be. Lately things had been tense, but maybe if he could help Joe and she could keep the crew on track while he was away…
Maybe things could get back to something like normal. Then maybe this anxiety or whatever it was causing her to feel so out of sorts would ease up too.
“Still not finding a reason not to push him.” Devon winked.
Kate shook her head. “Maybe that’s what we all need. Some time to blow off steam together. Thank God we have the trip to Middletown next weekend and plenty of babysitters out there too.”
Devon studied Kate again. To distract her friend from finding anything too concerning she might then blab to Mike about, Kate pointed to his laptop. “He keeps all his contracts in a folder on the cloud drive.”
Devon swung around, her focus on hunting down the paperwork they both knew would be there. Mike didn’t mess up shit like that. He ran his construction jobs with military precision. If he said the insulators should have been there, she had no doubt they were supposed to have shown.
“Got it!” Devon leaned in, then cursed. “See! Those assholes think they can weasel out of this just because Mike isn’t there to shove his steel-toed boot up their ass. Little do they know that I’m twice as mean as he is.”
“And I’m even worse.” Kate snatched up her phone and said, “Read me their number. I’ll call for you. Unless you want the honors…”
“Honestly, nah.” Devon gave her the digits. “I’m better at knocking sense into things with my tools than talking about it. Do you mind?”
Kate shook her head. After a few minutes of explaining the situation and getting the same bullshit response Devon had earlier, she dug deep and applied her best mom-intimidation. “I have a contract right here that says otherwise. If you’re no longer able to abide by the terms, then we’ll expect a fifty-percent discount in order to offer our client compensation for the delay in delivery your mistake is going to cause. Their house has already sold, so they will need to be put up in a hotel and alter their move-in plans, all of which will make this mistake very costly.”
“Ma’am, where’s Mike?” Oh, she bet they were wishing for her husband now. He relied on charm and his good nature to persuade people where she believed in being much more direct.
“He’s busy. Powertools has given you plenty of business throughout the years. This is not a time to let us down. You know we have contacts in every area of this industry and we won’t hesitate to let our peers know that you’re no longer reliable and that you’re dishonest as well.”
Devon mouthed, Yeah, tell them!
“Uh, that’s…unnecessary,” the contractor practically squeaked.
“Then you’ll be at the site tomorrow to complete the work as indicated in our contract?”
“We’ll have to start at the ass crack of dawn so we can squeeze in two jobs.”
“So long as you are at our property first, our crew will meet you any time you like to oversee the installation.” Kate peeked over at Devon, who was nodding enthusiastically and flashing a thumbs-up.
A sigh loud enough that Devon had to be able to hear it rattled her ear. “I guess we’ll see you at four o’clock then. Or will Mike be back?”
Devon snorted when she heard the wishful note in the guy’s voice.
“He’s out of town working on another project. Devon will be the one in charge. Talk to her about anything you need and make sure the work is completed to her satisfaction.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” Kate said sweetly before hanging up with a flourish and jab of her index finger.
“Holy shit!” Devon crossed the gap between them and squeezed her. Despite being petite, she was strong as shit from working construction and lifted Kate like she hadn’t put on an extra few pounds or ten lately. Then she started to swing her around. “You’re so good at that! Why doesn’t Mike have you do that for us all the time? Usually he just curses a bunch and promises to buy beer when they’re finished.”
“Really?” Kate laughed because she could totally picture it. Until Devon made one more revolution and her stomach lurched. “Uhhh, stop. Please.”
Devon kept cracking up and didn’t take her quite as seriously as she should have. Kate shoved at her friend’s shoulders until they broke apart and she stumbled away, staggering toward the hall bathroom.
She braced her hands on cool counter top, slammed her eyes closed, and focused on taking long, deep breaths until the world stopped glitching around her.
Devon was there, rubbing her back, encouraging her quietly. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to fuck you up.”
“It’s not you.” Kate moaned as her queasiness passed. She splashed her face with cold water, then carefully turned and sank onto the closed toilet, folding until her head rested on her stacked arms.
“Then what the hell is it?” Devon wondered.
“I don’t know. Stress? I haven’t felt right for weeks.” Kate groaned.
“Weeks? And what kind of not right?” Devon crouched down and scanned Kate’s pale face and the gaunt bags she knew were darkening the skin beneath her eyes lately.
“I feel like shit.”
“Obviously.” Devon tipped her head. “How have you been hiding this from Mike, and why?”
“He’s got enough on his plate.” Kate sighed. “He’s been preoccupied with Joe and keeping the rest of you from getting as upset as I think he is.”
“Okay, fine. So tell me then.” Devon squeezed her knee. “What’s bugging you?”
“I’m run down. Tired all the time. I’m starving, but every time I get near food it turns my stomach. I just about climbed Mike outside on the patio last night and I would have gone for about ten more rounds, but I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow. I’m cranky and anxious and…”
“Holy shit. When the hell are you going to learn?” Devon flung open the cabinet under the sink. When she apparently didn’t find what she was after, she popped to her feet to rummage through the medicine cabinet too.
“What are you looking for?”
“A pregnancy test,” Devon mu
mbled beneath her breath.
“A what—?” Kate gasped, her stomach flipping again. “I’m not…”
“Are you sure? Like sure, sure?” Devon glared at her. “Remember when Morgan was convinced she had some fatal disease because she was in denial? This is looking a whole lot like that.”
Devon drew a big circle in the air around Kate, who simply gawked.
“I’m having déjà motherfucking vu.” Devon leaned her hip up against the counter and grinned. “Look, I’m just a construction worker, not a doctor. But if I had a hundred dollars in my pocket right now, I’d bet it all on you being knocked up.”
Kate did some quick mental math and couldn’t make it compute. When was the last time she’d had her period? She couldn’t quickly recall, but maybe it was the shock of the bomb Devon had dropped on her. Could she be right?
“I would ordinarily call one of the guys to get us a test plus ten spares for when you don’t believe that first one, but…” Devon shrugged.
Kate winced. “Yeah. Don’t do that.”
They both remembered the time Joe had gone out for a box and Dave had gotten in his near-fatal wreck. It was bad juju to even bring it up.
“So will you be okay if I leave for a few minutes?” Devon asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. As long as I don’t move. And don’t go in the kitchen. And…” Kate pinched the bridge of her nose. Was it her imagination or was her chest still aching, and maybe not from Mike pinning her to the wall the night before.
“Right. Well, I’m going to the drugstore down the street. I will be back in five minutes. If you’re gonna hurl, do it while I’m gone, huh?” Devon teased because she understood Kate well enough to know that alone would steel her guts and make sure she fought the wave of illness threatening her as she considered the possibilities.
Could it be true?
Her kids were well out of the infant phase. Would she even know how to start over?
A baby would change everything.
Again.
5
Kate tapped her fingers on the steering wheel of her car. She’d never driven this far by herself before, especially without Mike knowing what she was up to. He would probably be pissed, but she’d been careful. Plus, the rest of the crew were well aware of where she was going and when to expect her call telling them that she’d arrived safely.