I started giggling.
“Fuck you,” Conrad spat.
Mickey looked to him and lifted his brows. “Now who’s cursing?”
Conrad looked ready to explode but he had no choice but to scowl, turn and stomp away.
Mickey backed up and with our proximity he took me with him. He shut the door and locked it.
He then turned and again looked down at me.
“Babe. Seriously. You’re a fun date.”
I burst out laughing.
While I kept doing it, Mickey’s arms stole around me.
I put my hands to his chest, slid them up and curled them around the sides of his neck.
However, when I sobered, I saw Mickey didn’t find anything funny.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yep,” I answered.
He studied me closely.
I snuggled into him and assured, “I’m fine, Mickey.”
“He’s not a dick, Amy. He’s a motherfucking dick.”
“Yep,” I repeated.
He looked to the door and back to me. “You gonna get any blowback from that?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. If I do, I’ll deal. He’s already done his worst, I survived and now I’m standing in my fabulous house in a magnificent man’s arms. He no longer has any weapons that could harm me.”
His arms convulsed on “magnificent man,” but when I was done talking, he warned, “Watch your shit with that guy. He’s a man with a little dick but he still likes to swing it.”
I hadn’t really thought about it but having a man as endowed as Mickey, it occurred to me this was quite accurate.
“I’ll watch my shit,” I promised.
“Good,” he muttered then asked, “We done with that?”
“Yeah, Mickey.”
He was back to muttering. “Excellent.” He let me go, grabbed my hand and tugged me across the landing, announcing, “You owe me a hard fuck on that weird couch by your fireplace, baby.”
I absolutely did.
“It’s a daybed,” I informed him.
“Whatever. It’s sturdy.”
I thought it was fabulously stylish but Mickey wasn’t wrong.
It was sturdy.
I knew this already but Mickey and I put it to the test.
It passed.
Chapter Twenty
Comparing Dicks
The next day, feeling proud of myself, I walked out of Bertram’s Electronics Store phoning Mickey.
“Hey, baby,” he answered.
“Hey, guess what?” I replied.
“Don’t know but I hope whatever it is is good.”
I grinned as I beeped the locks on my Rover. “It isn’t good. It’s fantastic.”
“Right, then lay it on me,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Tomorrow, someone in the firehouse needs to be available to accept delivery on a new microwave.”
Mickey didn’t say anything so I was open to give him the grand finale.
“And a sixty inch flat screen TV!” I cried, pulling open the door to my SUV.
“Don’t know what to say,” he muttered, not sounding nearly as happy as I expected him to be.
I hauled myself up into the driver’s seat and closed the door, suggesting, “You could say, ‘That’s awesome, Amy!’”
“That’s awesome, Amy,” he repeated after me, doing it by rote.
“Um…did you hear the part about the TV being sixty inches?” I asked, confused by his reaction.
“I did. And I hesitate to get into this with my heiress, but I gotta ask. The folks at Bertram’s donate that shit?”
I stared at my windshield.
“Amy?” he called.
“I didn’t buy it, Mickey,” I told him. “You asked me not to.”
“Just bein’ sure,” he told me.
“They donated it,” I confirmed, feeling deflated.
He heard the deflation and explained, “It just seems too easy, baby. You get a wild hair, go to a store and, just like that, they donate an expensive TV?”
“Well, not just like that,” I replied. “They did remember me from when I came in months ago and bought a bunch of stuff. Your firefighters on duty will also need to stand in front of the TV and shake hands with the delivery guys so they can take a photo to put up in the front of their store. I also got them to donate one to Dove House and Dela and some of the residents have to do the same thing.”
“I hope you get I had to ask,” he said.
“I’m not sure why,” I returned. “You told me you didn’t want me purchasing it, I didn’t purchase it. You told me it’s okay to get it donated, I got it donated.”
“Been played before, babe,” he said, his tone moving from careful to irritated.
“So you’ve dated another heiress who rained goodness on your firehouse?” I asked sarcastically. “Sorry, I didn’t see the evidence of that when I was there. Or did she purchase the rig?”
“In this conversation there’s no call for you to be a smartass, Amelia. You know real fuckin’ well I had a wife who descended into a bottle, and shit like that happens, games are played. She took cash outta our bank account so she could buy wine without me seein’ the credit card receipts when I did the reconciliations. She fed me bullshit about where she was and what she was doin’—”
I interrupted him to declare, “You’re not Conrad and I’m not Rhiannon.”
“Asked a simple question, Amelia.”
“A question that was offensive, Michael.”
“Right, that picture gets taken I know I can trust you and I won’t have to ask again.”
I gritted my teeth, which meant my next sounded forced.
“Regardless of the fact that my husband was a cheat, our marriage still disintegrated and you know that I spent a lot of time agonizing over that. Including thinking on what I could have done to make it go wrong. In my case, I found out later that it was the simple fact my husband was a cheat. But looking back, there were things that were important to him that he communicated to me that I ignored. Feel free to feel elated that you have the Amelia Hathaway that learned that lesson and isn’t about to make the same mistake again.”
“You sayin’ I had a hand in my wife fucking our marriage?” he asked incredulously.
I made a disbelieving sound and answered, “I’m talking about me, Mickey. You and me.”
He was done with our conversation and shared this by stating, “I got shit to do and part of that shit is not fightin’ with you.”
“Then I’ll let you go,” I shot back. “You and the boys enjoy your donated microwave and TV. Good-bye, Mickey.”
“Later,” he bit off and hung up on me.
I stared at the electronics store through my windshield, gave a moment’s thought to how all that could have gone so bad and came up with one answer: Mickey. Then I emitted a muted, frustrated scream.
After that, I started up my new Rover and drove away.
* * * * *
It was late. I was in my bathroom in my nightie, cleaning my face when the doorbell rang.
I looked to the mirror, grabbed my hand towel, dried my face and nabbed my robe off its hook before I walked out.
I wanted not to answer.
But unfortunately I was grown up.
I was home. He probably knew I was home. So it was mean-spirited not to answer.
I swung the robe on as I walked down the hall and inspected the body shadowed in the stained glass before I went to the door, opened it and looked up at Mickey in his firefighter-not-fighting-a-fire uniform.
“Can I help you?” I asked coldly.
“I’m a dick,” he replied.
Unfortunately, as I’d spent the day gearing up to hold a Robin-style grudge against him (the new Robin, the one who held a grudge for twenty-four hours, not eternity), his words delivered a direct hit to that determination.
I held on to enough to share, “You can be.”
“We both been through the wringer. You g
ot shit left over to process and get past with your ex. I do too.”
He was correct about that and my determination took another hit.
This time, I decided on no reply.
His brows went up. “Gonna make me stand on your doorstep sayin’ this shit?”
“You have an ongoing issue with my wealth, Mickey,” I informed him.
“Workin’ on that,” he informed me, but he didn’t deny it.
He might be working on it but he was obviously failing.
“I am who I am. I have what I have. And frankly, before things progress further between us, we need to discuss it so this doesn’t fester in a way that it wreaks devastation at a later date.”
“Agreed, but I’m takin’ a break from the house to come do this so I don’t have the time to do that now.”
“We’ll schedule that meeting,” I said tartly.
His face softened as did his tone when he replied, “Amy, let me in. Let me give you a kiss. And let me go knowin’ you’re good and we’ll sort this out when we got time.”
I was no match for Mickey’s soft looks.
So I sighed as I reached out, bunched his t-shirt in my hand and pulled him in.
He made it easy and, once close, wrapped his arms around me, bent his neck and I lifted up on tiptoes to offer my mouth.
His kiss was deep and sweet and when he broke it, he lifted a hand to sweep the hair off my shoulder before curling his hand around the side of my neck.
“Phone by your bed,” he murmured.
“Okay,” I replied.
He looked relieved and it was troubling that we’d had the fight we had and the possible reasons behind it that I experienced deep relief just seeing his relief.
“See you later tonight.”
“Okay, Mickey.”
He gave me a squeeze, let me go and walked out of my house.
I was watching as well as closing the door when I stopped because he did and he turned.
“I am who I am. I have what I have. And one of the things I got that I wanna keep is you.”
I licked my lips, pressed them together and held his eyes.
“We’ll sort it, baby,” he finished.
I nodded.
“Sleep good,” he said.
“Stay alert,” I replied.
He smiled, lifted a hand, turned and walked to his truck.
I closed the door thinking I knew top on the list of things that could kill a relationship was money.
And the kind of money that sat between Mickey and me was serious.
And Mickey was the kind of man that was Mickey.
I liked that he wanted to keep me. I wanted to keep him.
I just worried that one day something that was obviously disturbing him because he brought it up so frequently would make him rethink that.
* * * * *
I was on my knees, face in the pillows, taking Mickey’s cock, doing it moaning and whimpering.
He was giving it to me hard and rough.
He’d arrived after his shift at the firehouse and it had been what it always was. I opened the door; it started insanely good and progressed even better.
But this time, it was different.
Mickey didn’t talk much during sex, but I said things.
Both of us were silent.
But still, something was being communicated.
I didn’t get it and I had my mind on other, vastly more pleasant things, so I didn’t attempt to figure it out.
But I felt it.
Mickey knew what he wanted in bed. This was commanded sometimes verbally but mostly physically. He let me do things. He let me take things from him. But mostly he guided it and I followed his lead. He could get rough. He was strong enough to move me around, position me, so far as arrange me. We made love and there was always a sense of the tenderness to that, even when we were fucking.
Now, we were fucking.
But we were just fucking.
It was rough, fast, connected physically (obviously) yet disconnected emotionally, close and distant and there was something about it that was freeing at the same time vaguely alarming.
I couldn’t think on that either, whether it was good or bad how completely I was getting off on it.
I couldn’t think because I was close, reaching for it, when Mickey pulled out, flipped me, ran his hands up the backs of my thighs, positioning them up his chest. Then he clamped his fingers on my hips and reentered me.
I dug my heels into his shoulders and was powerless to do anything but watch his face, his eyes, hard and dark and stormy, as he fucked me.
He watched me too, his gaze moving over me, then he bent his neck and watched his cock thrust into me.
When he did, his hips started pistoning.
And when his hips did that, I lifted my arms up and pushed against the headboard so I could drive myself into his thrusts.
Digging my head in the pillows, eyes closed and focus entirely on taking his cock, loving what he was doing to me, I was losing it at the same time I was losing the disconnection and distance.
It again became Mickey and me connecting in every way this could be, becoming what was always but always perfect between Mickey and me, and I begged, “Yes, baby, fuck me.”
He fucked me harder.
“God, yes, Mickey. Fuck me,” I moaned.
I was there again, nearly soaring, when he pulled out and whipped me back around so I was on my belly. He lifted me up with an arm wrapped around the chest, walked us forward on our knees and let me go to grip me tight on the inside upper thighs at either side of my sex.
He pulled me up, I tilted my hips, he drove back in and I grasped onto the headboard with both hands.
He shifted a finger and tweaked my clit.
That was it, taking his cock, feeling that touch, experiencing the power of Mickey, my body started spasming as I cried, “Mickey!” and then I took flight.
His grunts filled the room as he went at me harder, faster, his finger still pressing my clit and rolling.
“Baby,” I panted, still coming.
He kept at me.
“Mickey,” I pleaded, not knowing why and still coming.
His grunts became physical things against the skin of my neck and my body started shuddering.
I was still coming as he spoke.
“You had it this good?” he growled in my ear.
“No,” I gasped.
“You ever had it this good, Amy?”
His question was about more than our fucking.
I gave him the truth.
“Never, Mickey,” I rasped.
His finger at my clit moved, his hand sliding up so he could wrap his arm around my belly, he drove me down on his cock and groaned against my neck, “Fuckin’ right, Amy.”
I kept coming through his orgasm because he had it grinding into me. Finally I started gliding, soft pants whispering past my lips and I felt Mickey coming down with me.
I shifted and he surprised me by ordering roughly, “Don’t move.”
I stilled.
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.
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