Always Mickie (Cruz Brothers Book 3)

by Melanie Munton

  I headed back to interrogation with a grin on my face.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Dawson

  I showed up at the house with a bouquet of pink roses, Mickie’s favorite.

  It felt so odd to be knocking on my own door. I had a key. I could have just let myself inside. But I wanted Mickie to feel in control here. Wanted her to know that I was making every conscious effort to treat this situation as she’d requested.

  Then when she felt comfortable, I would take my turn at the wheel.

  Which I desperately wanted to do after she let me inside and I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her finish dinner. Wearing some tight-ass skinny jeans with a top that accentuated her perky, round breasts.

  Oh, yeah. She could hand over those controls anytime she was ready.

  “So, after Dr. Stein left without notice,” Mickie said, continuing her story, “I had to explain to the patient why the doctor who performed his surgery couldn’t stick around for his post-op briefing, and why a completely different doctor, one they didn’t know, had to step in.”

  She was in the middle of telling me about her day, a story that had quickly evolved into a heated rant about the infamous Dr. Stein. She’d had weekly—daily—complaints about him ever since he’d been transferred to her hospital months before. I’d met the man only once. At a hospital picnic.

  And I couldn’t help but notice he’d been looking at my wife a little too closely the entire afternoon. With too much fucking interest.

  After that incident, I’d memorized the bastard’s name and committed his face to memory.

  “I could report him for that,” she hissed. “Leaving before his shift was over.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. “Because I have too many people to manage and too many things to worry about around that place without having one more piled on my plate. Filing a complaint would probably do more harm than good, anyway.”

  “It sounds like he’s the one doing more harm than good,” I pointed out.

  “Nevertheless, I don’t have time to mess with it right now.” She carried over a bowl of potato salad, gave the dining room table another once-over, and stood back in satisfaction. “You hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  Just not for food.

  She had pulled out the fancy dishes we’d gotten for our wedding, the ones we only used on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and spread out a nice tablecloth. There were even candlesticks on the table, which she’d already had lit before I arrived.

  How the hell had I gotten so lucky?

  “How’s your family doing?” I asked after we sat down and dug into the food.

  She’d always been a good cook. I’d severely missed that. Mason and Sage had, well, different tastes when it came to food.

  Mickie wiped her mouth with her cloth napkin before responding. “Uncle Frank and Aunt Hope are good. They’re thinking about making a trip down to Charleston next month to visit Fort Sumter for about the fifteenth time.”

  I smiled. Frank was a Civil War buff, and a big fan of the Second Amendment. He and I had always gotten along pretty well.

  “Milo is studying for his driver’s permit, which is freaking Margot out,” she continued, giggling into her hand. I about choked on my food at the sound. She was so damn cute. “I can’t believe he’s old enough to drive. And all of that is always her excuse for never having a boyfriend when I ask. She’s too busy with Milo’s activities, and doesn’t have enough time. Of course, that’s a load of crap.”

  “Of course,” I supplied. “Since she works at the DMV, I sort of expected her to try and find a way to prevent Milo from getting his license. Knowing her, I could see her wielding some magic there.”

  Mickie nodded knowingly. “Ah, but with great power comes great responsibility. I think she considered it and thought instead to wait and use her powers for something that wasn’t so inevitable. Like against a girlfriend she doesn’t approve of.”

  As the conversation continued, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to bring up the topic of my promotion. Time was winding down to make a decision, and Mickie had to be consulted. I wanted to do what was best for my family. And no matter how badly I wanted the job, if Mickie didn’t think it was the right choice, I’d turn it down in a second.

  But everything was going so well with us.

  I didn’t want to bring up a subject that could potentially cause an argument. I wanted to enjoy this time with her without anything else getting in the way. And if Kyle called again about another case, I swear I was going to shoot him in the hand so he could never use his phone again.

  An hour and a homemade key lime pie later, I was pushing away from the table with a full, satisfied belly.

  Though it was the only part of me that was satisfied.

  Other parts of me still had…cravings.

  And helping her clean up the table and wash the dishes made controlling those cravings decidedly harder. As we carried everything from the table to the sink, we kept brushing up against each other, grazing skin. Her fragrance would invade my senses, and then be stripped away like some horrible, erotic tease.

  But I wanted to make sure this wasn’t one-sided.

  If we were going to torture ourselves by skirting around our desires—for now—then we were both going to suffer an equal amount.

  She washed the dishes as I dried and put them away. But as she stood there at the sink, I made sure she felt my presence as I took the dishes from her. I invaded her space, coming up behind her and towering over her small form. I’d lean around her, bringing our faces so close together our noses practically touched.

  I knew she could feel me breathing on her neck. Knew she reacted when I casually placed my hand on her hip. Though the gesture was anything but casual. My hand burned when I touched her. The heat of her body seared through me, igniting a fire inside me.

  And she stoked those flames with her coy smiles and lip biting.

  Every time she bent over and flashed me a hint of her tits, she made the fire burn brighter, hotter.

  Just when I was seconds away from bending her over the counter and sinking inside her, she turned off the faucet and faced me.

  “Feel like watching a movie?” she asked.

  I was pleased by the physical reaction I’d seemed to cause in her. Her cheeks were noticeably flushed, and they turned even pinker when she laughed at herself.

  “I know that sounds really high school,” she said. “But we just haven’t done that in a while. Sat down and watched a movie by ourselves.”

  “And one that wasn’t rated PG,” I said.

  She laughed again. “Yeah, I’d even take PG-13 at this point.”

  We sat down on the couch, and she popped in some new action flick I’d never seen. She’d always loved the shoot ‘em up movies as much as I did, something I was grateful for.

  I was also grateful that she hadn’t sat on the opposite side of the couch. She wasn’t in my lap, but she was still next to me. Close enough that I could throw my arm over the back of the couch and run my fingers through her hair.

  It wasn’t long into the movie that I became painfully aware she’d turned off all the lights in the house, and we were sitting there in the dark. The only light in the room was the glow from the TV.

  The air began to thicken.

  I could feel the change in her occur at the same time it did with me.

  Our syncopated breathing sounded so loud in the room, despite the sounds of guns and explosions coming from the movie. Her legs were twitching, as if she were trying to decide if she wanted to move them closer to me. When I looked down, all I could see were her heaving breasts.

  Fuck this.

  I didn’t want to rush her, but I also knew her tells.

  And she wanted me.

  My gaze was already focused on her when she turned her head toward me. As our eyes drank each other in for several beats, the world around us fell away. In
that moment, time was suspended. There were no jobs, or responsibilities, or obligations. We didn’t worry about yesterday, or tomorrow.

  There was only us. Now. Right here.

  And I was going to make it count.

  I lowered my head and kissed her. Hard and passionate, like I knew she needed. But it was also what I needed. I had so much sexual frustration inside me, especially since our night of salsa dancing, and sweet and tender just wasn’t going to cut it.

  But dammit, she deserved to know how much she was cherished. I owed it to her to make sensual, gentle love to her. Rocking into her slowly, drawing out her pleasure all night.

  It was just not going to happen tonight.

  I pushed my tongue between her lips, taking ownership of her mouth. We moaned together. Need stirred within me as I molded her body to mine. I tilted my head to the side, so I could take the kiss deeper, taste more of her.

  She leaned up and threw her leg over my lap, straddling me. I wrapped my arms around her and re-connected our mouths. I didn’t want to be separated from her for even a second. The room was getting entirely too hot, so she helped push my shirt up and over my head. My mouth latched onto the skin of her neck, sucking, biting, soothing.

  “God, I’ve missed you,” I whispered.

  Her head was thrown back, her curly hair cascading down her back. “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve missed this. It’s been so long.”

  I understood her meaning. Not just too long since we’d had sex, although it had been.

  But since there had been this all-consuming need burning between us.

  This urgency to get lost in each other.

  “I’m going to fix that,” I told her. “Right fucking now.”

  I shifted around and shoved her back onto the couch. I roughly pushed her thighs apart, and placed myself between her spread legs. When I started thrusting my hips, her nails dug into my back.

  “Oh, God,” she said on a breathless moan. “Yes. I need it right... there. Oh!”

  And she was going to get more of it right there.

  We were making out and dry humping on our living room couch like a couple of horny teenagers. Acting as if we were hiding from her sleeping parents upstairs.

  But fuck, it felt good.

  I yanked down her top and pushed her bra away. My mouth covered her flesh, sucking hard on her nipple until it puckered under my tongue’s ministrations. Then I switched to the other one.

  “You kill me, baby,” I said as I crawled down her body. “Do you even know what you do to me? What you still do to me? It doesn’t matter how many years pass between us. All it takes is one smile from you and I’m gone. Or one glimpse of your tight little body. Fuck, I see you from across the room and I’m instantly hard.”

  She whimpered.

  I shoved her top out of the way and kissed a path down her stomach. My fingers reached the snap of her jeans. “Now, let’s see how much you’ve missed my mouth,” I growled.

  I had the zipper halfway down when her fucking cell phone rang from the coffee table.

  We both froze.

  I groaned, dropping my head onto her stomach. “You have got to me kidding me. Not again.”

  Couldn’t a guy catch a break?

  Her forehead was scrunched in frustration as she reached for the device. “It’s the hospital.” She sighed and answered it, hanging up less than a minute later. “There’s been a big wreck and they’re short-staffed,” she said wearily. “They need me to come in.”

  I took steady, measured breaths through my nose, trying to prepare myself for the pain that was about to shoot through me when I stood up. I was so hard I could barely breathe.

  I lifted myself off her and fell back against the cushions. “You think the rest of the world knows when we’re having these moments, and are conspiring together to keep us from having sex?”

  “It certainly feels that way,” she grumbled.

  “You want me to pick up the kids and keep them with me at Mason’s tonight?” I asked.

  She glanced at me and started to say something, but stopped herself.

  Shit. Should I have offered to bring them back here and stay the night? I didn’t know if she would appreciate the offer, and I didn’t want to make the presumption that she would be okay with it.

  She eventually just said, “Yeah, that’d be fine. Thanks.”

  I slipped my shirt back on as she quickly changed into her scrubs. Waiting at the door as she locked up, I pulled her in by the back of the neck, making her see me.

  “We’re going to do this again soon, Mick,” I said firmly. Hell, it was practically a demand.

  She nodded, and went up on her tip toes to lay a soft kiss on my lips. “Very soon,” she whispered.

  I wanted to shoot something when I had to watch her walk away, her ass swaying in the thin material of her scrubs. All I wanted was to get my woman naked, and make sure she knew she was still mine.

  Was that too much to ask?

  The rest of the world sucked.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mickie

  “I’m sooo hungry, Mom!” Leo whined from his seat beside Mason.

  I shot him the “mom” look. “You just ate a hotdog, fries, and peanuts,” I said. “You don’t need any more food.”

  “But I want—”

  “Don’t talk back to your mother,” Dawson cut him off, using his “dad” voice.

  Leo slumped back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Thus, beginning the pouting session that would last for at least ten minutes before he got distracted by something else. Or as soon as Gabby started teasing him about it.

  Dawson met my eyes and winked.

  Together, the “mom” look and “dad” voice were an unbeatable combination.

  The four of us—along with Mason, Sage, and Parker’s girlfriend, Kinley—were all at the Baltimore Orioles v. Boston Red Sox baseball game, watching Parker play third base for the Red Sox. It was a hot Saturday afternoon, but thank heavens the sun was starting to go down. It was the fifth inning, and the Red Sox were beating the Orioles by three runs.

  Parker had been stellar, as always.

  Sage was sitting beside me—we had become pretty good friends since she’d started dating Mason—and something on her wrist caught my attention. “Is that a new tattoo?” I asked, grabbing for her wrist.

  “Yeah,” she muttered, not sounding all that thrilled about it.

  They were small letters, but big enough to discern what they were.

  I raised an eyebrow. “‘I♥MAC’?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s MAC stand for?”

  She sighed. “Mason Arturo Cruz. I lost a bet.”

  Mason burst into laughter from the other side of her, which resulted in her smacking him.

  I smiled and shook my head. “I don’t know how you can stand being under the needle that long.” The woman had tattoos all up and down her arms and legs. “I almost passed out the one time I ever did it.”

  Her head whipped back around. “You have a tattoo?”

  Dawson stilled next to me, obviously listening to our conversation. I could feel the heat from his arm that was resting on the back of my seat.

  I swallowed. “Um, yeah. On my shoulder blade. It was a drunken decision a million years ago.” Please don’t ask me what it is.

  Even though I loved it.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t corny as hell.

  Sage laughed. “Yeah, I have a few of those. Bad tequila makes for stupid choices. Unfortunately, I’m reminded of a lot of mine every time I look in a mirror.”

  Dawson’s hand was lightly rubbing my shoulder, before his fingers dipped beneath the strap of my tank top. He ran them over the skin on my shoulder blade—right over my tattoo. He was caressing it, as if recalling the memories from that night.

  “It was actually a pretty great day,” I said, and looked up to see him already watching me.

  I could tell my words had affected him when his pupi
ls dilated, his nostrils flaring.

  We still hadn’t been able to finish what we’d started on the couch the other night. The night we’d both been positively ravenous for each other. I’d thought about that little bump and grind only every five minutes for the last three days. We hadn’t had action that steamy in…a while.

  Kinley asked Sage something, distracting her from our tattoo conversation, giving me the opportunity to stare into my husband’s eyes. He was looking at me as if my eyes contained the secrets of the universe.

  It was exactly how he’d looked at me when we first met.

  “I think about that day all the time,” he murmured so that only I could hear him.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised by the admission. “You do?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do. And the concert when we met. And our first date.”

  “Of course, I remember that.” Our ziplining first date was still one of the best days of my life. I grinned. “You about fainted on me when you realized how high up we were.”

  I had to bite back my laughter when he scoffed. “I didn’t almost faint,” he said. “I was…concerned for your safety, that’s all.”

  I pursed my lips. He still wasn’t a huge fan of heights. “Right. I mistook your gallantry for anxiety. My apologies.”

  He glared, and I let out an unladylike squeak when he reached over and pinched my leg.

  I sobered. “I didn’t think you remembered all that.”

  He shot me a look of disbelief. “I remember everything, Mick. How could I not? Meeting you was a turning point in my life. Hell, I don’t even remember what my life was like before I met you.”

  I smiled, and a thought occurred to me. “I wonder whatever happened with that movie. You know, the one you starred in?”

  He tipped his head back and groaned. “Oh, God. Hopefully, the studio shut it down during post-production.”

  My smile turned sly. “Nonsense. You gave the performance of a lifetime. They wouldn’t have hidden that away from the world. I’m going to look for it.”