Always Mickie (Cruz Brothers Book 3)

by Melanie Munton

  I rutted against her.

  She welcomed it.

  We both yielded to the cataclysm of euphoria at the same time.

  If someone had told me right then that all manner of life hadn’t existed before that moment with her, I would have believed them. Time, space…nothing made sense right then but her. Being with her, holding her. That was the only real thing in my world, so that was all that mattered.

  She was all that mattered.

  I kissed her forehead, delirious with bliss. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Mickie

  Before I even opened my eyes, I knew something was different.

  I hadn’t slept that well in months.

  I hadn’t gotten drunk the night before, so that wasn’t the reason. I hadn’t taken any sleep medication. And I didn’t get a new mattress. Nothing had really changed. I reached my arms out to stretch and touched a warm body.

  Oh, right. Dawson was back in our bed.

  That had changed.

  I cracked open an eyelid to see his hulking, sleeping form lumbering on his usual side of the bed. He was lying on his stomach, arms tucked underneath his pillow—the position he always slept the best in. His breaths were steady and even, telling me he, too, was in a pretty soundless sleep.

  I went over the events of last night in my head and amazingly, felt a stirring between my legs. Recalling how Dawson had looked in his uniform—oh, my God. How he had spoken to me in the bar. And how hard he had taken me in that alleyway. We hadn’t pulled any exhibitionist acts like that in years, and I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t given me a thrill.

  That thrill could become pretty addictive if I let it.

  By the time we’d come down from our mutual highs and left the bar last night, we’d both been too tired to contemplate what our actions meant for our relationship or where he should sleep. An unspoken understanding had passed between us as I’d unlocked the front door and locked it back behind us. No questions were asked as we’d climbed the stairs and entered our bedroom.

  And when we’d gotten into bed, he’d simply wrapped his arms around me, pulled me in tight, and we’d fallen asleep together.

  In the middle of the night, he’d rolled over and made love to me slowly, intimately. As if nothing had changed with us since we’d gotten married. And maybe that was how we had to look at it. That even though we’d had kids and our jobs had changed and life had become more hectic, he and I were still the same people. A lot of things may have changed over time, but our love for each other hadn’t.

  So, if we removed every obstacle in our way, rewound time and remembered what we meant to each other, all of our problems seemed almost insignificant. That didn’t mean we still didn’t have stuff to work out because we did.

  As long as we reminded ourselves that underneath all our issues and our stress we couldn’t live without each other, we could figure everything out. We could handle it.

  After all, we’d each had our fair share of complications over the years, and we’d survived.

  Now wasn’t the time to throw in the towel.

  Not wanting to disturb him, I carefully and quietly eased myself out of bed and slipped on my robe. Ashley had watched Leo and Gabby last night, and Mason and Sage had picked them up to stay at Mason’s apartment overnight. I was grateful for everyone’s willingness to help with the kids while Dawson and I spent some time alone.

  Truth be told, I think everyone was just ready for us to quit our squabbling and for everything to go back to normal.

  With the kids’ absence, morning in the house felt different. There were no cartoons blasting from the TV. No squeaky voices yelling at each other to quit changing the channel. And no urgent need to scramble around trying to make them breakfast, pack their lunches, get them dressed and ready for school, all while trying to get myself dressed and ready for work.

  Although since house chores never stopped, I still had things I needed to get accomplished today. I could just do them at a much leisurely pace than usual.

  I started breakfast while I picked up the kitchen and living room. I was standing at the laundry closet, bending over separating whites and colors, when I felt a hand cover my hip.

  “Now, that’s how you wake a man up,” Dawson murmured in my ear, burying his face in my mess of hair. “A sight like that will do it every time.”

  It was hard to miss the morning wood he was sporting, since he was grinding it against my ass.

  I smiled as his arms wrapped around me from behind. “Good morning to you, too,” I said. “Sleep well?”

  “Up until the moment I woke up and you weren’t there, yes.”

  I rubbed my hands up and down his arms, savoring the connection. “Sorry. I had stuff to do.”

  He grunted and pulled my hair to the side. Dammit, he knew that was my sweet spot.

  “Who says you have to do any of that?” he asked.

  “Leo and his lack of clean shirts,” I answered. “And I’m low on underwear.”

  He lowered his hand to my sex. “Who says you have to wear those?”

  My laugh got caught in my throat when his hand cupped my mound through my robe. “Motherhood,” I whispered.

  He chuckled. “Good thing I’m flexible, then.”

  What did he mean by that?

  I was barely able to consider the question because he was pushing the material of my robe up and over my ass. He divested me of my panties. Then he brought my hands up, placing them on top of the dryer, forcing me to bend over the machine. The position gave him wide open access to my now throbbing center.

  He ran his hand over my naked skin. “I swear this ass looks as sweet as it did the day I met you.”

  It might have been the one area of my body that having kids hadn’t altered.

  “Was that the first thing you noticed?” I asked, half teasing and half genuinely curious. “My ass?”

  “No, it was your hair,” he answered automatically. “The way it bounced and flew around your shoulders as you danced. The curls were so wild, it made me think that maybe you were like your hair…couldn’t be tamed. How right I was.” He left a hot, open-mouthed kiss on my lower cheek that sent shivers up my spine. “Your ass was the second thing I noticed.”

  Once again, my laugh was cut off with the swift entrance of his hard cock through my tight channel. “Shit…wow. That’s good.”

  He breathed heavily into my neck as he pounded into me. “Just as good and even better than the very first time. You still get to me, Mick. You affect me now as much as you always have.”

  Ditto.

  “I want to…look at you,” I whispered.

  He pulled out and spun me around, lifting me onto the dryer without hesitation. With a fierce, determined expression, he yanked me forward to meet his hips, slamming back into me without a word.

  “How’s this?” he asked, keeping his eyes on me.

  I slid my arms around his neck. “Better.”

  He pulled at the tie of my robe and fingered the material open, separating it down the middle. Shoving my tank top down, he cupped my breast in his hand as his tongue licked circles around my nipple. I held his head to me, seeking more of his oral attentions.

  After being married with kids so long, you kind of forgot that sex didn’t have to always be relegated to just the bedroom. As long as the kids weren’t around, you were free to screw your spouse anywhere you wanted. Before the twins, we’d had frequent sex in random places. Since they’d been born, however, there had been much less dryer fucking.

  After we’d both climaxed to the beautiful cacophony of our mingled breathy moans, I felt remarkably energized. Seriously, morning sex was better than coffee. If we just got in the hang of replacing coffee with sex every morning, we could save some serious dough on caffeine beverages.

  “Should we talk about it?”

  We were sitting at the table eating my overcooked scrambled eggs.

  His fork froze halfway to his mouth. “Abo
ut what?”

  I pinned him with a look, knowing I needed to tread carefully. “What we never discussed after the gala. Your promotion.”

  He sighed, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and propped his elbows on the table. “I suppose we should. You can go first.”

  Despite how I’d initially reacted when I found out, I was determined to keep this conversation just that…a conversation. Not an argument or fight. We would get nowhere if it somehow turned into a screaming match.

  “Okay, um…” I wracked my brain, trying to organize my thoughts. “I guess my first question would be, what sort of changes would there be between this position and a detective? How would your responsibilities change?”

  “I would be in a supervisor role, so I would oversee individuals under me, such as detectives,” he said. “This comes with more paperwork, but the trade-off is that I wouldn’t be in the field as much. I’d still have my cases to work, but I wouldn’t always have to be the first one on the scene.”

  Meaning there would potentially be fewer calls in the middle of the night that led to him rushing to a crime scene.

  Next question. “Would this job require more hours away from home than what you’re working now?”

  His expression remained neutral, emotionless. “Not necessarily, no. If anything, it might give me more time at home.”

  That was a major plus.

  “And the pay?”

  “Comes with a raise, of course,” he answered. “The increase is a good amount.”

  “And by ‘good amount’ you mean…?” I prompted.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “More than decent, but less than substantial.”

  In my book, a raise was still a raise. And we’d certainly learned over the years that every little bit helped.

  “When do you have to give them your answer by?”

  He took a drink from his coffee mug. “Captain Johannsen retires at the end of next month, so they’d like an answer by then.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did that answer all of your questions?”

  “Most of them,” I replied. “Do you know what you want to do yet?”

  He shrugged, looking less and less interested in the topic. “I’m still thinking. And I want us to discuss this together and figure out what’s best for us, I really do. But can we put it on the back burner for today? I’ve been thinking about this decision non-stop and to be honest, I’d kind of like to give my mind a break from it.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  Tell him.

  This was the perfect opportunity to bring up the job offer in Jersey. At least, that was what my conscience was telling me.

  But the sensible side of my brain screamed at me to hold off. Actually, that was probably the cowardly side.

  The thing was, I couldn’t imagine him reacting well to the news. The discussion would either revolve around making a big, stressful move to New Jersey as a family, wherein he would have to give up his promotion for my career. Or, he would be enraged about my looking for jobs while we were separated.

  And that was a whole other discussion.

  I wasn’t in the mood to dive into either one today.

  “What’s on your agenda for today?” he asked, saving me from my inner dilemma. For now.

  It was Sunday, which was my usual day to get all house-related chores out of the way. “I have the laundry and some cleaning to get done. But the kids and I had talked about planting some flowers this afternoon.”

  His smile faded as those words sunk in, and I felt like a jerk. Clearly, he was hurt that he hadn’t been included in the flower planting conversation, and he should have been. That’s something we should have been doing as a family.

  “I’d like it if you helped,” I said. “And the kids would like it if we all did it together.”

  He stared down at the table and didn’t say anything.

  I gave it a few seconds before the silence got to me. “What’s wrong?”

  His expression was somber when he lifted his head. “I guess I just assumed after last night that I’d be moving back in. But it sounds like we weren’t on the same page there.”

  My heart sank. Was it wrong of me to have not suggested that? To still have some qualms about him moving back in too quickly? Or was I just making too big a deal of all of this?

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I know I’m probably sending mixed signals here,” I explained, “but I still want us to do this the right way and take our time. I don’t want to confuse the kids any more than they are by having you move back in before we’re ready.”

  He pursed his lips, and I could tell he was getting frustrated. “What does that mean, ‘before we’re ready?’”

  I nervously picked at the loose threads on my robe. “I mean, if you come back before we’ve really sorted everything out, and then we start arguing again like we were before you moved out. That could upset them.”

  “You’re talking about things that haven’t even happened yet,” he said impatiently. “You’re looking at the whole situation in a negative context, which isn’t helping anything.”

  Really? “I’m being negative?” I snapped.

  He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, you are. It’s kind of hard to stay positive when you keep making comments like that. Bad things happen only when you let them, you know.”

  I laughed disbelievingly. “Right. So, I let us start fighting? I let us create all these problems we have?”

  His expression didn’t change when he delivered the blow. “You threw me out of the house. You let that happen.”

  If he had slapped me across the face, it would have been less painful.

  “Are you saying I’m the only one at fault here?”

  He flung his arms out. “Well, I didn’t willingly leave.”

  I sprung up from my chair and stomped into the living room. He was soon to follow. I was so angry I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make valid points and help my cause.

  “I cannot believe you aren’t taking some responsibility,” I said through gritted teeth. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the only person in this marriage. It takes two to argue. Clearly, because look where we’re at now. We’re right back to fighting, and you’re not even moved back in.”

  “Yeah, and it takes two people to come up with a solution,” he retorted. “How were we supposed to do that when you just gave up and booted me out the door?”

  I shoved my hands through my hair, tempted to pull every last strand out in order to give myself something other than my anger to focus on. “Does it look like I gave up?” I yelled. “We’ve been making progress, haven’t we? What about the gala? What about last night?”

  He gestured toward me. “Yet you still want to live apart even after all those nights. As far as I remember, you were the one who told me what I was doing wrong. I was the one who had mistakes to own up to and make up for. Shit, I had a laundry list of things you wanted me to change. And I feel like I’ve been doing that. I’ve been trying to make you happy. But it doesn’t seem like any of that has made an impact with you.”

  “It has!” I took a few calming breaths, gathering control over my temper. “Things have been so much better between us. But these things can’t just happen overnight.”

  “If they’re working, why not?” he challenged.

  “Because if it were that easy, what lesson would you have learned?” I blurted.

  He went still. Too still.

  That posture was never good. It was how he looked when he was interrogating a suspect, which didn’t bode well for me.

  “Hold on,” he said, raising a finger. “You’ve been doing all of this just to teach me a lesson?”

  I shook my head. “No, that came out wrong. I did what I did because I wasn’t sure what else to do to make you listen.”

  He acted like he hadn’t even heard me. “When the hell did you start treating me like my mother instead of my wife?”

  Oh, he had not just said that.
>
  “Excuse—”

  “Christ, what do I have to do, Mickie?” he asked, sounding lost. “What do I have to do to get you back? Because I’m all out of answers.”

  Staring at the pain on his face, my anger had now been redirected at myself. I felt like a monster for putting that look there, causing his pain. I couldn’t even find the words to apologize or make any of this right. I’d woken up with a completely different mindset this morning.

  How had we gotten here?

  The grunt he let out held so much derision, I felt like crying.

  “Why don’t you get back to me when you have answer,” he said bitterly.

  Then he was out the door.

  I collapsed on the floor and shed tears for an entire hour after he left.

  What had I done?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Dawson

  Yep. I was a fucking moron.

  I didn’t need a marriage counselor to tell me that.

  I really had no goddamn idea what had possessed me to go off on Mickie the way I had the other day. The only thing I’d come up with was that I still held some resentment over being kicked out of my own house, and that was the first time I’d ever expressed it out loud to her.

  But I needed to get over that shit and fast.

  Because it was no excuse to act like a dick.

  Not to mention the fact that I’d ruined the day. I’d worked the rest of Sunday, although she’d been gracious enough to put off planting flowers with the kids until I was around again. Meaning, when I could control myself from having a tantrum like my five-year-old daughter.

  And of course, this all had to happen right before the plans I’d made for this weekend. What I’d arranged for the two of us was supposed to signify the changing of the guard, if you will. It was a special occasion that I wanted marked as the turning point in this post-separation period.

  In other words, I wanted it to mark the end of our separation.

  Mickie didn’t know about the plans.