At Peace (52 page)

Then he moved.

I turned and ran.

Mooch followed me, thinking it was a
game.

It was no game and I was way too slow. Joe
caught me, swung me around and then up over his shoulder and
stalked into my bedroom.

“Joe! Put me down!” I demanded, pushing
against his back.

He did. Bending at the waist, he threw me on
the bed.

I turned and got up on all fours,
scrambling.

He caught my ankles, yanked them, my knees
came out from under me and he pulled me to him, twisted me to my
back then he landed on top of me.

“Joe –” I tried but his hand was in my hair,
it fisted, he tilted my head and his mouth came down hard on
mine.

Fucking hell, but that was it. It was insane
but that was all he had to do.

He was wrong. I remembered. I remembered
every second with him, even the ones when we weren’t having sex,
and I missed them. God, so much, I had to bury it, covering it with
everything I had so it wouldn’t break me.

But it all came back, the longing, the hurt,
the hunger, everything we were, everything I wanted us to be and it
was everything there was.

We tore at each other’s clothes, yanking them
off while we wrestled for supremacy, kissing, licking, biting,
touching, scratching.

“Christ, baby,” Joe growled as my hand
wrapped tightly around his hard shaft.

“
I missed you,” I whispered my admission,
why, I didn’t know. It just came out of me.

His face disappeared in my neck and his mouth
at my ear, he ordered, “Spread your legs for me, buddy.”

I did, he slid between then without delay he
slammed inside, filling me.

My hands glided into his overlong hair and I
moaned, “Baby.”

“Wrap your legs around me, honey.”

I did and used them, heels digging into his
back to lift my hips and he went in faster, harder, deeper.

“Good Christ, you feel good,” he groaned in
my ear.

It was debatable but I figured he felt
better, though I wasn’t going to argue the point just then. Instead
I wrapped him tighter, his mouth came to mine and he kissed me.

Not long after, I was close, his mouth was on
mine but somehow he could feel it coming.

“Say my name.”

“Joe.”

He ground his cock in deep and demanded, “Who
do you belong to?”

I closed my eyes and whispered, “You,
Joe.”

“
That’s it,” he growled against my mouth,
driving deep and I felt it as he urged, “come for me,
baby.”

“Okay,” I breathed and came, huge, hard,
long, amazing, wrapping him tight, holding him close, pulling him
deep as the orgasm he gave me had me in its grip and it was so
beautiful, I didn’t want it ever to let me go.

It did, they always do, even the spectacular
ones Joe gave me and I came down in time to listen to and feel
Joe’s.

After, Joe stayed planted deep, his hand
tangled in my hair, the other one at my ass, his weight heavy on
me, his mouth moving at my neck and it was then I realized I
really
was
a
slut.

Mike and I hadn’t had sex last night but
we’d fooled around far more serious than ever before. Mike had
given me an orgasm with his mouth and I’d returned the favor. I
didn’t know why he pulled back from the act; maybe he sensed I
wasn’t ready. But what we did was great, brilliant, he was a gentle
lover (as far as I could tell), taking his time, like his stealth
kisses, getting off on building the burn, patient but, in the end,
demanding.

I’d liked it a lot.

But not nearly as much as what I just
had.

Two orgasms from two different men in less
than twelve hours.

Yes, I was a slut.

When I came to this conclusion, Joe moved,
pulling out and moving me with him, righting us in bed, pulling the
covers down, sliding us between them, shoving the comforter back
and then pulling the sheet up to our waists.

I didn’t fight, struggle or say anything as
he settled me into him. My mind was blank. No, not blank, frozen in
disgust at myself.

Then I came back into the room and I saw that
he’d slightly modified our usual position where I had my head to
his shoulder, my body pressed to his side.

He’d pulled me partly over him, my cheek to
his chest between his pecs, his fingers had wrapped around my
wrist, positioning my arm around his hip, his knee had come up,
hooking my leg with it so my calf fell between his legs and I was
semi-straddling his thigh.

I could hear his heart beating, steady,
strong. I’d never heard that before or never noticed it and its
strength weirdly defined him. Strong, vital and alive.

And he’d also yanked the sheet over us, to
our waists. This was something I did with him in between times,
unconsciously doing it, completely comfortable with our nudity
while we were in the act but feeling vulnerable when we weren’t.
I’d pull the sheet up to our waists, not higher just there. Even
after years with Tim, I’d done the same.

Tim had never pulled the sheet up. Joe
noticed and he did.

And he remembered me, how I felt, even
smelled. Like me, he remembered at night when we were apart.

I sucked in breath.

His fingers slid into my hair.

“It’ll take two months to renovate the
house,” he said suddenly and I blinked then realized he was
starting the conversation in the middle again and my stomach got
warm and soft at the memory of something Joe, something I thought
I’d never have back and I steeled myself against it but I knew this
was a futile effort. “Took ‘em a day to gut it but it’ll take two
months to renovate it,” he finished.

I stayed silent because I didn’t have
anything to say but also because my mind was not frozen and blank
anymore. Now there was so much in my brain, I couldn’t catch a
thought.

“Girls’re gonna pick carpet, paint,
cupboards, shit like that. That’s our deal,” Joe went on.

God, Keira would freaking
love
that. Kate too.

I was screwed.

“In return, I’m in town, I stay with
you.”

My head came up with that and I looked at him
and said, “Joe –”

I said no more because his hand was still
in my hair. It slid to my neck and he yanked me up his body,
lifting his thigh to assist him in this endeavor, its hardness
pressed between my legs, an area still sensitive which meant this
felt good. When my face was close to his, his hand went back into
my hair and pulled my mouth down to his to give me a bruising but
short open-mouthed kiss.

“Love it when you say my name, baby,” he
muttered against my mouth when he was done. I felt my body soften,
my jumbled head going blank again as I stared in his eyes and he
went on. “Feel it in my dick every time.”

My head gave a small jerk and I blurted, “You
do?”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

I liked it when he grinned. He didn’t do it
much so each time it felt like a gift.

But still, I said, “That’s weird.”

His grin became soft laughter and he rolled
me to my back, mostly covering me with his body, his cocked thigh
still pressed high between my legs.

“You don’t hear it when you say it,” he told
me.

“I do hear it.”

“No, you’re not a guy so you hear it but you
don’t. The way you say ‘Joe’, every man would wish that was their
name.”

“Okay,” I replied because I really didn’t
have anything else to say to that statement and because I was busy
trying to ignore the lovely squishy feeling that statement made me
feel.

He bent his head and kissed my neck then his
hands started roaming and his thigh moved an inch higher.

I bit my lip.

“Joe?”

“Yeah?” he asked my neck.

“You, um… can’t stay here.” His head came out
of my neck, his hands stilled and he looked at me so I forged
ahead. “’Cause, um… Dane called and said the girls were fakin’ it,
havin’ a good time. He and I made our own deal yesterday. I need to
call them like, right now, and ask them to come home. They’ll be
back Saturday and I promised Dane and his parents he could sleep on
the couch.”

“So?” Joe asked.

“
So, Dane’ll be sleeping on the couch so
you can’t.” This was one of the
two
reasons he couldn’t, Mike being the other one but I thought
I’d start with Dane because mentioning Mike might make Joe mad and
Joe naked and mad meant me acting again like a slut (or more like
one, whatever that would be).

“Wasn’t gonna sleep on your couch, buddy,” he
told me and I blinked then I finally came to myself.

“You can’t sleep with me.”

“In your bed right now,” he pointed out.

“
Yes, but you carried me to it and
threw
me in it.”

“You didn’t struggle much then, Vi, and
pointin’ out the obvious, you aren’t doin’ it now.”

He was right so I pushed off and tried to
slide away but he gave me more of his weight which meant resistance
was futile.

So I glared up at him and demanded, “Get
off.”

He looked like he was trying not to laugh, a
new look, a good one on him. “Too late.”

“Off.”

“You like me here.”

“Off!” I shouted.

“You missed me, told me so yourself,
buddy.”

God, I did do that, just blurted it right
out.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away
but, even doing this, I could hear his soft laughter and
feel
it against my body.

I didn’t want to like it but I did.

Then something occurred to me and my body got
tight and my head righted with a snap, my eyes opening.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“What?” Joe asked.

“Do you hear that?”

Joe’s face instantly got serious, his head
cocked to listen then he looked at me and his voice was serious too
when he asked, “What, buddy?”

“Nothing,” I told him.

“Come again?”

“Nothing!” I cried. “Shit, hearing nothing
means Mooch is getting into trouble.”

If Keira wasn’t around (and she was good with
taking care of her dog) then it was me who had to deal with Mooch
and Mooch, being a very active puppy, was a lot to deal with.

I couldn’t do that with a big, naked man on
me.

Then suddenly that big, naked man wasn’t on
me. He was at the side of the bed and pulling on his jeans.

I stared as he walked out of the room.

Then I pulled the sheet up to my chest, sat
up in the bed, bending my knees and watching the door, curious
despite myself at what he was going to do. So curious, I didn’t get
out of bed, get my clothes on and run far, far away. Instead, I
waited.

Not minutes later, Joe came back with a
squirming dog under one arm and my purse in his other hand.

He dumped Mooch in the bed and my purse on
the nightstand.

Mooch ran to me and jumped up, licking me
with his puppy tongue and dousing me with his puppy breath.

“
Need a new dog bed, Vi,” Joe declared as I
gave an active Mooch a rubdown and my eyes went to Joe.

“What?”

“Dog ate it,” Joe told me, pulling my cell
out of my purse.

“He ate it?” I breathed, wondering, if he had
dog bed in his stomach, if that meant a vet bill in my future.

“Not all of it but he did a number on
it.”

“Shit,” I whispered.

Joe tossed my phone on the bed then got in
after he did that, grabbing the dog, stretching out on his back and
pinning the puppy to his bare chest.

“Call your girls,” Joe ordered as Mooch
licked Joe’s jaw.

I stared at Mooch licking Joe’s jaw and the
way Joe accepted this without looking angry or sinister or badass.
Well, he still looked badass but not angry or sinister and I felt
my belly go warm and soft again.

“Honey, the girls,” Joe prompted when I
didn’t move.

He was calling me honey a lot lately and,
stupid me, I liked that too.

He taught me a lesson (twice), a lesson that
burned so deep I thought I’d never forget that night in his house
with him in that chair, telling me he fucked someone else.

But here I was, right back where I began.

And I liked that too.

“
Right,” I whispered, snatched my phone
from the bed and slid it open.

Joe moved the dog from his chest to the bed
and Mooch started gnawing on his fingers. This Mooch did a lot and
it didn’t feel great. It started off okay but if Mooch got into it,
it hurt.

As my phone rang Kate’s
I noticed Mooch was getting into it but
Joe didn’t push him off or even wince.

“Hi Mom!” Kate called cheerfully into my ear
and I heard instantly that Dane was right, she was faking it.

“Hey baby,” I replied.

“Everything okay?” Kate asked.

My eyes went from Mooch to Joe to see his
head was to the pillows, one arm cocked, his hand behind his head
and he watching me.

“Not really,” I said to Kate, moving my eyes
from Joe’s face to Joe’s feet, which were crossed at the ankles and
bare under the hems of his jeans.

Kate’s voice grew concerned and she asked,
“What’s up?”

“Well… I don’t want to, um… it’s just that…
do you think you and Keira could come home a bit early?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine I just kinda want you guys
home with me. Do you think Dane’s folks’ll mind?”

“
No,” she said immediately, “they’ll
understand.”

Yes, my girl wanted to come home.

It was now confirmed. Dane was a good kid and
I was forced to like him, even love the guy.

Shit.

“Dane can um…” Damn! I looked back at Joe and
widened my eyes at him but he just lifted his brows and then I
said, “If his parents’ll let him, we’ll look out for him. I know
he’s seventeen but he can stay with us, sleep on the couch and I’ll
keep him fed.”