Kristen Ashley - At Peace

“You’re unbelievable,” I snapped.

“I’m yours.”

That socked me in the gut too, so hard it winded me and all I could do was stare up at him.

Taking advantage, his face dipped close and his hands curled around both sides of my head.

“First fuckin’ time you smiled at me in my bed, that’s when it happened,” he murmured.

“Joe –”

“You’re under my skin.”

“Please –”

“I’m under yours.”

I shook my head and his face got even closer, all I could see were his sky blue eyes, all I could feel were his lips a breath away from mine.

“I like you there, buddy, and you like me there too. Cut Mike loose.”

“You can’t belong to anyone. You’re Joe Callahan, a one-woman man. The only one you ever belonged to was Bonnie and she’s still got hold of you and always will no matter how fucked up, crazy sad that was.”

His hands tightened on my head and he said, “Don’t listen to ‘burg lore. It’s shit.”

“You held onto it for seventeen years,” I pointed out.

“She killed my son,” he replied and my heart lurched.

“I know,” I whispered and my hands went to his waist, wanting to touch him, needing it, after he said those words, and doing it because I was crazy insane.

“You help me let that go, baby, I help you with Sam.”

I shook my head but my hands clenched his tee at his sides. “I can’t go back there again with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know when you’ll turn.”

“Buddy –”

“You’ve done it to me twice.”

“Vi –”

“And you’ve done it to the girls once.”

I watched him close his eyes, knowing I’d scored a point and not feeling the least bit happy about it. But something was happening here and for me, and my girls, I had to do right this time.

So I pushed the knife in deeper. “Me, okay Joe, but not my girls.”

He opened his eyes and locked them with mine.

“You feel it, I know you do. You know it isn’t done.”

“It has to be.”

“It isn’t. It won’t ever be.”

“It is, Joe.”

He didn’t respond, just stared into my eyes.

Then his mouth moved until it was touching mine.

Just with that touch, not even a kiss, my body went soft, my hands quit clenching his shirt and slid around to his back and a whimper glided out of my throat.

“Tell yourself that, baby. But, look at you,” he murmured, his voice gentle not gloating, our eyes still locked, “you’re mine.”

Then his mouth went away but he bent his head, let mine go, kissed my neck and he walked away, out the door and I watched him through the window as he sauntered along my front walk to his house.

I stood there, pressed to the wall for a long time. It took awhile but I realized I was breathing heavily.

Then I slid down the wall, knees to my chest. I wrapped my arms around my calves and hugged myself tight.

Then I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and I called my girls.

They told me they were there, in the cabin, unpacked and Dane and his Dad had the boat in the water. The cabin was way cool and the lake was phenomenal. They were getting ready to go out on the boat and they sounded happy and excited.

I’d made the right decision, making them go. They had other things to think about, good things.

Sam would be glad.

When I was done talking, I slid my phone closed.

That’s what I needed, exactly what I needed.

It wouldn’t last long but it was something.

I got up off the floor and went to go get Mooch.

I sat wearing Mike’s t-shirt in Mike’s big bed, my ass to the mattress, my shoulders to the headboard, a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream melting in my hand.

Mike was stretched out beside me, on his side, head in hand, elbow in the pillow, eyes on me, wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else (he had a nice chest, unbelievable abs, the whole show leaner than Joe’s, not as bulky, not scarred, but still amazing).

Layla was lying flat out on her side at the end of the bed, Mooch curled in her chest. Both of them were passed out due to the fact that they’d spent the last four hours pretty much destroying Mike’s yard.

My cell was glued to my ear and Dane Gordon was whispering to me through it.

“She’d be mad, Miz Winters, me tellin’ you this.”

“That’s okay, Dane, I won’t tell her you called.”

“Will you do it? Tomorrow morning? Let them both off the hook?”

“Yeah, Dane, I’ll call.”

“We’ll come back Saturday, so we’ll have another day and they won’t feel they’ll be screwin’ up my vacation with my folks and Katy’ll let me stay home so I can be around… um, for her, you know…”

Shit, but I liked this kid.

“Tell your folks I’ll keep you fed. You want…” Damn, was I gonna do this? Yes, I was gonna do it. “You can tell them I’m lettin’ you sleep on the couch.”

Mike made a choking noise that sounded like swallowed laughter.

I glared at him.

“Yeah?” Dane asked in my ear, cut up because Kate was cut up about her uncle, not wanting to be far from his girl and the couch was as close as I wanted him to get.

“Yeah, Dane.”

“Okay,” he said and he sounded relieved. “Gotta go, thanks Miz Winters.”

“Yeah. Bye Dane.”

“Later.”

I slid my phone closed and Mike slid it out of my hand and threw it on his nightstand then he turned back to me.

“Sweetheart, you are the biggest fuckin’ pushover I’ve ever seen.”

I slid my ass down his bed, pulling his shirt down as I did it so as not to expose my panties and begged him, “Please, shoot me.”

“It’s a six thousand dollar bed, darlin’, I don’t want a bullet hole in it.”

I glared at him again then I threw my arm over my eyes.

He pulled the ice cream out of my hand, I felt him turn in the bed then he came back and pulled me into his arms.

I shifted so my hands were on his chest and I looked up at him.

“Talk to me,” he ordered quietly.

“Well,” I pressed closer, “Dane says that Kate and Keira are havin’ loads of fun but it’s all an act. He says they’re sad, just coverin’ it up. He says they want to be home, they’re talkin’ about me all the time. But he reckons they aren’t askin’ to go home because they think I want them to say. And he says I should call, say I want them to come home and that’ll let them off the hook. But if I give them another day there, they do their duty to Dane and his folks but also get to come home to me. Dane drove down too so they’d have an extra car if the kids wanted to go out and do something so he can drive them back.”

“Good kid,” Mike muttered.

“Yeah,” I grinned at him, “Kate didn’t inherit much from me but she got my taste in men.”

Mike burst out laughing and rolled into me, his face going in my neck where he kissed me then his head came up.

“Kate’s exactly like you.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Kate. She’s you. Totally.”

“She looks like Tim.”

“Yeah, but she acts like you, walks like you, smiles like you. Keira has your smile too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, honey. They’re gorgeous but when they smile…” he let that hang and he grinned at me.

I moved my hand from his chest to his face and whispered, “Mike.”

He turned his head and kissed my palm. Then he dipped his head, touched his mouth to mine and my arms wrapped around him.

“I like bein’ here, with you,” I said against his mouth.

His head came up and his eyes caught mine.

“I like it too, sweetheart.”

Then for some reason killing a great mood, I blurted, “I didn’t get things sorted with Joe today.”

His brows drew together and he asked, “You didn’t talk to him?”

“I did, he kind of… didn’t listen.”

Mike rolled away to his back but I kept hold of him and went with him as he muttered, “Fuck, Vi.”

I got up on an elbow and looked down at him. “You can step back, honey, while I sort this out with him.”

His eyes locked on mine. “You want me to do that?”

I did, to be fair to him.

And I didn’t, to be totally selfish.

“Yes, to be fair to you,” I said and felt his body tense. “No, to be totally selfish,” I finished, voicing my thoughts aloud then I said, “but I know now where Joe’s at and if I wasn’t me, but your friend, I’d advise you to step back.”

“I gotta worry about this shit?”

“No.”

He studied my face then he said, “You sure?”

“No.”

He looked at the ceiling. I dropped down and pressed my forehead to his chest.

After awhile, I felt his hand slide into my hair.

“This a ‘may the best man win’ situation, sweetheart?”

“I’m not a prize, Mike,” I told his chest.

“Yeah you are, Vi, the best fuckin’ prize there is.”

My head came up and I looked at him. “We’re talkin’ hearts, here. You don’t play games with hearts.”

He got up on his elbows but didn’t break eye contact as he declared, “You’re wrong. Only games worth playin’ are games of the heart.”

“Someone loses,” I whispered and he grinned, did an ab curl and his arms wrapped around me.

He rolled me to my back, covered me with his body and put his mouth to mine before he whispered, “Tonight, I win.”

Then he kissed me.

Then he set about winning me.

At least for the night.

And he did.

The next morning late, Mike leaving me at his house in his bed after I gave him a drowsy kiss and went back to sleep as he went off to work, I got up, took a shower, got ready for the day at Mike’s house and I went home.