Finally, Rhonda came to a decision, “I’ll let Fin keep my phone.”

Finley heaved an audible sigh.

Mike muttered, “Good call.” His eyes moved to Kirby and he asked, “You on board, Kirb?”

Kirby looked to Finley, Finley gave him a nod then he looked back at Mike and mumbled, “Yes, sir.”

“Right,” Mike murmured. Then his arm gave me a squeeze and he said, “Thanks for giving us time and now we probably should go.”

“I know!”

This was Clarisse piping up and Mike shifted, taking me with him so we could look at her.

“Why don’t the Hollidays come with us?” she suggested like this gracious thought just popped into her head when in absolutely did not. I nearly burst out laughing.

She didn’t want Rhonda and Kirby at our dinner table.

She wanted Finley there.

“We couldn’t,” Rhonda murmured politely.

“I already had a sandwich,” Kirb stated which wasn’t exactly the truth. He’d had three. Still, he could probably consume a four course meal but he was taking his mother’s lead.

 “I could eat,” Fin said nonchalantly and I couldn’t help it. I made a sound like I was being strangled.

Mike looked down at me and raised his brows. I shook my head. He tipped his to the side. I grinned. He shook his head and looked back at Fin.

“Get your coat, Fin.”

Fin tipped up his chin and moved, shooting a quick glance Clarisse and No’s way but I knew his eyes hit Clarisse.

Mike missed this because he was moving us to the door.

“Make sure you get her home at a decent hour.”

This was Kirby, following and being what he was, cute and dorky.

I turned to him and asked, “Am I grounded if I’m not home by midnight?”

Kirby’s eyebrows shot up and he said, “Midnight? Your curfew’s ten.”

“Not fair, Kirby,” I shot back.

“Okay,” he grinned, “Ten thirty.”

I rolled my eyes. His grin got bigger and I liked seeing that from my Kirby. He’d lost his Dad, the shadow of pain was in his eyes even with that grin but it mingled with humor and I was pleased as hell I put it there.

We were in the foyer. I disengaged from Mike, moved to my nephew and payback was me grabbing his cheeks like I did when he was a kid and kissing him back and forth until he shouted, “God! Stop! Gross, Aunt Dusty!”

“Honey, you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Rhonda muttered distractedly and it was Kirby’s turn to roll his eyes and he did this to me.

I grinned at him, playfully shoved his face away then moved to the chair in the hall where my kickass sheepskin coat was. It hit me at the waist, had a slant zip and built-in belt, a super high collar and wide sheepskin cuffs. I shrugged it on, zipped it up and grabbed my huge slouchy suede bag.

Finley met us at the door and Mike, doing a macho Dad move that was still hot, stood with his hand high at the side of the door holding it open for all the kids to wander through. Then his eyes came to me as I was about to wander through too and I stopped. He grabbed my hand, let the door go, I went out calling farewells to Rhonda and Kirby and he followed me out.

The kids were already at Mike’s car in the lane and Mike dug his keys out of his pocket, lifted his arm, the lights flashed as the car beeped and they started piling in.

“Hmm…” I muttered under my breath, eyes on the car watching the kids arranging themselves. “Clarisse is climbing in the middle. That means she’ll be pressed next to Fin in the back.”

“Caught that?” Mike muttered under his breath back.

My eyes slid to the side and up, “You did too?”

“Hard to miss,” he was still muttering just like me.

“Yep,” I agreed.

“Shit,” he kept muttering and I chuckled.

“History repeating,” I also kept muttering.

“Over my dead body.” He was still muttering but there was something else in it and I burst out laughing.

“Actually, I wasn’t being funny,” he told me as he walked me slowly around the hood to the passenger’s seat.

“I know you weren’t but you still were.” I looked up at him and finished softly, “And, seriously, babe, being funny and all hot guy, protective Dad, I want to kiss you right now.”

I watched his face shift to a look that was sexy as all hell even as he murmured, “Don’t give your nephew any ideas.”

“I think the ideas would be Clarisse’s.”

“That earned payback.”

“Bring it on, gorgeous.”

Mike grinned at me then opened my door.

I climbed in and he didn’t close it until I was settled.

I twisted in my seat to look in the back and announced, “I’m hungry. Who’s with me?”

“Totally,” No stated on an easy, lazy grin.

“Yeah, Miz Holliday,” Clarisse answered.

“I’m always hungry,” Finley muttered the God’s honest truth.

“I’m Dusty, honey,” I said to Clarisse as Mike angled in.

“She’s Rees,” No offered as Clarisse studied me.

“Yeah, that’s my nickname,” she confirmed softly.

“You cool with me calling you that?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m cool.” Again with the soft. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Finley looking out the side window but he was doing it with a grin playing at his mouth that said he was listening to Clarisse’s quiet words and he liked how they sounded.

“Excellent,” I said to Clarisse but I was also thinking about my nephew.

He was a teenage boy which meant that in normal circumstances, he had one thing on his mind. In the current circumstances, he had everything on his mind and most of it was no good. Going out with the girl who had to be the most beautiful girl to hit The ‘Burg’s high school in the last century would give him good things to think about while I (and Mike, obviously) took most of the other shit away that he had to think about.

“Angel, you wanna quit yammerin’, turn around and buckle up so I can feed these kids?” Mike asked and I rolled my eyes at Clarisse then turned around.

“Sure,” I agreed readily.

I buckled in. Mike started her up.

And away we went so Mike could feed a car full of teenage kids and me.

* * *

Mike tore his mouth from mine.

Using his hand curved around the back of my head, he shoved my face in his neck and in my ear, growled, “Shit, fuck, honey.”

I knew what he was saying.

He’d dropped off his kids at his house with Finley graciously offering to walk out Mike’s back gate, through the frozen field in the February night cold to get home. He’d done this under Mike’s suspicious gaze but Clarisse’s excited one. Mike, surprisingly, agreed. Then, following my directions, he drove us to what Dad and Granddad called “The Back Forty”. It was more like “The Back Two Hundred”, a lane that cut through our land that was far from a hop, skip and a jump from our house. At the end of the lane was a stand of trees that surrounded a creek fed mini-pond that was really the bend of the creek where it widened and deepened significantly. It was an old-fashioned watering hole that even had a tire hanging from one of the trees that you could swing out, jump off and land in the water. Growing up, Darrin and I, my girlfriends, his guy friends (but never Debbie) frequented it regularly in the summers.

Now, like two teenagers, Mike parked his truck there so we could make out.

This escalated dramatically and the way it did, what with our make up, break up, long separation, great phone sex and fantastic real sex, I decided I needed room to move. So I found the controls and maneuvered the back of Mike’s seat to near full on recline. I was out of my jacket, Mike out of his, I was straddling him and we kept making out with my hands up Mike’s sweater and Mike’s hands feeling me up in ways that made me press down and rock against his hard crotch.

I wanted him inside me.

And by his words I knew he wanted that too.

“We can do this,” I whispered into his neck.

“Honey –”

My hand slid down his belly then pressed in deeper as it slid over his groin and that got me an unintelligible growl that was so hot I felt it heat my entire body.

I lifted my head and caught his eyes in the moonlight.

“We can do this.” This time the words were breathy.

He held my eyes.

Then he whispered, “Get ready to climb on me, Angel.”

That was all I needed.

I rolled off him to the passenger side and made short work of tugging off my boots, my socks and my jeans, multitasking by taking my panties with them. Then I shifted and rolled back noting in my foreplay haze that Mike had got out a condom during my disrobing.

He was ripping it open. I was yanking at his belt. He slid it out of the packet. I was unbuttoning his jeans. Then I was yanking them down his hips and he was rolling it on.

By this time, my legs tucked into his hips, my head bent watching his hand work, I was breathing so heavy I was panting.

His hand went to my ass. I lifted my head, my lips went to his and I felt him position himself so I had the tip.

“We need to find a bed,” he muttered against my lips but it was rumbling, low and so hot it was scorching so that didn’t heat me. It burned straight through me.

“This’ll do,” I muttered back.

“We need to find a bed.”

I ground down, filling myself with him. His fingers clenched in the flesh of my ass, his other hand went from between us to drive into my hair, he groaned and I whimpered.

“You’re right, sweetheart, this’ll do,” he whispered against my lips then pressed my head down so he could take my mouth in a hot, wet kiss.

I rode him, slow, sweet, glorying in having Mike back inside me as he kissed me in his hungry way that I liked a whole lot and I did this a while.

Finally Mike stopped kissing me and ordered, “Go faster, Angel.”

“I like this.”

“Go faster, Dusty.”

“I –”

His hand went from my ass and his thumb found my clit.

I went faster.

“That’s my girl,” he muttered and I felt his smile against my mouth.

I didn’t care he got what he wanted because I freaking loved how he went about getting it. He was pressing, twitching, rolling. God, I’d never felt that before, not from a man except the times I’d been with him, of course. The pressure, the movement, it was better than any vibrator. It was the best.

I went faster.

Somehow, Mike shoved his body up the seat taking me with him so his long legs could clear the steering wheel. With knees cocked, his heels dug into the seat, his hips thrust up to meet my glides, his hand at my head became an arm wrapped around my waist and he drove me down as he powered up.

God, that was beyond the best.

“Baby,” I whimpered.

“Faster, Dusty,” he growled, his thumb pressing deeper and I gasped.

“Mike,” I breathed.

“I need you to ride me hard, honey.”

I did what he told me to do, it was beyond the beyond of the best and in no time it built until it exploded and scored straight through me. My head shot back, the moan slid up my throat and I came. Hard.

Mike was still powering up and driving me down but he’d switched arms, the thumb at my clit was now an arm around my waist and his other hand was back in my hair, shoving my face in his neck.

“Fuck, I wanna flip you,” he groaned.

I kept moving, hard, fast, meeting his drives, working to take him there. I’d learned in our earlier encounters Mike liked letting me take him in my mouth, climbing on top but he always ended things in complete control.

I moved my lips on his neck as I drove my hips into his.

His head came partially up and twisted, his fingers fisting in my hair, his lips at my ear. “Missed you, honey,” he growled.

Oh God, I liked that.

“Missed you too, Mike,” I whispered against his skin, riding him and licking his neck from his ear to his throat.

He shoved his face in my neck, ground me down on his cock and groaned.

I let him have it, my lips moving on his neck then his hold relaxed and I started gliding.

His hand slid up my back to join his other one in my hair and he gathered it away. I slid down on him and did what he wanted but didn’t ask for verbally. I lifted my head and gave him my mouth.

He held my hair in his hands and he kissed me the way I really liked it. Even though we were done, even though we gave each other the burn, he started the kiss slow like he had all the time in the world to explore then he built it and built it until I felt I’d be consumed by the heat.