That felt nice.

We didn’t move, didn’t lose the connection and didn’t speak for long moments until Mike slid out and then did something new. Something he’d never done or any lover. Something amazing. Something I loved.

He gathered me in his arms and exited the bed taking me with him. Then he carried me to the bathroom and when we got to the sink, he gently dropped my legs but kept his other arm around me, holding me close and strong as my still trembling legs settled. He turned on the faucet, reached for a washcloth and threw it in the sink, all this never letting go of me.

My head tipped back, his tipped down and we held each other’s eyes.

We’d had the conversation at dinner. He knew I was on birth control. He knew I’d had no lovers but him since Beau. I knew he had no lovers but me for two months prior to me. So we decided to dispense with the condoms.

And with what he did next, I was more glad than the glad I already was that we did.

Mike turned off the faucet and then, his eyes still holding mine, he grabbed the cloth, squeezed out the water and, gently, he pressed it between my legs to clean me.

My lips parted and his eyes dropped to them and darkened. There was a care to this, an intimacy I’d never experienced. I was an independent woman, on my own for a long time and I didn’t mind that. Not at all. But I found I liked him taking care of me. I liked it that he didn’t want to be away from me even long enough for me to go clean up. I liked his gentle touch.

I liked it all.

He tossed the cloth back into the sink, bent, lifted me into his arms and carried me back to the room. Down went my legs again when we made it to his dresser. He opened a drawer, yanked out a tee then he pulled it over my head. I shoved my arms through and tugged it down as he opened another drawer and pulled out a pair of plaid, flannel pajama bottoms. He tugged them up and then I was again in his arms, he walked us back to the bed, sat on its side with me in his lap then stretched out, arranging me on top of him.

We ended up, legs tangled, Mike pulling my tee up, one of his hands on my ass, the other one wrapped tight around my back and he ordered, “Now, kiss me, honey.”

I decided to kiss him. I did this because I wanted to. I also did it so I wouldn’t start crying at experiencing all the beauty Mike Haines just gave me.

When I was done, I pressed my face into his neck and relaxed into him.

Mike’s fingers moved light on the skin of my ass.

I sighed.

Then I teased, “Is that official protocol for dealing with a stalker? Saying macho, badass, possessive alpha male shit that would piss him off and send him over the edge?”

Mike’s hand at my ass stopped drifting. His fingers cupped it firmly, possessively and he replied, “No. I didn’t take that call as a cop. I took that call as a man who was fucking my woman for the first time in my goddamned bed and I did not like some other man who will not clue in he cannot lay claim to what’s mine callin’ while I was doin’ it. So I didn’t think like a cop. I thought like a man who was pissed off an asshole was calling while I was pleasurably engaged in makin’ my woman purr for me.”

My belly pitched and it felt nice.

I lifted my head and looked down at him.

I knew he wasn’t experiencing any belly pitches because he did not look happy.

So I asked cautiously, “I take it that was Beau.”

“Yeah,” he clipped, his eyes holding mine. “That was Beau.”

I pressed my lips together. Fucking Beau.

“You hear from him since the last incident?” Mike asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his eyes moving to the ceiling. “He gave it time, let you cool down, thinks he could make another approach.”

I figured this was true. Though I had no clue how he got my new number.

Mike went on, still muttering, “Not gettin’ the message.”

I figured this was true too.

“Luckily, I’m a thousand miles away,” I reminded him and his eyes came back to me. “And living next door to my badass, alpha male cop boyfriend and in a house with two teenage boys who love their Auntie Dusty, know where their Dad’s shotguns are and aren’t afraid to use them.”

The anger slid from his eyes, his lips twitched and he kept muttering when he said, “Yeah.”

I decided I didn’t want to talk about Beau so I dipped my face closer to his and whispered, “That was hot honey.”

His hand at my ass and arm around me gave me a squeeze.

“Yeah.”

“Like, mega-hot,” I went on.

He grinned.

Not done, I informed him, “Like, mega, off the charts, I’ve never come so hard, hot.”

He started chuckling.

“You’re a bad boy under all that good,” I observed.

“Nothin’ bad about it. You came harder than you ever climaxed, seems to me, that’s all good,” Mike replied logically and he was not wrong.

“You got more where that came from?” I asked.

He grinned.

Then he answered, “You liked that, you got a lot to look forward to.”

Great freaking news.

I grinned back.

He lifted his head and kissed me softly.

When he was done, I repositioned so my cheek was resting on his shoulder and his fingers resumed drawing on the skin of my booty.

I relaxed deeper into him and reflected on the week.

It was Friday night after Clarisse’s birthday party. That week I’d had lunch with Mike twice at Frank’s, met him for a quick cup of coffee once at Mimi’s and I’d come over on Wednesday night to have dinner with Mike and his kids.

Or, I should say, Mike came to get me even though I could walk to his house. But he did this because we ate with his kids then his kids camped out in front of the TV with us so we had no alone time.

The good news about this was that clearly No and Rees liked me. Rees was emerging even more out of her shell and responding to my attempts to bond with her.

The bad news was we had no alone time except when Mike took me back to the farmhouse and we made out in his car. We did this heatedly but not long enough for me. This was mostly because neither of us wanted two impressionable teenage boys to see their aunt and a local cop going at it hot and heavy in the lane.

So I said my good-byes and walked up to the house wishing for the first time that I wasn’t going to sleep alone. I had no problem sleeping alone and didn’t mind doing it. That wasn’t to say I didn’t like company in my bed and, if they didn’t snore, I liked it regularly. I was not a slut, I chose my partners carefully (I thought at the time until I was proven wrong) but I was willing to endure long, dry spells. Which I did.

But I didn’t like to be separated from Mike. I’d had only one night sleeping in his arms and I did that. Slept in his arms. That wasn’t something I normally found comfortable.

With Mike, it came naturally.

It had been gone a long time. I wanted it back.

Mike was taking it slow and steady and I understood he did this out of necessity. He didn’t want his new girlfriend up in his kid’s faces twenty-four, seven. I got that.

It just sucked.

But also, Mike was busy. Unfortunately, Mike informed me, The ‘Burg was experiencing a crime wave. And considering, strangely with the current economy there was growth still happening all around so there were more people paying taxes, the Department had recently gone through cutbacks. Luckily (kind of), some time ago a dirty cop was weeded out and when he was fired after being arrested (which happened after he was shot, nasty business, shockingly nasty as explained by Mike), they didn’t replace him. When another detective moved to the IMPD and a patrolman passed his detective test and also moved to the city, they hadn’t replaced them either. They then decided to find other ways to reduce spending that didn’t include further loss of personnel.

This was good and bad. Mike told me with his seniority, his job wasn’t threatened. But The ‘Burg was growing, crime increasing and the cops were tasked to look after their citizens but having to do it with less manpower and fewer resources.

This, Mike explained, was a recipe for disaster.

The first part of the crime wave was what Mike described as “piddly shit”. Likely one kid or a few of them, graffiti and some vandalism. It was constant though random and because of the last and the fact that other work took priority, it had been happening awhile without the kids being caught. For the owners of the property vandalized, they didn’t care the cops had limited resources, personnel and other priorities. They just wanted it stopped. Alec Colton and Pat Sullivan bought that case.

The second part was a rash of break-ins, the same MO happening throughout Hendricks County, where The ‘Burg resided, and the west side of Marion County which butted our county.

This was who Mike thought IMPD caught, who they interrogated on and off for four hours last Saturday and who turned out not to be the culprit.

A disappointment.

Mike and his partner Merry, obviously, were working that case.

And last, Mike explained, there had been an influx of narcotics that had hit The ‘Burg. Drugs were not unusual but supply was escalating.

All the detectives were working this one and had been now for eighteen months. They’d located and brought down two new dealers that moved to town and targeted vulnerable populations, young adults who’d not gone off to college and stuck in town and high school students.

The ‘Burg had a diverse population. Although the farm families were retreating, it still had its working class. It also had its lower to low-middle income sections. The same with mid- to upper-middle incomes. And with The Heritage and other high end developments, as well as The ‘Burg’s traditional elite of wealthy families who worked in Indy but settled generations ago in a quaint farm town close to work but away from the city, this meant there was definitely an upper class.

The kids of these families and young adults, who suddenly had incomes and responsibilities but didn’t yet know how manage them, were who was targeted.

When they’d find a dealer and take him down, a new one would take his place and the drugs kept coming. So they’d switched strategies, identifying the dealer, controlling the sales but at the buyer, not at the source and hoping this would lead to the mastermind.

Unfortunately, this was also not working. The mastermind had lost two of his soldiers. They were being more careful. And although the drugs were just as prevalent regardless of the police presence, how the kids were getting them was harder to nail down since the dealers were forced to be creative.

This all meant that even though The ‘Burg was not a thriving metropolis, the cops were far busier than I would have expected.

Including Mike.

As for me, I was in Indiana but I had pottery to sell because I had bills to pay. So I also had to work and, as usual, spent a good deal of time at my wheel.

Intermingled with this, I was trying to sort Rhonda out.

This just wasn’t working.

I’d sat down with her twice to talk to her about the boys, her future, the farm. But even as I spoke to her at the kitchen table over coffee, her eyes, along with her attention, drifted away.

I didn’t know if this was a defense mechanism against grief, not wanting to think of these things because Darrin used to take care of them or if it was just Rhonda.

Luckily, I was a patient person. Unfortunately, she was giving no indication that even the smallest thing was sinking in. Not only was I working, exploring my relationship with Mike, getting to know his kids, I’d also taken on parenting Fin and Kirb. They didn’t need a lot but they still needed it and at this time in their lives this mostly took the form of someone having a finger on their pulse and looking out for them considering their Dad just died. And I did this by spending time with them, mostly at night in front of the TV. And all of these nights, Rhonda wandered upstairs and stayed in the room she shared with my brother, leaving me and her boys be.

Rhonda fed them and, as a matter of course, took care of the house. But other than that, she was checked out and I got the impression she took the opportunity of my being there to check out further.

And with all that, I’d just hit what I’d been looking forward to as the highlight of my week. Mike told me the kids went from school on alternate Fridays to their Mom’s and didn’t return until Sunday at seven. He had the weekend off.