by Maria Geraci
“What’s going on? Why did everyone leave?”
Thump! Thump!
Zeke grinned.
“What the hell is going on here, Zeke? I’m glad you think this is funny, but—”
He took her by the elbow and led her around to the side of the house.
“What? Where are we going? Is it safe to—”
Thump! Thump!
Mimi just stared, too stunned to do more than gape at the scene taking place in front of her.
Zeke aimed a flashlight at the large metal box that housed the air-conditioning unit and on the two armadillos that were oblivious to anyone or anything except themselves (and what they were doing). They were joined together but every once in a while, the female would try to take off with the male still on top of her. She’d walk a few steps and…
Thump! Thump!
…bang into the side of the metal unit.
“Oh my God,” Mimi whispered.
Zeke shook his head. “Yeah. Your home invader is nothing more than a couple of amorous armadillos.”
“Are they…what the…is this normal?” she gasped.
“Who’s to say what’s normal? As long as they’re both over age and have given their consent.”
Mimi covered her face with her hands and began to laugh. Zeke joined her. Soon, the two of them were laughing so hard that Joanie Klingman, their next door neighbor stuck her head out her window. “Hey! Keep it down out there. Between you two laughing and those armadillos no one’s getting any sleep tonight!”
Mimi swiped a tear from her cheek. “Sorry, Joanie!” she called out. She turned to Zeke. “Oh…I just don’t think I’m ever going to stop laughing.”
“Me either,” he said, still smiling.
“It’s chilly. Let’s go laugh inside,” she said.
Zeke flashed his light on the armadillos one last time. “Get a room, you two.”
They walked back into the house and Mimi offered him some coffee.
“No thanks,” Zeke said, “It’s two in the morning. I’d like to get a few more hours of sleep if I can.”
“What happened here tonight? I mean, I called police headquarters and before I knew it, Ellie had practically initiated a state wide disaster code!”
“She’s been training for this all her life,” Zeke said good-naturedly. “No, really,” he said seeing the look on Mimi’s face. “For all she knew you were about to become the victim of a home invasion. She did the right thing.” He shrugged. “Besides, this will make a good story for years to come.”
“And…she called you?”
“Of course she called me.”
“Well, thanks. And please, thank everyone who came out here so quickly.”
“Will do.”
Thump! Thump!
Toby began barking again. Zeke walked over and affectionately scratched him behind the ears. “You did a good job tonight, Toby. You’re all right in my book.” Toby’s eyes got that glazed dog look in them. He stopped barking and did what Toby did best. A long stream of drool dripped its way onto Mimi’s clean kitchen floor.
Mimi sighed. “At least we know he can bark if he needs to.” Now that all the excitement had died down, the kitchen suddenly seemed deathly quiet.
“I guess I should get going,” Zeke said.
“Or…you could stay,” Mimi heard herself say. “It’s crazy late, and Rusty’s cousin’s cabin is like ten miles away, and I mean, this is your home.”
“How do you know how far Rusty’s cousin’s cabin is from here?”
The mood had now shifted from deathly quiet to deathly tense. Thick with something in the air that Mimi’s lungs couldn’t quite breathe in.
“I…looked it up on a Facebook map,” she admitted. He didn’t say anything, so she felt the need to clarify. “I guess…I just wanted to know where you were at night.”
He stared at her.
“You want to know where you are every night?” he asked solemnly.
“Me? Here in my house?” she said, feeling confused. Because, where else would she be?
He picked up her hand and placed it against his chest. She could feel the slow but steady beat of his heart against her palm. “You’re right here with me, Mimi. Every single damn night we’ve been apart, you’ve been right here with me.”
Who knew that Zeke Grant, Despoiler of Virgins, could be so simply, and yet, so devastatingly eloquent? If he opened his mouth to say one more thing and ruined that most perfect line, she’d kill him. So to keep him alive (and keep her from going to jail) she did the only thing she could. She stood up on tiptoe and covered his mouth with her own. He immediately responded with a kiss that…well, if a kiss could be worth a thousand words, then this was the Gutenberg Bible of kisses.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her up against him. How could something so familiar be so foreign at the same time? She’d spent half her life with this man. His kisses were ingrained in her DNA. But this kiss…this kiss made her forget everything except the fact that it had been over four months since she’d last slept with her husband.
That was one statistic that was about to change.
He lifted her so that she could wrap her legs around his waist. It took them about two seconds to get to the bedroom. He playfully tossed her on the bed and began tearing off his clothes, letting them fall haphazardly on the ground. Mimi propped herself up on the bed with her elbows in order to get a better look, because watching Zeke Grant get undressed had always been a favorite pastime of hers.
Her elbows suddenly went wobbly and a second wave of lust, this one totally unexpected, threatened to take her under. Zeke had a beautiful body, tall and lean and muscular, but good grief, he was absolutely ripped.
“Someone’s been working out,” she squeaked.
His gaze took in her pajama bottoms and the ratty robe and she didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that he was wondering why she still had clothes on. She was beginning to wonder the same thing herself.
“You know, if you wanted it this bad you didn’t have to dial 911. I’d have been happy to come over with a simple phone call.”
Oh, there were just so much she could say to that. But she was too busy getting naked to come up with a line worthy of that delicious piece of snarkiness. She missed this. This fun back and forth banter that had always been a hallmark of their lovemaking.
She slipped off her panties and tossed them over the side of the bed. She might not be as buff as Zeke, but any insecurities she had were nipped by the fact that he was currently looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive. Which, by the way, she had absolutely no problem with.
He got on top of her and kissed her again. She’d forgotten how hot his skin always felt when they laid against one another with nothing between them. His kiss was slow and sweet and she began to feel like one of those spools of cotton candy you bought at the fair. All wound up and ready to melt at the same time.
Thump! Thump!
Mimi couldn’t help herself. She started to giggle.
Zeke gazed down at her, his dark eyes full of laugher as well. “Do you think that’s round two? Or does he just have a lot of stamina?”
“God, I hope for her sake he finishes up soon.”
“Save the sympathy for yourself.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” she joked.
He gave her an evil looking grin. “Take it any way you like.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.” It was the last coherent thing she said before he placed his mouth over her collarbone. Then he worked his way down to the tops of her breasts and to the delicate, almost ticklish skin beneath them. It had always been an erogenous zone for her.
He nipped gently with his teeth, causing her to moan. She placed her hands on top of his head and pushed him further down (not gently at all) because it had been too damn long since she’d felt this good and she simply couldn’t wait any longer. He ran his big hands down her thighs, then slipped her knees over his shoulders and went to
town on her.
She tried to stifle her moans, tried to be as quiet as possible, until she realized for the first time in the longest of times that there were no kids in the house. Her brain did a quick rewind.
There were no kids in the house.
There was no reason to be discreet. No reason that she couldn’t let go the way she’d always wanted to. So she did.
Poor Zeke. She must have scared the crap out of him because he immediately popped his head up to look at her. “Are you okay?”
“For God’s sake, Zeke, don’t stop.”
“Right.” He went back to doing that incredible thing he did with his mouth and if he thought she’d been loud before, then she probably busted his eardrums when she came. Even the armadillos were probably afraid of her.
He slid inside her, and that too felt both familiar and foreign. Familiar, because it was Zeke and she’d never been with anyone except him, but also oddly foreign because usually he was the master of control, prolonging the act until he built her up for a long slow orgasm. But there was no control here tonight. He was jerky and fast and she loved knowing that he was as crazy for her as she was for him. It didn’t take long before he let out a loud deep moan of his own.
Afterward, he collapsed alongside her and tried to catch his breath. “When did you become a screamer?”
“When did you become Sir Quickie?”
He quirked a brow at her.
“Not that I’m complaining, because obviously I got mine and—”
“Turn around,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I want to play Mr. Armadillo.”
“What if I want to be Mr. Armadillo?”
He sighed impatiently. “You don’t have the right equipment.”
“True, but I can still be the one on top.”
“Maybe next time.” Then he flipped her over and she didn’t care who was who or what was what.
*~*~*
Mimi cracked an eyelid open. Soft morning light filtered in through the window blinds. She picked up the bedside clock. It was almost seven. Then she remembered it was Saturday morning and no one had to be anywhere they didn’t want to be.
The air felt cooler than it had last night. A rare spring cold front must have come in. It was nearly April and she was more than ready for the hot weather to come back. She was a Florida girl, through and through. Going to the beach was as natural to her as breathing. When she was little she’d play in the sand and splash in the warm water while her brother Luke walked up and down the shoreline, investigating all the creepy crawly things that Mimi usually tried to avoid. Even though Luke had relished tossing those creepy crawly things her way (usually into her hair) those had been idyllic times.
Her most favorite year was when she was seven and Luke was nine. Momma referred to it as the summer of the hermit crabs, because Luke had developed an unnatural fetish with the little things. Later, that fascination had deepened enough that after getting his civil engineering degree from Duke, he’d gone on to the College of Charleston for his masters in marine biology. He worked as a consultant for a firm that specialized in environmentally friendly beachside construction. Mimi was proud of him. He’d followed his dreams and he’d become successful at something he felt passionate about.
She, on the other hand, had never really felt passionate about anything. Except her family. She’d been on the road to follow in the Powers’ family tradition and attend Duke, although if you had asked her at eighteen what she wanted to do with her life she’d have come up with a great big question mark. She liked a lot of things—English, history, political science. But unless you got lucky or went on to grad school, it meant settling for a job that might not be in your field.
She’d gotten the English degree, but she’d opted to be a stay-at-home mom. And she’d been proud of that. Not a lot of women had that choice. But the kids were older now and she found most of her days had been filled with either volunteer work or housework (yuck). She’d become restless, and yes, just a little bit envious of her husband and his career. So when the opportunity to run for mayor came along, she’d grabbed at it like a lifeline.
But in her head, she’d pictured things differently. She’d envisioned a life where she and Zeke got up every morning, had their cup of coffee, then helped the kids get off to school. They’d go their separate ways—the police station for Zeke and the city municipal building for Mimi. After putting in a full day of making Whispering Bay a better (and safer!) place to live, they’d come home and make dinner together, maybe take in one of Cameron’s soccer practices or one of Claire’s debate team matches or watch her cheerlead at a sporting event. On the weekends, they’d do their family thing. She’d lay out on a warm sandy beach with a novel in one hand and a cold glass of wine in the other while Zeke and the kids built sandcastles and swam in the gulf.
Of course, it had been years since either Cameron or Claire had been interested in making sand castles. Or hanging out with them on the weekends, either. And now that the kids were older and she and Zeke had more time to spend with one another, they were in this...time out. Were they ever going to catch a break?
She glanced over at Zeke, who was still asleep, one arm carelessly tossed above his head. His expression was peaceful and rested. Like a man who’d spent the night exercising his demons. She shifted, trying to pull more of the blanket over her shoulders and winced at the soreness between her legs. Yep. He’d done a lot of exercising all right. She smiled to herself. How had she managed to go four months without this?
“Good morning,” he said, startling her. He sat up and scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to wake up. His voice was gruff and sleepy and absolutely delicious to her ears.
“Good morning, yourself. Want some breakfast? I can make pancakes or I could do bacon and eggs. Or, if we’re really, really brave we can get dressed and head to The Bistro, but that’s only if you want the whole town to know that we, you know, spent the night together.”
“I’ve missed you,” he said quietly.
She swallowed hard. “I’ve missed you, too, Zeke.”
“Good, I’m glad we got that out of the way.” He jumped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She heard the click of the shower door open and then the sound of running water. He stuck his head out the bathroom door. “Let’s go to The Bistro and afterward we can go out to the cabin and get my stuff.” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Want to join me?” he yelled from the shower.
Get his stuff? Men. They could be so incredibly stupid. They thought sex was the answer to everything.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went to the kitchen to make coffee. While she waited for it to brew, she let Toby out into the backyard. No sign of any armadillos this morning, which was almost too bad. She could have used a laugh right about now.
She opened the bottom drawer next to the refrigerator, where she kept all her current correspondence. Underneath a folder with emergency numbers was a tattered envelope that she’d hidden over two months ago. She stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans and waited, too nervous to do much more than pace.
This wasn’t how she’d envisioned the scene that was about to take place. But it was long past time they got everything out into the open.
Zeke walked into the kitchen, dressed in the same clothes from last night, his hair still slightly damp, his chin and jaw covered in dark stubble. Monday through Friday he shaved religiously. He was a cop. And the short hair and clean jawline were part of the look. But on the weekends he took a break from the razor.
He looked so handsome, and so damn happy. Today could be the beginning of a new life for them. It would be so easy to do what he wanted. To go to breakfast in front of the whole town. To basically declare, Mimi and Zeke are back together again! Then they could all go back to their lives, business as usual.
Except, then nothing would have changed.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a long appreciative sip. “So, what about bre
akfast?”
There was no easy way to say it, so she just blurted it out. “I know about your dad.”
He froze. “What do you know about him?”
“I know that he’s been in contact with you. And that…you’ve been moody and upset and I’ve been waiting for you tell me. But you haven’t said a word to me. Not one damn word, Zeke.”
“It…he doesn’t have anything to do with us, Mimi.”
She tried to pick her jaw off the ground. “Are you kidding me? He’s your father. What do you mean he doesn’t have anything to do with us? Anything that has to do with you, has to do with me.” She gentled her voice. “We’ve been together eighteen years and in all that time you’ve never once spoken about him. You’ve barely told me about the accident, and, baby, that’s just not normal.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “I know you think I’ve repressed some kind of deep rooted feelings that need to come out before I can complete myself as a person or some other psychological bullshit like that, but believe me, I’m perfectly fine.” His dark eyes narrowed. “Is this what the past year has been about?” He shook his head incredulously. “I thought you were secretly pissed because I spent too much time at work or some other crap like that.”
Crap like that. She took a deep breath and tried to get control of herself. This wasn’t about her. It was about him.
“Why didn’t you just tell me this a year ago?” he continued. “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Hey, Zeke, did your asshole dad call you?’ Because guess what? I would have said, ‘Yeah, he did.’ Case closed and we could have saved ourselves a whole lot of money in marital counseling.”
“Because I didn’t know a year ago. I only found out a couple of months ago and I wanted you to tell me,” she said.
“Okay, so now you know.”
“Imagine how I felt when one day out of the blue you came home and it was like someone else had gotten inside your body. You were so…moody. And then you started running at night and I got worried. And I kept asking you what was wrong and you said that nothing was wrong. But I knew it wasn’t nothing. And I thought maybe you were having trouble at work or…I even thought maybe there was someone else.”
