That Man of Mine (Whispering Bay Romance 3)

His dark eyes flared. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing—I…made a mistake. I should have never asked you to leave the house.” She flung herself into his arms.

“Hey! I’m all sweaty!”

“I don’t care.”

He brought up his hand to cup her head. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I told you. I made a mistake. We have problems, yes, but we can’t fix them if we’re apart.”

“You’re damn right about that.” His voice, so low and close to her ear, made her shiver. Another instinct, this one far from maternal, took over.

He went to kiss her. She’d come to talk to him about Claire. But that could wait. Right now she needed him in that most primal way that a woman needed her man. She shoved him toward the bedroom. “Get in the shower,” she said, already starting to pull off her clothes.

He looked surprised, then he laughed. “I’m not sure what this is about, but I’m not going to argue.”

It had been a long time since she and Zeke had had shower sex. But it was like the old bicycle adage. Once you got the hang of it (and they’d gotten the hang of it a long time ago) you never really forgot the basic mechanics.

The shower was a cramped stall barely big enough to hold Zeke, let alone the two of them. The water, too cool at first, then almost too warm for comfort, rained down their bodies. Zeke picked her up and positioned her so that her back was flush to the shower wall. Her skin felt hot and prickly against the fiberglass but she didn’t care. Mimi wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him. He tasted like mint toothpaste and like Zeke. Everything about him was both familiar and exciting. She wanted him now. This instant. More than she’d ever wanted him before.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this after eighteen years. Was it?

Shouldn’t they have settled into a comfortable routine by now? Comfortable sex. It sounded…horrible. Like deciding that chocolate tasted just okay and that you could live with or without it.

But she could never live without this. Not as long as she and Zeke were still breathing.

“Hang on,” he rasped. He repositioned her so that she could feel his erection nudging his way inside. Slowly. Too slowly. Her breasts rubbed against his chest. He bent and took one nipple into his mouth, nearly making her jump.

“You okay?” he murmured against her skin.

She nodded, too focused on what he was doing to speak. Her breasts were more sensitive than she could ever remember. Everything, in fact, seemed more sensitive. More alive. It had only been two weeks since that night by the bridge. They’d gone two weeks without sex before, but tonight, two weeks felt more like it had been two years.

She squirmed against him, taking more of him inside her, but it wasn’t enough. “Now, Zeke.”

He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.” Right before he slammed into her.

*~*~*

He didn’t want to hurt her, but the shower stall was built for someone a lot smaller than him, leaving him little to no room to do much more than keep banging her against the wall. She didn’t seem to mind it rough. As a matter of fact, it was like she wanted it that way, and Zeke was more than happy to accommodate her. At one time, making love to his wife had been on the top of his daily to-do list. This pa

st year had been seriously messed up.

She came hard and fast, making him come hard, too. Knowing Mimi loved being with him as much as he loved being with her was the best aphrodisiac in the world.

He held onto her as the warm water sluiced down his back. After a couple of minutes, he gently disentangled her shaking legs from his waist to help her stand up again. She seemed so small right now. Thinner even than just a couple of weeks ago. She still had the right kind of curves. Long slender legs and a killer ass that always got him hard whenever he thought about them. Strangely enough, her breasts seemed fuller, but the rest of her was almost frail.

She was working too hard, damn it. Between her duties as mayor and all the work she put in with the festival committee, not to mention everything she did for the kids, it was a miracle she hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion.

“Have you been sick?” he asked quietly.

She shuddered, her head buried against his chest. “Allie asked me that today, too. Do I look that bad?”

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “I just think between the festival and the wedding and everything else, you’ve taken too much on. Do you even have time to eat?” Before she could answer he grabbed a towel from a nearby rack and wrapped her up, sliding his hands up and down her arms to keep her warm. They stepped out of the shower stall. He dried himself off and found a pair of shorts to slide on.

They ended up back in the living room, sitting on the couch, with Mimi on his lap. He was thrilled that she’d shown up here tonight, but she hadn’t come by to get in him in the sack. The look on her face when he’d answered the door told him something big was on her mind.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “And remember, I know you better than anyone, so no BS. Got it?”