Her Naughty Holiday (Men at Work 2)

“You’re not supposed to laugh while I’m inside you. It’s hard on the hard-on.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you or your hard-on, I swear.”

“Then what?”

“I was just thinking about Ruthie.”

He raised his eyebrow so high Clover laughed again.

“That is a weird thing to do while we’re having sex.”

“I was thinking... I’m going to give that girl a raise.”

“Unless you sell the company.”

“Oh, yeah.” She sighed. “I’ll figure that out tomorrow. Today I just want to think about you. And turkey.”

“We did forget to eat, didn’t we? Sex first and food after?”

“Okay,” she said. “But hurry. I’m starving. Fuck me fast so we can go eat all the meat and pie in the house.”

Erick dropped his head to his chest and playfully wiped a tear from his eye.

“What?” Clover asked.

“‘Fuck me fast so we can go eat all the meat and pie in the house’? Clover, I’ve waited all my life to hear those words from a woman.”

* * *

ERICK WOKE UP alone in the bed. He’d done as Clover had instructed and fucked her hard and fast, but as usual he’d succumbed to a nap afterward. He strained his ears, curious where she’d gone. Bathroom? Kitchen? She had better not be eating without him. He found his khakis and pulled them on.

When he found Clover he thought she was crying. She sat on the edge of the guest bed with her back to him. She had her big yellow bathrobe on and her head was bowed. But then he heard her speaking.

“Mom, it’s okay, really. Please don’t cry. I’m not angry anymore. I just want our relationship to change, for the better. It has to because it can’t go on like this. The way you treat me is unacceptable.”

Clover paused and Erick went into the bedroom, sat down at her side. Clover leaned her head against his shoulder and it felt so good to be leaned on by this woman he loved he could have stayed there forever.

“I feel like I’ve been trying for nine years to get you all to listen to me, and when talking didn’t get the message across, I yelled. No, I don’t hate you all, not at all. I love you all. I love you and Dad. But today has to be the last day you bring up that I dropped out of college. The very last day. And you are never to call me your ‘little dropout’ again. Never and I mean it. It also has to be the last day you tell me who I should date or what I should do with my money. I’m not going to put up with it anymore, okay? You all raised me and you did a good job. Trust that you did such a good job that I can make my own decisions about my life.”

Clover paused again and listened for a long time. He felt her swallowing hard.

“Thank you, Mom. I needed to hear that. I’m proud of you, too. Where do you think I learned how to work so hard? It was from you.”

Clover wept softly against his shoulder and he kissed her on the forehead, rubbed her back, which was shaking under the strain of having this long-overdue conversation with her parents.

“Yeah,” Clover said. “Erick’s something. Better get used to him, though. He’s going to be around for a long time.”

Erick grinned but he couldn’t help but wonder what her mother was saying to that bit of news.

“I like that he stood up for me, too. I promise, Ruthie is the best. She wants to be a college professor someday. You two will have a lot to talk about.”

He left her alone in the guest room but only for a minute. When he came back she was finishing up her phone call.

“I love you, too, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Clover ended the call and dropped the phone on the bed. After a long shuddering breath, she looked up at Erick standing in front of her.

“Told you they’d come around,” he said.