“More, Michael.”
He caressed my cheek, pulled himself out, then pushed himself back in—this time quicker. Every stroke drove me closer to the edge already. I dug my nails into his back. He continued to fuck me faster and rougher, leaving me begging for him to never stop. This feeling was more than I could have ever asked for. I never wanted it to end. I wanted to feel this good all the time.
My legs shook uncontrollably. I grabbed on to him, hoping he wouldn’t stop, and he didn’t.
“Come for me, Mia,” he whispered in my ear.
I dug my nails into his back and screamed his name. He pumped into me once more, then stilled deep in my pussy. He stared down at me with so much love, and I peered up at him with so much more.
His fingers danced across my collarbone. He pulled out of me and crawled onto the bed next to me. He snaked his fingers in my hair and pulled me closer. A chill ran through my body, yet everything inside of me seemed to warm.
“What’s wrong? You seem off,”he said after fifteen minutes of silence.
There was so much on my mind that I didn’t even know where to start. First, there was Mom, and then there was Melissa. I felt so much guilt and betrayal and heartbreak, but I just wanted to be happy for the smallest moment.
“I’m nervous about my mom’s surgery,” I started.
Michael tensed quite suddenly and pulled me closer to him, so my head was resting against his shoulder.
“I’m scared she won’t make it. She’s the only family I have left.”
She had been through almost a hundred surgeries since her first accident and had come out victorious each time, but I was always anxious every time. Anything could go wrong during surgery.
I took a deep breath. “And Melissa … she has a right to be angry with me,” I said quietly, drawing my finger against his bare chest. Moonlight streamed into the room from the window, and I sighed to myself. “I’m sleeping with her father, and that … doesn’t make me the best of friends either.”
His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “I’m not going to say that you’re wrong, Mia, because it isn’t right. But I don’t regret it,” he said.
I glanced up at him, watching his eyes dance under the moonlight. They were like the sky on a stormy day, light gray and full of angst.
And in that moment, I wanted to come out and tell him that I loved him because I truly did. Nobody had shown me so much respect and love before that it made me feel good on the inside. I interlocked my fingers with his and pressed my lips to his soft ones.
But instead of telling him that I loved him, I said, “I don’t either,” which was almost the same thing.
He smiled, but the smile didn’t meet his eyes. He looked tired, exhausted, and defeated—which I had never seen before from him. There was so much on his mind that I hadn’t asked him about, and I felt bad about it. I sat up, pulling the blankets with me, and brushed my fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and relaxed under my touch.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
It was his own daughter, the one person he had spent the most time with ever. I knew how much he loved her, and I didn’t want to drive a barrier between them. As much as I didn’t like her right now, Melissa deserved to have someone in her life who cared about her. I didn’t want her to end up like me—without a stable father figure in her life. Michael was so good for her.
He sighed through his nose and stared up at me. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Michael, please don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”
He paused and grabbed my hand, his thumb swept over my knuckles. “I don’t want you to worry. I know that your mother’s surgery is stressing you out. We can talk about it this weekend.”
I trapped his thumb with my own, forcing him to stop. “Tell me now. It’ll make me feel so much less useless, and I … care about you. I want you to be okay with everything going on, and I don’t want to step between you and Melissa.”
After a couple moments of silence, his eyes searching mine, he said, “I care about you too.” He wrapped his arms around me and buried his face into the crook of my neck. “We haven’t fought like this,” he said. “Melissa and I have always had a good relationship. I just …”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“This fight would’ve happened with or without you, Mia, so don’t think you caused this. Ever since she went to college, she’s changed. She’s become more and more like her mother. I needed to confront her, but I’d been pushing it off for years now. If I hadn’t, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“If you hadn’t … maybewewouldn’t have happened.”
Michael tensed and gazed up at me. He parted his lips, then pressed them back together a few times, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to say it. He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and pulled me onto his chest. “I talked to your mother about us.”
I rested my palm on his taut chest, feeling the muscle underneath. “When?”
