“I’m getting close,” I manage. “Mickey—”
“I can feel it. You’re so tight around me right now.”
“Are you close?”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Right there with you.”
His hand moves faster. I come first. The orgasm rips through me in a wave that arches my spine and locks every muscle from my shoulders to my toes. I spill across his stomach and chest in hot streaks, my cock pulsing in his fist. His grip doesn’t stop. He strokes me through every wave.
I clench hard around him and he follows. I feel him come inside me — the pulse, the heat, the way his hands dig into my hips and hold me down while his body shudders underneath mine.
His mouth is open and the sound that comes out of him is my name, broken in half by the breath leaving his lungs.
I fall forward onto his chest. Our skin sticks together in the mess between us and neither of us moves. His arms close around my back. My face presses into his neck. I can feel his heart slamming against my ribs.
His hand moves up and down my spine in long, lazy strokes. His lips find the top of my head.
“So,” he says. “Am I forgiven?”
I lift my head. His face is flushed, and his eyes are soft.
“You’re getting there,” I say, pushing the hair back from his forehead. “But I think the forgiveness process is going to require extensive, ongoing effort on your part. I’m talking nightly when I’m in town. Possibly twice a day.”
“I can commit to that,” he says.
“And every time we have an argument, you should know that the makeup portion of the evening will look exactly like this.”
“Then I’m going to argue with you constantly.”
I laugh against his chest. His arms tighten around me and the laugh becomes a sound that is half joy and half release.
“Mickey.”
“Yeah.”
“I need you to know something. What you said on the porch. About there being no version of your future without me in it.” I trace my finger across his pecs, over the place where his heart is still beating harder than resting. “That’s the thing that brought me back. Not the badge or the uniform or the photo frame. Those were good — the frame was actually brilliant. I’m impressed. But the thing that got me was that sentence. Because that’s what I needed to hear. Not that you’re sorry. That I’m permanent. That you really see me as part of your future.”
His hand comes up and cups the back of my head. His fingers push through my hair. “You’re permanent,” he says. “Get used to it. I’m not letting you go.”
I’m right where I belong. In the arms of a man who’s learning how to hold me in the open.
He’s not perfect at it yet. He’ll get it wrong again. His cop brain will scan a room and his hand will drift toward the armrest and I’ll notice. But I’ll reach for his hand and put it back. Every time.
Epilogue: Benji
Three months later…
Mickey is at the curb when I land.
He’s been doing this every two weeks. I fly up Friday evening, land at nine, and the silver truck is idling at arrivals with Mickey behind the wheel. Hand controls, steering knob, the whole setup that lets him drive himself anywhere he wants to go. I get in, put my hand on his knee and he drives us home.
The routine still gets to me every time. Months ago, he was lying in a hospital bed. Now he’s merging onto the highway with one hand, and reaching for mine with the other.
On the drive he tells me about the week. A cold case he’s working, a hit-and-run from 2019, evidence that the original investigator missed. Mickey’s been pulling files and cross-referencing, finding what tired eyes skipped. His sergeant told him he’s cleared more cold cases in three months than the previous desk officer cleared in a year.
The man who shot him is still in county. Attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, hate crime enhancement. No bail. The trial is still months away and there’s talk of it being delayed even more. Mickey talks about it the way he talks about traffic reports. Flat, factual, already filed. I don’t ask questions. When he’s ready to say more, he will.
Home is still the loft. George and Frankie on the shelf, together, right where they belong. Sheila’s leftovers in thefridge because Sheila feeds people whether they ask or not and asking is not part of her process.
