Page 11 of Axel

“Mac, I’m sorry. I just can’t believe what…it was fantastic but I…Christ, it was better than fantastic it was earthshattering and a bomb going off at the same time. I love you, honey.” Then he laughed. “I bought us a mattress this morning, hoping that I could persuade you to come back to the house with me. I heard that the workers didn’t work on Sundays. So I had this brilliant idea to woo you into my bedroom. I love—”

Mac cut him off before he said anything else. What he’d said already was enough to have her straightening out her clothing and then dragging him to the car he’d come in. “I’m sorry. I should go. I have things to do tomorrow, and I need to— I promise that I’ll make this up to you.”

“You leave without me, and I’m going to murder you.” She got in on her side and waited for him to join her by getting under the steering wheel. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had, and I want more. More of it and certainly more of you.”

“All right then.” He had to get out of the car to adjust his own clothing. Once he was dressed again, she had to laugh. His pants were too small to come up over his still-hard erection. And he’d buttoned his shirt up wrong. It was off by two buttons. She couldn’t stop laughing until he joined her. Then he stopped and put his head on the wheel. “I didn’t get any protection. Damn it all to—” he looked at her. “I don’t suppose you are?”

“No.” She wanted to cry, and it looked as though he did as well. “We’ll just be careful. And if a baby comes from us‘being careful,’I will welcome it with open arms. We’ll raise it, whatever she is together, right?”

“We’ll marry as soon as I can get it arranged. Did you want a large wedding?” She told him perhaps later. “Good. I can do quick if you’re all right with that, and we can get with our parents, if that’s the route you want to go later on a large wedding.” He grinned at her. “I’m all for whatever you want. I’m so in love with you that I could burst into song. Which, I’m telling you right now, you do not want to happen. My grandma told me once that I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket with the lid glued down.”

They laughed and told stories to each other all the way to the house. Once there, she was feeling like they were going too far too fast, and she was chickening out. When Axel put his hand on her leg, she looked at him.

“Nothing needs to happen if you don’t want it to. I swear on my mother’s heart that I would never force you into anything or do anything to you that you don’t want as much as I do.” She let out a long breath. “Honey, we can’t make this work if we don’t talk to each other. All right? I mean, we’re going to fast in this. I’m sometimes overwhelmed as well.” He looked at the house that had a lot of lights around it because of the equipment and supplies lying around. “It’s a lovely home, don’t you think? When I saw it at the auction, all I could think about was that I wanted it. Then when I got it, paying about half of what I thought that I should have, it was like a dream come true. Then you camealong and made it the best dream ever.”

“You are a romantic, aren’t you?” They laughed again. “I’m not sure what I want right now. I mean, I do want you, but having a baby because we couldn’t wait just seems stupid on our part. I know that I’m the one that said it, but I’m thinking that it was lust talking, and we need to get our shit together before we bring a baby into this.”

“I agree. Now that I can step back from it all.” He grinned at her. “There are two bedrooms that are finished—as you more than likely know. Neither of them has any furniture in them but they do have nice mattresses in them. The one with the ensuite bathroom is yours. The master, which is still weeks away from finishing up, is close to where you’ll be sleeping. I’ll take the one at the other end of the hall.”

They entered the house holding hands. He had had an alarm system put in and had to tell her the code twice before she got that it was the day that they met. She wasn’t sure how much more in love she could be with this man but he was wearing her down about a lot of things. But were they going too fast? She didn’t know if she wanted to be concerned with that right now. Mac was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

As soon as she got her bed made up and was crawling into it, she felt every muscle in her body begin to relax. She didn’t know if it had anything to do with the almost sex or the fact that she wasn’t at home. But almost as soon as she closed her eyes, she was out.

Waking in the middle of the night, she didn’t have any idea where she was. Getting up and staggering to the bathroom with only the moonlight as her light, she remembered that she was in Axel’s home. Or theirs, as he was so fond of telling her. After washing her hands and getting herself back to her mattress, she wondered, not for the first time, if things were just too perfect in her life right now. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop, she laid back down in her bed and closed her eyes. Again, she was out almost as soon as she did that.

~*~

Axel was out getting them some breakfast when he heard from his dad. Glad now that he’d been able to get up early enough to talk to his dad, he told him about the stuff that was going on with Mac’s grandmother.

“Hanna had been arrested because she’d hit an officer when he asked her to turn over her purse. In it, they were able to find two handguns as well as a couple of switchblades. Christ, son, she told the officer that she was going to kill off her son if he didn’t pay her more money. As it is now, she gets about three grand every two weeks from the estate. Who couldn’t live on six thousand dollars a month?” He asked him where she had been living. “In a retirement village. And I don’t have to tell you that they’re glad that she’s gone. They’ve been trying to get rid of her for years. She just bullies her way into making them let her stay, and she wins. I can’t imagine living with her all the time. She’d drive me batty.”

“She’s only been here for a few days and I would think that she’s been driving everyone batty here now. I guess she’s going to have to have a court date. Do you think that I’d be able to represent the family? I mean, I don’t think it’s a conflict of interest, but I’m not entirely sure, as Mac and I aren’t officially married as yet.” He pulled into the driveway only to be disappointed that the workers were already there. But he could see Mac talking to one of the men. “Dad, I think I need to rescue one of the workers. Mac looks like she’s on the warpath right now.”

Dad was laughing when he hung up. Getting out of the car, he made his way slowly to where Mac and the other man were. With his box of donuts in his hand and coffee in the other, he was ready to do whatever was needed to cool things down.

“She’s making our lives more difficult. I wasn’t hired by her, so I don’t know who I should be listening to.” When he looked at Mac, she shook her head just enough where he got it. The man didn’t know that she was his boss, and for whatever reason, she didn’t want him to know either. Not now, at any rate. “She said that she didn’t want carpets in the bedroom. Who doesn’t want carpets in the bedroom? And you said that too, but I talked it over with my wife, and she said that the floor would be too cold to get up and walk to the bathroom.”

“I’ll tell you what I told the foreman of his site, wear slippers. There will be no carpet put down on any of the rooms unless she or I say differently.” He looked at Mac. “Can you think of any room that you’d want carpet in, love?”

“Not a single one. Like you said, wear slippers or socks if you don’t want your feet to get cold.” When she winked at him, taking one of the coffees, he opened the donut box when she held onto his as well. “Are those French crullers? For future reference, those are my favorite. Also, I don’t like coffee. I can drink it, but I prefer iced tea. Thanks for getting this.”

He was all right with ignoring the man while they talked about donuts. He was telling her that his favorite was apple fritters with a glass of cold milk when he was interrupted.

“Do I take up the carpets or not.” He asked him if he’d already laid the carpet. “Yeah, like I said, nobody in their right mind wants no carpet in the bedrooms.” Nodding, Axel looked at Mac.

“You’re fired.” She put her hands on her hips as she continued. “You’ll leave this job site on your own, or I call the police. You were specifically told not to put down carpet, and that is a purchase that neither one of us approved. Now—”

“You can’t fire me.” The man looked at him and twirled his finger around his ear like he was saying that Mac was crazy. That just pissed him off.

Handing the donuts and his coffee to Mac, he drew back and hit the man square in the nose. Watching him fall to the ground backwards made his entire day. When he looked at Mac, she looked as pissed off as he’d ever seen her. He asked her what he’d done.

“I wanted to hit him. You took my fun away.” He told her that he could pick the man up so that she could do it, too. “No, it’s all right. But next time, see if I want to knock the shit out of him first before you do it. You’ve knocked him out, and I wouldn’t have done that with my punch. All right?”

“Yes, ma’am, I can do that.” He called the police to have the foreman, Mr. Benny Courtright, arrested. He didn’t know what kind of charges to press right now, but given time, he was sure that he could figure out something. As he was being hauled away, he found that the kitchen was nearly finished. The refrigerator had been delivered and was set up for them to use. Pulling out the milk and juice that was in it, it must have been Mac who had ordered some things, he was ready to face the day.

“I have two hearings today. One at eleven, the other at four. So I’m going to be late coming home. Will you be all right here? I know you will but I want to make sure that you don’t need anything before I have to go.” She told him not to forget to shop for protection. He told her that he’d already done that while getting breakfast. “Good. I’m still not sure, but it’s good to know that if we are ready, then we’ll have them.” She stretched, and he could have taken her right there on the counter with all the men around. “I have some things I have to do today as well. The building downtown is coming along nicely. I did put carpet in the front room for clients. It was just too hard in the room and cold. I hope that’s all right?”

“Yes. It’s perfectly fine. I just have to make sure that I have it cleaned more often than they did at the other place I worked at. The lobby wasn’t nearly as decorated as the offices were, and people rarely saw those for the conference rooms. I’m so glad that I’m getting out of that place.” She asked him if they’d tried to talk him into coming back. “A couple of calls have come in but I’ve been ignoring them in favor of spending time with you. It’s much more fun.”

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