Page 199 of Duty and Desire

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“My mom rocks. The guys are the shit. My sisters are nutcases.”

They were.

But the good kind.

“I liked them.”

“Thank fuck,” he mumbled.

I smiled against his skin.

And there, I informed him, “The day I met you, Smithie and I had a conversation.”

I heard his head move on the pillow, so I tipped mine further back in order to catch his eyes in the moonlight.

“About what?” he asked.

“About the fact I was giving up since I hadn’t found my dream man and never thought I would.”

His big body grew still against mine.

“Then, hours later,” I carried on, “he walks right up and knocks on my door.”

It was guttural when he groaned, “Baby.”

But I didn’t need to hear the emotion.

I was feeling it since he was squeezing the breath out of me.

I let him, knowing he’d do what he did.

Relax his hold but keep me close.

I thought this was a good way to start the festivities back up.

But unusually in times like this (and other times besides), Mo was feeling chatty.

He shared this by saying, “You got that wrong.”

“I do?”

“Not wholly, but importantly.”

“How do I have that wrong?”

“I’d given up too. After Tammy, I was done. I thought it was me. I thought it was my shit that was driving them away. Then one day my boss hands me an assignment, and not an hour later, I walk right up and knock on the door to the house of my dream girl. And she made me see a lot of really fuckin’ important shit differently.”

“Mo,” I whispered.

His big hand shifted to cup my face as his dipped closer to mine.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen, baby. I know some of it probably isn’t gonna be great. But who you are and what you give to me, most of it’s gonna be awesome. You know I have bad dreams and they may never stop. I don’t want that for me, or for you. But I can handle it a lot better now, knowin’ I’ll get those and wake up to my real dream, right there beside me.”

It was my voice that was hoarse when I declared, “We need to fuck right now.”

“Yeah, we do,” he agreed.

But he didn’t fuck me.