Chapter 31

"I hope you don't think I'm that mean." Joe snuggled into Mike's side as they lay in his bed. It was four o-clock in the afternoon, and after an hour of unbelievable sex where both she and Mike had vied for control in all kinds of positions, it was almost time to get up.

Joe sighed, wanting more naked time with her man, but the kids would be home soon, and Joe and Mike had agreed there'd be no sex while the young people were in the house. Which sucked, but they were both on the same page. Joe was coming to adore Mike's children, and she didn't want them to think less of her because she was tapping their dad.

But that's not what she was apologizing for right now.

Mike knew what she meant.

"You've already given me your regrets at least a dozen times," Mike chuckled as she nuzzled into the light smattering of fur on his chest. She loved the way his pecs felt under her lips, and how they rose up and down with his amusement.

"I know. But I feel terrible. If you'd told me you still suffered a reaction seeing a pile of ‘G word' stuff, I never would have set you up."

"You can say gum, Joe," Mike laughed. "My head won't explode. I promise. And I'm only skeeved when that shit creeps up on me. As long as I'm prepared, I'm good. Besides, wasn't it Cruz who planted the wrappers?"

"With my approval," Joe admitted with a sigh.

"Not blaming you, Joe. But I'll make sure Cruz feels the pain."

He fibbed and Joe knew it. You could see the love between the two men, and other than some good-natured ribbing, there'd be no retribution.

"I still don't know how you found him," Mike pondered. "Did you ask Mason or Kyle how to locate him?"

"Nope. Although I did find out from them, after I had his name, that you just saw Cruz at Kyle's wedding a couple months ago."

Mike grinned. "Sly girl. I wish you'd been with me for Kyle's nuptials. It was a great time."

Yeah.Joe had heard all about how the group had not only pranked Kyle, but how the Sothard sibling had fallen for his now-wife Rowan, a beautiful stuntwoman whom his brothers had employed to help them pull off their gag.

Joe felt Mike watching her while he stroked her bare back with his fingers, and knew he was still waiting for an answer to how she'd sussed out Cruz's name, but…

"If you don't stop doing that," Joe purred. "I'm not only going to be unable to form a sentence, I'm going to jump back on that insatiable beast who needs feeding again," Joe stretched languidly and patted his semi.

"Nope. No time." He smacked her bare behind, which got her attention. "Now tell me how you found Cruz?"

Joe mock pouted, continuing to stroke as she wiggled her posterior. She seriously loved the aggressive side of Mike.

"I went to the library," she finally gave over sassily.

"The library," he repeated, his brows drawing together as his hips thrust. "I don't get it."

Joe grinned, adding a twist to her tug. "I asked the kids what year you graduated from high school, then I went to the library and looked up a copy of your yearbook."

She could see Mike beginning to get it, even through his distraction, and continued.

"First, I found your profile picture." A swipe of her thumb over the weeping head of his love-stick now had him hard and throbbing. "And that snapshot…" she continued. "Let's just say you were extremely hot as a teenager."

Her strokes became firmer, using his pre-cum as lubricant.

"Then I looked up your football team, and made note of your teammates' names. After which I looked for candids of you with any of them, figuring if I found some, they'd be you with your best buddies."

"Brilliant," Mike praised through gritted teeth, but Joe was looking for his eyes to roll back in his head, so she didn't let up.

"I came across three," she enlightened him. "Then I, uh, might have used my DEA connections to get into our agency's data bases, and…"

Mike's flesh was throbbing.

Joe didn't think it would be long, now.

"…Cruz popped up right away, because he's FBI. From there, it was simple luck. I called him, and lo and behold, he knew exactly what I was talking about. He went into great detail about the great gum incident, which is what he called it."

Mike groaned, then grunted, rapidly grabbing his pillow to cover her hand and his stomach as he shot off.

Joe felt the surge, and experienced his release.

Awesome.

Easing her pressure in small increments she brought Mike down slowly after his pillow-shot.

"Nice catch," she said as he let out a long, satisfied breath. "But now we'll have to shop for bedding."

Mike snorted and shook his head, ignoring her taunt and the mess for the time being. "So, Cruz decided to travel all this way to play a joke and bust my nads."

"No," Joe corrected, withdrawing her hand from the wet cocoon and giving it a sassy lick. "Once I filled him in on who I was, and everything that was going on, he came all this way to save you from having to make a decision regarding Mellie that might screw with you and your kids' heads."

"Well, shit," Mike grunted, but Joelle could tell he was touched. "I'm glad we invited the asshole over to dinner tonight, then."

"Yeah, umm, speaking of which…" She finished cleaning her hand like a cat, and regarded Mike with some regret.

"What? We're not doing dinner?"

When she didn't speak, he lightly tickled her ribcage. "Spit it out, Joe."

She took a deep breath. "Word got out that Cruz was here, and your teammates who know him… I tried to head them off, but they weren't to be denied, so we have between fifteen and twenty people coming here for a cookout in two hours."

Mike threw back his head and laughed. "If you think there'll be fifteen to twenty visitors, you're delusional," he chortled.

"Why?" Joelle screwed up her mouth.

"Because once the rest of the team finds out what's up, they're all going to descend," Mike informed her, then smiled ruefully. "I guess that means I not only need to clean up, I should go order at least four dozen pizzas."

Joe propped herself up on an elbow and smirked down at him. "Nope. No need. Everlee said she's giving everyone food assignments. And…she also invited your parents, so it looks like I'll finally be meeting them."

With everything that had been going on, Joe hadn't had a chance, yet, to make their acquaintance. She'd spoken on the phone to each of them, briefly, and they seemed to approve of her, but she was still nervous about an in-person encounter.

"There's nothing to worry about." Mike leveraged himself off the bed, and stripped the pillow of its case, using the thing to clean off the rest of his stomach. "Huh." He glanced down at the pillow. "You're right. I'm going to need a new one.

He must have sensed her continued trepidation at meeting his family. "Listen, Joe. They're going to love you."

"I hope so," Joe mumbled. "I'm not exactly the type of girl somebody introduces to their folks."

Mike growled, and dropping the case on the floor, slid back onto the bed, wrapping her in his arms again. "What does that mean?"

"It means I haven't exactly been somebody who lets people get close."

"Maybe in the past, but that's all over now," he assured her. "My friends are your friends, and my family is your family."

Joe let that one go. Time would tell whether or not she got everyone's endorsement. But…

"You know you're going to have to meet my uncles, too, right?" she teased.

"Yup. The ‘old codgers'," Mike returned. "I guess I can take a weekend off sometime in the near future and make that happen."

Joe instantly felt contrite, thinking about how out of the loop she'd left her only two family members. Not only had she kept them from the troubles she'd been facing at the agency—which she'd long ago decided to suck-up on her own—but she'd never told them about being on assignment in Maine for the last few months. And they were totally unaware that she'd met the man with whom she hoped to spend the rest of her life.

Joe made a spontaneous leap. "Would you mind if I called them right now and introduced you?" she asked.

Mike looked down at their naked, entwined bodies.

"Shit, Joe. I can't… I won't… Uh, let me put some pants on first."

Laughter bubbled up in Joelle's throat. "Seriously? This isn't going to be a video call, Mike."

"Still," he grumbled. "I can't talk to them while my dick is hanging out."

"Fair," Joe grinned, giving the appendage in question a final, loving pat before she leaped up off the bed. "I'll cover up, too." She prowled her bare body across the room, grabbed Mike's terry robe from the back of the bathroom door, and slipped it on. "There. I'm covered."

Mike simply reached to the floor beside the bed, coming up with the pair of sweat pants he'd discarded earlier in his haste to get into their sexual acrobatics.

He raised his fine posterior and slipped them on without ever leaving the mattress. "There," he said.

Joe practically skipped back to the bed, where she sat down cross-legged in front of him before retrieving her phone from the bedside table. Smiling, she hit her Uncle Shim's number. He was the one more likely to have his phone on him.

She put her device on speaker

Two rings was all it took.

"Hey, Little Joe," her uncle greeted, and she watched amusement break out over Mike's face.

Little Joe? he mouthed incredulously.

Joe chose to ignore him.

"Uncle Shim," she responded with a smile in her voice. "I don't suppose Uncle Drew is anywhere nearby?"

"He's right here. What's wrong." Her uncle's voice went from welcoming to lethal in a blink.

Typical.Joe laughed. "Nothing's wrong," she assured him. "Just put your phone on speaker so we can all talk. I've got some news."

He grumbled, but did as he was told, because in the next second, Uncle Drew's gruff tone greeted her in the same way Shim had. "What's going on Little?"

Joe, once again ignoring Mike's obvious glee over the moniker, began laying things out for her uncles.

"Well… I know I've been off the grid, but I've actually been in Maine on assignment for the last few months." She took a deep breath. "The big news, however, is that I'm leaving the DEA office in Nevada."

"About fucking time," Shim responded with a bark. "Your boss is a total dick."

Joe blinked. "How did you?—"

"Listen, Little," Shim came back. "We may be old, but we still have connections. We had the man investigated a number of years ago when you stopped being our normal, sunshiny girl. There was nothing overt in his records, but it was obvious he's a glory-seeking narcissist."

She could hear Drew agreeing.

"Every time you've visited since then, we've had a hard time not asking you, ‘what the hell'. But we knew you'd have to figure things out on your own if we wanted it to go away. It just took you a fucking long time to ditch that man's sorry ass."

Joe threw back her head and laughed. "I not only ditched his ass; I had help from local law enforcement to uncover some illegal undertakings he's been involved in, and those activities will put the man in prison for the rest of his life."

"Now that's a story I want to hear." Uncle Shim audibly smacked his lips.

"We'll save that for later, if it's okay. Because… I have something even better to tell you."

"You're pregnant," Uncle Drew belted out of nowhere with a hopeful note.

Now Mike's brows went wild.

"No. No. I'm not," she responded. "Hold on a sec, will you?" She muted the phone before her uncles could say anything else, and attempted an explanation.

"They've been at me for the last few years to give them a grandbaby, citing the fact that they're getting old and they want to see the next generation before they pass."

"And they don't care whether you have a partner to do that with?" Mike questioned.

"Nope. Artificial insemination advocates all the way, since I've given them little hope I'd find a man who could put up with me."

Mike grabbed her around the waist and yanked her forward onto his prone body. "Well, you have a man, now," he growled, "so maybe we should get started on giving your uncles some babies to love."

"Who the hell is that?" Uncle Shim's voice emerged from somewhere between them.

"Shplite." Joe pushed up and scrambled for the phone. "I must have hit the button when you yanked me down."

"Who yanked you?" Uncle Drew growled. "Do we need to come north and kick somebody's ass?"

Joe snickered at the picture that conjured. "No, Uncles. Now listen up, please. This is the good news part of things I mentioned." She cleared her throat. "Uncle Shim, Uncle Drew, meet Mike. He's…"

"The man you love," Mike put in, unabashedly making that announcement before she could explain him any other way.

There were twin grunts, then…

"Do you love her back?" Uncle Drew asked without skipping a beat, albeit with an edge to his voice.

"Hell, yes," Mike responded immediately. "Joe is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"And are you going to make some babies for us?" Uncle Shim questioned pointedly.

Mike threw back his head and laughed. "Well, Joe and I haven't exactly talked about it yet, but I'm willing. Although I already have two teenagers," he warned.

There was a noise cracking through the air that sounded distinctly like a high five.

"Yes!" Shim exulted. "Two ready-made grandchildren, no waiting, and more to come. I'd say that's damned fine news."

Joe glanced over at Mike with her mouth hanging open, and saw that he was dead serious. Tears sprung to her eyes as an unprecedented happiness bubbled up inside her.

Really, she mouthed.

Mike's eyes were alight as he nodded, then held up two fingers while quirking a questioning brow.

He wanted two kids with her? Joe didn't know whether to crow or bawl. She leaned forward and kissed those raised digits, spilling a little moisture onto his hand as she did. He gently brushed her tears away.

Damn.She never thought she'd?—

"All well and fine," Uncle Drew's voice barked. "But, Little Joe, what kind of man is he? Is he smart enough and tough enough to take you on? Can he support you?"

Joe spluttered. She should have been ready for the third degree.

Before she could get a single word to her lips, Drew started up again.

"Mike, how about you answer that one?"

Joe shrugged apologetically to Mike. She hadn't expected her patriarchs to put him on the spot so fast.

Mike didn't look fazed in the least. "I love everything about Joe, including her propensity to get bossy."

Joe slapped him on the chest, but couldn't keep her lips from twitching upward.

"And here's my bio, in a nutshell. My name is Mike Carlese. I'm well established here in Orono, Maine where I grew up. I have a house that I own outright, and, as I mentioned before, two teenage offspring, Addilynn and Tim, who, by the way, love Joe as much as I do.

"I'm a lieutenant with the Bangor Police Department, and second in command of our local Downeast SWAT team. I can give you the names of my bosses if you're looking for references, but understand it's not gonna change anything. Joe is mine now, and with all due respect, even if you don't like what you find, she's not leaving," he ended.

"Good answer," Uncle Drew replied. "But here's some straight talk from me. Now that we have your name, we'll be looking into you."

Joelle huffed. "Seriously Uncles? You can't trust my judgement on this one?"

"After you wasted so much time working for that asshat, Lester?" Drew rebutted. "We're not leaving anything to chance."

Mike was now looking at her, grinning like crazy. Apparently, he liked her overprotective uncles.

"Fine," she eventually responded, attempting to keep the amusement out of her voice. "But I'm not ditching him, no matter what bullshit dossier you come up with," she groused.

"Wait? Is that our girl? Swearing again? I thought I heard some cussing out of you earlier," Drew exclaimed. "Halleluia. Your dickhead boss didn't spoil you for life."

Joe chuckled, because what else could she do? And Mike wasn't helping; his amusement turning to possessiveness over the words exchanged. As if to stake his claim, he brushed the robe off her legs, drawing circles on her thigh, inching ever closer to where she—desperately—wanted him again with a fierceness that defied the orgasms they'd already shared.

"Listen, Uncles," she managed to rasp out. "I have to go. Something's…come up."

Way up, if the front of Mike's sweats didn't lie.

"Hah. Fine," Shim agreed, sounding cheeky. "But before you jump your young man, Little Joe, tell us when are you coming to visit?"