Best Thing In Town

Around four in the morning Mike tiredly held Estelle in his arms, walking side by side with an equally tired Audrey who, also, was carrying her own daughter in her arms. Both girls were asleep, and thankfully the trek to the car was a short one. Gently, they set them down in the back seat, buckling their seatbelts without waking them up. Mike walked around to open the passenger's side door for Audrey, who thanked him and slid inside. As soon as the car was moving, they drove in silence back home.

Not that the drive was a long one. Mike and the guys only lived a short distance from one another. It wasn't an awkward silence. Simply a tired one. The party had been nice. A nice way to ring in the new year. For Audrey and Katarina, they made new friends and acquaintances.

Just before 4:30, the BMW pulled up the driveway to the house and Mike parked it without a sudden lurch. Peeling the girls from their sleeping positions in the back seat was a chore in itself because of the angle they had to reach them at. But they managed. Once again carrying their respective child, they entered the house soundlessly and padded up the stairwell, not bothering to flick on any lights. When they reached the second floor, Mike and Audrey stepped into separate rooms, where they laid their daughters down on their beds. It's a good thing they made them change into their pajamas right after the new years hoorah, because putting a sleeping child in pajamas was a bitch.

Mike tucked in Estelle, pulled the covers up and placed a kiss on her forehead before leaving her bedroom and shutting the door. He walked into the hallway and watched Audrey from the doorway to Katarina's room, just studying how she was with her little girl which he knew meant everything to her. She brushed some hair out of the toddlers face and made sure the blankets were cozy enough around the small body. She reached over and set a pink teddy bear beside her and then placed a light kiss on Katarina's forehead, unaware that Mike was watching her with a smile.

Folding his arms he took a step backward and went into his bedroom and leaving the door open as he entered the the master bath. He was in the middle of washing his face and brushing his teeth when he heard a soft knock on his bedroom door. Finishing up what he was doing, he wiped his mouth and dropped the towel on the edge of the sink as he stepped back into the bedroom to find Audrey leaning in the doorway with her hands clasped in front of her.

"Hey," he said.

She gave a soft smile. "Hey."

"D'you have a good time tonight?" She didn't respond with a word or a sentence. Just a simple nod. He watched as her body moved further into his room and how her expression was conflicted. It was a mix of nervousness, uncertainty, need, graciousness... "Do you need me to get some extra blankets for one of the other bedrooms? Or, you could stay in here and I could stay in one of--"

Audrey cut him off by stepping up to him and pressing her forefinger against his lips to hush him up. When she pulled her finger away, he couldn't help but look at her questioningly, while his eyes smiled down at her. She brought her hands up to either side of her face and stood on her toes as she pulled him into a kiss. It was subtle at first but the first inkling Mike noticed that it'd be something more was when he felt her fingers undoing the buttons on his shirt.

He opened his eyes in mild surprise and broke apart from her, stopping her hands and smirking down at her, incredulously.

"Wait...last time I checked you couldn't allow yourself to mix business with pleasure."

She smirked right back at him and stepped away from him, closing the bedroom door. "Getting pregnant, quitting my job, leaving my grandmother behind while moving my daughter and myself across the span of almost three thousand miles to live with you pretty much established that the line was crossed a while ago," she quipped.

"Point and match."

Without missing a beat, Mike took one step and he grabbed her up under her arms and lifted her up, pinning her back against the door. In a huff, he claimed her mouth with his own and snaked his hands up her back, trailing up to her shoulders and pulling down the spaghetti straps of her camisole top. Her heart was all a-flutter as she tilted her head to the side and kissed the skin of her neck and nibbled gently on her shoulder, leaving warm kisses in the wake.

When the two of them began to make love, it was almost perfect as perfect can be.

It was a nexus. A connection. A beautiful, beautiful connection. It was all sorts of things. Feral, gentle, carnal, loving, primeval, pure. It was lovemaking, it was a sex, it was intercourse, it was fucking...it was them. Together. Mike thought his heart was going to burst, amongst other things. And the amazing this is that, during all of this, they kept the sounds they made hushed, because it was about 5 in the morning and their kids were sleeping just down the hall.

When they were done, Mike slumped against her, still managing to keep her pinned between his body and the bedroom door. Lifting his face from her shoulder, he kissed her so blithely on the lips, slipping her the tongue, just a little. She smiled and brushed her nose against his in an Eskimo kiss and then wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders in a comforting hug.

"I love you," he whispered quietly in her ear, and half out of breath.

Audrey looked at him with such a contented smile. "I love you, too," she repeated.

Wrapping his arms around her waist, he carried her over to the bed where he laid her down on her back and climbed in next to her, pulling the covers up over them and pulling her body close to his. In doing so, they both stripped down completely, dropping the articles of clothing to the floor on either sides of the bed and smiling at each other as Audrey rolled over to him and giggled as they went for round two.