Free Forevermore by Lynn Galli Page A

She rocked against me, letting breathy sounds escape her lips against my ear. I added a thumb to her clit, rubbing just right. “You need this, Bri. Come for me.”
    Her hips thrust hard against my hand. She leaned down to take my mouth in a savage kiss that was both demanding and preventative in keeping her usual exclamations from escaping. I felt the telltale flutters around my thrusting fingers before she went rigid and contractions squeezed my fingers to the sound of her muffled groan.
    Her body dropped onto me in a boneless heap as her breath brushed over my neck. Nothing felt better than satisfying the woman I loved. “That was…God, Mabel.” She didn’t seem to have the energy to finish the thought.
    I smiled at her sated state. Sparks raced through me every time she used my name. I never liked it, even when Kathryn called me by the name she’d chosen. But now, in these private moments with my partner, one whispered “Mabel” and I’d feel like I was falling in love all over again.
    My hands rubbed her smooth back. This always reenergized her. She’d shift and shudder, milking the back rub for every second. Truthfully, I could stay in this position for hours, but we didn’t have that luxury.
    “Let me,” she began, hands drifting down my sides.
    I stopped their movement. “Not enough time. Somebody needs to be talked out of pancakes.”
    “That kid!” she complained mockingly. “Here’s the deal. I’ll get French toast started and join you in the shower where we can finish this.”
    I nodded, not counting on her being able to keep the promise because that was the life of a parent. As she pulled on her camisole, I found her shorts and reached for the robe she kept on one of the chairs in our room. I’d lounge here for ten minutes before getting up. Saturdays took some reserve energy to get through.
    An hour later, the kids were fed and those special shower promises had been kept. I was still tingling from the refreshing wake up and made a note to set the alarm early for next Saturday so we could start the day the same way.
    Caleb finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on. “Whose turn is it today?” He asked this every Saturday morning, even when he knew it wasn’t his turn. He always hoped that we’d forget that it wasn’t his turn and let him choose.
    “Olivia’s,” Briony told him in a tone that said she knew exactly what he was trying.
    This had been a routine she set up with Caleb after his other mom died. Briony put a lot of emphasis on doing activities together that didn’t involve a television or game monitor and helped to widen his interests. Family time could be anything from throwing a Frisbee at the park to painting mugs at a pottery store to bike rides and countless other little activities that didn’t break the bank. It taught the kids to make their own fun without the aid of television or gossiping with friends.
    Changing my usual quiet Saturday plans had been one of those adjustments that worked out well and made me feel like a more complete person for it. I’d always been happy to hibernate on the weekends to decompress and maybe hang out with Willa or help out Hank and Lucille with something around their house. Having to come up with group activities that hopefully everyone would enjoy turned out not to be the pressure cooker I worried it would.
    “Six Flags,” Caleb tried to mask his suggestion behind a cough.
    We all laughed because he said this every weekend even when it was his mom’s turn to pick. Olivia would never ask for something like that because she was very aware of the cost of things. I understood where she was coming from but didn’t want it to be an issue. Once we adopted her, and I was now almost certain she’d let us, we’d work on getting her to be more of a kid than an accountant.
    I waited for her choice. She’d only just begun to pick things she really liked. In the first few months, she’d pick something one of us would always pick like