Here is an excerpt from the forthcoming Third Time’s The Charm (subject to final editing, etc)

“Would you like some, Mary girl?” he asked with an eyebrow wiggle, a devilish smirk, and a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Michael!” She worried the sternness of her tone was contradicted by the weak nervous laughter that bubbled around it.

“Is that all you can say?” he asked. He took a lighter out of the pencil drawer and lit the pipe. He got up and started walking over to her.

“Michael, what if Tommy or James found that and—oh!” Mary let out when he yanked her by the hand back towards the chair.

He scooped her up and plopped her on his lap as he sat, pipe still in his mouth. She laughed out right this time and cupped his scratchy face in her hands. Fifty-six years old and still spry as a randy old goat, Mary thought fondly. She kissed him on his forehead and he swiveled the chair back and forth, holding her close.

“What on earth has gotten into you lately?” she voiced the question everyone had been asking themselves. “You’re a thousand different moods in one body these days.”

She smoothed the front of his track suit. She far preferred him in his suit and tie—what woman wouldn’t?—but he still looked amazingly fit. Tired…worried…but fit. She looked up into his face again. He was watching her closely but still said nothing. He reached up and took the pipe out of his mouth and smiled a slow contented sort of smile. The smoke whispered around them both. She wrinkled her nose at the herby musty scent. It wasn’t sweet like the tobacco.

“Michael, smoking something illegal to take the edge off quitting something that is legal is probably not a better move,” Mary said, but she smiled as she said it. They both knew she didn’t really care. On the spectrum of laws Mickey Downey had broken over the years, this was pretty low on the totem pole.

“And I’m pretty sure they work the opposite anyway,” she continued. Mary hoped that was a little bit stern. It sounded weak to her ears.

“Or do they?” she wondered out loud. Way to be indecisive, you ninny, she thought.

He stuck the pipe back in his mouth with a chuckle and his free hand played in her russet curls.

“Why don’t you wear your hair long anymore?” Michael finally responded.

“Mmnn, I don’t know,” she said as his large palm teased at her neck.

It made goose bumps rise on her flesh and a shivery feeling snake through her stomach. She sighed and leaned into him. It was an amazingly domestic and normal feeling, sitting on his lap. As if all those years apart had never happened. She wanted to get lost in the moment, at least until his mood shifted again.

His head nuzzled hers. “I haven’t been entirely truthful with you,” he said, so softly she felt it more than heard it. She smiled weakly.

“And this should surprise me?” she answered. She could feel his silent chuckles underneath her bottom.

“Why did you come?” he asked. She shook her head at the rapid topic change again.

“Do you want me to leave?” she parried with another question.

“Mmmn,” he hummed and scooted her closer to him. His pipe was in his hand and his mouth moved to her forehead. He kissed it gingerly and haphazardly, as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “How long can you stay with us this time?”

“Can and will are two different words. Are you asking if I’ll stay?”

“Ahh, was I? Seems the second question would be superfluous with an answer to the first.”

“And which was the first, why I came, or what might make me stay?”

“Would your answer change if you knew my mother was going to be staying with us for the weekend?”

“I suppose that depends. Who is ‘us’?”

His deep chuckles moved her whole body and he pressed his lips against her forehead in one long kiss.

“We could do this all night,” he finally said against her skin. “It was always one of my favorite things.”

She smiled. Talk about falling into old patterns… she thought to herself. Maybe Kiki was right, maybe she needed to make the first move.

“I recall your favorite thing to do required no clothes. Maybe—” she squeaked as he squished her in another bone crushing hug. He dropped the pipe on the table and she had the vague thought of chastising him for potentially starting a fire a nanosecond before his hand bunched in her hair and his mouth was on hers.

Ahh, how he kissed. It was like nothing else. He put everything in him into those kisses. The same energy he had put into becoming a billionaire, into rising through the ranks of the mob, into raising his children. Her tongue furiously dueled with his and her arms made their way to his neck. She moved to try and straddle him but his arm was in a vice grip around her and his hand in her hair showed no give. Her lips began to hurt under the onslaught of his, but she made no moves to stop him. Her insides felt like they were melting and her only cognizant thought was marked amazement that he could still make her feel such overwhelming passion.

She panted against his mouth as he let her loose just enough to hiss against her mouth,

“Believe it or not, the thing I loved most was your mind,” he said. “Just sitting with you and our boy and talking.” His hand still held her hair, though not painfully.

Her eyes searched his for answers to this mood shift. They were glimmering with hunger and frustration. Why was he upset again? She thought hazily. One minute they were talking, the next kissing, and now he was moody again. He closed his eyes and kissed her one more time, just a regular, ordinary and gentle kiss. Then he slowly moved her off his lap. She stood up shakily.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Michael said.

–Copyright 2013, Genevieve Dewey. All Rights Reserved.