The One Who Got Away Read online

  He chuckled. “You haven’t seen me in years and you want me naked just like that? Whatever you say, doctor.” With his left hand, he reached back and shrugged out of his shirt, tossing it to the chair in the corner.

  “I don’t. I mean, I’m not. Um, I mean, I don’t.” Her cheeks burned as she stumbled over her words. If he hadn’t been grinning at her with a smirk gleaming in his eyes, she’d have put the manila folder to use and fanned her face. Taking a breath, she pretended like that hadn’t happened and approached him.

  She put the file on the table. Glancing up at him, she said, “Please sit down.” When he complied, she touched his shoulder around the area where the skin was red and puckered from the recent removal of stitches. He flinched and she could tell he was holding his breath.

  “I’m not a doctor,” she finally said. Her words were soft as she continued to examine the two different surgery sites and a dozen other smaller scars where the skin was still healing. “I’m a physical therapist. I can’t fix your arm, but I can help you make it usable again.”

  Cyrena tried to think of him as any other patient. Tried to treat him like any other. But he wasn’t. Mace Jones was the only man she’d ever loved. She didn’t want to do exercises and ice, electrical muscle stimulation and heating pads. She wanted to kiss the marred skin and run her fingers over every inch of his warm body. She wanted to show him she had loved him all these years. That she loved him still.

  She cleared her throat, but the tight, dry feeling persisted. “Lift your arm to the side until you feel pain.” Emotion welled in her eyes, but she chastised the tears away.

  He lifted his arm to about a forty-five degree angle before his muscles tightened, his body reacting to the pain. “You went away to school?”

  It was a pointed question and she knew what he was really asking. You went away for school, but you couldn’t go away for me? She shook her head. “Not at first. Not until”—her voice cracked—“not until the girls graduated high school and Grandpa died.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Cyrena could hear the emotion in his tone, the sincerity. Averting her face, she continued her exam, ignoring the two silent tears as they slid hot down her cheeks. Her chest burned. Her nostrils and eyes burned with the pain of holding back the long overdue sobs. She spoke despite the rasp of sorrow. “Squeeze this ball,” she said, and handed him a small red ball. “It may not seem like it’s doing much, but you’re wounded so we’ve got to take this slow.”

  He accepted the ball with his right hand and began to squeeze. “You’re wounded, too.”

  The depth of tenderness in his voice nearly broke the shred of control damming the flow of tears. “I’m not.” A lie, her heart screamed.

  “You are,” he whispered, grabbing her arm with his left hand. He gave a little tug, but it didn’t take much force to have her step in his direction. He pulled her closer, between the V of his legs. “You are, baby, or you wouldn’t be crying.”

  “I’m not.” She forced the words past the lump in her throat. Inhaling was a mistake. It carried the scent of him, of sunshine and ocean, of Ivory soap and wind, of masculinity and strength. She ached for his strength. Yearned for it.

  “Nah?” His hand left her arm and he touched her cheek with his thumb. “Then what’s this?” he asked, holding the captured tear between them.

  A sob broke, but Cyrena tucked her bottom lip into her mouth and refused another its freedom. She could feel the small exercise ball press to the back of her leg as he used his wounded arm to urge her forward.

  “Come here.” He put his left hand to her cheek, then spread his strong fingers into curls she’d had a hard time securing into a hair band that morning. He pulled her closer. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. He rested his forehead against hers. And closed his eyes.

  He held her there, their bodies inches apart, his injured hand keeping her from stepping away, his other hand tangled in her hair. She could feel his breaths on her cheeks and could smell the saltiness of tears causing her to wonder if they were her own. Or his.

  His voice was low and raw when he finally spoke. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

  Even with all his strength and power, she didn’t miss the pain in his tone. It was so easily recognizable because it was as poignantly deep as her own. “You had to go.” She reached up and touched his face. He didn’t open his eyes, but turned his head and pressed a tender kiss to her palm. “You had to,” she whispered.

  She gulped. Mace had been in foster care most of his life and had aged out of the system two weeks before graduation. He had no one but her and nowhere to go. The military had been his best and, he’d said, his only option. He had enlisted on his eighteenth birthday and left for boot camp three weeks later. That was the last time she’d seen him. Twelve years ago.

  “You should’ve come with me.” He spoke against her hand, but she felt the vibration of his words pulse through her body.

  Swallowing down the pain, she replied, “I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t leave when the girls still had two years of high school. All their friends were here. And I couldn’t leave after Grandpa got diagnosed with lung cancer. He took care of us when Mama bailed. I had to take care of him.”

  Her mama bailing had been how she’d first met Mace. He’d been at the same short-term foster care when on her thirteenth birthday her mama decided she didn’t want to raise children anymore, especially not teens. Mace had been there waiting for another long-term placement. She and her younger sisters had only been there over the weekend until Grandpa could claim them legally.

  He’d taken over being the parent from then on. And she’d taken on being the caretaker right before she got out of high school. She’d planned on leaving with Mace when he’d enlisted. A cancer diagnosis had changed everything.

  “Cyrena, I enlisted to take care of you. To take care of us.”

  A tremor slid down her back. He’d had big dreams and made bigger promises as a teen. Her lids drifted closed, the memories almost too painful to bear, because despite his promised dreams, reality had held her underwater until she nearly drowned. She had thrown herself into mothering her younger sisters and nursing her ailing grandfather. She’d put every bit of herself into them so she wouldn’t have to think of Mace. That he was gone and might never come back. At least not alive. That without him she’d never again be whole.

  But now he was here. He was here, again. She took a breath. “I couldn’t go with you, Mace. I had to take care of my family. The girls deserved to graduate high school with their friends. Like we did. Grandpa needed me. His last days weren’t easy and…” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t say anything else. Another word and she’d be weeping in his lap.

  He lifted his head from hers and she nearly tumbled into him, surprised by the absence of his support. “Ah, I’m sorry,” she said as she lost her balance and grabbed his shoulders to keep from falling. She could feel him flinch under the contact, but he didn’t move away.

  Mace was hurting all right, but it didn’t have a damn thing to do with his shoulder. Hell no, he’d gotten used to that pain, had figured out how to deal with it. What he hadn’t been prepared for was how quickly he’d gone hard, rocked up and aching, seeing Cyrena standing there staring at him, all moist eyed and lush lipped. She was thicker now than he remembered, but shit, she was perfect. She wore scrubs, but the square-shaped clothes didn’t do a thing to hide her luscious curves.

  She’d been shocked to see him. He knew she would be. He might have stayed away from her for more than a decade, but that didn’t mean he’d stayed away. He’d known she was a physical therapist and had even taken leave to stand in the shadows when she graduated college. He had promised her he would take care of her and he was a Marine, a man of his word. She wouldn’t go with him and had ended their relationship, saying she couldn’t hold him back, but that didn’t mean he had forgotten about his promises.

  When he’d been injured, so sever
ely he’d wished for death more than once during his slow recovery and return to the States, there was only one thing he feared. That he couldn’t keep his word. Couldn’t return to Cyrena and make sure she was okay. And when he began to heal, the only thing he could think about was getting better quickly and getting back to her.

  He’d planned this. Even pre-surgery, he knew as soon as he could go to therapy, he’d go see her. The time had come. He’d thought he was prepared to see her, and he was. But he hadn’t been prepared for his utter, unabated need. And now she was here, in his arms. More than a decade be damned, this was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  Mace slid his hand from her glorious curls, smoothing down her arm until her left hand was in his. He didn’t look down, just rubbed his thumb across her fingers. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until relief allowed its escape. No ring.

  With her hand still in his, he tugged her onto his lap, using her surprise to his advantage.

  “Mace!” She wiggled, trying to get up, but he pulled her forward until she was forced to spread her knees and straddle him on the exam table. He knew the second she felt his hard dick under her ass. She went still, then seemed to melt against his chest. “Mace,” this time a mirrored whisper of his own need.

  Damn she felt good touching him, all soft and sweet and womanly curves. She smelled of springtime flowers and exotic rain. He dreamt of holding her like this, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. Needed to be skin to skin. Needed to be naked and inside her. Needed to fuck her until her heart was exposed in her cries of pleasure.

  Until it was his name she moaned as she melted around him.

  “Cyrena, I’m wounded.” He pressed his mouth to her neck, to the tender skin below her ear.

  “I know.” The words were spoken so softly he felt them as much as heard them. She relaxed into him, slanting her head to the side so he could kiss her skin.

  He smoothed his mouth along her racing pulse, the echo of his own. She moaned and grasped on to him, one arm around his left shoulder, the other around his waist. She tightened her fist into his T-shirt, holding on.

  He moved upward, kissing along the shell of her ear, biting down a little on the fleshy lobe. She whimpered and wiggled against his hard dick. With her legs spread, he could feel the heat of her pussy and he had to fight the urge to turn caveman and shove his hand down her pants to see if she was as wet as he wanted her to be. Needed her to be.

  Her ass was soft against him, but she was hurting him. Damn cammies had fit fine before she’d walked in. But now his erection was throbbing against her softness, held in check by scrubs and fatigues. The pain of not being able to claim her rivaled the injuries on his shoulder.

  “I’m home now, baby.”

  Her eyes were closed, long lashes resting against latte cheeks, but she sought his mouth with hers. “I know, and I’ll take care of you,” she whispered against his lips.

  Damn, she tasted like home. Sweet like warm honey, intoxicating like a double shot of Hennessy. And he could taste her silent tears. Never again. Never, ever again, he vowed, would she cry anything but happy tears. He deepened the kiss, pressing his tongue into the sultry depth of her mouth, claiming what was his.

  What had always been his.

  She responded quickly, eagerly touched her tongue to his and he damn near came in his pants. A couple more minutes and he’d have her naked and fucked senseless on the treatment table.

  Mace drew from years of training and discipline and reined himself in. He pulled back from the kiss, pressing his mouth to hers a few more times as he eased back. She was breathing heavily, her eyes filled with a yearning so deep he almost felt guilty making her wait. Shit, this might have been the time, but it sure as hell wasn’t the place, he realized, glancing around the small glass-walled room, their only privacy the pulled curtain.

  “Cyrena, you said we had to take my therapy slow.” He kissed her mouth when she nodded. “We can take this as slowly as you want, baby, but I want us.”

  “Mace.”

  “I’ll date you. Romance you. Fast. Slow. Whatever you need. Just let me see you again.”

  She was smiling but he didn’t miss the way her body trembled in his arms. She nodded and pressed her lips to his as she spoke, “Yes. When?”

  The world had shifted. It’d been off kilter, but now it was upright again. Mace grinned as he put down his beer and grabbed his remote control. Things weren’t perfect. Not yet. His arm was still fucked up and he never could sleep. Too many nightmares. Too many ugly dreams of desert sand stinging his eyes, of blaring blasts ringing in his ears, of men in his unit crying out as death claimed them.

  Shit, even ten thousand miles away, back home in his small ocean-side town, some things you just didn’t get over. Kicking his feet onto the coffee table, he flicked from ESPN to the NFL Network. They were talking about the kickoff of training camps, but the updates were just background noise. A distraction.

  Taking a breath, he closed his eyes and leaned back. No, things weren’t perfect, but they sure as hell were getting better. He’d spent too many years in the desert. Too many tours overseas at war. More than a decade being a soldier and not nearly enough time just being a man.

  Not that he hadn’t dated. He had. He’d even been in a couple of short-term relationships, but he’d never been able to really commit to any of the women in his life. Hell no, not when his heart had already been claimed by the first and only woman he had ever loved.

  Opening his eyes, he glanced across the room at the metal locker he’d been issued at boot camp. Once it held all his gear, but now it held all of his pre-Marine possessions. As a foster kid, there hadn’t been much, just a trash bag of clothes, a couple of varsity football patches, a yearbook and the promises he’d made to his girl so many years ago.

  He grinned and closed his eyes again. That locker held his past and all his hopes of a future.

  Taking a deep breath, Mace tried to tune in to what was being said about his Chargers, but it was damned hard to focus on football when he’d been half-hard for a couple of weeks straight and the woman responsible for all his discomfort would be over in a few hours.

  “Cyrena,” he mumbled, tossing the remote aside and grabbing his hard dick. He’d left behind a girl and returned to a woman. She still had the wild sunshine and dusk hair that was more frizz than curls, and liquid amber eyes that held both innocence and too much pain. The same supple lips and smile.

  But her body had filled out, her breasts were bigger, her hips wider, her thighs thicker. It’d been a few weeks of yearning and cold showers, a few weeks of both physical therapy and torture. He’d seen her three times a week for therapy. She’d worked out his shoulder and arm; he’d followed directions but could only think of spreading those lush thighs and sinking into her wet pussy. Of working her out.

  He clenched his jaw, need sharp and raw. Drawing in a breath, he tried to shake his lust. It’d been a few weeks of therapy and dinners, of walks and kisses, of teasing and sleeping alone. He’d had e-fucking-nough.

  Cyrena Howell was his and tonight he meant to make her know it.

  He suppressed a groan and tried to focus on the TV. He’d chill now, watch some football updates and in an hour he’d get up and set his scene for seduction. The candles, wine and flowers were waiting in the kitchen.

  She’d knocked three times already and the only thing Cyrena could hear was the television blaring about football. Her heart thumped hard in her chest. Could something have happened to him? His shoulder was making progress, but maybe there was more wrong than he had told her about.

  She tried the door and found it unlocked, so she let herself in. She’d just gotten him back in her life. Her body ached in fear just thinking of losing him again. The bungalow was small, but clean and orderly. The front door opened into the main living room and as soon as she stepped inside she saw Mace sleeping upright on the couch. His right elbow was propped up on a pile of pillows, a beer had shed condensat
ion on the side table, and the remote had been tossed aside.

  She noticed everything, but only saw him. He wore black basketball shorts that rode low on his hips, and nothing else. His chocolate skin appeared rich and warm in the shadows of the sunset in the western sky. His body was perfect even with the scars on his shoulder. She stepped closer, wanting to touch him. She clenched her fists, her fingertips tingling to smooth across the Devil Dog tattoo on his shoulder, to trace the silver puckered wounds, to follow the chiseled dips and valleys of his corded muscles. To follow the lines across his pecs, to his abs.

  To follow the trail of dark hair that dipped from below his belly button beneath the waistband of his shorts. His left hand clenched the material and she could tell he was holding his dick. And he was hard. She trembled, her nipples pulling tight with desire, moisture dampening her pussy.

  She stepped closer. How easy it would be to straddle his waist, pull down his shorts and ride him awake. A throb started in her clit. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears, need pushing her forward. She stepped closer, biting down on her bottom lip to silence her whimper of need. As if to match her racing pulse, she saw his erection throb beneath the material of his shorts.

  Smiling, she glanced up toward his face. His eyes were hooded, but he was awake. Watching her. The cocky lopsided grin that always freed the butterflies in her belly was smeared across his lips.

  “Hi,” she whispered, the heat on her cheeks spreading, feeling both embarrassed to have been caught gawking at him and turned on by his reaction.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  “I knocked.” She glanced in the direction of the door, and then back at him. “I got worried when you didn’t answer.”

  His grin widened. “I’m good.”

  Her gaze dropped back to his lap. “I can see that.”

  His hand tightened around his length, his fingers holding the thin material to him. “I was just thinking about you.”

  Cyrena laughed and took a step forward. “You were sleeping.”