by Amy Lamont
Mace grimaced, but Ryan shook his head with a grin.
“Believe me, I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same thing. No way was I going to sit in a room and bitch about my problems to a bunch of strangers. But that’s what made the difference for me. If I hadn’t gone and talked to guys who’d been where I’d been, I swear I’d still be in a wheelchair.”
For the first time since he’d been injured, Mace let himself listen to what he was being advised to do. He’d balked at the idea of talking to a psychiatrist before. Because what the hell would some civilian in a suit who sat in an office all day know about living in a combat zone? About walking down a dirt road one day, thinking of ways to pop the question to your girl, when suddenly holes are blown through your body and you watch your buddy shredded and tossed across the road in pieces?
But other vets would get it. They might have slightly different stories, but they all knew what it was like to fight a war, to deal with injury and death, and endless fucking days of sand and heat.
“Maybe I’ll give them a call.”
“Live or die?” Ryan asked again.
“What?”
“Are you going to live or die? Because if you’re going to lay down and die, you need to remember it’s not just you you’re hurting. And if you’re going to live, that means the people who care about you are going to keep living in hell for as long as you do.”
Ryan slid his chair back and stood up from the table. “If you’re going to live, I suggest you start living. For yourself and for the people who love you.” He tapped the top of the card again. “Start here.”
He straightened and moved to the back door. “Tell your grandmother I said thanks for the beer.”
With those words, he left, leaving Mace sitting alone at the kitchen table, nursing his beer and staring down at the card for a veterans’ service organization.
Ryan’s question turned over and over again in his head. Live or die? Live or die?
Long after he’d drained the last sip of his beer and the sun dipped low in the sky, he stood up. He stared at the card for long moments before he picked it up and tucked it in his pocket. And then he went to finish packing.
Chapter 10
Six weeks. Or, if she was going to be completely accurate, six weeks, two days, and…nine hours since she’d walked out the door of Miss Abigail’s home, leaving Mace behind.
Mandy and Miss Abigail called her the next day to let her know he was gone. He’d packed and left just like he said he would, leaving behind his worried family and one heartbroken, completely lost woman who loved him.
In the nine months she hadn’t heard from him before he came back to town, she hadn’t let herself believe that things might not work out exactly as she planned. Even after he arrived in Kismet Beach, broken and injured, she thought they’d figure things out. Together. And pull him through this.
A tiny part of her even held onto a small smidgen of hope, after he crushed her so harshly in Miss Abigail’s kitchen and she walked out the door, that he’d come after her and beg for forgiveness.
But that tiny flicker of hope got smaller and smaller each day, until it burned out completely. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it happened. All she knew was the last few weeks she’d been going through the motions of living her life without really thinking about her future. Her excitement and hope had been overtaken, first by fear and grief, and now by a blessed numbness.
On this, her first day off after pulling four days of twelve-hour shifts, she decided it was time for her to get on with her life. She’d made a lot of decisions based on what she thought her life would be like with Mace. But now she had a whole world of options to consider.
The thought should excite her, but it was hard working up much excitement about anything these days.
She took her morning coffee out onto her tiny front porch and got comfy in her favorite spot—a big wicker rocking chair with a view of the neighborhood. If she angled it just right, she could even get a glimpse of the ocean down the road.
She sipped her coffee and allowed her mind to wander. She couldn’t help but wonder, if it hadn’t been for Mace, if she ever would have come back to Kismet Beach. And if, knowing there was the chance she’d run into him in the future when he visited his family, this was where she wanted to stay.
“You’re not letting a man influence the decisions you make about your life,” she whispered to herself.
“I hope that’s not entirely true.”
Serena jumped from her seat, spilling coffee down her shirt in the process.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” Mace rushed up the porch steps to her side.
She dropped her coffee cup on the little side table and backed away from him, staring at him in wide-eyed shock. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I came for you.”
She blinked up at him, his words not quite sinking in.
But as she stared at him, some details did start to register. The deep grooves of pain that had been permanently etched around his mouth the last time she saw him were almost gone. His eyes were lighter, brighter. More like…
“My Mace,” she whispered.
He stepped closer and held her stare. The blank look was gone from his eyes. He allowed her to see every emotion. And it wasn’t like the mixture of pain and anger she’d only gotten brief glimpses of before.
Now his eyes were clear. And what she saw there…her breath left her in one big rush. There were so many things swirling through his eyes, but none of them resembled the toxic brew of emotions that were there before. She saw her old Mace in his eyes. There was humor and strength, protectiveness and…love?
She stepped forward and placed her hands on his biceps. Part of her warned her to keep her guard up, to protect her heart. She’d already allowed him to decimate it once. She might not survive it again if he turned on her.
But she couldn’t. As she looked at him, the numbness of the last few weeks left her and she realized her hope hadn’t flickered out after all.
“You’re my Mace, aren’t you? You’re back.”
Mace dropped his head until his forehead touched hers. “Yeah, baby. If you’ll have me, I’m your Mace.”
She had two choices here. She could pull back and make him work for it. Make him pay for the way he’d treated her. Or…
Oh, who was she kidding? She flung herself into his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I’ll have you,” she whispered into his neck.
His arms clamped around her so tight she almost lost her breath. She didn’t know how long they stood there together, and she didn’t care. She was half afraid of letting him go, for fear he’d go back to the closed off stranger he’d been six weeks ago.
But when he finally pulled back and looked down at her, she knew she didn’t have to worry. Her Mace wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m sorry for what I put you through,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry I pushed so hard. I should have let you figure things out in your own way and your own time.”
“No, baby, what you did was exactly right.” He lifted a hand and smoothed her hair back from her face. “If you hadn’t brought Ryan over to talk to me, I don’t know where I’d be right now.”
She wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Ryan? But you ran out when he came to talk.”
He nodded and looped his arms around her waist, holding her close as they talked. “Well, turns out Ryan is as stubborn as you. He was waiting for me when I got back.”
“He was?”
“Told me I needed to decide if I was going to live or die. And if I was going to live, I needed to get a life.”
She laughed thinking back to what Ryan told her about his mom’s approach to getting him back on his feet. “Tough love.”
He smiled down at her and nodded. “Tough love.”
“So the last six weeks?” She silently tacked on the two days and nine hours.
“I’ve been taking his
advice. I’ve been doing physical therapy and talking with a support group, and I took a civilian engineering job with the Army. I’ve been out getting a life so I could come back here with a real future to offer you.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “To offer me?”
“Yeah, sweetheart. It just about killed me when I left the service and I had nothing left to offer you. Most of my life, I wanted two things. To be a soldier and to marry you. Somewhere along the line the two got tangled together, and I thought if I couldn’t have one, I had to give up both.”
She placed her hand on his cheek, tears stinging her eyes. “You wanted to marry me?”
“Want. I want to marry you.”
She couldn’t hold all the emotions back for another minute. Hot tears slid down her cheeks and she slid her arms around him. “I want to marry you, too. It’s all I ever wanted.”
He cradled her in his arms and used a hand on her jaw to turn her face up to his. With his thumb, he gently swiped away the tears. “This isn’t the proposal I had in mind.”
“No?” She grinned up at him. “What did you have in mind?”
She was teasing him, so she was totally unprepared for him to slide his hands down her arms until he threaded his fingers through hers. And then he dropped down to one knee, right there on her tiny porch in full view of the entire neighborhood.
“Serena, I know most people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I was lucky enough to learn at sixteen years old that it exists. Because the first time I saw you, I lost my heart. I love you. And the hope of a future with you is what got me through the darkest time of my life. Now I’m more than ready to get started on that future together.” He dropped one of her hands to dip into his pants pocket. He pulled out a small box and flipped it open to show her a gorgeous platinum and diamond ring. “Will you please, finally, do me the honor of being my wife? Will you marry me, Serena?”
She stood on her tiny front porch in her coffee stained t-shirt with the man of her dreams on his knees in front of her offering her the world. There was only one thing she could do.
She threw herself into his arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Yes, Mace, yes. I would love to finally be your wife.”
He somehow managed to slide the ring out of the box and onto her finger while he wrapped her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers. The kiss grew heated quickly and he clutched her shoulders, pulling her body in close to his.
She moaned under his mouth and pressed closer still. All she could think about was finally, finally getting as close to Mace as humanly possible.
He groaned and tore his mouth from hers, only to leave a trail of kisses from the corner of her mouth up to her ear. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she gasped just before he claimed her lips again.
She slid her hands down to find the hem of his shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his pants so she could get to his skin.
When her hands made contact with his flesh, a jolt went through her. So long, she’d waited so long for this.
“Inside, Serena,” Mace growled.
“Yes, inside,” she repeated, wanting nothing more than to take him inside her body. To feel him stretching her, pulsing deep within her.
He chuckled against her mouth. “Inside the house, baby.”
“What?” She pulled away in confusion, but the fog lifted pretty quickly when she realized she was about to strip naked and let him have his way with her on her front porch in view of the entire neighborhood. “Oh, yeah, inside.”
She jumped up and snagged his hand and pulled him into her cottage. She didn’t give him the tour, though. She yanked him straight down the hall into her bedroom.
He laughed even as he reached for her, and she didn’t think she’d ever heard a more amazing sound. Aside from hearing him tell him he loved her.
But she’d waited for him long enough. She reached forward and made short work of unbuttoning his shirt.
He put his hands over hers. “Are you sure about all this, Serena? I know this was all really fast…”
“Fast?” She paused to look up at him. “Are you kidding me? For eight long years, all I’ve dreamed about was being your wife and finally having the chance to get you naked. There is nothing fast about this.”
He threw his head back and laughed. She took the opportunity to get back to work on his buttons. His busy hands joined hers and in minutes, they were both stripped down to the skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered against her temple.
When she dreamed about this before, she had imagined long lingering kisses and taking the time to explore every inch of each other. But now that the moment was here, she couldn’t wait. And apparently Mace felt the same way because something primal seemed to take over both of them.
He scooped her into his arms and deposited her on the bed. He followed her right down and the pleasure of the full body, skin-on-skin contact made her cry out.
She lifted her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down to her. He took her mouth with a fierceness that left her breathless. At the same time his hands skimmed up her body, cupping her breasts.
As his tongue plunged into her mouth, his fingers found her nipples and rolled them until they stood out in hard peaks just begging for his mouth.
And he didn’t resist the temptation. He eased down her body and took one pebbled nipple into his mouth. He sucked hard and scraped his teeth over the sensitive bud.
She moaned and arched up off the bed. “Oh, God, Mace!”
He kissed and licked his way over to the other peak and gave it the same attention until she was writhing beneath him, the sensations in the tips of her breasts shooting straight to her core. Her hands slid over his head, holding him to her.
“Mace, please, I can’t wait.”
With one final flick of his tongue over her nipple, he slid up until they were face-to-face. “Next time, sweetheart, we’re taking our time.”
“Next time.” She nodded. At this moment she’d agree to just about anything to feel him slip inside her. But as she said the words, a joy lit her from inside as she realized that there would be a next time. And a time after that. And a time after that.
She looked up at him as he pressed against her entrance.
“We have a lifetime of next times,” she whispered as he slid inside her.
Her words seemed to trigger something in Mace. He held still for a moment, giving her the chance to adjust to his hard length buried deep inside her. But then he started moving, thrusting back and forth and creating a delicious friction that had pleasure building within her instantly.
“Mace, oh God, you feel so good,” she moaned, arching up to wrap her arms and legs around him, pulling him even deeper into her body.
He slid in to the hilt and back out, again and again. She moved her hips to meet him thrust for thrust, getting closer and closer to the white-hot edge of pleasure until finally she went over.
Light burst behind her eyes as the feelings consumed her. Her muscles clenched, and at the very pinnacle, she felt him speed up his movements, pumping into her once, twice, and again, until he joined her in her pleasure, finding his own release.
He collapsed, bringing his weight down on top of her, and she welcomed every second of it. She trailed her nails softly up and down his back while shivery aftershocks rolled through her.
He kissed her temple, her nose, her lips before sliding to her side and pulling her in close to his chest. He looked down at her, pushing her hair from her face. “You okay?”
She grinned at him. “That was so worth the wait.”
He grinned right back and leaned in for another hard, fast kiss. “Yeah, it really was.”
The grin fell from her face as she was overwhelmed by emotion at the thought of finally having him here with her. All of him. Her Mace. “And we get to do it over and over again. Forever.”
He pulled her tightly against him and she could hear his breath hitch. “Forever.”<
br />
The single word sounded almost like a prayer.
After the emotion of the commitment they made to each other had swept through them both, he pulled back again.
“Are you disappointed you’re not marrying a soldier?”
At the reminder of their impending marriage, something only this morning she thought was out of the realm of possibility, a giddy happiness overtook her.
Serena looked up into the face she’d loved for almost as long as she could remember. She thought of his protectiveness. His fierce need to offer her the world even when all she wanted was him. And she realized he was wrong about something. He might not be in the Army anymore. But he was still the same warrior he always was.
She lifted a hand to his jaw. “You’ll always be a soldier, Mace. My soldier.”
Love, laughter, and hope for the future flared in his dark eyes. “Always, Serena.”
It only took them eight years, ten months, two weeks, and four days. But they finally, finally got their forever. And she knew the words she’d spoken teasingly a few minutes ago were true.
This, their love, their future…it was well worth the wait.
* * *
Need more of Kismet Beach? You’re in luck! Mandy’s Marine: A Kismet Beach Novel will be released as part of a multi-author box set in March 2017.
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In the meantime, I’d love to introduce you to four best friends who make a bet and get way more than they ever bargained for. Read on for an excerpt from Christmas with the Billionaire, the first book in my Holiday Encounters Series.
Excerpt: Christmas with the Billionaire
Holiday Encounters Book 1
The Bet
Emma
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The four of us tripped onto the train in turkey-induced stupors. We managed to snag the seats at the end of the aisle that faced each other, letting us keep our little huddle intact.
I dropped into one of the vinyl-covered seats with a sigh. That last slice of chocolate cream pie pretty much sucked my will to move. Heading out into the chilly November evening to catch a train home stretched me to my limits.