by Marie Harte
“I’ll take leave.” Nervous that he might really have blown it with Maria, he itched to rectify things. “Where is she exactly, Olivia?”
She told him, and he thanked her. Then Brad. “I’ll be moving out when I get back. Thanks for letting me stay at your place.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I figure I’ll need a place to host my girlfriend, if she ever speaks to me again. But I’m not moving in with her or anything,” he growled.
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
He left, spent the next two days arranging some leave time, and drove all the way to Augusta, Georgia. Looking for the address, he wound through a rural area and ended at a nice house at the end of a cul-de-sac. To his relief, he spotted Maria’s car.
He pulled in behind her, should she dare to make a quick getaway, and felt nerves he hadn’t experienced since Officer Candidate School. With nothing to lose but his sanity, he walked up to the front door, prepared to offer his head on a platter to have her back. He’d done a lot of soul searching on his trip, and he knew that he loved her. God knew why she’d loved him when he’d been such an ass. But admitting it to himself had opened the floodgates on his feelings. Beyond the physical perfection of the woman, there was her smile. Her giving nature. Her quick wit. Everything about Maria sang to him.
When the fuck had he ever lost his appetite before over a woman?
Hell, it had to be love.
He knocked and waited.
A woman who looked a lot like her mother, Laura, answered the door. “Hello?”
“Hi. Name’s Mike Cava. I’m here to see Maria.”
“Ah. The jerk from North Carolina.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “I’m Maria’s Aunt Stella.”
Great. Her aunt hated him.
“Won’t you come in?”
“Thanks.” He stepped inside.
“Last door down the hallway on the right. I’m heading out for a lunch date with friends. Be nice to her, or I’ll personally remove your tonsils when I get back.”
Surprised the woman thought to leave him with Maria at all, he must have showed his expression because she said, “That girl loves you like crazy. Her mother called warning me you were coming. Apparently Laura thinks you’re a good man who made a mistake. One that can be fixed.” The woman shook her head. “Men.” Then she left.
Mike felt as if he’d fallen down the rabbit hole. But, hell, he’d take what he could get. He moved down the hallway and pushed the door on the right all the way open. Maria lay half off the bed, her feet and torso visible, the rest of her hidden by the bed. Emotive, angsty music trickled from speakers on her dresser. After five seconds hearing her tunes, he wanted to slit his wrists.
He softly closed and locked the door behind him, knowing he needed to have words with his girlfriend. Please let me still have a girlfriend. Once again, that possible—probable—future with her unfolded in his mind’s eyes. That of the pair of them laughing and living happily ever after.
And his brother and sister wanted to know why he’d gone overboard. Because he freakin’ loved her and couldn’t imagine living without her. So, yeah, dumb to end it, but hell, losing her after committing to her would drive him bat-shit nuts.
“Maria?”
She screeched and fell off the bed.
“You okay, honey?”
She quickly stood, looking wan, weepy, and still gorgeous, even dressed in ratty shorts and a pink T-shirt. She glared at him. “What do you want?”
Not the reception he’d been hoping for. “I came to talk to you.”
“Oh? Now you want to talk? Really?”
“Look, I’m sorry—”
“You really are. You’re not worth it, Mike. I’m done.” She took a step toward the door.
“Wait.” Freaked out that he’d really blown it, he stood with his back against the door, not letting her leave. “You need to hear me out.”
“Why? Let’s be honest. You’re not interested in anything more than a booty call. Thank God we never went further than trying to label ourselves.” She snorted. “Boyfriend? More like boy toy. But thanks. If I want great sex, I’ll call you. Now would you please leave?”
He would have snapped back, but he saw the tears in her eyes. “Hell, Maria.” He advanced on her and lunged when she would have crawled over the bed to avoid him. He caught her in his arms and hugged her tight.
Her struggles ceased as wracking sobs shook her.
“Shh. Honey, it’s okay. God, I’m so sorry. Don’t cry.” He’d never seen her tear up before. Well, once, when she’d been stung by a bee. But that was it. A tough girl, a smart ass, a woman who never let any man throw her, according to Olivia. Until Mike.
Maria finally stopped crying and buried her face against his chest. “Why, Mike?” she mumbled. “Why can’t you like me?”
Would she really settle for “like” when she deserved so much more?
“Can we talk, please?” He felt her nod against him, and they sat on the bed. Even crying, she looked wonderful to him. Like a sexy little fairy he wanted to hold on to forever.
She blew her nose, and he had to smile.
“Not funny. I know I look like crap.” She paused. “Why are you here?”
“Because I screwed up.”
“So did I. I’m fixing things.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t fix anything,” he said. “Just listen to me, okay?”
“Fine.” She sighed.
“Don’t tell anyone this, because I’ll deny it, but I first realized how fucking hot you were when you were only fifteen.”
“Liar.”
“I did. You were wearing this really tiny blue bikini to Olivia’s sweet sixteen party, and it about killed me.”
She blinked. “I remember that suit. Frankie Tolan noticed me because of that.”
“So did a ton of other guys, trust me.” He’d knocked around a ton of heads that night, protecting his sister and Maria from lecherous creeps. “You were more than cute, more than Olivia’s friend. And it freaked me the hell out.”
“Really? You’re not just saying this to make me feel better?”
“I’m talking. Just listen.”
“Yes, sir.” She gave him a one-finger salute, and he had to grin.
“Look. You were fifteen. I was twenty-two and lusting after my little sister’s best friend. It was creepy. So I forced myself to stop seeing you like a real woman. You became this little girl in my mind. It was safer that way. I didn’t want to go to jail.”
“Well, at least that’s something.”
“I’m not done. Shut it, Thompson.”
“Asshole.” She pouted, but she was listening.
“Then I went away for a few years. I come back to find you all grown up and smokin’ hot. I’m sitting at my parents’ table for dinner and getting a hard-on for little Maria Thompson. Except you’re not so little anymore. You’re funny and cute and smart and a billion other things that make you someone I should avoid.”
“But why?”
“Because if I screw up, I mess up you and my entire family—who love you like crazy.”
She sniffed. “They have good taste.”
“I do too.”
She just stared at him, suspicious.
He sighed. “I tried to keep away. God knows I did, but you got to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Even after we had killer sex, I just wanted to be with you half the time. And, yeah, you cheat at mini golf. I caught you and still let you win. What’s that if not love?”
“Quit playing with me.” Her eyes pooled again, and he spoke quickly to hold off another spate of tears.
“I’m not kidding. You scared the hell out of me because I was falling for you. Hell, I kissed you in front of my parents. I nearly beat Brad to a pulp when I thought he was making a move. You’re mine.”
“Then why did you treat me like shit? Why avoid me last week?”
“Because I love you.” H
is heart raced. He’d said the words.
“Yeah, right.”
He scowled. “I’m not kidding. I wanted us to be together. A couple, just you and me. And then you scared me with the love bomb. I’m not ready for marriage.”
She snorted. “Neither am I yet, genius. I’m not sure where my life is going. Unlike you, I’m only twenty-four, Methuselah.”
“Thirty-one isn’t that old.” He felt nothing but love and relief that he’d misread her.
“It’s older than me.” She smirked at him.
“See, that’s part of why I love you. You don’t take my shit.”
“So what? That just means I’m not a pushover.”
“Baby, I hate to break it to you, but most women do whatever I want to keep me around.”
“You and your ego.”
He grinned. “You don’t treat me like the handsome stud we both know I am.” She muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath that he ignored. “I have a problem with commitment. There. I said it. It scares the shit out of me.”
“But why? Your parents are so happy together.”
The twenty-million-dollar question. How best to put it into words?
Chapter Eleven
While Maria waited for Mike to answer her, she tried not to accept the hope burgeoning in her breast. Mike had driven over three hundred miles to see her. And him spouting stuff like he loved her, had noticed her at fifteen? She discreetly pinched herself. Nope. Definitely awake.
She hadn’t let herself expect anything when she’d come to her aunt’s to lick her wounds. Her mother had told her to give Mike time, but honestly, did everyone expect her to put her life on hold because some numbnuts couldn’t handle her loving him? But she couldn’t bring herself to talk badly about him, though her aunt had cautioned her not to hope for too much from a Marine disabled with a Y chromosome.
“Shit,” Mike swore. “I’m afraid. Okay?”
He looked more than nervous, and that lack of confidence was something she’d never, ever seen on his face.
“Why?”
“Mom and Dad are so happy and in love. But I only know a few other couples who’ve made it. All my friends are divorced or unhappily married. And Brad, who seemed to have everything with Dana, had a really rough time when she fucked him over. I figured I’d date, maybe find someone. But nobody ever came close to freaking me out like you did.”
“Thanks. I think.”
He stood and started pacing, and she could only watch.
“I started falling hard for you. I went against my common sense and made love to you. And it was better than anything I’ve ever felt. You really rock my world.”
She gave him a half smile.
“But it’s more than that. I love being around you. I want to be around you all the time. That scares me too. You mean so much that when you’re not there, I’m alone. You matter to me. I can’t afford to fail with you.” He clenched his fists. “I’m pretty much good at everything, Maria. But I’m not good at relationships. If I fuck us up, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“But you already did that.”
“Yeah, and I’m losing sleep over it. I guess I figured if I stopped us now, before we got really tight, I wouldn’t suffer later, when I do or say something to piss you off and you leave.”
“Mike, you already piss me off. That’s not why I left.” She stared at him. “Didn’t you and your exes ever argue?”
“No.”
“Really?”
He looked sheepish. “I told you they pretty much did whatever I wanted. When they got clingy, we broke up.”
“Define clingy.”
He grimaced. “Begging me to buy them things. To stop going out with the guys and spend time with them. It’s not like all I did was fuck and roll. I stayed and tried to be with them. But, Jesus, I hate shopping. And talking about their friends or the latest sale got old fast. I find dentistry and finance boring. What can I say? They got on my nerves, and I wanted them gone.”
“Like me.”
“Yes. No. Hell no.” He vehemently shook his head. “First of all, around you I couldn’t keep it in my pants. I have never lost control of myself like I do with you. You think I liked being unable to say no to you before my field op?”
She shrugged.
“Second, I like being with you. You’re fun. And you like stuff with substance.”
“You mean I like the same things you like.”
He grinned. “Well, yeah.”
Man, that grin turned her inside out. “What if I want to go shopping?”
“I’ll go with you. I can’t explain it. But with you it’s different.” He paused. “I can be me with you. God knows you put up with my demanding ways in bed.”
“True.”
“I kind of freaked out a few of my exes.”
“No. You?”
He flushed. “Anyway, I love you. I want you. Please forgive me?”
“What do you want, exactly?” She narrowed her eyes. “Spell it out for me.”
He swallowed loudly, and she loved his vulnerable side. “You come home with me, and I’ll be honest with you. I swear. I love you, Maria. I have for a long time now, I think. I was just too scared to see it. And, hell, you were too young.”
“Lecher.”
He turned redder and coughed. “Anyway, so you and I take it slow. I’m still skittish, and I’ll probably piss you off loads more. But you can’t run away.”
“I wasn’t running. I was giving you ‘space’.” She ended with air quotes.
“I deserve that. But no more. I’ll shoot straight with you. Baby, like I said, I love you. But the thought of marriage gives me hives.”
“Fine. Let’s be straight. I want marriage and babies. I want all of it with you.” When he blanched, she grinned. “But not now. I’m too young. I figure we date a while, live in our own apartments until we’re both comfortable with moving in together, and that’s a big if—you’re a neat freak, and you scare me. Plus I’d like to travel a little before settling down with a full-on family. If we can both still stand each other after all that, we’ll have a long engagement. I’m not dying for a ring, Mike. If you don’t want me, it’s no good.”
“I want you. Too much.” He drew her in for a large hug. “Forgive me?”
“Maybe.” She drew a circle on his chest with her finger and heard him suck in a breath. “Show me you’re worth it.”
He kissed her before she could tease him again, and she melted into his arms. Before she could blink, he had her naked on the bed, his mouth and hands everywhere.
“Take off your clothes,” she pleaded as she writhed under him. “Come with me.”
He stopped kissing her to yank off his clothes then joined her naked, hard and hot. They both groaned. It felt like forever since they’d been together, though it had been little more than a week, if that. But when he slid inside her, filling her with all of him, she’d found her piece of heaven.
“Maria. Baby, I love you so much,” he rasped as he watched her while they made love. The connection was so strong, so deeply wound between them, that as she crested into orgasm she felt him tense and join her. The perfection of the moment seared into her mind, and the beauty of their connection became the defining moment—when she knew to her bones that Mike Cava was the love of her life.
They caught their breath together, watching each other and smiling. “Want to go for best of three?” she asked.
He laughed. “Yeah, but give me a moment.”
“Lightweight.”
“Hey, I was stressed out. You ran from me.” He shuddered and hugged her tight. “Scared me to death. Don’t ever leave me, Maria. Please.”
She saw a shine in his eyes and felt her heart break for him. “Same goes, big guy.”
“I love you,” they said, together.
Epilogue
Three and a half years later
“And then I forced him to admit he was a punk ass for leaving me,” Maria was telling her audie
nce, which consisted of Olivia and her new husband, Brad, and Mike—Maria’s husband of two and a half years, as of yesterday. Brad kept glaring at his cell phone, having a text war, apparently, while the group enjoyed a quiet night in Maria and Mike’s home.
Major Kyle Waters, or Mr. Olivia, as Maria liked to call him, grinned. “Guess I wasn’t the only bonehead who needed a good woman to whip him into shape.”
Olivia laughed. “Nope. Mike had you beat.”
“Please. I was just getting into fighting shape with this one.” Mike pulled Maria into his lap and grinned. “She’s a real ball-buster.”
“You got that right.” Maria hugged him back. Talk about the man of her dreams. Mike had been pretty easy to mold into her fantasy husband. He made love like a dream, complimented her cooking, and helped keep a clean house since she didn’t have a knack for it. At all. Even better, he didn’t mind that she was perfectly content to be Mrs. Mike Cava, not a professor, a doctor, or a business executive. A part-time assistant in Olivia’s coffee shop, she was happy enough helping her best friend run a successful business while spending her free time playing with Mike.
“Where to for this anniversary?” Olivia asked her.
“We were thinking Alaska, right, honey?” Mike said.
She nodded, deliriously happy. “Yep. Sightseeing and jogging, some hiking, and a cozy stateroom for our cold, cold nights.”
Mike sighed. “She’s a snuggler. My perfect woman.”
“Son of a bitch.” Brad shoved his cell phone in his back pocket. “Biggest pain in my ass…”
Maria frowned. “Brad?”
“Bro, what’s up?”
Brad sighed. “Sorry. Don’t mean to bring you down.”
“Not possible,” Maria quipped.
He smiled, but his grin was strained. “It’s this civilian at work. She is so full of herself. Making policy changes without consulting me at all. God. I want to wring her neck,” he growled and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair.
“Counsel her,” Mike suggested.
“Yeah, what hardass said,” Olivia agreed.
Maria grinned. “Nice.”
Kyle chuckled.
“Not in my direct chain of command. Besides, she’s a tech geek. I doubt she understands plain English.”