Together Again: A Second Chance Romance

by Aria Ford

  “Carson,” she said as she stroked my hair. “Oh, Carson…”

  I was intoxicated with her. My whole body was throbbing as I breathed in the sweet scent of her sex and then I could hold back no longer. I had to be inside her.

  Standing, I undressed myself faster than I could have believed and pushed her back against the only blank wall in the office. Then I slid into her.

  She was moaning and gasping as I thrust in her, again and again and…

  “Oh!”

  I came. I hadn’t expected to come so soon. It crashed over me like a wave and I leaned against her, my heart thudding, my mind blank.

  She kissed me and I kissed her and even though I had just spent myself, I could feel my body already freshly aroused as I smelled her and felt her softness.

  I looked down into those gentle blue eyes and kissed her brow. My heart melted.

  “Amelia,” I whispered. “I love you.”

  I knew now, that I always had.

  “Oh, Carson,” she whispered back. “I love you too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Amelia

  Later, we talked. I only had an hour before I left, but we had so much we had to discuss. We went to my bedroom and shut the door and lay down together. This time, though he was close, I wanted to spend the time discussing, not necessarily making love.

  We had so many plans to make, and so little time in which to do it. I knew now that I had always wanted him. The reason I had not settled down was because my heart was not mine to give—it had always been his and always would.

  “And so, dear?” I asked, looking into those lovely dark eyes.

  “So?” he smiled, cupping my face with his hand. I was nestled into his shoulder, he was lying on his side and I on my back and my one hand held his, while his other stroked my skin. I smiled.

  “So, what happens with us?” I stretched and he gasped as my breast brushed his arm.

  “Well,” he said breathlessly, “a lot.”

  I giggled. “Yes, a lot. But what?”

  “Well,” he said, his lips making a mission down the side of my head and to my lips, then moving off again, “we make love, lots of it. But during that time I look for a job in Berkeley, and we maybe think of finding you a place big enough for actual people.”

  I laughed. “My apartment is big enough for actual people,” I said crossly.

  He smiled, that delightful grin that won my heart. “Yes. But I’d like to find something to share with you.”

  I felt a strange sensation, like my heart melted. I blinked rapidly. “Carson…”

  “Yes?”

  “I do love you.”

  He kissed my hair. “Me too.”

  Later, we talked about other things. About how he was not as he was before the army. I knew that, and told him that it didn’t matter. He could trust me. He blinked back tears.

  “I always thought…I wanted to be good enough for you, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “And when I got back, I thought…I thought I didn’t want to inflict myself on a girl like you.”

  “Inflict! Carson! What?” she laughed. “If you had any idea how painful it was for me when you sent all those mixed messages…all I wanted was you.”

  “Really?” he smiled, unsure.

  “Carson!” I giggled. “I always wanted you.”

  His eyes shut. I hadn’t noticed what long lashes he had before, funnily enough. When he looked back at me, his eyes were damp.

  “I’m an asshole,” he said softly.

  I giggled. “No, you aren’t. At least, not a big one.”

  He roared with laughter. “Thank you, sweet. I’ll remember that.”

  I smiled. “Seriously, Carson. I can’t believe your reason for staying away was to avoid hurting me. When I think of how you hurt me doing it!”

  I closed my eyes again. I regretted that. Profoundly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled. “Carson, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  We said it together. We laughed. As he buried his face in my hair I felt my heart rise fit to bursting. I knew, then, how much I had always loved him. How this would be the start of so many wonderful memories. How much my life had changed this year.

  “I love you,” I said, looking into his eyes. It was the truest thing I had ever said.

  “I love you too,” he whispered.

  We lay together, arms around each other and looked out of the window at the darkening sky.

  After a moment, he moved so he could look into my eyes.

  “I’m not going to lie, sweetheart. I will need help with…with all of it,” he said, waving a hand in a way that indicated the past: his memories, his pain, his suffering.

  “I know,” I said, stroking his hair gently. “I understand. All I can do is say I’m there for you.”

  He sighed. “Thank you, Amelia.”

  “You have nothing to thank me for,” I said softly. “I am honored to be part of all that.”

  He smiled. “Thank you, dear.”

  “Thank you.”

  We lay there awhile, and the clock on the wall ticked softly. “You know,” I said after a long moment.

  “I would love to meet your daughter.”

  “Really?” he smiled. “I’d love for you to meet her.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Eight,” he said.

  “She was born while you were away?”

  “Mm,” he replied. “I met her a year later.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “It was,” he agreed. “I think Macey couldn’t handle my being away. It’s no wonder she wanted rid of me.” He sighed.

  “She did?” I asked. I guessed that was Leona’s mom.

  “Well, she needed someone to be there. I couldn’t be.”

  “Well, you’re still a good dad.” I said.

  He smiled at me. “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.” I had seen him with kids. I knew what an amazing father he could be.

  “You…” he paused. “If she came to visit us, you wouldn’t mind?”

  “No,” I said. I meant it. “She’s your child, dearest.”

  “Amelia,” he smiled, kissing my hair. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  We lay there awhile. I tried to imagine what his daughter might look like and then gave up. I would certainly meet her. I was curious. As much as I might have expected it to hurt—that he had married someone else—it didn’t. I understood the way these things happen. I also knew the past was the past. The present and the future were ours.

  I smiled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “If you move to Berkeley, maybe you could work for the company.”

  “Doing what, sweetheart?”

  “Security?” I suggested. “It’s something we need a lot of.”

  He frowned. I could tell he liked the idea. “It’s a thought,” he agreed.

  “Well, you know all about it,” I offered.

  He chuckled. “I don’t think I know much about anything, dearest.”

  “Well, you do,” I smiled, swiveling so my body pressed against his. “You know a lot about me, for one thing. And how to please me.”

  He laughed. I could feel him getting aroused, though I doubted he was as aroused as I was just then. I sighed. It was almost time for me to drive home. I could delay it a bit. I wanted to.

  As he stroked my hair and my body melted against his, I thought about the future. While I could still think of things besides my pleasure, I realized how exciting it was.

  There was not a cloud on the horizon. I could see it all so clearly. Our apartment together, his job—I was sure our company could get him on board—and his healing. I would heal too. I would learn to trust, to be gentler with myself and others. To love again.

  As he kissed me and my body melted in his arms, I was more grateful than I could ever have been for the Christmas
that had brought us finally together.

  EPILOGUE

  I slid out of bed to the scent of coffee. It was my day off, but Carson had evidently been busy. I looked at the clock. It was ten am. I yawned and stretched.

  “Honey?” I called.

  He appeared in the bedroom door, a shy smile on his face. “Coffee?”

  “You are wonderful,” I said fervently. He laughed.

  He had a tray with two cups and he came and put them beside me. He sat down on the bed and I kissed his shoulder.

  He was dressed already and had been out. I knew where. I stroked his hair, not wanting to pry. At length, he turned to me.

  “It went well,” he said gently.

  “Good,” I said.

  He had agreed to go for counseling with a trauma specialist. It made me so happy that he was willing to take that move, to free himself. This was his first appointment. I was so pleased, and I didn’t want to do anything to upset the process. If it was going well, that was wonderful.

  “He’s a good guy, Doctor Hepburn,” he offered. “Kind. Not fussy.”

  “Good,” I said. I held him in my arms while he sipped coffee, my head on his shoulder.

  “You slept well?” he asked, kissing my cheek.

  “Mm,” I agreed. “Though a bit of coffee was what I needed now.”

  He chuckled, low in his throat. “You need something else?”

  I smiled. “My dear, you know.”

  As he kissed me and pushed me onto the bed, I felt a bubble of joy well up in me. I was laughing with delight as his lips moved to my chest and my fingers stroked him.

  As we made love, the coffee forgotten, my heart filled with a deep, rich joy.

  We were together. We were well and whole. As far as I was concerned, life was as I wanted it.

  The End

  PREVIEW OF ARIA FORDS BOOKS

  The Rebel

  Prologue

  “Kyle! No!”

  I turned around, just as the bigger, older guy swung a punch at my head. I felt the blood trickle quickly down my face, and the rusty taste of it enter my mouth. I caught sight of Shane, my friend, who’d warned me. Then I let out a hiss of breath as the big guy’s fist came at me again.

  I swore using words that the other kids used—words that would have made my dad go gray if he’d heard them—and then punched out hard.

  The big guy grunted and swung back. I ducked and the punch hit my upper bicep. It sent me backward against the wall, and I slid down, my left arm lame and throbbing.

  “Kyle!”

  Shane was screaming at me again and I spat, spitting out blood and other things and fell on the older guy, hitting and kicking. He had tattoos from the Benson bunch. We were the Skifflers. We hated them. I kicked him, and he swore at me and reached up, gouging at my eyes. I felt hands on my shoulders.

  “Kyle, come on! Get off. Look!”

  “No!” I yelled, furious. I was winning. I would finish this and make a name for myself. Dammit! I was seventeen, and this guy was maybe twenty, and I was winning.

  “Kyle!” Shane dragged me back and the big guy got up, glaring at us. “Look there.”

  I looked around and caught sight of Darrel, the boss of our gang, a guy somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two. He was there, but it wasn’t at him that Shane was looking, but just behind him.

  I followed his gaze and saw the car. I froze.

  “Kyle Beckham! Get here now.”

  I felt my heart race.

  “No,” I said.

  Shane threw me a look. “See? I did warn you,” he added. He looked really upset. “I did try.”

  I looked around once more. The other guys had melted away. The gang who had become my family for the last two weeks. I was alone on the street, with Shane and the black car.

  A Mercedes E-class, latest model, with a street value that any of us could have estimated as more than our skins were worth on the black market, had stopped. The man behind the wheel had his eyes on me.

  I swallowed hard under his gaze and let out a long sigh. I then walked forward into the alley.

  “Kyle!”

  I had planned to face them down. But in the last minute, I couldn’t. I ran. I tried to dodge up a side street. But I hadn’t understood how powerful the acceleration of that Mercedes could be. It sped up behind me. And it was a blind alley. I was trapped.

  “Kyle Beckham. You will come here.”

  I looked into those commanding flint-pale eyes. I sighed. In some lights, they were the image of my own.

  “Yes, Dad.”

  That was the day my freedom ended and my life as I knew it now began.

  I blinked, looking up from the paper as that memory shattered on the sound of feet on tiles. I was in the living room at Beckham Hall—my dad’s pretentious name for his country escape. I stood up from the designer couch and faced the man who entered.

  “Dad,” I said.

  The memory of my youth—my misspent shameful years—was vivid. In that moment I could have been a seventeen-year-old runaway and my dad a forty-seven-year-old man with a cold temper and an iron heart.

  “Son,” he said thinly. “So? What do you say?”

  I sighed. “I don’t want it.”

  His gray eyebrow raised and fell fractionally. His face—chiseled cheeks, long, straight nose, high forehead—was mine. The only difference was the hair coloring. And some thirty years.

  “You are my son, Kyle Beckham,” he said thinly. “I know you’re not a fool. Or a coward.”

  I closed my eyes. Whoever said “words will never hurt me” had never faced my dad. The sticks and stones I had faced as a runaway had never wounded me half as much as one of his words could.

  “I’m not a fool,” I said tightly. “Or a… a coward.”

  My throat was closing up, years of pain—of that cold contempt he leveled at me—shutting me down. My fists were clenched and I could feel my biceps tighten. I felt rage build up inside me. I’ll show you. Everything you’ve built can break. I’m strong and young and powerful. I’m not a coward.

  He just smiled thinly. “So you accept?” he said.

  I closed my eyes. What could I do? Dad might have been older than me, but he was wily. He could tie me up in knots with his words and I was hopeless against him.

  “Yes,” I said. “I will.”

  He smiled. I couldn’t believe I’d done it. But I had. As I signed on the dotted line I felt like I was signing away my life.

  Chapter 1: Bethany

  “Rodney?!” I yelled down to my brother. I was trying to put on tights and do my lipstick at the same time. Not clever, I really needed additional arms. I sat down heavily on the bed. Why did I let Rodney talk me into this again? I sighed.

  “What?!” He called up the stairs. “Bee? What’s up?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing,” I said mournfully. “Just checking—when are we leaving, again?”

  “At six thirty. I promised Uncle Ray we’d be there by seven.”

  “Fine,” I said miserably. I looked at the clock. It was ten past six now. Why did my little brother always do this to me? He insisted on springing things on me at the last minute. I had really thought that this weekend was meant to be a relaxing family get-together. Not a surprise party for Ray and Claudia, my aunt and uncle who’d been married for twenty years. It was sweet nonetheless I suppose.

  I reached into my suitcase, grateful that at least I’d brought along one dress suitable for going out. An ivory lace creation, it was perfect for a fancy event like the one they’d got planned.

  Rodney? I thought again, despairingly. If you were going to plan a surprise party, did you really have to book us tables at the Abruzza Hotel?

  The last thing I felt ready for was to go to such a fancy place right now. I looked at myself in the mirror, brushing long honey-colored hair out of my eye. I looked tired. I was tired. I had flown from Miami to San Diego yesterday. It had been too long since I saw my family, so I’d decided to take a week o
f leave after my birthday to come down and spend some time with them.

  It would have been one thing, I thought vengefully as I combed out my hair, if Rodney had told me about this. But it was another thing entirely having it sprung on me at the last moment.

  It’s so like Rodney. I should know to expect the unexpected by now.

  But how can you expect the unexpected? The problem with the unexpected, I thought grimly, applying a pale rosy lipstick and gray eyeshadow, was that it sneaked up on you. Unexpectedly. My younger brother Rodney—currently a computer programmer and doing very well—was the prince of unexpected all his life. As his big sister, I should have gotten used to him pulling some last-minute change of plans out of nowhere at the last moment. But oddly enough I hadn’t, because it was unexpected!

  Mom always said we were opposites.

  That made me the quiet, serene one. And for the most part I was content with that. Rodney was four years my junior, and the fact that he was lighthearted and mercurial had always been seen as a product of his being so much younger than me. Now that he was grown up, we had to accept that it was just his nature, like being calm and quiet was mine.