“And yet,” he repeated, still not finishing the statement, his breath going in and out of his lungs in a broken rhythm, “my knee was shattered. I needed surgery. Everything was…” A ghostly expression that broke my heart in a million pieces came over him. I wanted to scream at the injustice of the accident, at all the things he’d lost, and I wanted to somehow return them all to him. “I’ll never be able to get that back. My right leg just… I can’t, Rosie. I’m too old to do it all over again, to recover and climb back to top form. Physical therapy would get me back to fine—not great, not prime shape, just fine.”
I cupped his jaw, grazing my thumb over his cheek.
“One hit. That was all it took. One bad hit and I…” he trailed off, looking disoriented for a few seconds. “I went under, Rosie. Sunk straight to the bottom.”
“You didn’t,” I told him, slipping my fingers in his hair, clasping the back of his neck. “You’re here. Breathing. Whole. Alive.”
Lucas’s features pinched.
“You lost so much that day, and yet, you’re here,” I repeated, allowing myself to say what he needed to hear. “You’re not the same, and you don’t need to be. Because you’re here, with me. Opening your eyes every morning and smiling at the world in a way only you know how to do. You lost something, but you didn’t lose everything, Lucas. You didn’t lose yourself; you just… changed.”
He tilted his head, resting his cheek against my wrist.
And after a heartbeat, both his arms were around me, and he was saying, “Ven aquí.”
I didn’t recognize the Spanish words, but it didn’t matter because I knew what they meant. Come here. Closer.
So I went to him. Because where Lucas was concerned, I’d never hesitate. And so, I curled against his chest, resting my head over his heart.
“You’re right. I’m right here, ángel,” he whispered before brushing his lips on the top of my head. “And I can’t believe I found you.”
He was wrong. He hadn’t found me.
I had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lucas
A cramp gripping the whole length of my leg woke me.
I knew the consequences of not going through the advised physical therapy sessions. I hadn’t nurtured my rebuilt joints and atrophied muscles back to health, and this was their way to protest. Seize control. I had only my own stubbornness to blame.
Up until last night, I hadn’t really cared. There hadn’t been a reason to. But then, that bastard had kicked me, coming at me from the back, and I’d been on my knees. Gasping for fucking air and incapable of moving, terrified that he’d go after Rosie next, and I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. It had been that fear that had somehow brought me up. Only to find her wielding her purse, like a warrior princess.
My thigh spasmed again, and I winced. Realizing I was on my side and all the weight of my body fell on my bad leg, I tried to roll onto my back. But something stopped me. Peaches.
I peeked down, finding the source of that intoxicating, delicious scent.
Rosie. Her body was cocooned by mine.
We spooned, the back of her head resting against my throat, her back flush against my chest, our thighs pressed together, and her ass nestled in my lap.
Nestled against my morning wood.
Dios. Never had a hard-on felt so good, and never had it been so… inconvenient. Inconvenient for… reasons I couldn’t recall.
Reasons my dick didn’t care for when Rosie’s body was so warm and soft against mine. Reasons that seemed unimportant the more time passed with my arms around her waist, or the higher my palm hiked up her stomach, or the deeper my nose dug into her hair.
Rosie shifted, her ass wiggling in my lap, and my hard-on stood to attention, any remaining trace of sleep dissipating and bringing me fully awake.
A breath left my mouth forcefully, and I had to still myself from doing something crazy, something bad. Something like positioning her body so she would rub against me just right. Just—
Rosie’s hips moved again, sliding along my length and turning my dick to steel.
“Ah, joder,” I breathed out.
Without being able to help myself, I splayed my fingers on her stomach, letting the tops of my fingertips reach her ribs. I needed to stop this, to stop myself, but I couldn’t. Didn’t really want to. Everything in me wanted her closer, fused against me, and that overpowered any good intentions I might have had at some point in the past. That was probably why I couldn’t stop my arms from curling around her, why I couldn’t stop myself from pulling her back, right up against me.