He sighed and guided me back to the chair and sat down, before pulling me down to sit on him. After he’d comfortably arranged us he wrapped his arms around me and inhaled a deep breath.
“She told me you were miserable, that without the baby there was no need for us to stay together, that our marriage had nothing to keep it together,” he continued. “When she made the suggestion for me to leave you alone, that a life as a mechanic’s wife wasn’t something your family wanted for you, that you had too much potential for that, I knew she was right. But you were my wife and I loved you. Yes, we married young because you were pregnant, but that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to marry you, Sheena. I thought we could make it. I thought you felt the same way I did.”
“I did. That’s why it devastated me when you left,” I cried out, the cry wrenched from that place inside of me I kept buried. The pain of him leaving was still raw, unhealed. But if I didn’t tell him now how I felt, we…I…could never heal. I could never move ahead with my life.
“I kept the pain of you leaving me layered deep with self-avowals and mantras I’d learned in graduate school, refusing to give you, or anyone else control over my life, my feelings, my emotions ever again.” I took a deep, steadying breath and forged ahead.
“When you left it took me a long time to get it together, but I did. I took a long hard look at what I wanted in life. I decided it was time for me to take control, and that I wouldn’t allow you, or anyone else, to make me doubt myself or who I was. I wouldn’t get so caught up in someone else that I lost sight of who I was.”
“Sheena—”
“No, I need to say this Mack. None of those mantras did a bit of good. When your heart is wounded and the one person you need to help you heal doesn’t care enough to stick around when you need them the most, it’s a painful lesson.”
“I didn’t want to leave you. I did it because I thought it was what you wanted—”
“Did you bother to ask me? Or did you just go along with what my family wanted, go by what they were telling you?” I demanded and struggled against his hold, pulling away from him and sitting up in his lap.
“No, damn it, I didn’t! And even had I, what would you have done? What would have been your response? Could you have gotten past the pain of the miscarriage to accept me, to fight for me?” Mack was just as affected as I was, his chest heaving, the look in his eyes angry and accusing.
“I—” I stopped.
What would I have done? Would I have accepted him, reached out for him, when he needed me, too? Or had I been so young, filled with so much pain that I wouldn’t have been able to give him the reassuring words he’d needed at the time.
I laid my head back down on his chest. When I felt his fingers stroke my hair I relaxed.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
For long moments we stayed in that position, my arms loosely holding him, his hands playing in my hair.
“As angry as I was, and as badly as I wanted to keep us together, I think I understand what your grandmother was trying to tell me. I didn’t want to hear it, thought I could give you everything you needed, but what you needed was time. Time to heal without me there, a constant reminder of what might have been with the baby, and time to come into your own.”
“And what about you?”
He laid his head against the top of my hair and I felt him smile. “I needed time too. You’re not the only one who’s grown.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I quipped, feeling his thick, hard shaft nestled firmly beneath my bottom.
“You always were a smart ass.”
He laughed, and I giggled along with him, breaking up some of the tension.
When our laughter subsided Mack spoke.
“I left town, knew I had to or I wouldn’t be able to resist saying to hell with it, and forcing you to come back around.”
“That wouldn’t have been so bad,” I murmured.
“No, it wouldn’t have,” he agreed huskily, before continuing. “I finished school and went on to graduate school for a degree in computer engineering. I started a small computer company and recently sold it.”
“I always knew you would be successful,” I said and meant it. “Why did you sell? Wasn’t it doing as well as you wanted?”
“Hmm, I think it was going all right, you might have heard of it, Amara technologies?” he asked and I felt him hold his breath.
Tears filled my eyes. I had not only heard of the firm, but had been receiving quarterly stockholders’ reports for the last five years, along with a hefty-sized check. The money had helped me finish school and buy my home. But that wasn’t the only reason for my tears.
“Amara…”
“Yeah, I named it after our baby,”
“Oh God, Mack!” I turned around in his lap and clutched at him, frantically, tears streaming down my face. “But, my grandmother said—”
“I didn’t want you to know it came from me, that it was my company. I told her to tell you she’d invested in a new company and had put shares in your name.”
That explained so much to me. Not only had he given me stock in the company, taken care of me all this time, but dear God, he’d taken care of my family as well.
“I miss you, us. I’ve never stopped loving you, Sheena, never. And I never will.”
His deep blue eyes seemed to darken and I felt my nipples rasp against his hard muscled chest. The soft head of his dew-covered shaft, brushed against my stomach.
“I missed you too, Mack. Baby, I’ve never stopped loving you. The pain of losing you was so much harder than the pain of us being together after we lost the baby. I realized that once I came out of the depression. I want you, Mack…I need you,” I whispered and wrapped my hand around his shaft as I bent my head to meet his kiss.
“Please, baby, don’t say that if you don’t mean it, please,” he pleaded against my lips, his hands roaming over my face, my neck and down my body, frantic.
“I do mean it. I’m not a little girl anymore. I know who I am, I know what I want. And I want my man back.” I slid my hand down and grasped his heavy balls in my fingers. I toyed with them before easing my hand around the base of his rod and with featherlike touches, stroked up the long hard length of him. “What about you, do you want me? For better or for worse?”
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