Free Coming Home by Marie Force

you, and you helped me so much.”
    He quieted her with another deep, searching kiss that made her want to beg for more of him. “I was wrong to go behind your back the way I did. You were exactly right when you said I’d disrespected you.”
    Kate shook her head. “Everything I have is because of what you did. I was an idiot to think the career would’ve happened without someone helping me.”
    “I have no doubt at all it would’ve happened with me or without me.” As he said those words, his hands finally left their perch on her hips and moved up to cup her breasts. “You’re more beautiful than ever, if that’s possible. When I saw you on my beach today…” He shook his head. “I thought I’d dreamt you.”
    “I didn’t come here to mess things up for you. I didn’t know you had someone else. I swear. I never would’ve come if I had known that.”
    “Mari is a lovely woman, and she was very good to me, but she isn’t you. There’s never been anyone else quite like you.”
    Kate ran her fingers over the prominent cheekbones she’d always been so captivated by. “For me either.”
    “Not even Clint What’s-his-name?” he asked with a raised brow.
    Kate laughed at the expression on his face. “More rumor than truth.”
    “I was consumed by jealousy. Every time I read you were with someone new, I wanted to find them and beat the hell out of them and tell them you were mine. Mine.” He kissed her. “Always mine.”
    “Yes,” she whispered. “I was always yours. From the very beginning. I’ve never wanted anyone else.”
    “But there’ve been others…”
    “None that mattered.”
    “Kate…” He wrapped his arms tight around her. “I can’t believe you’re here and I’m holding you and telling you these things I’ve kept secret all this time.”
    “I can’t believe it either. I’ve spent so many nights on my tour bus, watching the world go past my window, wondering where you were and if you were happy, if you thought of me at all. So many nights. Almost every night.”
    “We’ve wasted so much time.”
    Kate looked up at him. “What about… What about Mari?”
    “I care for Mari,” he said, a pained look occupying his handsome features. “She’s a lovely person, but I never made her any promises.”
    “Were you together a long time?”  
    “Six months.”
    “Do you love her?”
    “I love her, but I’m not in love with her.”
    “Oh. You aren’t?”
    “I couldn’t be.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “How could I be in love with her when I never stopped being in love with you?”
    Kate stared up at him, wondering if he’d really said that or if she’d wanted it so badly she’d imagined it.
    He framed her face and tipped her head back to receive his kiss, which was gentle this time, as opposed to wild. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry. It’ll be okay now.”
    Kate hadn’t realized tears were flowing from her eyes until he swept them away with his thumbs. “I want to believe it’ll work out the way we want it to, but all I can think about are the many reasons it wasn’t okay last time.”
    “That was a long time ago. A lot has changed since then.”
    “Not everything. Your son still doesn’t speak to me, for one thing.”
    “That’s his problem, not ours.”
    “It’s not that simple. There’re so many things to consider.”
    “And none of them have to be considered tonight,” he said, kissing her. “Or tomorrow.” Another kiss. “Or even the next day.” As he spoke, he backed her away from the wall and guided her toward the bedroom. “Do you want me to go?”
    Shaking her head, she said, “I want you to stay forever.”
    His grin lit up his face as he came down on top of her on the bed.
    Kate ran her fingers through his hair, over and over, relearning every feature of his gorgeous face. “What happened here?” she touched her finger to a new scar that ran through his right eyebrow.
    “A tropical storm blew through a