They’d been making out for hours. Tasting, touching, exploring each other’s bodies with a yearning that had been years in the making.

“God, T.,” he gasped as he ran a hand over her breast that, thanks to the convenience of her strapless formal dress, was now exposed. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She pressed her breast into his hand, unashamed of how much she wanted to feel his skin on hers.

“I didn’t think you wanted me,” she whispered. “Not like this.”

He kissed her lips softly, then her cheek, her jaw, her delicate earlobe. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t ready. I knew that once you and I were together, it would be forever, and I wanted to be ready.”

“So you’ve wanted all those other girls instead of me?”

He cupped her face in his big hand, staring deeply into her eyes. “No. They were only substitutes, every one of them. I lie in bed at night, and you’re all I can think of. Sometimes I can’t sleep, I miss you so much.”

“Then what do you mean when you say you weren’t ready? I don’t understand all this.”

He leaned back a touch, idly rubbing a thumb over her lip. “I don’t have anything to offer you yet. I haven’t finished school. I don’t have a job. I’m seventeen, and in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of an idiot.”

She laughed, the sound clear and bright in the moonlit car. After he’d dragged her out of the dance, they’d made their way to a secluded spot on the Jenkins property; one of the perks of being the son of a big property owner, Vaughn knew all the back roads and hidden copses.

“The only idiotic thing about you is that you thought I care if you have a job or an education. I’m only seventeen too, Vaughn. I don’t expect you marry me tomorrow. We live with our parents, and we’re still in high school.”

“But I want to live with you and take care of you and do all those things. I want to marry you, T.”

She looked up at him with so much trust, so much devotion and faith, it nearly undid him.

“And you will. I know you’ll take care of me, and I know we’ll be together like that. But I can wait. And in the meantime, you can be my boyfriend, and we can make out in the car. How’s that?”

His heart leaped with joy, and along with it his poor aching cock. “I love you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to hers again.

“I love you too.”

* * *

Vaughn lounged on the front steps of T.J.’s little house. The sun was close to setting, and the sky was turning shades of orange and pink when she came pulling up the long driveway in her little VW Beetle. The cheerful sky-blue car fit her perfectly, and Vaughn couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face as he watched her roar to a stop right in front of the porch.

“You said fifteen minutes,” he said as she stomped toward him, her cheeks blazing, hair flying out behind her. “It’s been twenty-five.”

He knew he was only going to piss her off more by commenting on her tardiness, but he couldn’t resist. Her terse text message had been all the clue he’d needed that she’d heard about him getting reinstated as her client. He’d been waiting for her reaction, and thus far it was everything he’d hoped for and more. Because sad, uncommunicative T.J. was a problem, but angry, bossy T.J. was familiar ground.

She reached him where he was stretched out, elbows on the stair above the one he sat on, his legs dangling down the rest of the flight. She flipped her sunglasses to the top of her head and her brown eyes sparked.

“How dare you?” she snapped.

He grinned. “How dare I what?”

Her foot tapped on the gravel of the driveway. “You think you can come talk to my boss and get me to do therapy with you again?”

He sat forward, leaning his elbows just above his knees where he wouldn’t put pressure on the joint that his prosthesis cupped.

“Come on, T. I said I was sorry, and that you were right. I need to continue with my workouts. I want to learn to use the running blade and the water leg. You can’t expect me not to ask for the best therapist in Big Sur.”

Her lips pressed together, and he could see the indecision that skated across her face before resolution returned.

“I don’t care that you’re sorry. And while I want you to be as healthy and happy as possible, it is no longer my responsibility to help you get there. You will go back to my boss and tell him that you’ll take whichever therapist he assigns to you except me. We’re done. I don’t know how to make it any clearer than that.”

Now Vaughn’s hackles rose as well. Which was how they’d always been. He and T.J. were all about passion. Whether they were laughing like hyenas, fighting like cats and dogs, or once, a long time ago, burning up the sheets like only two incredibly horny teenagers could. T.J. and Vaughn had been a lot of things, but nice and bland was never one of them.

He stood, surprising himself with how smoothly he managed it. When he realized he was looming over her even more than usual due to being on the bottom stair of the porch, he stepped down, forcing her to take a step back. And when she did, he saw it, that flash of something hot and wanting. Then it was gone, and the angry mask was back, her eyes and lips warning him that she was about to explode.

Well, so was he. Because yes, he’d fucked up, and yes, he’d done her wrong, but no one, no one on this earth loved her more than he did. No one understood her better, no one would give everything—his very life, if need be—to make sure she had anything she wanted and whatever she needed. No one else was meant for T.J. but him. He might not be good enough yet, but goddammit, he was going to be, somehow, and until he was, he wasn’t going to let her get away without a hell of a fight.

He took a step forward, and she took another back, and they repeated the dance several times until her butt bumped up against the door to her car. He heard her little gasp of surprise when she realized he had her trapped, and he couldn’t help but grin, his teeth flashing in feral delight.

He stood exactly one inch away, looking down into her big eyes, drinking her in but not touching. Not yet.

“We’re not even close to being done,” he said, his voice low and commanding. “I get it, T. This is on me, and I have a lot of things to fix—in myself, and in us—but we’ll never be done, and I’ll never give you up. Not to my own fucked-up mistakes, not to another man, not to your fears.” Her eyes grew even bigger, and she bit down on the corner of her lip, making his mind go places it had no business going but wanted to so very badly.

His gaze followed every movement she made, the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed, the sweep of her lashes as she blinked, the twitch of her lips as she struggled with how to answer him.

“You don’t get to decide,” she whispered.

“No,” he answered. “Our hearts already did, almost twenty years ago, when I saw you standing on the playground under a flowering eucalyptus tree.”

She shook her head.

He nodded his, and then he finally touched her, lifting a piece of her silken hair between his fingers as he leaned in and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, something in his soul relaxing, while something in his groin came to life.

“You’re mine, Theodora Jayne, and I’m yours. I’m sorry I forgot that for a while, but whether I remembered it or not, it never changed. It never will.”

She made a small sound, deep in her chest, and his eyes popped open, to find her face awash not in desire or love, but in anguish, pain, and confusion.

“T.?” he whispered, running a finger down her porcelain cheek.

“Please don’t do this to me,” she begged.

He pulled away just a touch, not sure he’d ever heard something that desperate in her voice before.

“I’m trying to make it all better,” he answered. Why couldn’t she see that? If she’d take him back, he’d figure out how to be what she needed. He was working on it. She just needed to give him a little more time.

“You’re killing me,” she finally rasped out as a single tear slid down her cheek.

“No. I’m making things right. You’re saving me, and I’m making things right with you. No more hot and cold, no more other women, no more drunk texts and mixed signals.”

“So you’re ready to be together? To have a real relationship?” she asked. “To do forever? Because you know there’s no ‘working up to it’ for us. If we get back together it’s the real deal. It’s about forever.”

His heart hammered, and he could feel sweat bead along his hairline. Ready? He wasn’t ready for anything. Hell, he couldn’t even run down the block yet, much less give her everything she deserved.

“I’m working on it,” he muttered, his gaze darting away from hers for the first time since he’d trapped her against her car.

She shoved him so hard, he stumbled backward, his bad leg landing at an awkward angle. Luckily, his hand found the railing to the porch steps behind him and he caught himself, quickly lifting his leg and repositioning it so he was stable.

“You’re working on it?” Her voice pitched up, and he saw something wild take root in her eyes.

“I am,” he answered resolutely. “I have a lot on my plate, but you’re—we’re—at the top of the list. I want to be everything you need. I want to make this work.”

She simply stared at him for a moment, and he reached out to touch her again. She started to pull away, but even with a bum leg, he was faster, and he grabbed her and yanked her into his chest, his breath coming in hot, hard puffs. His hands squeezed her arms lightly, and he felt his head tilting lower, and lower, his gaze fixed on lips—her lips—the only lips he wanted under his.

“Don’t confuse the fact that I’m still a work in progress with whether I’m yours. I am. I always have been.”

Then he lowered his head that last fraction of an inch, and he kissed her—hard and hot and greedy. He didn’t give her time to protest, time to turn away, time to doubt. He just took, and she gave way beneath him, her pillowy lips molding to his as his tongue slid into her mouth and he tasted everything—every doubt, every need, every want. His hands moved from her arms to her skull as he gripped it and dug his fingers into her hair. She moaned, and his heart sped up, beating fiercely against the cage of his ribs, clamoring to reach out to her, aching with need.

But then he stopped. Tearing himself away even though he wanted to continue so badly, he’d have given up half the other leg for it. But it wasn’t time yet, and he knew it, knew if he pushed any harder in that moment, he’d only risk losing her forever, and that wasn’t possible.

He let his hands drop away, and with his voice gravelly and hot, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow at North Pier for our therapy session. Don’t be late.” Then he stepped around her and headed to his truck, putting more swing into his steps than he had since the accident.

Vaughn wasn’t there yet, but the race to win T.J. had begun, and he wasn’t about to lose, because if there was one thing he knew more about than anyone on the planet, it was Theodora Jayne Brisco’s heart.

* * *

T.J. stood on the sand next to North Pier and watched Vaughn as he walked toward her, his gait somewhat awkward in the sand. He was shirtless and wore a pair of loose sweats that hung low enough on his hips to expose the delicious V that arrowed down from his waist.

She muttered something about God punishing her with a body like Vaughn’s, then bent to unpack her equipment. Vaughn reached her in another few moments, and she didn’t even look up to greet him.

“I assume the backpack has your aqua leg?” she asked, sorting through the various exercise bands she’d brought.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly.

“Well, go ahead and put it on,” she said briskly. “We’ll do everything using it today so that you get to a point where you can use it in and out of the water.”

“The foot is different from my normal one. I don’t think you can really walk around on it,” he said.

She looked up at him, blinded momentarily by the sunlight that framed his head like a halo. Squinting, her eyes finally adjusted, and she looked at his aviators, not sure what hid behind the reflective glass lenses. Was it the Vaughn who refused to work with her a month ago? Or the Vaughn who’d kissed her last night outside her house? Vaughn who thought he might actually want to step up and treat her right? Or Vaughn who would chicken out and run off with some bimbo he found at a bar when things between him and T.J. got real?

“Aqua legs are made to be used in and out of the water. Trust me, that foot will work just fine walking around on the beach—or anywhere else for that matter.”

His lips pressed into a flat line, and he scratched the back of his neck.

T.J. stood and stared him down. “You wanted this, so I’m here—even though being anywhere with you is dangerous as hell to my mental health right now.” He flinched when she said that. Huh. Guess pushy Vaughn from last night had disappeared again.

“Why don’t you just get it on, and we’ll see where we can go from there?”

He nodded, looking around the beach distractedly.

Oh. Now she got it.

“Vaughn?”

He brought his gaze back to her.

“You have trunks under the sweats?”

“Of course.”

“Just take the sweats off, have a seat on the folding chair I brought, and switch the legs out. No one is going to pay any attention. It’s like changing shoes.”

He snorted, shaking his head slightly.

“Honest. If you practice, you’ll get so smooth at it you’ll do it in a few seconds and it’ll look completely natural.”

He sighed and dropped the sweats, making T.J.’s heart speed up when she saw him covered only in a pair of board shorts and a tan. The muscles in his thighs were defined and smooth, leading to a pair of knees that almost matched in every way. Below the knee joint on his left leg, the prosthesis looked remarkably realistic, the covering mimicking his good leg down to the hairs and freckles. At the seam between real leg and fake was a neoprene band that looked like one any athlete might wear when he’d strained a tendon. The simple fact was, only someone looking closely would realize that Vaughn was wearing a prosthesis below his left knee.

With the sweats around his ankles, he sat down in the folding chair T.J. had sitting on the sand. He peeled the sweats off his feet, then sighed deeply, rubbing his left knee absentmindedly.

“Hey,” she said softly, her hard shell finally beginning to crack as she watched him struggle with the emotional aspect of it all.

“I’m going to go grab a coke at the snack stand. You want something?”

“Yeah,” he answered, his gaze hidden behind the damn sunglasses. “Just my regular.”

She nodded and grabbed her wallet from the equipment bag.

“Thanks,” he murmured before she walked away. She gave him a small nod and made her way to the snack stand on the pier.

By the time she got back with her coke and his Dr Pepper, Vaughn had switched out his legs, and his relentless pride had been salvaged once again as T.J. hadn’t seen his stump. She wondered how he thought they’d ever have a relationship if he wouldn’t even let her see his leg, but it didn’t really matter, she told herself, because they were only client and therapist. She was still done with him, even if he did show up at her house, ignore her wishes, and kiss the bejeezus out of her.

Yes, no matter how incredible Vaughn’s kisses were, today was no different from yesterday and the day before.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t still care about his mental health, and God knew that was all tangled with not looking weak in front of anyone—especially her. She sighed as she handed him the soda. “Drink up. We have a lot of work to do.”

* * *

Vaughn stared at the water in front of him and gritted his teeth. The new leg didn’t move or feel like his normal one, and if it was this hard to walk with it, he couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like swimming. He was going to fucking drown, and he’d do it in front of T.J.

“Okay,” she said as she stood by his side in her one-piece, very professional, black racer-back suit. The funny thing was, she looked even sexier all covered up like that than she did in a tiny bikini. Because no amount of Lycra could disguise those perfect breasts, and no swimsuit would cover those long, shapely legs.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, her high ponytail blowing in the breeze that never stopped here at the water. She had one of the flotation devices with her that lifeguards used, but he was sure she didn’t think she’d have to use it, and frankly, he was really damn skeptical that tiny T.J. and that stupid piece of foam could save his ass if he was drowning. He would be nearly two hundred pounds of flailing man, and she would be a buck twenty of earnest physical therapist. That equation just didn’t total up.

“Let’s start by wading in up to knee level, let that leg get good and wet so you can see how it works in the water.”

He nodded, his chest hammering in anticipation of the clusterfuck about to take place. But he’d brought it on himself, so he needed to finish what he’d started. He’d wanted this time with T.J., and he’d wanted to prove he could be a whole man again. Now here he was, faced with conquering the most basic skill that any Big Sur preschooler had—swimming in open water.

He watched the waves for a moment, then decided. Better to just get it the hell over with and let fate decide. With that, he ignored T.J.’s instructions and started walking straight out into the water.

“Vaughn!” she cried out, jogging into the water after him. He ignored her, the water wrapping around first his calves, then his knees, heading up his thighs.

As his legs moved through the surging waters, he was surprised that there was very little resistance in his prosthesis. The construction of it included channels for the water to drain out, and they seemed to work like a charm. The water reached his waist, and with T.J.’s voice in his ears as she shouted at him not to go so far out, he took a deep breath and went horizontal, diving into an incoming wave.

His first stroke was arms only, but he followed it up with a hard kick of first one leg—the good one—then the other. The prosthesis was light, providing so little resistance that it threw him off-balance, and he struggled to keep from dipping under the surface like a boat tilting over as it sinks. He slowed, letting himself simply float for a couple of seconds as he let his mind adjust to the feel of the artificial limb. Then he switched to freestyle and let his legs drag behind him for a moment. Next he tried a small kick, legs together, then legs separate.

He felt the difference in his kick when he kicked more from the hip and less from the knees. It put the paddle-like foot at a different angle, and he realized that it was catching the water the way a normal limb would, propelling him farther and helping him maintain an even keel from side to side.

He repeated the motion, once, twice, again and again, his arms joining in the rhythm as he moved choppily through the water. It wasn’t pretty, but he was afloat, and he was moving through water for the first time in months. In the distance, he could hear T.J.’s voice calling him to come back, but he wasn’t afraid anymore. He could do this, he could swim like he always had, and hell, maybe his brother was right and he could even surf.

Then he felt it, the loosening of the suction that kept his prosthesis attached. It was fast: one minute, everything tight and joined like it should be, and the next, a flopping appendage hanging off the bottom of his leg by only the neoprene band that covered the seam between real flesh and manufactured.

“Fuck!” he gasped as he stopped, trying to tread water but quickly realizing that he couldn’t do that with the loose prosthetic either. He rotated to his back as quickly as possible and floated, the waves pushing him haphazardly and covering his face and mouth in water every few seconds. He could feel the prosthesis slipping out of the neoprene cuff, and while it was designed to float, he wasn’t sure he could chase after it.

“Vaughn?” He heard T.J.’s voice coming closer. Fuck no. He couldn’t let her see him like this. How the hell was he going to get back to the shore? Was she going to tow him? Wrap her little flotation device around his chest and bring him to shore like a goddamn tourist who’d never swum in the ocean?

If necessity is the mother of invention, then Vaughn had discovered necessity for the first time in his life, because he’d never felt so inclined to invent something. He dropped down under the water and bent at the waist, tugging on the prosthetic limb that had now separated from his stump completely. In a split second, he had it dislodged from the neoprene cuff, and he tugged the cuff up higher around his stump so it would stay put as he pushed his head back above the waterline, his prosthesis now in one hand while he treaded water.

And he managed it all just in time for T.J. to arrive.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Just uh, lost the leg. I mean, I have it, but it came off.”

“You scared the hell out of me!” she said, far louder than necessary.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he told her, spitting out salt water as a wave slapped him in the face. She treaded water next to him, her face tense as she watched him. He was strong. He could tread water for a long time now that the artificial limb wasn’t dangling anymore. But he still wasn’t sure how difficult it would be to get back to shore.

“What were you thinking coming out this far on your first try?”

“I don’t know, I just… It was working, so I kept going.”

She wiped at her face, her lips tight and her eyes worried. God, he hated that look. She’d had it so many times in the last few months, and it was all his fault. He was a fucking idiot. Trying so hard to show her he could still do everything he once had that he’d put them both in an impossible situation and made her worry yet again.

“Hey,” he said, pulling on the waistband of his swim trunks and stuffing the leg in until it was wedged against his hip and both hands were free again. He reached out and pulled her to him, both of them treading water comfortably now in spite of the waves that kept smacking them and bouncing them around. His arms wrapped around her waist, and he discovered that his stump was almost as useful for treading water as a full leg.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated as she looked up at him, her eyes shining a bit too brightly. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I wasn’t thinking. It was selfish and stupid. I just wanted to prove that I could do this. I wanted to overcome the fear of failing at something yet again.”

“They can make some adjustments to the fit of the leg so this doesn’t happen again,” she told him. “But stuff like this is why you’re supposed to take it slow, one step at a time—sorry, pun not intended.”

He smiled softly at her, at the fact that she could still be so concerned about him. For once, it didn’t feel like pity. It felt like she cared, and it was good for his soul to know that she still could.

He couldn’t stop himself as he leaned forward and kissed her on her pert little nose. “Okay. You’re right, I need to do this the right way. One step at a time—pun absolutely intended. You have my word, from now on, I’ll follow your instructions to the letter.”

She nodded and took a deep breath, seeming to exhale all the anxiety of the last twenty minutes.

“Now we have to get you back to shore,” she said, disengaging from his hold.

“No, we don’t,” he said sternly. “I got myself into it, I can get myself out. You go ahead. I’ll be behind you. Might take me a bit, but I’ll make it, and when I get to shore, you can lecture me some more and make fun of me because I’ll have to hop to the chairs.”

She rolled her eyes, then looked at him seriously. “Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“Scout’s honor,” he answered, holding up two fingers.

She nodded, then slowly turned and started a comfortable stroke back toward shore.

Vaughn took a deep breath and arranged the artificial limb more snugly in the side of his swimsuit. Then he plunged under the water, giving a strong breast stroke with his arms and a dolphin kick, his leg and a half effectively functioning as one. It worked, and he came up at the end of the stroke and took another breath before going under again. It was going to be a long trip back to shore, but he was young, healthy, and fit as hell. It was time to put in the work needed to be the man he could be, and it started here, with a hard swim in choppy waters, using what he had left, and moving toward the ultimate goal—the woman he loved.