Return to Her

Cheated on and dumped,
Cassie Summers feels nothing but relief. She’d stayed too long, and
honestly, it was her attraction to her ex’s roommate, Mason, that
kept her hanging on past the expiration date. Mason makes her heart
beat faster and her panties damp. Too bad he’s only a friend, as
she’s not his type.

Mason Parker’s Southern
charm and good looks let him through a lot of doors—and into beds.
A protective instinct a mile wide pushes Mason to be Cassie’s
shoulder when his roommate skips town, and he has to face his real
feelings for her. Can he find the patience to just be the friend
Cassie needs while she gets over her ex?

When Mason’s called for duty
and has to ship out for a year, he knows he can’t leave without
telling her exactly how he feels. Amid the fireworks on the Fourth
of July, they’ll make their own sparks and give in to the crushing
need both have for one another.

Return to Her

by

Alexandra
O’Hurley

A
RED HOT AND BOOM!
BOOK

Return to Her

Copyright © 2014 by Alexandra
O’Hurley

Edited by SM Firefly & Marie
Medina

First E-book Publication: June 2014,
SMASHWORDS EDITION

Cover design by K Designs

All cover art copyright © 2014, Covers by
K

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED:
This literary work may not be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part,
without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book
are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is
strictly coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Aliyah – for your help,
your friendship, and for listening.

Return to Her

Chapter One

Mason Parker unlocked his
front door, the woman behind him a random victim of his Southern
charm and lust. She was beautiful, but there was something missing.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but whatever
it
was, it was lacking.
As soon as he pushed the door open, he knew he was making a
mistake.

When had he grown a conscience over
bedding women?

Damn it, it’s all Cassie’s
fault.
His roommate’s girlfriend had been
letting her feelings on the subject be known for quite some time
now. Of course, most of her other advice had been spot on, so why
wouldn’t she be right about this?
Don’t
you want something more than one nighters and casual
relationships?
He could hear her voice
asking the question in his head as he looked over his shoulder at
the evening’s new one nighter.

Yeah. He did. Someday.

Just not now. He was young
and supposed to be having fun, right? Cassie’s voice came to mind
again.
Do you really enjoy a different
woman every month? That’s got to get boring.
Mason looked over his shoulder one more time. The woman
behind him was pretty enough, but he’d barely spoken to her at the
club, the music had been too loud. It had been a purely physical
thing and he had no idea if there was a brain in that pretty head.
She’d been fairly quiet on the ride over, answering his questions
with one or two word answers.
Boring.

Why was he letting Cassie twist him up
like this? If she hadn’t started this whole line of questioning
this morning, he’d have no problem continuing on the path of least
resistance.

When he finally did settle
down, he’d find someone special, with all the depth the girls he’d
been dating
didn’t
have. He’d find someone who saw the man he was inside,
someone he could talk with about anything—a woman who wasn’t boring
and he could see himself growing old with. Someone like…

A face came to view and he
pushed it away. That face had a boyfriend, one she seemed happy
enough with, which Mason didn’t understand
at all
. Mason wasn’t the kind to
poach another man’s girlfriend, no matter how wonderfully perfect
she was or how undeserving her boyfriend.

He opened the door and
flipped on a switch as he turned to urge the woman inside. Mason
frowned for a moment.
Heather? That was
her name, right?

“
Come on in,” he said,
leaving her name off his lips.

Heather, or whatever her name was,
frowned as she glanced inside his place. “Have you been robbed or
does it always look like this?”

Mason whipped his head around and
looked into his apartment. The place was trashed, with drawers
askew, his CDs knocked over, and books scattered everywhere. He
turned to Heather. “Go over by the car and let me check the place
out.”

“
Shouldn’t you call the
cops,” Heather asked. “It’s chilly out here.”

“
Just go by the car where
it’s safe,” he said, rushing through the door. It looked as though
someone had been searching for something, but what? Reaching for a
baseball bat beside the open closet door, Mason lifted it and
peered inside. After ensuring it was empty, he passed the kitchen,
which was also clear, and then opened the bathroom door. The
medicine cabinet was open and items were strewn about the counter.
Mason checked every room, one by one. Mason’s room had been
untouched.
Weird.
He finally ended with Dave’s bedroom.

It was completely bare—the furniture,
the clothes, everything gone.

Except for an envelope taped to the
end of the ceiling fan’s pull cord. Mason took it down and opened
it, wondering what the fuck was going on.

Mason –

Sorry dude, but I had to
bail. Things were getting a little too crazy for me. I’m leaving
town, so I guess this is goodbye. If I can send you money, I
will.

–
Dave

Mason stared at the note another
moment, as if more meaning would be wrung from it if he looked a
while longer. Dave was officially two months behind on rent as of
that morning and had been promising to pay up for days. Mason
walked out of Dave’s room and looked at the drawers sitting out,
the stuff strewn about. His roommate had apparently been in such a
rush to get the hell out that he’d nearly destroyed the place in
his search for his belongings. Mason was ditched and his house left
a wreck. And not to mention…

Cassie
.

Mason halted in his tracks, his heart
pumping. He needed to find her, make sure she was alright. The need
to protect her was powerful, almost overwhelming. He had no clue
where it was coming from.

Don’t lie to yourself. You
know exactly where it’s coming from.

Mason needed to get a hold of himself.
Just because Dave was gone didn’t mean she needed another man in
her life so soon. Cassie was his friend, too, and he would make
sure she was okay. She didn’t deserve to be hurt, no more than Dave
had deserved her in the first place.

Crumpling the note in his hands, Mason
rushed out the door, locking it quickly before heading to his car.
He glanced at Heather and dug into his pocket for his keys. “I’m
taking you home.”

The woman didn’t move toward the door,
just stood there staring. “What happened in there?”

“
It’s fine, but there’s
somewhere I need to go. Get in the car and I’ll take you home.”
Mason climbed inside and revved the engine.

Heather stood by the car, not moving.
He lowered the passenger window and leaned across.

“
Are you getting in,
Heather, or are you going to stand there all night?”

She leaned down to glare at him. “My
name is Jennifer.”

My bad.
“Do you want a ride home or not?”

Jennifer snarled at him, as she
legitimately had a right to at this point, and finally got into the
car. He felt even worse about the whole fiasco. Mason shouldn’t
have asked her back to his place, he wasn’t sure why he’d done it
in the first place. But then, when a man wanted another woman, one
he couldn’t have, he did stupid things.

Mason threw the car into drive and
squealed out of the parking lot, his focus laser sharp. Hopefully,
Cassie wasn’t a total wreck.

* * * *

Cassie heard the car pull up into her
driveway. She glanced through the blinds, her initial instinct
telling her it wasn’t Dave’s truck. Breathing a sigh of relief, she
glanced through the darkness. There was no way she was ready for
round two tonight. In the low light of the street lamps, she
struggled to see who it was, and her heart started to beat harder
once she recognized the form of the man.

Mason.

Running an absentminded hand through
her hair, she went to the door. Cassie opened it and watched Mason
approach. He stepped into the circle of the porch light and stopped
a couple of feet away from her.

“
Are you okay?”

Cassie nodded. She actually was, now
that Dave was gone. A weight was lifted off her shoulders. “Yeah, I
think I am for the first time in a long while.”

Mason didn’t say anything. He just
watched her closely, as if assuring himself she spoke the
truth.

“
Did you want to come in?”
she asked, tugging her cardigan around her a little more tightly.
It might be May, but the evenings were still cool.

“
Yeah, I’ve got some
questions, if you’re up for it.”

Cassie didn’t really want to talk
about it, but the thought of Mason being there soothed her. She
backed away from the door and let him pass, his cologne doing funny
things to her head. Mason always smelled good. Looked good, too,
not that she’d usually go for that type. He was a little too Adonis
for a girl like her.

Mason sat down on her couch, leaning
his elbows on his knees. He looked a little funny sitting there,
his long limbs appearing too big for the proportions of her small
sofa. Yet she couldn’t explain how much it mattered that he was
there, checking in on her.

“
So what did you need to
know?” Cassie asked, sitting across from him in a comfy
chair.

“
I got home tonight. The
apartment’s been trashed and all of Dave’s stuff is gone. I got a
note, saying he had to leave with no reasons why. What
happened?”

Cassie looked down at her hands,
tugging on the edge of her sweater. “He’s been cheating with some
girl at his job. I caught him in bed with her today,” Cassie said,
her voice sounding like a separate entity. The words came out
emotionless, almost robotic. It stung that Dave had cheated, that
she’d been duped for however long he’d been unfaithful.

But it was also her way
out.

It had been months since she’d been
happy with Dave. She had no idea why she’d stayed as long as she
had.

Her gaze drifted up and she looked at
Mason. Now she wouldn’t be spending time at Mason’s apartment,
getting to see him almost every single day. Her breath caught in
her chest. Cassie suddenly knew why she’d stayed well past the
expiration date of her relationship.