Kissed (19 page)
Authors: Ms. Carla Krae
It
was a half-hour drive to the beach he’d chosen, one of the little places you
took stairs down to with some tide pools and a bit of sand.
The only other person there was a diver going
into the water just as they took to the stairs.
The air was at least ten degrees cooler than inland and smelled fresher
than at the sunbathing beaches.
Though Beth wasn’t really a swimmer, the peace of the waves always
called to her.
Jacob
sat on the last step to take his boots and socks off.
She sat two steps above him and pulled her
camera out of her bag.
He continued
stripping down to a pair of black swim trunks.
“Join me?”
She
shook her head.
“I don’t do the ocean.”
He
shrugged and stood on the sand.
“Your loss, love.”
He
took off at a run and dove into the waves, coming up again where the water was
armpit high.
He
was gorgeous wet in general, and here the sun was making his eyes crystal blue
and glowing like beacons.
She raised the
camera to her eye and
zoomed
the lens on his face, now
in profile.
He dove into the waves
again.
The water was gentle today, not
even making peaks.
She wondered if he
could see the diver under there.
She
kept an eye to where her boyfriend was, but turned her camera to other
subjects—a hermit crab, a couple anemones in a tiny pool, the carving of the
cliff wall to the beach.
Capturing
nature in interesting ways fascinated her and she liked when a photo of
something natural looked like it could be something else.
Focused on the view through her lens, she didn’t
notice he came up behind her until he shook his wet hair like a dog.
“Hey!
Watch it!”
She jumped away from him and
shielded the camera.
“Should
keep your ears open, love,” he said, grinning.
“Give us a cuddle.”
She
evaded his arms.
“No, you’re wet!”
“Didn’t seem to mind a week ago.”
“That
was in the shower.”
She dodged another
grab.
“Stop it.
Expensive
equipment in my hands.”
“So
put it down.”
He stalked her like a cat.
She
could make a break for it, but he was a faster runner and had a bit of a stride
advantage.
Didn’t want to run with the
camera, though—it was Mom’s.
“I don’t
feel like playing right now, Jacob.”
He
sighed.
“Fine.
What do you want to do?”
“I
was doing it before you interrupted me. Sorry we have different interests.”
She so didn’t need his craving for attention
right now.
“Just
horsin
’ around.
Don’t have
to be a bitch about it.”
“I’m
not being a
bitch
. I was protecting
my camera.”
Now she wished she drove
.
The camera strap went around her neck and she
turned for the stairs, grabbing her bag on the way up.
There
was a fruit stand across the road where she could sit in the shade.
He could swim until he grew gills for all she
cared…no one got away with calling her names.
For
once, he didn’t chase after her.
What, I’m not worth chasing?
Whoa, there, with the crazy talk.
Well, he never lets me have the last
word.
What am I supposed to think?
And
even as she thought it, she saw him wait for a car to pass, then jog across the
road.
He was dressed again.
She stopped peeking and pretended to find a
cantaloupe very interesting.
“Let’s
go, Beth.”
“Huh?
Oh, hi. Hungry?”
She walked to the
register and requested, “One basket of the strawberries, please.”
The girl handed over the berries in a paper
bag in exchange for her money.
“Done?”
“Yes.”
No cars were coming, so she crossed at a
walking pace.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
She
had to open her door this time.
“That’s
mature.”
“Don’t
want to waste your time.”
“God,
you’re such a drama queen.”
He
drove onto the street.
“You’re more
interested in being with your parents right now. I heard it in your voice when
you came back to the house. The camera’s just your way to avoid thinking about
it.”
“They
teach you that in Psych 101?”
“Beth,
you didn’t talk the whole way down here.”
“You
had the radio on loud!”
“So
turn the bleedin’ thing down. Known you long enough to know when you’d rather
be elsewhere, love.”
“Sorry
if my mother having
cancer
is
inconvenient for you.”
Of all the…
If they weren’t so many miles from home, she’d
get out of the car right here.
“This
morning was nice.
I’m
not the one
that ruined it.”
He
shook his head and exhaled, his grip tightening on the steering wheel.
Seriously, there was nothing he had to have a
tantrum about.
She wasn’t the one
picking fights.
Back
in LA, he dropped her off in front of her house.
She slammed the car door and stomped inside, not
caring if he left or not.
Her parents
were in the kitchen putting away groceries.
“Hi,
honey,” Mom said.
“Have
fun, Elizabeth?”
Dad
asked,
his head in the pantry.
“Took some shots.
I’ll be in the dark room unless you guys
need anything?”
“Nope.”
She nodded to Mom and took her camera into her brother’s
former bedroom.
The roll she happened to
have was only twenty-four exposures, so she’d gone through it fast.
Working in the darkroom was therapeutic.
Everything was timed and measured.
Structured.
She and Mom worked with an amber safelight to
see what they were doing.
As long as the
light was at least four feet from the paper, there were no problems.
First, Beth had to load the film on a reel in the dark.
To process the negatives, she needed to put
it through pre-soak, developer, stop bath, fixer, wash, wetting agent, and
drying for at least four hours for them to harden completely.
They hung the sheet with a weight at the
bottom to straighten it.
The strip could
then be cut into individual images.
It
was around one o’clock when she started, which meant she could check the strip
around dinner time to see about making prints.
The AC vent was sealed off in this room to help the drying process, so
the duration was usually shorter in summer.
An
enlarger was used to project the image of a negative onto a base for
printmaking. A sheet of photographic paper was exposed with the enlarged image
from the negative.
The exposed paper was
processed, first by immersion in a photographic developer, then halting
development with a stop bath, and fixing it in a photographic fixer.
The print was then washed to remove the processing
chemicals, and dried.
They spaced the
prints out on a clothesline.
She
left the room and came upon her smiling mother.
“What did you use this time?” she asked.
“Color.
It was what I had handy.”
“I
look forward to seeing them.”
“Where’s
Dad?”
“Playing nine holes.
He needed some man time after the visit
to the alternative health center.”
“I
thought you were seeing a nutritionist?”
“We
did, but that’s where she’s at and we talked about stuff other than pills and injections.
Research says you have better chances with a positive outlook, so we discussed
spiritual wellbeing, too. That kind of thing makes your dad uncomfortable.”
Beth
followed her into the kitchen.
“I can
imagine. So, what’s this fancy diet?”
“Completely
organic, with the nutrient ratios specific to my body type to keep my strength
up once I start chemo.”
“But
we don’t know that you’ll need that, yet. The doctor said—”
“I’m
only preparing. I’d rather expect the worst and be surprised by the best. Besides,
the food is still good for me either way, so it won’t hurt.”
“Yes, Mom.”
How
she could think about the badness, Beth didn’t know.
It terrified her.
Mom
showed her the recipes in her new cookbook and talked about the yoga instructor
she met.
Beth guessed once Mom had a
path, it was full steam ahead.
They
made dinner when Dad came home,
then
Beth went back in
the darkroom.
She
worked on print after print, slowly seeing her subjects revealed.
The photo of Jacob standing in the water took
her breath away and she wondered again why he wanted her as a partner.
He could rule the world with his charisma and
ambition.
She
was just a scared young girl.
DEDICATION
Thank you to Mrs.
Johns for teaching me I could create with words, Celeste for being so
supportive of my writing through the years, and “Tech Guy” for providing
twenty-four hour tech support and love.
Thanks also to
Sotia
for being a fan of Jacob and Beth and encouraging me
to keep going when words fail me.
I
value you more than you’ll ever know.
A
special shout-out to
Pitizens
,
Purgatorians
,
and Divas.
You know who you are.
And last but not
least, thank you to all the fans of Beth and Jacob since April 2011.
This wouldn’t be possible without you.
About the Author
Fiction
writer.
Sci-fi lover.
Trained
vocalist.
Cat mom.
Debuting in 2011,
Carla Krae lives in California
with two crazy cats and a tech guy. When she isn't writing love stories, she
likes to dabble in
fantasy
. Carla
also writes as
K.C.
Taylor
.
Join the
mailing list
for updates.
Quickest way to get news.
Then hang out at
the fan forum
.
Author’s Note
Thank you for
reading.
Please drop Carla a review or
message with your thoughts—they’re like virtual cookies.
This series
continues with
Betrayed
:
Absence makes the
heart grow fonder...or forgetful.
Jacob
is attending university in London while Beth
stays in Los Angeles.
The tender long-distance relationship falls apart when she believes he betrayed
her on the same day she learns her mother's cancer has returned.
Sometimes love doesn't have a happy ending,
at least not the first time.
Years after their
relationship crashed and burned, Jacob is the world’s newest hot rock star, and
running into him in a twenty-four-hour market is the last thing Beth wanted or
expected.
The biggest
surprise?
He has an offer for her
she can’t refuse.
Betrayed
is the second of five books in
the
My Once and Future Love Revisited
series exploring Beth and Jacob’s relationship with all its joys, flaws, and
heartache.
A New Adult
Contemporary Romance saga.
BETRAYED
Chapter One
Bright light hit Jacob’s face.
He
squeezed his eyes shut tighter and rolled over to hide from the sun.
Long hair tickled his nose.
What
the…?
Beth.
As the haze of sleep cleared
from his mind, he remembered the night before, and falling asleep sated and
holding her.
She’d rolled onto her side
away from him, the sheet tucked under her chin.
He reached up and pulled the drapes closed above his bed, shutting out
the offending light, and cuddled up to her back.
“Mmm…what time is it?” she mumbled.
“Don’t know. Sun’s up.”
She squirmed her hips forward an inch.
“Quit poking me.”
“Morning wood.
Can’t help it.”
“Geesh.”
He grinned and snuggled closer again.
Holding her was really comfortable.
He could get used to this.
“Will you be missed?”
“Nah.
It’s Saturday.”
She rolled partially onto her back.
“We do our own thing in the morning.”
He kissed her nose.
“Good. Rather
sleep in.”
She smiled.
“We were up late.”
“Mmm.”
He
put his head down on his pillow.
“Starting to like this weekend trend, Miss Lawson.”
She rolled to face him.
“Me, too.”
He’d keep her in bed until their stomachs made too much noise to ignore
if she let him.
They’d christened his
bed in a hell of a fashion, only stopping when she couldn’t keep her eyes open
any longer.
He pulled the sheet over
their bodies, wrapped his arms around her with her head on his shoulder, and
that was the last thing he remembered.
Fell right to sleep for the first time in days.
Her eyes were closed again.
“You asleep, love?”
“No,” she said, and yawned.
“Sorry. Probably have morning breath.”
“Nah.”
She opened her eyes.
“How long are
you here?”
“Long as it takes to box everything up.”
“Are you going to miss the house?”
A fair question.
He’d lived here more years than he
hadn’t
.
“Some. I’ll miss
climbin
’
over your wall more.”
She smiled.
“A
lot of memories in two years.
I’ll miss your mom being next door, too.
You’ll both be so far away.”
He kissed her pout.
“I’ll miss
comin’ back to the ol’ place, no question. When I left for
uni
,
I thought I missed England…and
I did, but L.A.
might tip the scale of home a bit more.”
He laced their fingers together.
“And now
there’s
you.”
“Jacob…”
He kissed her before she started crying, before he laid his heart out too
soon, and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer.
She moaned into his mouth, her hand clutching
his shoulder.
He loved her soft skin,
especially when there was so much of it available to his fingers, and stroked
her back, over her ass, and down her thigh.
She curled her leg over his hip.
She broke away from the kiss.
“Do
you have any more…?”
Her brows rose, and
he caught her meaning.
“Don’t know.”
He grinned.
“Last night was intense.”
She smiled back, but her cheeks turned pink.
“Uh-huh.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.
Sleepy.
And hungry.”
He brushed her hair behind her ear.
“Could see what’s around for breakfast.”
Her nose wrinkled up.
“
You
can move.”
“I spend eleven hours on a plane and you want to be waited on?” he
teased.
“Yup.”
She popped the “p” at the end.
Now he was thinking about food, his stomach started gurgling.
“Fine…but don’t think this’ll be a habit,
missy.”
He got out of bed and grabbed
his jeans.
She watched him pull them on, her hands propping her head up on the
pillow.
Though he knew he was a
good-looking bloke, it thrilled him to see her admire him so blatantly.
Put a bit more cock into his walk.
He left the jeans unbuttoned.
The refrigerator was mostly bare, his mother making sure she didn’t come
back to a rotting kitchen.
Too bad there
was no milk for cereal…
Beth never thought she’d be naked in
this
bed
listening to Jacob hum in the
kitchen.
Even through all the years of
wanting
him
to kiss her, she never thought further
than
I’d trust him to be my first.
Now, she was thoroughly
twitterpated
,
and had sex over
two
nights with her
best friend, the change in their relationship just hours shy of two weeks old.
Frea-ky
.
But awesome.
This week would’ve been a lot harder without him answering her calls.
Her bladder said it was time to get up, so she found her underwear and
his t-shirt and used his bathroom.
The
girl in the mirror made her do a double-take.
Her hair was a rat’s nest and she had a dark purple hickey on the side
of her neck above her collarbone.
There
was
no
way of hiding that mark
without wearing a turtleneck.
She walked into the kitchen and slugged his arm.
“Are you trying to get me in trouble?”
“Hey! What are you on about?”
“
This
. I told you not to leave
obvious marks.”
He touched it.
“That’s a good
one.”
He grabbed the waffle that popped
up out of the toaster.
“Ooo, hot.”
“Dumb-ass.
My dad is going to
freak
when he sees my neck!”
“Wear a scarf,” he said with his mouth full.
“It’d be cute.”
She rolled her eyes and grabbed the apple he left on the counter.
“I don’t
have
a scarf, or a short-sleeve turtleneck, or make-up thick enough to hide this
thing. You realize you have to flee now before he kicks your ass.”
“Is he really going to notice with all that’s going on, Beth? A love
bite’s a bit insignificant right now. Just hide it with your hair or something.”
“
Mom
will notice and she’ll
tell him, and she’s smart enough to put two and two together if they know
you’re in town.”
“What, you never made out in high school?”
“
No
.”
“Not ever?”
He asked like he
couldn’t imagine people existing with such a history.
She looked away.
“Kissing you was
the first time I kissed anybody.”
“Wow.”
He took her face in his
hands.
“I’m honored.”
She blushed.
“Shut up. No fair
being sweet when I’m annoyed with you.”
He gathered her into his arms.
“If
it’ll make you feel better, I’ll take you shopping.”
He looked down.
“Are you naked under my shirt?”
“God, you have a one-track mind.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
His hands slid under the hem of the tee.
She batted his hands away before he could distract her with their
talents.
“Quit that. I’m mad at you.”
He grinned.
“No, you’re not.”
Okay, she wasn’t
mad
, but
definitely inconvenienced.
The hickey
was not a good thing to come home with and she wished she could hide out until
it faded, which, with her fair skin, couldn’t come soon enough.
“Don’t wanna play, Jacob.”
She sat on one of the dining chairs and bit
into the apple.
Seeing
her
genuinely put out, his demeanor
changed and became more contrite.
“I’m
sorry, love. I’ll remember next time.”
Guess it bothered her so much because it reminded her she was still a kid
in some ways, and stuff like this was only the beginning of things that would
chafe until she struck out in the world on her own.
The dorm still
awaited
,
but with Mom’s diagnosis…
Well, she
hadn’t decided if she could leave home, yet.
On the one hand, she’d have freedom.
On the other, she’d worry.
He touched her shoulder.
“Hey, what’s going through that head, kitten?”
“Lots.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“Too much, lately.”
He moved a chair close to hers, sat, and put his arm around her
shoulders.
She leaned into him.
“I’m here, okay?”
“I know.
Until you have to leave.”
He didn’t reply to that and she didn’t ask him to.
They sat cuddling until the mood settled and
they could turn their attention back to food.
After breakfast, she wanted to get dressed, but needed a shower somethin’
awful.
They went through a round of
you go—no, you go
and ended up with him
using his mother’s bathroom and her using his.
She braided her hair over the side with the bruise, which sort of
concealed it.
“What would you like to do today?” he asked, leaning casually on the
doorframe.
“Aren’t you supposed to box up the house?”
“Technically, but I think I’m allowed to spend a day with my girl.”
She’d never get tired of hearing that—
my
girl
.
“I don’t know…”
She looked in the direction of her
house.
“Mom might need something.”
“We could go to the beach, take your camera,
escape
the heat a bit…”
That smile wouldn’t sway her this time.
“Let me check in first.”
He sighed.
“Alright.”
He plopped on the couch in front of the TV and reached for the remote.
Rolling her eyes, she left through the back
to climb over the wall again.
No one was
in her yard or showing through a window, so she dropped to the ground and
hurried to her room.
The pencil was where
she left it, allowing her to get back inside.
She dressed properly,
then
reached for make-up.
Caking on concealer hid the hickey a bit more, but not entirely, so she’d
still need to be careful to keep her hair over it if she ran into her
parents.
She loaded a roll of film into
her camera and left it on the desk next to her purse.
Her room was at the start of the hallway to the bedrooms.
There was a bathroom between it and her
brother’s old room, then Mom and Dad’s was at the end.
She walked out to the front to check the
driveway first.
No cars, but one could
be in the garage.
A note was stuck to the fridge:
Elizabeth
,
We went to see the nutritionist for
your mother’s new diet.
Then we’ll stop
at the store.
Dad
Okay, guess she wasn’t needed.
New diet?
Fighting
cancer required specific food?
Well,
whatever
worked.
If eating powdered duck bills upside-down would kill the cancer, she’d
feed it to Mom herself.
Beth left her own note about spending a few hours with a friend, grabbed
her stuff, and left the house, using the sidewalk to get to Jacob’s this
time.
His door was unlocked.
“So?” he asked.
“They weren’t there.”
“Lucky me.”
He turned off the TV.
She followed him to the garage where his mother’s car was stored.
“Aren’t you going to lock the front door?”
“I’ll do it after I move the car. Have to put the lock on the garage,
anyway.”
He pushed the garage door
up.
There was no automatic opener.
He opened the passenger door for her.
“Hold that,” he said, and dropped a padlock
on her lap.
He backed the car to the end of the driveway, locked both doors, and
pulled onto the street once it was clear, then tuned the radio to his favorite
local rock station.
It was a half-hour drive to the beach he’d chosen, one of the little
places you took stairs down to with some tide pools and a bit of sand.
The only other person there was a diver going
into the water just as they took to the stairs.
The air was at least ten degrees cooler than inland and smelled fresher
than at the sunbathing beaches.
Though Beth wasn’t really a swimmer, the peace of the waves always
called to her.