Kissed (18 page)

 
She liked the sound of that.
 
“A new song?”

“Parts.
Spent more time on course work—”

“You’re
not in classes right now.”

“—so
I won’t get buried this term.”

“You…were
studying
ahead
?”
 
It didn’t compute in her brain.

“
Yeah
.
If I’m
gonna have time to talk to you, I can’t slack off like usual, can I?”

“No…well,
I…I’m impressed.”
 
And
touched.
 

“Advantage
of
makin
’ friends ahead of me—I know what
profs
always assign the same crap every year. Between jobs
right now, so I got the time.”

“It’s
a good plan.”

“Thank
you.”
 
He dropped the defensive edge to
his tone.
 
“What are your plans until
moving day?”

Summer
plans?
 
She hadn’t thought about it since
coming home.
 
“I don’t know…depends on
Mom’s diagnosis, I guess. If she needs…if there are needs, I want to
help.”
 
Had
to.
 
“Well, I shouldn’t run up the phone bill…”

“Alright,
love. Call me whenever you want to, though, okay? I miss you.”

“Miss
you, too, Jacob. Bye.”
 
She hung up,
though it hurt to do so.
 

It
sucked more than ever to be on opposite sides of an ocean.
 
She craved him physically, and not just his
kisses or his touch.
 
There was a place
he filled in her soul she hadn’t known was empty.

When
the house phone rang at eight the next morning, she
knew
it was the doctor.
 
Sure, it could’ve been a telemarketer or something, but she just
knew—this was it.
 
She stared at the
phone next to her bed and waited for someone to pick it up.
 
It stopped after two rings.

A
door opened and shut down the hall.
 
Dad
left for work at seven, so it had to be Mom unless he called in sick.
 
Beth waited with the sheet kicked off her
legs, staring at the ceiling.

Ten minutes later, a soft knock on her door.
 
“I’m awake,” she said.
 
Mom came in, still holding the phone.
 
“It was bad news, wasn’t it?” Beth asked
without looking at her face.

“Yes,
honey. My doctor has some time this afternoon, so I’ll be going by the office
and hearing my options.”
 
She sat on the
bed.
 
“Beth, just because it’s cancer,
that doesn’t mean we’re looking at dire circumstances, okay?”

She
nodded.
 
“Yeah, Mom.
I know,” she said for her sake.
 
Mom
patted her leg and left the room.

But
she
didn’t
know.
 
There were too many variables and she didn’t
like it one bit.

Mom
went into her dark room.
 
Beth got up to get
ready for the day and cried in the shower so she wouldn’t hear her.
 
After dressing, she called Jacob.
 
His voice mail picked up, so she left a short
message and dialed Vivian’s.
 
When she
was unavailable, too, Beth left a note on the refrigerator saying she had an
errand to run, and walked to the park.

It
was a small park, with only a swing set and a jungle gym to climb on surrounded
by a bit of grass.
 
She and Jacob used to
come here when he needed to burn off energy to focus.
 
She’d drill him on test questions while he
pumped on the swing high enough to be parallel with the ground.
 
Always feared he’d screw up and crack his
head open going so high.
 

She
sat on a swing—her usual middle-right position—and swayed for a while.
 
It wasn’t the same without him.

Dad
wasn’t home, yet, when Mom needed to leave for her appointment, so Beth went
along.
 
The doctor didn’t mind her being
there, so she took notes.
 
Writing
everything down gave her something to focus on other than the word
cancer
echoing in her head.
 
They were going to do further testing, she
said, to find out exactly what type Mom had, and schedule surgery to remove the
tumor.

“Depending
on the size and aggressiveness of the tumor, we’ll discuss whether a lumpectomy
or more significant removal of tissue is appropriate.”
 
She slid some pamphlets across the desk to
Beth’s mother.
 
“These can answer some
basic questions, and there’s some info in there about local support groups.”

“Alright.
Thank you, doctor,” Mom said.

She
was quiet through most of the meeting, listening to the doctor explain technical
terms and procedures.
 
If Beth hadn’t
been there, she wasn’t sure Mom would have asked any questions at all.

“You
okay, Mom?” she asked as they were leaving.

She
smiled.
 
“Just a lot to
take in, honey.
Would you mind driving home? Think they took enough
blood for a donation.”

She
took the keys.
 
“What was all that for,
anyway?”

“She
said she likes to give the patient a physical before starting treatment.”

“Hm.
Better than going in blind, I guess.”
 
Beth pressed the button for remote unlocking the car.

“Yep.”

When
they got home, she made Mom eat something.
 
Dad came back from work at his usual time—didn’t she call him with the
diagnosis?—and they disappeared in their room for a while.
 
Dinner was another awkward event.

Unless
you went through cancer before or knew someone that did, you didn’t know about
the waiting.
 
Beth wanted that damn lump
out of her mother yesterday, but apparently operating rooms didn’t sit around
empty and waiting, and tests results didn’t magically reveal themselves.

Friday
night, she lay awake staring at the ceiling again, trying to fall asleep.
 
It was well past midnight when she finally
dozed off.

Tap, tap, tap-tap tap
…

Two bits.
 

Wait…

She
rolled toward the sound and opened her eyes.
 
A dark shape was outside her window.
 
She sat up and bolted out of bed, ready to call for her father.

“Beth,
open the window,” the man said in a hushed voice.
 
He stepped back a foot and the moon
illuminated his outline.

Oh my god…
 
She pushed up the window, careful not to make
a sound.
 
“Jacob, what are you doing
here?”
 
They reached for each other and
kissed over the windowsill.
 
Oh my god…

He
climbed inside without breaking contact.
 
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tilted her head to deepen the
kiss, her tongue dancing with his.
 
His
scent enveloped her, an essence of home just as much as her bedspread or her
father’s old recliner in the den.
 

“How?”

“Mum
sent me to pack up the house, though I think she was just sick of me
mopin
’ all week,” he said around kissing her neck.
 
His hands slid under her tank top.

“You
were moping?”
 
God, he was the sweetest boyfriend
…
 

He
thumbed her nipples.
 
“Needed
to be here.”

Their
lips met again and her skin flushed with heated anticipation.
 
When he started to lift her top, though, she
broke away.
 
“Not here. My parents,” she
whispered.

“Come
home with me.”

She
nodded.
 
He climbed out her window while
she put on a tee and shorts over her PJs and slipped her feet into a pair of
Keds
.
 
She placed a
pencil under the window once she was outside so she could open it later and
followed him over the fence.
 
He caught
her when she dropped down off the cement wall.

They
barely made it inside before starting to shed clothes.
 
Her tee and tank hit the floor together.

“I’m
so glad you’re here,” she said, lifting his shirt over his head.

He
cupped her breasts and bent his knees to kiss the tips, then yanked her bottoms
down.
 
Her shoes slid off with her
shorts, leaving her naked in his kitchen.
 
She needed him too much to feel shy, and took his face in her hands and
kissed him again.
 
He picked her up.

When
she landed on a bed, it was in his room.
 
He unfastened his jeans and dropped them to the floor.
 
Aside from in the shower the morning she left
England,
it was the first time they were naked with a light on.
 
He crawled onto the bed into her open arms.

It
didn’t occur to her something was missing until she felt him start to slide
in.
 
“Condom!” she blurted out.

That
oh shit
look crossed his face and he
pulled away.
 
“Right!”
 
He rummaged in the main compartment of his
suitcase on the floor and came back to bed properly gloved.

“Now,
where were we?” he asked, sliding home.

“Unh…
Missed you.”
 
She wrapped her legs around his hips.

“Missed you more.”

“Did not.”

“Did
too
.”
 

“Enough
talking,” she said, and shut him up with her mouth.
 
The pace of their coupling picked up while
they made up for five days apart.

He
didn’t last long, at least for them, and collapsed on top of her, panting on
her neck.
 
She whimpered and wiggled her
hips, close to release but not close enough.

“Need
something, baby?” he asked, though his hand was already snaking between them to
rub her clit.

Her
body tensed, then released wave after wave of pleasure.
 
She bit his shoulder to keep from crying out
in his ear.
 
Warmth flooded through her
and she felt the week’s tension fade away.
 
If he let her, she could finally fall asleep.

Jacob
had other plans.

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.
 
New Adult
Contemporary Romance saga.

DEDICATION

Thank you to Mrs.
Johns for teaching me I could create, Celeste for being so supportive of this
story, and “Tech Guy” for providing years of twenty-four hour tech support and
love.
 
Thanks also to
Sotia
for being a fan of this tale and encouraging me to keep going when words fail
me, for being a sympathetic ear, and so much more.

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

Carla Krae lives
in California
with two crazy cats and a tech guy. Debuting in 2011, Carla is the author of
the popular
My Once and Future Love
series. When she isn't writing love stories, she likes to dabble in
fantasy
.
 
Carla also writes as
K.C. Taylor
.

Subscribe to the
mailing list
to learn about new
releases.
 
Find her on
Twitter
,
Facebook
, or her
blog
.
 
A multi-faceted Q&A interview is available
here
.

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.