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  KISSED

  One kiss ignites chemistry and passion they can’t ignore, but is this only a summer fling?

  Neighbors. Best friends. It was only a crush Beth harbored for Jacob until she was eighteen. Until London.

  Neighbors. Best friends. That was all Jacob thought of her until London. Until she kissed him and stole his heart.

  It's funny what Geometry class and a shared backyard wall can bring about. With a two-year age difference, Beth and Jacob were firmly in the Friend Zone during high school, but a pre-college trip to London will change their lives forever.

  Kissed is the first 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.

  By Carla Krae

  Published by Willowick Publishing

  Copyright 2013 Carla Krae

  The right of Carla Krae to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  About This Edition

  The new editing and revision is part of a change to the whole My Once and Future Love series, now My Once and Future Love Revisited. Willowick Publishing will be releasing this newly-edited series as four novellas and one final novel. New content has also been added to the series. These releases will debut in paperback form first, starting with Kissed.

  My Once and Future Love Revisited series:

  Paperback release dates:

  Kissed – Nov. 3, 2013

  Betrayed – Dec. 1, 2013

  Forgiven – Feb. 2, 2014

  Loved – April 6, 2014

  Book #5 – coming 2014

  E-book release dates:

  Kissed – Dec. 1, 2013

  Betrayed – Jan. 5, 2014

  Forgiven – Feb. 2, 2014

  Loved – April 6, 2014

  Book #5 – coming 2014

  Stand-alone stories:

  Dylan and Jen – Dec. 24, 2013

  Prologue

  Christmas Day 2011

  There were voices in the hall.

  Beth ignored them. It was only her sister-in-law Darcy, and Dad. Darcy got up with the baby, and Daddy never slept past 6:00AM unless he was deathly ill. She wished they’d move further away from her room, though. She wasn’t a deep sleeper.

  Managing to drift off again, she didn’t notice when someone opened the door a couple hours later. They crept in, leaving the door ajar, and sat down by the side of the bed near her face, waiting for her to sense their presence.

  Patience must’ve been short. “Buh! Buh, Buh!”

  Beth yawned. “Hey, munchkin…how’d you get in here?” Baby Sarah smiled a toothless grin and gurgled happily. “Hey, somebody? Escapee baby in here!”

  She didn’t have her glasses on and rolled over when a male figure came in to get Sarah. The door closed a second later. “Too early for Christmas,” she mumbled in the darkness.

  “It’s nearing nine, lazy bones,” a voice softly said.

  Can’t be… “I’m dreaming…”

  “In Rudolph pajamas?” the voice countered.

  Her eyes shot open. “It’s possible.”

  “Is it possible to dream with you, love?”

  “Ohmigod.”

  Beth rolled over and came face-to-face with the source. Only one person in the world called her “love” like that! “Are you here?” she whispered, afraid she really was dreaming.

  “You tell me,” he said, then kissed her. A kiss of two months’ pent-up passion.

  She felt tears running down her face, but she wasn’t going to let him go for a second to wipe them away. He seemed to read her thought, his hands coming up to her face, his thumbs brushing the tracks away under her eyes. She slid off the bed into his lap, wrapping her body around his. “How?” she gasped into his mouth.

  Jacob only pulled back far enough to break the kiss. “I had to come. We’re on traveling days, and I finally said screw it—we’re going to see our families one damn bloody day out of the year. You have me for twenty-four hours.”

  “I’ll take it! God, I’ve missed you!”

  He kissed her again. “Missed you, too…so much. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Bethie…” He said her name with enough reverence to break her heart. “Again?”

  “I love you, Jacob.” Huh, not so scary the second time. “I have for so long. I just didn’t have the words.”

  “Think your dad would kill me if I shagged you right now?”

  She giggled. “Save it for later, big boy. I don’t want an audience.”

  He sighed, then she felt him smile as wide as his face would go. “Happy Christmas, sweetheart.”

  “Mmm. Best Christmas ever.”

  They would’ve stayed wrapped around each other on the guest bedroom floor indefinitely, but it was only a few minutes later when someone coughed very loudly outside the door. Point taken, they reluctantly parted.

  Beth opened the door to find her whole family eavesdropping in the hall. “Something I can help you with?”

  “Nope, just passing by,” Darcy said, then winked.

  Dad looked very relieved to find them both still fully clothed. Beth stifled a laugh as they went back to the living room. Jacob glanced at her and snickered, just as amused.

  “Get dressed, woman. I have presents.”

  She pouted. “But yours is at home.”

  “Correction, I already got mine.”

  She blushed. “Oh. Yeah. Gee, if I’d known you were that easy to please…”

  “Hush, vixen, or I withhold your gifts until next Christmas.”

  Miming zipping her lips shut, she batted her eyelashes, trying to look innocent. He rolled his eyes and wagged his finger at her. She stepped back in the bedroom and closed the door before he could tickle her into submission.

  Keeping their hands off each other in front of her family proved difficult. And frustrating. The normal holiday rituals of Christmas breakfast and Christmas dinner and everything else in between seemed to take forever. And to top it off, Andrew and Darcy apparently shared a tradition with their neighbors of having the whole town stop by to say hello!

  Well, it felt like the whole town.

  Jacob settled into the routine fairly quickly, though. Ironically, it was Beth that sat there jittery and looking for the quickest opportunity to pull him into a closet. Couldn’t she get five minutes alone to grope her man? It amused him greatly to see her so frustrated.

  That lasted until they were left in the living room alone for a few minutes. He motioned her over to the window seat, out of direct line of sight, and kissed her breathless.

  “What was that for?” she asked happily.

  “Opportunity. Listen…” He fidgeted with a small box he’d produced from somewhere. “I wanted to give you this. We can exchange the rest at home, but I couldn’t wait.” He handed over the box.

  It was light blue, and her eyes widened. “Jacob, this is—” Tiffany Co.

  “Just open it.”

  She slid the white ribbon off and removed the lid. Inside was a silver fob with one key on the ring. “A key?”

  “My key. Don’t wig out—I’m not asking for anything, I… I want you to know you’re welcome in
my home just as much as before, only—”

  She stopped his rambling with her fingers on his lips, and smiled. “I understand. Thank you.”

  He let out a relieved breath and drew her into a hug. “Merry Christmas, Beth.”

  “Merry Christmas, Jacob. I’m so glad you came.”

  She laced fingers with his and led him into the kitchen where her family was sneaking cookies.

  Out of bedrooms, Darcy put Jacob on the couch for the night. Once the others were asleep, Beth snuck out to the living room and snuggled up to him under the blanket.

  “Mmm, my Bethie…”

  “Didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.

  He yawned. “Didn’t. I’m still on Russian time.”

  She caressed his face. “Sleep if you want to. I just wanted to be close while you’re here.”

  “I love you.” He raised his head up to kiss her.

  “Love you, too.”

  She laid her head on his chest and slept better than she had in weeks. He would have to leave in the morning, but it was only for a week, and then…well, so started her life with a rock star.

  Chapter One

  1998

  Mum’s latest idea of punishment was public school. The private academy asked him not to come back when the tenth grade term ended and she wasn’t going to pay for him to “act like a hooligan” at another school.

  Didn’t make him miss England less. Why she moved them back to California and away from all his friends and the familiar, he still didn’t know. They left Los Angeles when he was ten and after four years in London, he finally felt at home, then yank—right back across the Atlantic and a whole ‘nother country again. Felt like a bleedin’ yoyo. So he acted up a bit at school—what did she expect?

  London gave him his identity. At twelve, he discovered punk and metal and devoured every disc he could get his hands on, much to the Head Boy’s chagrin. What better appealed to a teenager than loud music and authority-shunning lyrics? These California prep school brats didn’t understand. They thought punk was Green Day. Needed a bath just from thinkin’ of it.

  So, anyway, here he was at a new school again with no friends or allies and prob’ly stickin’ out like a sore thumb.

  Jacob snuck in the house, trying to get to his room without being noticed.

  “Jacob…how was your first day?”

  He sighed and walked into his mother’s bedroom. “Every teacher but one had me introduce myself.”

  She looked up from her needlepoint. “Did you make any friends? You’re welcome to have guests provided your homework is done first.”

  “I had friends. You keep pulling me away from them.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic, Jacob. Your choices put you in your current situation.”

  He stood his ground. “It wasn’t my choice to leave England.”

  She sighed. “I know, dear. Some day you will understand. Do you have homework tonight?”

  “Little bit.”

  “Then I won’t take up more of your time.”

  “Yes, Mum.” He turned on his heel and went to his room, shutting the door and cranking up the stereo.

  ****

  Beth’s mother gave her a journal today. “Now that you’re going to high school, there are going to be things you don’t want to tell me or Daddy, or you’re going to want to think them out first.”

  She wasn’t going to use it. Really, she wasn’t…but there was Jake Lindsey and…

  Most kids in Geometry were sophomores, with a sprinkling of juniors. Dreading the walk into a class of older kids, she got there early and chose a desk in the back on the door side of the room, hoping she could be invisible in the corner. She was a freshman, and not just a freshman, but five feet tall, undeveloped, and stuck in glasses.

  With her first day over, she could say Geometry wasn’t her worst class of the day, and part of the reason was the boy with the last name called after hers—Lindsey comma Jake. The teacher had Jake introduce himself since he was new to their SoCal district, and that voice had been stuck in Beth’s head all day.

  Jake Lindsey had an English accent.

  Jake Lindsey wore a sleeveless shirt displaying arm definition she’d never seen on a teenage boy before.

  Jake Lindsey was a junior, sixteen or seventeen, and way out of her league.

  Still…that buttery voice made Beth and every other girl in the room take notice.

  She’d been dwelling on this memory to avoid thinking about English class and the boy assigned to the seat next to her—didn’t even know her and he already called her names.

  Two weeks later, Beth put her pencil down and sighed. Concentrating on homework was impossible with that racket outside. The noise of wailing guitars and raucous drums came from the house behind theirs. Rolling her eyes, she ground her teeth, and stomped off around the corner to give some idiot a piece of her mind. Just because it was September, it didn’t mean she could slack on school work.

  She pounded on the neighbor’s front door, hoping to be heard. After the second time banging her fist on it—ow—the door finally opened. The hottest boy she’d ever seen stood in the doorway, looking at her like she was the biggest inconvenience he’d ever experienced. His brown hair was spiked straight up and was that eyeliner around his baby blues?

  “What?”

  “Can you turn the music down?”

  “What for?” he yelled back.

  “I’m trying to do my math homework!”

  Pretty Boy in the Billy Idol t-shirt had the look of a light bulb moment. “Hey! You’re in my class, aren’t you?” He walked away for a moment and the volume of the music decreased by half.

  Class, class…oh God…she knew that voice…and they were having a conversation? She wished she hadn’t come over in overalls cut off at the knees and winced as her eyes fell onto her outfit. It was geeky-farmer chic. “Um, maybe? Are you in Geometry?” He could have transferred from her class. She wasn’t known for her powers of observation and was there to learn.

  “Yeah, it’s bloody boring and I think the teacher’s a boozer. You know your stuff, always raisin’ your hand. Those proofs don’ make a bit o’ sense to me.”

  “I-I could help…i-if you want. Just takes memorizing the theorems.”

  He grinned at her and leaned against the door frame. Oh my god, Jacob Lindsey smiled at me! Her cheeks turned crimson.

  “Cool. What do they call you?”

  “Beth.”

  “Well, Beth, your place or mine?”

  Oh, God, don’t faint, don’t faint… “M-my book is still…” She gestured around the corner.

  He shrugged, grabbed some books off the coffee table, and came outside. “Lead the way.”

  Beth turned for home, palms sweating. Oh God, oh God… What would Mom think when she walked in the house with a boy? With an accent? She let him in and told him to wait in the living room while she retrieved her text.

  Neighbor Boy—downgraded for touching things without asking—was rummaging in the fridge when she came back. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m thirsty.” He grabbed one of her Snapple Iced Teas.

  “You could ask first. Sit.”

  He winked at her and sprawled in a chair, his tight jeans looking…well, it wasn’t appropriate to think of it.

  She sighed and opened the book to today’s assignment. “What are you having trouble with?”

  “How about I copy yours and get out of here?”

  “Look…whatever-your-name-is, I don’t cheat. I tutor. If you want to learn, great, but that’s all you’re getting from me.”

  He clapped her on the shoulder and laughed. “I like you, kid. Fair enough. If you can make this nonsense make sense, I’ll owe ya one.”

  She smiled. “Deal…”

  “Jake. Mum calls me Jacob, but it’s so stuffy.”

  “Open that book, Jacob.”

  Beth helped him all the way to dinner time.

  Mom came out of her darkroom to the kitch
en and stopped with the weirdest look on her face when she saw them. Then, she smiled. “Elizabeth, who’s your friend?”

  “S-someone from Geometry class, Mom. Jacob needed help.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jacob. You’re welcome to stay for dinner if it’s alright with your parents.”

  Mom! What was she doing? “I-I’m sure Jacob has to go, Mom.”

  He stuffed notebook paper in his book and stood from the table. “I do. Got a date now my work’s done.” He mussed Beth’s hair. “Thanks, squirt.”

  “No problem,” she said through clenched teeth. Jerk.

  He walked out of the house and she fled to her bedroom. Squirt. Squirt! Might as well call me a ten-year-old. Why couldn’t I be cool?

  ****

  Wasn’t so bad bein’ tutored by the kid. Got his mother off his back, too. The mums had met and seemed to approve of each other, so he was free to go to Bethie’s or have her in his living room. No closed doors, of course, blah, blah…like he’d be interested in a freshman. Sure, she had a certain cuteness, but a kid was a kid.

  Two years in California and he still wasn’t used to the lack of seasons. He missed the chill in the air and leaves changin’ color. Wasn’t lonely, though…always been a popular chap and this school was no exception. Girls flirted and the guys wanted to be his friend. Soon as Mum stopped watchin’ his every move, he could have fun, too.

  That day finally came for Halloween week and his first party with the new crowd. He was over at Bethie’s to rush through homework so he could leave.

  “It’s the same time it was thirty seconds ago,” she said after he glanced at the clock. “Jacob, focus.”

  “We’ve been through the concept three times. I’ve got it.” He stole a Tootsie Roll from her pile.

  “Hey!” She slapped his hand. “Mine.”

  “You have more than me.”

  “You’ve eaten more. I counted out an equal amount, Jacob. I’m always fair.”

  “Let me leave and I’ll stop eatin’ all your candy.” He gave her the grin that usually worked on every female.

  “Fine…if you come back tomorrow and prove you retained what I said.”