He smiled as he leaned in, only stopping when his mouth was millimeters from mine. "Are you?" he whispered.
He kissed me.
It was quick. He gave me a gentle, sticky kiss right on my lips before pulling back. He broke contact, but he didn't move away.
"I think you're alive," he whispered.
Kiss.
"I think both of us are."
He gave me another kiss that was the same as the first two. Tender, easy, warm, soft but chaste kisses where our lips got stuck together a little bit each time.
"I stared at that picture," he said. "And I couldn't comprehend why we hadn't done this already. The girl I looked at in the picture… I knew what you would taste like. I knew what you would feel like. Knew how you would kiss." He kissed me again, and this time he let his mouth linger on mine. It stayed there for several long heartbeats while energy exchanged between us. The grip he had on my waist tightened, and I could feel his chest expand as he breathed.
Finally, he pulled back an inch or two.
"I knew what you would feel like, too," I whispered. A wave of anxious uncertainty washed through me on account of saying something that made me feel so vulnerable, and I bit my lip shyly.
Jake grinned at me as he let go of my waist and put his hands on each side of my face. I had hoped and prayed for this moment so fervently and for so long, that I wanted to burst into tears.
There he was.
Jake Reynolds.
Standing with his face only inches from mine, cradling me in his arms and regarding me like I was something precious—like he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. The smell of him and the sight of his face staring down at me… it was overwhelming. I had memorized every curve and line of his face—dreamed about what it would be like to touch him, kiss him.
I thought he might say something to warn me if he intended to kiss me senseless, but he didn't say anything. He just went from looking at me to kissing me senseless. Jake's lips touched mine with more pressure, and instantly, I pulled him closer, letting him know that I wanted him to stay right where he was. He took this as an invitation, which it was, and opened his mouth to me. He tilted his head to the side so that our mouths could more fully connect, and he covered me with his kiss.
I had never in my life been kissed that way.
A few guys had tried to make out with me over the years, but I had never given myself over to any of them like I did with Jake in that moment.
I relinquished all control, opening to him, letting him kiss me the way he wanted, trusting him fully. We shared a hot, wet, branding kiss—one where our tongues danced. Jake took control for several long minutes and gently poured passion and attention into me.
If there had been any doubt, this kiss solidified how Jake felt about me. It wasn't just about whatever Jana had told him. It wasn't just spiritual or even emotional what was going on between us. This was physical. This was raw, unfiltered, certified, bona fide physical passion. If there had been any question in my mind that Jake was truly attracted to me, it was gone after that kiss. He completely devastated me with it—making known his interest and desire for me. His attraction, desire, physical charge, was unmistakable. He held me and showed me with his careful attention that he was mine and I was his.
I was panting and my body was on fire by the time Jake reluctantly pulled his lips from mine.
He kissed me four times after that, twice on the mouth, and then twice lower, on the neck. My whole body was alive with sensation.
"Kristen, you make me feel like a savage person," he breathed, close to my ear. "You're so pure. Perfect. You're amazing. I'm sorry to just come out and say it frank like this, but I'm gonna marry you, K.K. You should probably know that. I wish we were married right now so I could… I'm gonna compromise you so much; it's not even funny."
I let out a little laugh. "You're gonna compromise me?" I asked.
"Yes," he said seriously, his nose next to my cheek. "The most you've ever been compromised."
"That wouldn't take a whole lot," I said. "In fact, you might have already managed to do that."
Jake rubbed his face with his hand, making a dramatic, pained expression that said he was having trouble with the temptation. He looked around shifting his eyes this way and that as if he might actually find what he was looking for at the beach at night. "Is there a preacher around here?"
I laughed. A genuine laugh… not one where I was trying to be cute or seductive, a true, that hit me as funny laugh. Jake ducked, pressing his mouth to mine while I was smiling. His mouth came down on my smile, but quickly, it softened, all humor replaced with that aching desire to kiss him again.
He let his mouth touch mine several more times, moaning with discontent when he finally pulled back again.
"What is wrong with me that … (kiss)… this is the first time I …(kiss)…did this?" (Another kiss.)
"I have no idea… (kiss) what you just said."
He moaned. "Is it too early to tell you that you're gonna have my babies?"
I let out a little laugh, shaking my head at him. In typical Jake fashion, the lighthearted delivery of that question was funny and irresistible. He was being silly, but I knew the feeling behind the question was real, and the thought of having his babies made my stomach flip again.
He kissed my neck. "Where do we start?" he asked, smelling the skin below and behind my ear.
"It seems like this is… as… good… a place as any," I said, getting choked on my words as he placed his open mouth on the edge of my ear.
"I mean besides this," he said. "Shouldn't I take you to dinner or a movie or something?"
"It's ten at night."
"What about tomorrow?" he asked again wrapping his arms around my waist.
"What is tomorrow?" I asked, feeling dazed.
"Sunday," he said, kissing me on my jaw. "But does it really matter what day it is?"
"I don't reckon it does." I said.
"Did you say the word reckon?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I love you," he said.
"Because I said reckon?"
"No, that's just what made me say it. I loved you before that. I've been thinking about it all day. I thought about you. I realized it was you all along. I should have known it when I hated that guy you were dating. I should have known it was more than not liking him as a person. Please tell me you're gonna tell that guy you're not going to see him anymore. I've seen the way he looks at you, and I'm sorry but I can't bear to think of him being around you—even if it's innocent on your end."
"I don't care about seeing him," I said. "It's gonna be super awkward to tell him, but, that's just part of life, I guess."
"Do you want to be with me?" Jake asked.
"Yes," I said without hesitation.
"Only me?" he asked.
He was genuinely hopeful—as if I might be uncertain about it.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Say it," he said, knowing good and well where I stood.
My infatuation with Jake wasn't talked about, but it wasn’t necessarily the biggest secret.
"Please let me hear you say it," he said, closing his eyes and turning his head to listen intently. I stretched upward, placing my mouth close to his ear.
"You might as well be the only male human being on the face of this earth, Jake Reynolds. I can see no other man. Even when I try, I can't. It's a good thing you seem to like me because I'm relatively sure I'm incapable of liking anyone else."
He opened his eyes as I spoke, regarding me as if to measure whether or not I was telling the truth. "So, in summary…" he said, "…you love me."
"Yes."
He regarded me some more, but after a few seconds, he tilted his head at me. "I want you to hop on my back," he said.
The sudden change of subject took me by surprise, and I let out a little laugh.
"I'm serious," he said. "I want you to do it, and not because I'm just trying to make you get closer to me." He paused, consideri
ng that. "It'll be a bonus to have you there, but that's not why I want to do it."
"Why then?"
"I'm amped, and I feel like I could use a workout." He gave me a self-deprecating grin. "I've been waiting to talk to you all day, and I feel like I could burst out of my own skin. Honestly, it would do my body good to let off some steam, get my cardio up."
"You can't carry me long enough to get your cardio up," I said with a scowl. "I thought you were talking about carrying me a few steps. I'm too heavy."
He shook his head. "No, you're not. And I'm not running a race or anything. I just want to carry you around on the beach."
Without further argument, I hopped onto Jake's back, and he waded ankle-deep into the water, meandering in big circles around the shore. He looped around, walking further into the water than we had been. His body shifted underneath me, and I had to ignore the sensations caused by it. We were deep enough now that I could hear the sound of water sloshing.
"How deep is it?" I asked.
"Look down," he said.
"I can't, I'm gonna throw you off balance."
"No, you're not."
"What if we fall in?" I asked.
Obviously, that was the wrong question, because the next thing I knew, we were in the water.
Chapter 15
Jake and I didn't leave the beach until after midnight.
We waded out into the ocean, and he talked to me, held me, kissed me, and inspected my face like I was some precious piece of treasure that he had just discovered. It was one of the most beautiful nights of my life.
Okay, so it was the most beautiful one.
Absolutely magnificent.
I wanted the evening to go on and on, but we had to be up early, so we finally agreed that we needed to call it a night. He kissed me time and time again—even in the parking lot as I was leaving, he ducked and put his head in my window as if he just couldn’t quit—just couldn’t let me go.
Afterward, on my way home, and even once I got there, I had a permanent smile affixed to my face. I was so elated that it had taken a while for me to finally fall asleep. I thought about the whole encounter, replaying moments, and feeling that ache over and over again as I remembered each kiss, each touch.
Jake rarely talked about his late mother, but he opened up about her during our conversation that night. He said that I reminded him of her, and that maybe subconsciously he discounted me as a suitable match because of it. He saw what his dad had gone through and was still going through as a result of losing 'such a pure soul', that he didn't want to put himself in that kind of danger.
He had said that to me when we were soaked and standing chest-deep in the ocean. I had listened to him, but the whole evening had been so surreal that it was difficult for me to truly take it in as it happened.
I was up until after 3am, replaying bits and pieces of conversations, and reliving moments.
It was Sunday, and I was scheduled to volunteer in the student ministry. I had to be there at 8, so I set my alarm for 7. Less than four hours was nowhere near enough sleep, but I still woke up in a great mood.
I led a small group that was made up of five girls, and a remark about my good mood was the first thing one of them said to me when she saw me walking up the sidewalk toward the building.
"You look happy!" Her name was Beverly, and she was one of my favorites. Beverly was a name you didn't hear very much on a such a young person, and I thought it was cool to have a friend named Beverly who was thirteen.
"I do?" I asked, faking surprise.
Beverly wasn't the only one standing at the door. There were at least four other people close by—a couple of students and a leader or two. But Beverly was the one who was holding the door open for me.
"Uh, yeah, duh," she made an overly skeptical face. "You, like, have this huge smile on your face."
"I do not," I lied.
"Did you win the lottery or something?" The question came from Quentin, a college-age leader who was standing nearby.
I came fully inside so Beverly could close the door, and we hugged each other as was customary.
"I know what happened," Beverly said. She spoke in a tone that said she had a juicy piece of gossip, and her eyebrows were wiggling all over the place. She stared down at my hands—one and then the other. "Where is it? Do you not have it on? I thought that was why you were all smile-y and over the moon."
"Why?"
She glanced around by cutting her eyes from left to right like she was about say something she didn't want anyone to hear. "My dad said he said 'spare no expense'."
"On what?" I asked. "And who said that?"
Bev's expression was intense. "Your boyfriend," she whispered. "He bought you something at my dad's store. Dad said he was gonna give it to you this weekend."
Beverly's father was Dan Keeling of Dan Keeling Fine Jewelry, and my heart instantly went into overdrive. Granted, I had only had a few hours of sleep, so my math skills weren't as sharp as they should have been. But, my first and only thought was to wonder how in the world Jake had time to get to a jewelry store in the wee hours of Sunday morning. He said he had been thinking about me all day on Saturday, so maybe he had done it then.
"Preston told my dad he was thinking about giving it to you at a baseball game. Did he do that?" She wrinkled her nose as if to say she hoped he didn't.
"Preston?" I asked, looking as shocked as I felt.
Preston was not my boyfriend. After the night I had spent with Jake, I barely even remembered his name.
"Yes, Preston," Beverly said. "What other boyfriend do you have?"
"Preston's not my…" I was so far removed from thinking about Preston, that the mention of him had me reeling. I had been about to insist that Preston wasn't my boyfriend. He certainly didn’t feel like my boyfriend. But then, I realized that maybe he was my boyfriend. I had been talking to him for a little over a month, and he had been to a couple of functions where he met these people. In my mind, it was barely casual… barely more than friends. But maybe other people considered Preston my boyfriend. Maybe Preston thought he was my boyfriend. I had certainly never introduced him as that nor had we ever talked about it.
Everything that had happened with Jake the night before seemed so final and true compared to anything that had happened between Preston and me. I had all but put Preston out of my mind before Beverly said his name.
"Preston got me something at your dad's store?" I asked, shock still showing on my face.
She smiled. "My dad said he got him a discount, and Preston still paid a ton for it." She glanced around and then whispered. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that."
"Tell her what?" Piper asked, overhearing as she came to stand near us.
I didn't even care that Piper had walked up and was now listening. "Please tell me it's not an engagement ring," I said the instant the thought hit me.
"What? No. It's a bracelet. I thought he gave it to you already." Beverly paused. She could see by my expression that I had no idea what she was talking about. "Please don't tell my dad," she said. "He made me swear not to tell you anything about it or how much he paid or anything. I just thought he would have given it to you by now. My dad said he was giving it to you this weekend."
"Who's giving her what?" Piper asked.
"A bracelet," Beverly said. "Her boyfriend bought this diamond bracelet at my dad's store."
"It's diamond?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, lots of diamonds. He had it custom designed. My dad was all excited about making it for you. He said Preston stayed in his store for like two hours when he ordered it—asking Dad all kinds of questions about you since he knew you've been close to our family for so long. Dad told him about that time when you were babysitting and we gave the dog a punk-rock hairstyle with that colored hairspray. Remember that? You're gonna love that bracelet. I thought for sure you'd have it on. Dad made a little camera charm for it. Dang it! I wasn't supposed to tell you any of this. I can't believe Preston hasn't given i
t to you yet. Dad said he picked it up Friday. I thought that was why you looked so happy when you were walking up here."
Her words had come out quickly and in one continuous stream as we started walking toward the coffee bar.
"He's not my boyfriend," I said, mumbling numbly once she was done.
"What do you mean? Did y'all break up? I'm sorry. You seemed so happy walking up that I just thought—"
"We never were together," I said.
"What? Yes, y'all were. He came to the VERB conference with you."
"I know, but just because I'm hanging out with somebody doesn't mean he's my boyfriend."
"Well, I think y'all are cute. Plus, he really likes you if he's willing to spend almost ten-thousand-dollars on a bracelet."
"You weren't supposed to tell me that," I said plugging my own ears.
She shrugged. "I just wanted to help y'all get back together. I thought you might be interested in how much he spent."
"That would not make me want to get together with him," I said. "If anything, the opposite."
I was thinking: Do you know what the Hope Center could do with that kind of money? Do you know what I could do in my studio with that kind of money? There were so many things I would rather spend ten-thousand on than a bracelet. I didn't say as much to Beverly. She was proud of whatever her father had made, and I knew I needed to hide my disappointment.
I was scheduled to work the coffee bar, and I could see they needed help, so without hesitating, I stepped around the counter.
"He hasn't given it to me yet," I said with a simple shrug aimed at Beverly.
"Text us a picture of it when he does," she said. "My dad will probably want to post it on his website."
"I will," I said, smiling even though I was now full of dread.
***
The morning passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was on my way home... not to Bill and Jana's guesthouse, but to my actual home—my mom and dad's place, which was forty-five minutes north of Miami. We didn't see a ton of each other, but Kayla and I tried to make it up there for Sunday lunch about every other week.
Jake called me when I was on my way there. I was operating on very little sleep, and I had been so busy all morning that I almost had myself believing that the previous night had been a dream. I felt a sizzling jolt of electricity shoot through my stomach when I saw his name on my phone.
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