Taken By The Heart (4 Contemporary Romance Novellas)

by Sierra Rose

  He smiled and plunged himself inside, and as he began to move inside me, an explosion of lust washed over my body. As I shuddered at the feel of him filling me up, I watched the satisfied pleasure in his eyes rake over me during my pinnacle of pleasure. He too arrived very quickly, no doubt from the teasing done on the airplane.

  “Damn, Miranda, what are you doing to me?” he gasped in my ear as his hand stroked my hair.

  I smiled. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  ***

  “Mom, Dad, Jeanette, this is Miranda,” Chris said as we wandered into the kitchen of Chris’s parents’ home. A couple in their mid-fifties was sitting at barstools that were perched at the edge of the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room. What could only be described as a girl version of Chris, only shorter, was standing in the kitchen wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, with long wavy blonde hair and eyes identical to Chris’s. She had the physique of a runner, and as I glanced at Chris’s mom, I could see where Chris and his sister got their looks from.

  Jeanette cocked her head to the side, looked at me, then looked at Chris. “Miranda?”

  I swallowed nervously at her odd question. I wondered why she seemed to take offense at my name, or maybe Chris hadn’t told them about me? I looked to Chris and saw him laughing nervously.

  Through gritted teeth, he smiled at his sister and said, “Yes, Miranda. I told you about her, J. Remember?” I could swear I saw his eyes get big.

  Okay… this was weird.

  I plastered a smile on my face and extended my hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  She shook my proffered hand and smiled at me, then her eyes flicked back to Chris.

  His parents put their wineglasses down and came into the kitchen and shook my hand. His mother, Amy, asked, “Would you like some wine?”

  I nodded. “Sure, that would be great.”

  “Red or white, honey?” she asked, and I could detect a slight southern drawl.

  “White, please,” I replied.

  With drinks in hand, we sat in their large living room, which stepped down from the dining room and had shiny hardwood floors with a beautiful throw rug in the center of it. A large dark brown leather sectional took up most of the room and a rock-encased fireplace sat at its helm, a large 50-inch flat screen TV mounted above it. There was some sort of football game playing on mute.

  As we sat, I looked at Chris’s mother. “You have a beautiful home.”

  She smiled. “Thank you,” she replied. She looked at Chris. “I like this one.”

  He grinned. “I do, too.”

  Jeanette came into the living room and sat down, eyeing me curiously. “So, Miranda, what do you do?”

  I cleared my throat and smiled. “I’m a student at U.C. San Diego. I do work part-time at a clothing store, though.”

  She sipped her wine but kept staring at me.

  What is this chick’s deal?

  “So what are you majoring in?”

  “Criminal Justice.”

  She lifted an eyebrow and looked at Chris. “Wow, you might want to keep this one around, C. She doesn’t seem like she’ll take any of your shit.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “No, she won’t.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on dinner,” Jeanette said, excusing herself.

  I nodded and watched her walk into the kitchen. His parents, who were very nice and down-to-earth, chatted me up politely and I watched as Jeanette left the kitchen and disappeared down a hallway.

  “I’ll be right back,” Chris said, setting his glass down and going down toward the kitchen. I watched from the corner of my eye as he disappeared down the same hallway and wondered what kind of family drama I had gotten involved with.

  CHAPTER 6

  The week flew by in Miami. We went waterskiing, boating on his cousin’s boat, and spent a few evenings in the hotel wearing each other out and having a great time. I was utterly happy and felt like I was falling in love as Chris dropped me at the airport to head to San Francisco. I didn’t want to leave, but knew I had to.

  “I’ll see you in two weeks,” he said, looking down into my eyes as he had his arms around me.

  I looked up at him, confused. “But I’ll be back to San Diego in a week.”

  “I have one of my ops weekends the weekend you get back, so we’ll hook up the weekend after, okay?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can wait that long to see you.”

  He leaned down and softly kissed my lips as I melted against him. “I promise it’ll be worth the wait.”

  I grinned. “That’s my line.”

  He hugged me once more as I headed toward airport security and tried not to think about how long two weeks would be.

  “Hi, honey,” my dad said as he got out of his car at the curb of the San Francisco airport. He hugged me and then hoisted my suitcase into the trunk of his black Infinity sedan. He lifted an eyebrow. “Zebra print?”

  I just laughed. “It’s pretty.”

  As we drove toward my small town, Dad caught me up on all the family gossip and told me how he was already tired of Grandma being there. He made me laugh with a few new jokes he had for me, and I was happy to be home. While my mother and I had a strained relationship (I always felt she favored my older sister), my dad and I had an easy-going, fun relationship and I missed him dearly when I was gone. I hadn’t decided if I was moving back up to the Bay Area or not when I finished college, but if I did, he would be the only reason. My mother and sister were best dealt with at arm’s length.

  When we reached my house, my mom, sister, and grandmother were there, and while I had only been gone for a semester, it felt like longer and I was happy to see everyone. I hadn’t seen my grandmother in a couple of years and she looked the same, which somehow relieved me.

  A couple of nights after I got there, Mom made a huge lasagna dinner. After dessert and the dishes were done, Grandma and I sat down.

  “So how is school, young lady?” she asked. My grandma was always very mentally sharp. At almost 90 years old, she swears by an aspirin a day and a martini to wash it down. She sipped on hers as she eyed me over the top of her glass.

  “It’s great, Grams. I am meeting a lot of new people and my classes are really interesting,” I exaggerated.

  “And the boys?”

  I laughed. “Yes, there are boys. Lots of cute boys, Grams.”

  Her wrinkled red lips twisted up into a smile. “I bet there are. You got those big military bases down there, too. Lots of eye candy!”

  “Grams!” I barked out a laugh. My grandma loves the Internet and I could only imagine what she looked at on there. I just never thought I’d hear her use a term like ‘eye candy.’

  “What? Don’t tell try to tell me you haven’t been eyeing a few,” she said with a cackle.

  I nodded. “Well there is one, he’s pretty hot.”

  She leaned in closer, biting the olive off of the little plastic spear. “Do tell, dear.”

  I filled her in about Chris, what he did for a living, and how we met, et cetera. I left out my trip to Miami and all the hot sex. I didn’t think Grams needed to hear that.

  “So is he hot in bed or what?” she asked, annoyed that I had left it out.

  Okay so I guess I underestimated her…

  “Grams! A girl never kisses and tells.”

  She laughed and smacked my arm. “Oh screw that. Tell me! I don’t get any these days. I have to live vicariously through you!”

  Oh, my God…

  I gave her a very watered-down version, totally turning red the entire time, but she was thoroughly amused. Then she suddenly got serious. “Miranda, listen. You need to be careful with those saucy military men. They have reputations as being womanizers.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  She hugged me and told me she needed to go lie down, so I went into my old room and plugged in my laptop. As it w
as booting up, I looked at my phone and I again had no texts or calls from Chris. Once my laptop booted up, I saw I didn’t have any emails from him, either.

  I stared at my phone and debated texting him. Why are we even playing these games, I wondered. I sent him a quick text. Hi. I miss you.

  It took fifteen minutes, but he did respond. You too.

  I frowned at his impersonal response and decided I was just going to have a nice time with my family and deal with Chris later. I didn’t have time for this drama.

  I surfed the Web and checked Facebook for a while to see what everyone was doing for the holidays, and I realized I had never even checked to see if Chris had a Facebook account. I did a search of his name but I didn’t get any results that I believed were actually him, just similar names or wrong locations. I heard the laptop chime with an incoming email and I smiled when I saw it was from Chris. The subject line read: I think you should see this.

  Intrigued, I opened it up and clicked on the video attachment, and a large box popped up, prompting me to hit play. I wondered if he had sent me a video message or something and I got excited.

  As the video began to play, music accompanying the video also began to play with the Carrie Underwood song, “Before He Cheats” and I briefly wondered why he was sending me a Carrie Underwood video – until spliced photographs of Chris began to play in a slideshow format across the screen. They were all photos of Chris with a brunette. In the park kissing. Posing together on a boat, him in swim trunks, her in a bikini. She was a beautiful brunette with a perfect body and perfect boobs and super long, straight hair and perfect teeth. There were more photos of them leaning up against a yellow Ferrari at what looked like some sort of car show. She had her arms around his waist, and if the camera had a back view, I was sure it would show his hand on her ass. There were photos of them at a carnival, a restaurant, and even at the circus of all places. I wondered why Chris would send me pictures of him with some girl, then wondered if this was maybe his ex-girlfriend, until I froze the slideshow on a photo of them at the car show. I zoomed in and saw a sign in the background of the car show that showed the name of the show and the year – which was the current one. A quick Google search of the car show told me the show had been held three weeks ago.

  I felt like I was going to be sick. I couldn’t believe this was happening… I knew that Chris and I never spoke of exclusivity, and that from the day I met him, every day spent after that with him was a gift, so to speak. Most one-night-stands never extend beyond that and I always wondered, and even second-guessed myself, about why Chris wanted to see me again. Over the past four months, I had convinced myself that my female wiles and charm had won him over and that I had something he really wanted. I had been persuaded by my own heart that things were going great with Chris and things were going to continue to move forward. He was loving, attentive, unselfish in bed, and was always a gentleman. So where had I gone wrong? What did this brunette have that I didn’t? After all, he had brought me home to meet his parents… didn’t that mean something? I was confused, and when a tear leaked down my cheek and splashed onto the hand hovering over the laptop’s scroll-pad, I just then realized I was crying.

  A knock on the door caused me to smack the laptop closed and I quickly swiped across my cheeks before calling out, “Come in!”

  My dad’s smiling face greeted me. He was tall, probably as tall as Chris, and his once-red hair was now peppered with gray and white. I thought he still looked handsome for his age, but again, I was biased. “Hi, sweetie. What’s up?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Were you on the phone?” he asked, indicating my phone in my hand.

  “No, just surfing the Web.” I pointed to the closed laptop.

  He studied me intently and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head again. “Nothing, Dad.”

  “Come on, princess. You can’t lie to me.”

  At hearing my childhood nickname, the dam broke open and a torrent of words spewed forth, and I didn’t stop until I needed a breath. I really did not want to tell anyone about this, as I most certainly felt selfish, but Dad had caught me at a vulnerable moment, and I always was more vulnerable around him.

  Dad said nothing, just pulled me into his arms as I cried, and as he smoothed down my hair, he kissed the top of my head and waited for my sobs to stop.

  When I had somewhat composed myself, he pulled me back and looked at me. “So, are you going to talk to Chris about this?”

  I looked down. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I, for one, feel he owes you an explanation. Even if your confrontation just makes him squirm, you need to address it, then move on. He can’t get away with doing this to girls. He’s giving us guys a bad name,” he finished with a half-smile.

  I sighed. “I just don’t understand why he’d send me this video himself. It was very weird.”

  My dad’s eyes got big. “He sent it to you?” I nodded. “May I see the email?” he asked.

  I nodded and opened the laptop and pulled up the email. The “From” box said “Chris Ferguson” but then my dad clicked a few buttons and brought up the properties and said, “It appears someone else sent this, but changed the ‘from’ name to Chris’s.”

  “What’s the email address?”

  He spun the laptop towards me and pointed. “It says JMiami1990 at yahoo dot com.”

  I didn’t know who it was, but I did know one person with the first initial of “J” who lived in Miami. I didn’t think Chris’s sister liked me very much when we met, but it was probably that she was more surprised that I wasn’t the brunette in all these photos that he’d obviously been sharing with her and whoever else.

  ***

  After the holidays were over, I arrived back in San Diego and wondered what I was going to say to Chris. He had sent me a few lame texts but I didn’t respond to any of them except the very last one, my response being: We need to talk. I knew guys hated that and I was secretly pleased that it would stress him out. As I was boarding the plane, my phone rang with Chris’s smiling face on the screen but I ignored it.

  I told Stephanie and Jayda about what I’d found, just to get their take on it. While I felt humiliated and embarrassed, I thought maybe it would help to get their view on things, since they both seemed pretty schooled in the ways of boys. Not that I was some spring chicken, but I had never been this heavily involved with anyone – not even in high school – and I was just still in shock. I was hoping there was a logical explanation for it all.

  “I don’t know, girl. Those military guys are total players. This doesn’t shock me at all,” Stephanie said, applying one last coat of purple polish to her nails.

  Jayda looked at me sympathetically and bit her lip. “I guess I should tell you he hit on me once, too.”

  My eyes got big. “Are you serious?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you, and now I’m kicking myself. It wasn’t anything too raunchy or anything. He’s just a flirty person and he asked if I wanted to get a drink or something after work when he came into the restaurant one night with his friends while I was working. I blew him off, but it did bother me for a bit.”

  I sighed and looked down.

  “Anyway, when did he have time to go out with other people? He’s been with you every weekend, right?”

  “Every other weekend,” I corrected her.

  Stephanie was blowing on her nails and she gave me a look. “Where was he every other weekend?”

  “Well,” I answered, “he had those ops or whatever they’re called.”

  She snorted. “They don’t have training every other weekend, girl. They do that like three times a year. My brother’s in the Marines. Trust me, he’s not gone every other weekend.”

  “Effing great,” I mumbled.

  Just then, my phone rang. Chris. “Should I answer it?” I held the phone up to show the girls the screen.

  Stephanie raised an eyebrow. “If
you don’t, I will.” Her expression was hard.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, my God, I’ve been texting and calling, where have you been?” he asked, trying to sound concerned but I could tell he was more stressed out.

  “Yeah, meet me at Starbucks outside the campus in thirty minutes,” I ordered.

  “Want me to pick you up?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He paused. “Okay, see you then.”

  I ordered a black coffee and sat at a table. Right as I sat, I saw Chris come in and my stomach did a backflip. He looked so good and I wanted to just bolt out and leave. He spotted me immediately and came to the table and stood for a minute, waiting for me to stand so he could hug me. I placed a hard expression on my face and remained in my seat, fumbling with the strings on my UCSD hoodie.

  “What’s wrong, beautiful?” he asked, smiling but I could see stress in his eyes.

  I looked down at the phone in my hand, which was already set to play the video I had received on email, and I swiped the screen and hit play. I set the phone down on the table and wordlessly slid it over to him.

  His gaze lingered on my face, seemingly searching for a hint on what was to come, but eventually his eyes slipped down to the phone and the slideshow with that angry Carrie Underwood song blaring out of the phone’s small speakers. It was up kind of loud, but I really didn’t care.

  He watched about thirty seconds and I saw him swallow hard, until he tapped the screen to shut it off and slid the phone back to me. His eyes found mine once again, and a myriad of emotions passed over his face: mortification, embarrassment, panic, then pain. “Where did you get this?”