~ ~ Bethany Rogers ~ ~

Eight Years Prior

The warmth of his hand set the blood in my veins to bubble and boil, making me want to toss off my covers so he could see me... touch every part of me.

In particular, the wet flesh between my legs.

"Yesss," I managed, but it came out more like a squeak. Conviction vanished from my voice in response to the throbbing where my hand sat in my underwear.

I stared up at his mouth as one side raised in a sexy smirk. His lips parted and his tongue slid across his bottom lip and I didn't even try to hide the groan. "Chris...please..." I breathed out.

He narrowed his gaze slightly, his warm brown eyes darker than usual, and filled with something I couldn't quite make out. "You want me, don't you, Bethany?" He pushed a hand through my hair and cupped my jaw. His hand was firm but gentle as his thumb stroked my bottom lip.

I let out a sigh, and my heart almost gave out. "I love it when you use my full name. Say it. Say it again."

He leaned forward, and his breath tickled my lips. "Bethany, Bethany. My sweet little Bethany." I let out a whimper. "Christ," he uttered as his lips bypassed mine and traced a path down the side of my face, each small kiss lightening up my insides. "You're so beautiful. You don't realise what you do to me, baby." Baby...I liked that just as much and shivered. "The things I want to do to you."

"Oh God, me too." I groaned as I wrapped my legs around him and rubbed against him, hoping he knew how much I wanted him. "I'm yours, Chris..." I whispered, and just as our lips were about to touch, a crash bludgeoned the moment.

"BETH!"

Dragged, almost kicking and screaming, back into the real world. I yanked my hand out of my underwear with a grumble... just when things were about to get good in my fantasy land.

"HAAAAAPPPY BIRTHDAAAAY!!" squealed Hazel, my foster sister, as the door slammed into the wall and she threw herself onto my bed almost catapulting me off the darn thing. Oomph!

Hazel was fifteen.

And today. I turned nineteen.

I blinked a few times, and my eyes swept across the white ceiling above me.

"C'mon. Get up!" she said excitedly, jackknifing into the sitting position, and popping a strawberry lollipop into her mouth.

I couldn't believe she needed a sugar rush this early. And I'd told her countless times, she would live to regret them.

"C'mmmmmon," she shrieked again and my poor eardrums winced "April said we can't eat until you get your lazy butt from bed!" She rose to her feet and bounced on my bed before jumping off and running from the room as fast as she'd come in.

Ugh. Now don't get me wrong. I loved her enthusiasm. Just not at seven am. But it didn't stop a smile from worming itself free.

I'm nineteen!!

An adult. Although technically I was an adult at eighteen and yet nothing changed at all. So I was pinning hopes on nineteen. And with my heart still racing, I threw off the covers and got my ass outta bed and skipped to my bathroom and peered into the mirror.

The girl looking back at me, all big eyes and prominent cheekbones, looked no different to eighteen-year-old me.

My shoulders sagged a little, not sure what I was expecting. I bunched up my hair in my hand and cocked my head a little to the side and briefly considered cutting my hair shorter.

Would that make me look older?

Rolling my eyes at my stupid thoughts, I flipped around and turned the shower on and by the time I'd finished getting ready, my family was all waiting for me in the kitchen.

They all sang out when they saw me. "Happy Birthday!" With Hazel's voice drowning out the others.

April moved toward me with open arms and hugged me. "Hey, birthday girl. You want the birthday special—all-you-can-eat pancakes?" She pulled back and cupped my cheeks. "Extra syrup and blueberries?"

I hummed. "Nah, I'm good. I might just have something simple."

Something more grown up.

She pulled her head back with a disbelieving look. "What!? No pancakes?" She lifted a hand and placed it across my forehead. "You feeling alright, sugar?"

"She's fine..." Cal moved past us, ruffling my hair, like he always did. "Happy Birthday, kiddo," he said again.

"I'll have pancakes, April," Hazel chimed in banging her feet on the floor under the table. "Puleeeeze," she pleaded.

"Me too," threw in my brother, Beck.

April's face lit up. "Well, it looks like I'm needed after all." She pressed a kiss to my forehead. "You want your presents now, or later?"

"Hmm, later." I grabbed an apple and sat at the table.

Beck looked up from his electronic device and smiled at me across the table. It was his birthday last week. He was now fourteen. "Are we still on to see that film later?" he asked.

I was well aware they'd organised a little party for me later, and it was his and Hazel's job to get me out the way today—although I wasn't supposed to know. But Hazel and secrets didn't mix well, kinda like water and gasoline.

Normally I hated the attention and last year on my eighteenth birthday I talked them into taking a trip to Florida.

So this year, they seemed dead set on marking the occasion.

And secretly, I was hoping it meant Cal's brother, Chris, might come over. Chris was a doctor—a life-saving surgeon and lived and worked in Lockwood Creek, not two hours away. Sadly, he didn't visit as often as I would have liked.

And with that thought, my head went straight back to my earlier daydream.

"Beth!"

I felt my foot nudged under the table. "Huh?" I looked over at Beck.

"Did you hear me?"

My cheeks heated. "Sorry. Yeah, we're still on." I sank my teeth into the apple.

As they dished up breakfast, I sat and watched everyone. Weirdly, it was every year on my birthday that I took the extra time to appreciate all my blessings.

Me and Beck had so much to be thankful for.

Here, we were loved. Wanted.

And we had Dr Chris Chambers to thank for it, because he talked his brother, Cal, into fostering us both even though they were trying for their own family. As it turned out, they were unable to have kids of their own and April would often say we were her miracle kids.

When we first came to live with them, I longed for them to adopt us through proper channels. But my daddy, who was currently serving a thirty-year prison sentence for first-degree aggravated robbery, had refused to waive his parental rights.

He was due for parole in three years, not that I was ever gonna be waiting outside the gates for him when he got out. Hell no. I'd be happier knowing I'd never have to see him again.

Life when he was around wasn't great, but from the day he got sent down, our lives got steadily worse. It didn't help that it left my mama to find a ten thousand dollars fine and, after trying to cope in the best way she knew how, she turned to a string of men to look after her. Each one being no better and sometimes worse than the one before.

April and Cal had also fostered other kids over the years. They were good people. The best.

And I couldn't love them more if they were my actual parents.

They offered to help pay for me to go to college, but I attended community college for Early Childhood Education instead.

Yeah, I thanked my lucky stars every day for the gift of these good people.

~ ~

As the day drew on, it was seventy-five degrees here in Big Springs. With the windows rolled down; I smiled up at the perfect sky. Cloudless blue.

Having spent the last few hours with my brother and Hazel, they now sat beside me in my truck. My baby. She was Chevy 63 and when April and Cal had gotten her for me for my last birthday, I'd cried for ten minutes straight because it looked like the one from that movie, Twilight; Bella's Swan's truck.

Cal had found her just in time before she was about to be crushed into nothing, and he fixed her up good. He even got her a new paint job, so the colour matched.

My best friend, Lana, thought I was crazy. She said I should have hinted I wanted something shiny and new. I didn't want shiny and new. Yeah, she was old, but she was a keeper and I would choose her over a shiny new model any day of the week... and twice on Sundays.

"You're talking out your ass, Beck Rogers!" said Hazel, who was sitting in the middle of me and my brother as they argued which film was better. The contenders for first prize were Harry Potter or Star Wars. Honestly, I didn't mind either.

"Will you two quit it already? We're almost there."

Driving back home, I had a belly full of nerves as we turned into our street and the house came into view. But it wasn't the house that had my insides doing flip-flops. It was all the cars in the driveway and a few more along the road, too.

Heck. I hadn't expected that many people and I swallowed as my eyes darted from car to car, searching out one in particular... hoping.

Hope that he might come. Hope that he might see me as an adult now that I was nineteen. Hope that he might feel a fraction of what I felt for him.

Hope was the most dangerous feeling of them all.

And I hadn't been a huge fan of it... until again, Chris Chambers gave me a reason to believe.

I didn't like to think about the night we met. At eleven years old, he had been the first ray of light in my dark, insignificant life and waking up in the hospital to find him holding my hand whilst he was fast asleep. I'd weirdly felt closer to him than anyone else.

And he was also the first person who didn't break their promise to me and Beck.

Honestly, at the time I'd wished me and my brother could go live with him and I almost begged him on one occasion and not because of the feelings I now harboured for him.

No.

They came later.

And oh, boy.

I wasn't sure what to do with them. Other than pine from afar... and hope, of course.

I bit into my bottom lip. No one knew about my secret feelings for Chris. Everyone would think me crazy. He was seventeen years older for a start. And the last thing I needed was more time with a shrink.

Or worse, him finding out and feeling sorry for me.

My stomach dropped. His car wasn't there.

Parking the truck. Beck unclipped his belt and was already halfway out the door with Hazel hot on his tail.

He's a busy man. What the heck did I expect?

Sighing out, I sat there and gave myself a pep talk now that the disappointment of him not coming settled in my guts.

And it shouldn't matter that one person wasn't here. Inside that house were many others that loved me and that should be enough.

Quit being ungrateful!

Flipping the visor, I checked myself out in the small compact mirror. "Smile and act surprised!" Plastering on a smile, I made my way inside the house.

Standing just inside the doorway, closing the door, I drank in the silence and tried to listen to what it was telling me whilst craning my head to look down the hallway into the kitchen.

Nope. No one was there.

"Hey, where y'all at?" I called out, playing my part.

Heading into the main room. "Surprise!" and "Happy Birthday!" came from all directions as cheerful faces greeted me.

My half-genuine smile spread to every one of them as they all descended on me. Hugging and kissing me.

Cal's parents, Jim and Rita, were first to swoop in and I was almost knocked off my feet when I opened their gift. It was a beautiful gold initial necklace with the letter B encrusted in what looked like real diamonds to me.

Rita moved to stand behind me and fastened it in place, and I rushed to the nearest mirror to check it out. I felt a prick of tears and thanked them again.

They gave me more gifts, and then more people arrived, mostly Cal and April's friends.

Even Cal's younger brother, Jamie, hugged me. He always seemed to avoid me and I didn't know why.

Cal was the eldest of three brothers. Jamie was married to Claire, and they had four children. Chris was the youngest and the only one not married.

April had let it slip twice that Chris and Jamie didn't get on, but no one had ever said what the deal was with that. But I had to wonder if that was the reason he had not shown up today.

As I finished thanking everyone for their kind gifts, April was last to hug me, whispering in my ear. "Let me guess. It wasn't a surprise?"

There was little point in lying. I had always been a terrible liar.

April eased back with a knowing smile. "Hazel?"

I shrugged, and she shook her head, rolling her eyes. She was about to say something else when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" Spinning around to go answer.

I was halfway down the hall when the door opened and my lips parted and my heart kicked up a beat.

Chris.

My feet came to a halt.

My eyes went wide.

He was here and his lips pulled up at the sides and the lines bracketing his mouth deepened and my breath hitched as his full smile came into view. The one I saw in my dreams, and I had to practically pant air into my lungs.

"Hey sweetheart," he said, closing the door behind him.

Taking a deep breath. I told myself to chill out. But still, my words came out all breathy. "You're here. You came..."

I took a moment to absorb him, soak in his nearness. Dreams of him paled compared to reality. In my dreams, I couldn't smell his citrusy scent or notice the nuances of his brown eyes. Not to mention standing a few feet away, he woke up every single one of my goosebumps.

"Of course I came. It's your birthday!" And his eyes went comically large. "Nineteen, huh?" he hummed. "I'm thinking you might be a little old for what I got you here."

He was holding a small gift box, but I was lost having forgotten how potent his voice was, more grainy, deeper.

It had been a few months since his last visit, and I knew I was staring and had to force myself to look at the small box. Closer, he held it out, and I took it and stared at it. It was like I was having one of those crazy out-of-body experiences.

"Aren't you gonna open it?" he asked with a tease in his tone.

I nodded too quickly and pulled off the pink bow and lifted the lid. I gasped. There sat a delicate little ornament. It was a small golden and green dragon, like the one I'd told him about.

When I was a kid, I used to tell Beck a dragon would come one day and save us. Take us away. And last year, when I had officially turned eighteen, an adult, I had told Chris he had been my Dragon.

Not a knight in white shining armour, as all the stories told. No, he was a beautiful and magnificent dragon, bound by courage and honour to protect those he loved.

I was sure he had thought me stir-crazy. So for him to buy me this...now.

"You like it?" he asked, a little unsure.

Liked it? Was he kidding me?

"It's perfect," I whispered as my eyes suddenly felt a little grainy, heavy, and the pile of emotion in my chest moved up to my throat.

God, why did he have to be so wonderful? So thoughtful and...it made it so difficult not to just kiss him and declare my feelings.

I looked up and our eyes locked and held. My feet stepped closer to him and the heat from his body draped around mine as we continued to stare.

Could he feel it too?

My eyes dropped to his lips, his full, soft lips. There was a cleft in the middle of his lower lip. I wanted to taste that cleft, dig my tongue in it, wet it, suck on it, bite it.

My mind tossed out more crazy ideas. What would he do if I kissed him out of nowhere? Would he kiss me back?

Would he tell me he thinks about me, like I did about him, almost every single night?

I pushed up on my tiptoes as if something magical was pulling us together... like the way the moon was drawn by gravity to our planet.

He didn't move.

... Until he did.

Chris blinked and cleared his throat and then we weren't alone as the tread of sneakers hurried toward us.

And I dropped from my tiptoes.

"Hey. You got here!" said Cal, seemingly genuinely surprised to see his brother.

Chris nodded, sighing out loud. "Yeah. Came straight from a nine-hour surgery."

He'd worked nine hours and then he drove here... for me?

My heart danced all across my chest.

"Got anything to eat... and any chance I can crash here tonight?" he asked Cal, but his eyes had dropped back to mine.

He was gonna sleep over? In the room next to mine?

I barely contained the stupid grin that was growing wider, swallowing my face up.

"Sure. You'll always find a bed here, Chris." Cal ruffled my hair again as he passed me. "C'mon, let's get you a drink and something to eat."

And I watched Chris follow Cal into the Kitchen but not before he flipped his head over his shoulder and winked at me.

And a stupid giggle escaped.

Best birthday ever!

And even better, he was gonna be sleeping in the room next to mine and I bit back my squeal and headed back to the main room and for once I didn't mind the attention.