Page 89 of The Beta: Part Two
“It’s only about twenty feet, Kaleb. I’m sorry. I’ll warn you next time.”
He gives me a look that clearly states he’d be happy if there were no next time.
Water rains down on us in the wake of Alex’s jump.
“Come on,” I say and start back peddling towards the cliff wall.
I’m aiming for the big rocks off to the side where the path to climb back up is. I’ll probably jump again, I’ll just make sure to give Kaleb a heads up before I do it.
I can tell when we get to the rock ledge near the shore when Kaleb switches from swimming to walking. I still have to swim a little distance before my feet touch the smooth rock on the bottom. When I get to the place where I can sit without being underwater I tell Kaleb to sit down next to me, then I reach under the water to pull up his foot.
“What are you doing?” he asks, trying to discreetly fight to keep himself from falling back into the water.
“Helping you take off your boots.”
“I’d rather leave them on, thank you.”
“Kaleb. You can’t swim in boots and jeans. I brought you other clothes to put on, anyway.”
He shakes his head.
“Are you worried about getting a sunburn?” I tease.
I hear a couple more splashes and look back to watch Reid and Corso break the surface. Looking up at the cliff, I see Trent, Nathan, and Jasper still peering over the ledge. “Just jump! It’s not that cold!”
“She’s a liar!” Alex shouts, “it’s cold as fuck! Jump anyway! It’s about to be naked down here!”
Idiot.
But he’s not wrong. I was going to try to get Kaleb’s heavy clothes off before I took off what’s left of mine, but he’s being uncooperative. Pity. I was looking forward to seeing him all naked and wet.
I start tugging my cropped shirt over my head, but it was a tight fitting shirt to begin with and now it’s wet, so obviously it gets stuck, trapping me with my arms awkwardly tangled above my head. “A little help, please.”
I watch pure meanness creep over Kaleb’s face before he stretches out a hand and tickles my exposed armpit, causing me to shriek and fall back into the water in an attempt to escape.
He grasps my arm and hauls me up out of the water and pulls me free of the shirt.
“Thank you,” I grin at him, and fight my way out of my shorts. When I get them off, I ball them up with my shirt and hand them to him, “think you can get them to shore?”
Of course he can, and he makes the toss look easy. Then we both work at getting him undressed; he launches everything to shore except his boots. Those, he puts back on.
“Tender feet?”
“Not really. I need traction.”
To each their own.
“We can never bring Devon here. He’d never survive watching Jasper jump off the cliff.”
I snort, “Jasper has yet to jump off. And if anyone needs to come here, it’s Devon. He needs to find a way to relax. Maybe jumping off a tiny cliff into some refreshing water with all of us would make him feel a lot better.”
Kaleb’s eyebrows raise and the corner of his mouth twitches, “doubtful.”
“Are you alright, Kaleb? I know Nathan wasn’t okay, but he’ll be better soon. Trent is a little on edge, but he’s so full of shit all the time that he’s going to bounce right back. I can’t tell with you, though.”
He pulls me to sit on his lap facing him. I wish it was awkward. It really should be awkward. But Kaleb basically used Jasper’s dick to fuck me a few days ago; whether that was his intention or not, that’s what happened. This isn’t awkward. It isn’t awkward to feel my rock hard nipples pressing into his disturbingly warm chest; and I don’t know how he’s able to have an erection in this frigid water, but that’s not awkward, either.
“I will be. I was afraid, Talia. I was so afraid. And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t fight off all those rogues, there were too many. I couldn’t get to Nathan. I couldn’t help Devon. I didn’t know what happened to Jasper. I was stuck in a cell next to Seth and I kept thinking about what his pack did to you. No, I wasn’t okay. But I will be. I’m going to mark you. Right now. I was going to wait until everyone was back home, maybe have Jasper with us because you both enjoy that. But I’m fucking you right now, sitting on this rock. I’m going to knot you and bite you. If I thought you could take it, and we weren’t trying to get back to Devon, I’d make Trent and Nathan mark you, too.
