Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights Book 1)

by Terri Anne Browning

  Kin wasn’t going with us on tour. It had surprised me when they had announced that she was staying behind. She’d written two of the songs on the album that we had made, and I knew Jace was dreading the tour without her. Regardless, Kin was staying behind to help her best friend, Lucy Thornton, plan her wedding. She was the maid of honor, or whatever the hell they called them.

  Jace cleared his throat. “But, yeah, bring her.”

  I nodded. “I’ll run it by her, so we might see you there.” I unlocked my car and opened the door. “Tell Kin I said hey. Be safe.”

  “Yeah, you, too.”

  EIGHT

  Santana

  As much as I loved doing photo shoots with my celebrity clients, I had a bigger passion for family sessions. It was seeing the love for each other each family member had sparkling out of their eyes, and the genuine smiles on their faces as the parents looked at their children, and vice versa.

  Today, I had already done two, and I was nearly done with my last one.

  This one was harder for me than the other two. We were at the beach, the wife was heavily pregnant with twins, and had a toddler running around, throwing sand everywhere. Other than the giggling little girl in pigtails, however, no one was happy about this shoot. The husband was in the Army and was being deployed to Iraq for eighteen months in two weeks.

  Seeing the utter heartbreak on the wife’s face as she tried to smile up at her husband was slowly killing me inside. The tears the husband couldn’t hide as he touched her stomach so lovingly was shattering a few of the walls I had kept locked up tight with the memories of my father leaving for his last deployment.

  The sun was at the perfect angle behind them, and with the little girl still tossing sand in the air and running around giggling like she didn’t have a care in the world, I started snapping away. The pictures were going to be beautiful, perhaps some of my best work. But a picture wouldn’t be able to take the place of this woman’s husband as she had to be both mother and father to her children while he was away. Those pictures wouldn’t hold her at night, or rock their newborns to sleep.

  It was only when the tot got bored with throwing sand and decided she wanted to try eating it instead that we called it quits on the shoot.

  I had plenty of amazing shots to edit and send to them.

  I gave them both a hug before they picked up their little girl and headed for their car. I watched them go. He was dressed in his Army uniform, carrying the toddler on his shoulders, holding his wife’s hand as they slowly walked along the beach.

  Without thinking about it, I lifted my camera and took a few more shots. I would include them in their package for no extra cost, but I wanted one for myself, as well. I was going to include it in the showing I was doing at a small gallery in Santa Monica. I wouldn’t put it up for sale, but it was just too beautifully heartbreaking not to share.

  Once they were out of sight, I started picking up my equipment and finally looked at my phone. I’d texted Kale almost half an hour ago, and he had said he was on his way. There was a single message from him saying he’d gotten held up by an accident, but he would be there soon.

  Smiling at the little heart he had put at the end of the message, I grabbed my things then headed for the parking area.

  The sun felt good on my skin, and I was glad I had worn shorts and not my usual jeans. Piling my hair on top of my head in a messy knot, I put my sunglasses on and let the sun soak into every pore. I hoped the extra vitamin D would make some of the ache in my soul ease, but with each step I took, my heart cracked open a little more.

  Before I could reach the parking area, I had to stop.

  Dropping my gear on the ground, I sat down on the sand beside it and pulled my knees to my chest. I couldn’t stop the tears as they filled my eyes.

  I pressed my forehead to my knees as memories flooded back and tried to drown me in the pain of loss.

  I was a daddy’s girl. He had been my whole world. It had been just me and him against the world when he was home. When he was deployed, it had been just me against the big cruel world.

  My mother had split on us when I was three, right after my dad had come home from his first tour. While he was gone, she’d hooked up with some guy from high school, and they had both abandoned their families. I hadn’t seen her since.

  My dad, he hadn’t been all that heartbroken over losing my mother. The only reason they had even gotten married was because he’d been about to deploy and she had told him she was pregnant with me. He had come home a few times throughout that deployment, but I couldn’t remember.

  He had been everything every little girl deserved in a daddy. He was my hero, my best friend. My earliest memory was of him coming home from work, dog-tired, but still all smiles for me as he laid on our living room floor and colored with me. We had done everything together.

  When I was six, he had gone on his second deployment. He had been gone for eight months to Kuwait, and I had to move in with his half-sister for those long and lonely months. If there had been anywhere else I could have gone while he was away, even if it was a damn group home for orphans, I would have jumped at it.

  Aunt Imogen was older than my father by twelve years. They shared the same father but had different mothers. They hadn’t grown up with each other and barely knew one another, so I couldn’t really blame my dad for not knowing what he had dropped me into when he’d gone away the first time.

  My aunt didn’t like many people. I was pretty sure she didn’t like herself half the time. Therefore, when she had gotten stuck with me, she’d made it clear pretty quickly that I was there only because my father had offered to pay her.

  For the first month, she had locked me in my room and only let me out to go to school. Thankfully, I had my own bathroom, but my bed had been little more than a mattress and a blanket.

  There were no toys to play with, no books to read, no coloring books or crayons. Nothing. It had been lonely there, so when I got to school every morning, I would talk and talk and talk until the teacher would get upset and send me to the office for disrupting the class. That usually meant the principal calling Aunt Imogen. Finally, she got tired of getting the phone calls, and eventually stopped locking me in my room. That meant I got to watch television, but it was still lonely because my aunt was rarely home.

  By the time I was seven, I could cook my own meals. I had gotten tired of cold sandwiches and cereal all the time. I became a pro at mac and cheese and peas, which was my usual dinner. When my dad finally came home from leave, he taught me how to make other things, like grilled cheese and scrambled eggs, and my favorite chicken flat bread.

  Dad had asked me how I liked staying with his sister, and when I told him how lonely I’d been, he had understood. I didn’t have to stay with her again for a long time.

  Three years, that was how long I had my dad after he had come home from Kuwait. Three years of perfection, of having a parent love me and have an interest in what I was doing. Having someone care if I was studying and getting good grades. If I was tucked in at night.

  If I was happy.

  He was the one who made me fall in love with photography. The poor man couldn’t have taken a good picture to save his own life, but even back then, I’d had a natural talent for it. It wasn’t just a click and aim kind of thing. I could see people as their true selves through the lens of a camera.

  For Christmas one year, he had bought me a professional-grade camera, and it became my most treasured item, second only to the iPod he had given me.

  Then he got deployed again.

  It was only supposed to be for a year, just a few more months longer than the last time. I was ten and had friends at school, people I could visit on the weekends if I wanted to. This time around, it wouldn’t be as lonely at Aunt Imogen’s.

  The day a uniformed officer and a chaplain had shown up on my aunt’s doorstep, everything changed. I knew why they were there when I opened the door.

  My dad’s convoy had run over an
IED, and he had died instantly. He wasn’t coming home to me. I wouldn’t even get a body to bury because there hadn’t been one to recover. Just his dog tags.

  The military paid a gratuity to the family of anyone killed on active duty to help with expenses after losing a loved one. I never saw a single penny of it, though. My aunt had gotten her greedy little fingers on it, and it was gone within a few months. There had been a reason my aunt wasn’t home often, and it had little to do with the fact that she had a job to go to every morning. Between the booze and pills, I was actually surprised she even had a job.

  When she had received that tax-free check, she quit the good job she had and disappeared for days at a time. I hadn’t minded being left alone, though, too lost in my grief over never seeing my dad again to care if she was home or not.

  I withdrew into myself and didn’t care if I failed school or anything else in life. The only person who had ever truly loved me was gone, and he wasn’t ever coming back.

  Once the money was gone, she had to find another job, one that didn’t pay nearly as well and didn’t put up with her habits. Therefore, she went through one after another while I was growing up. By the time I was in high school, her liver was so far gone she had to retire, but the small checks she got every month from disability and social security barely paid her bills, let alone her still hardcore addictions.

  That was when Sage and her family became my life line, but not even they could fill the void losing my dad had left.

  I hadn’t let myself think about him or my aunt in years, but today’s shoot had brought everything back with a vengeance. I missed him so much. I would have given anything to have just one more day with him.

  Just one.

  “Santana?”

  Momentarily forgetting about the tears, I snapped my head up at the sound of Kale’s voice. I scrubbed them away and tried to give him a happy smile, but he had already seen the wetness on my cheeks.

  Crouching down in front of me, he wiped a fresh tear away with the pad of his thumb. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” I told him honestly.

  Concern had his forehead puckering. “What happened? Are you hurt?” He was already moving his hands to my shoulders, running down my arms as if searching for injuries. “Did someone hurt you?”

  I caught his hands. “No, I’m fine. I promise. I just …” I blew out a tired sigh. “I was just remembering my dad.”

  Still holding my hands, he dropped down onto the sand beside me before wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “And that made you cry?”

  “Y-Yeah,” I whispered, turning my gaze out to the ocean. The sun was starting to set, which made me realize I had been sitting there longer than I had thought. “He died while on deployment in Iraq. The family I had a session with earlier is a military family, and the husband is being deployed to Iraq soon.”

  Kale’s arm tightened around me. “Damn, I’m sorry, doll. I know how it feels to lose a parent.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder. It was an instinctive thing to do, one I probably would have thought twice about if I wasn’t so lost in the memories of my dad. Regardless, having Kale hold me and let me just have a moment felt nice. It felt right.

  “Who did you lose?”

  “My mom died when I was sixteen,” he told me in a voice that was full of strain.

  I lifted my head and saw all the pain in his eyes, the same pain that was probably in my own.

  “She was sick most of my life. Muscular sclerosis—MS.”

  I stretched my hand out, touching his shirt, pressing against his heart, as if I could keep it from breaking as his face twisted with a soul deep sadness. “I’m so sorry.”

  He gave me a grim smile. “It was hard watching her be so sick all the time. We didn’t have any money, and the insurance she had only covered the bare necessities of her illness. I always had this dream that one day I’d be this famous rocker and have plenty of money to get her the best doctors.” He shook his head and glanced out at the ocean like I had done. Then he sucked his lip ring between his teeth before releasing a harsh breath. “She died before I could make that happen.”

  There were no words either of us could say that would take away the pain of losing our parents, so we didn’t speak. We just sat there, both of us staring at the waves hitting the beach, holding on to each other. It was peaceful, watching the white capped waves splashing against the sand then retreating.

  I liked having the heat of his body soak into mine as the sun finished setting and a cool wind started to blow. As time ticked away, some of the pain in my chest started to ease, and I felt him begin to relax a little, as well.

  He turned his head and pressed his lips to my temple. “Are you hungry?”

  Finding a genuine smile for him this time, I nodded. “Starving. I didn’t have time for lunch earlier.”

  He got to his feet and dusted the sand off his jeans before offering me his hand. Once I was standing, he picked up my gear before linking our fingers together.

  We walked to his car in contented silence. I loved that we didn’t need to constantly fill the time with pointless talking. That we could just be with each other and not have to worry about making the other person more comfortable with endless, pointless conversation.

  Kale opened the passenger door and helped me in before putting my gear in the trunk. Seconds later, he joined me and started the car.

  “What are we eating? As hungry as I am, I could eat just about anything.”

  “Pizza?” I suggested. “We could pick one up and go back to your place.”

  His hand paused in the act of shifting the car into reverse. A frown wrinkled his brow and concern sat in his hazel eyes. “Let me guess; Wade is at your place?”

  My nose wrinkled just thinking about my roommate’s boyfriend and the argument that had almost blown up my entire apartment that morning. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to get into what had happened right then.

  “Ah, you’re psychic, as well as sexy. How did I get so lucky?”

  The fire that filled his gaze was hot enough to burn me as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You have a very sassy little mouth that I’m dying to kiss, doll,” he murmured against my cheek. “I’m trying to be good, but when you call me sexy like that, it does very dangerous things to a part of my brain … and my body.”

  Goose bumps lifted across my entire body, and I was helpless to stop my shiver.

  “Maybe I like that I can do dangerous things to your brain and body.” I lifted a hand and rubbed my fingers over his facial hair. His eyes closed, and he pressed his forehead against my own.

  The fear from yesterday was taking a backseat today. I had missed him from the moment I’d closed the door on him the night before. He had been the last thing I thought about before falling asleep last night, and the first thought to pop into my head when I’d woken up. Those things should have only made me that much more scared of how he made me feel, but oddly, it didn’t.

  Kale sucked in a ragged breath and pulled away quickly. Then, as he put the car in gear, I noticed his fingers actually shook.

  “So, pizza?” He backed up then shot me a wink. “And what does my doll want on this pizza?”

  “I could go for ham and pineapple, but if you don’t like that, I’m cool with just pepperoni and olives.”

  He shot me a look as he pulled out into traffic. “Ham and pineapple for you, and one with everything for me.” He winked again, and I couldn’t help squirming in my seat as my panties grew damp. Dammit, why did he have to do yummy things like that? “Want some wings? Bread sticks? Dessert?”

  “That’s a lot of food, Kale. I’d never be able to eat it all.”

  “Maybe not, but I can and probably will. I’m starved.” He paused at a red light and reached over to push my hair over my shoulder. “It’s hungry work listening to Travis drone on and on about this and that and everything else.”

  “I bet,” I said on a laugh. “He loves the sound of hi
s own voice. That was one of the first things I noticed about him when I met him for the first time. Honestly, I think Emmie thinks he’s a tool, but he’s so good at his job that she doesn’t care.”

  “He’s liable to end up a dead tool if he doesn’t cool his jets where Kassa is concerned.” With the light now green, he drove through the intersection and switched lanes. “The guy has a death wish. Gray doesn’t play well with others, and he especially doesn’t play well with people who sniff around Kassa.”

  “I kind of figured that out yesterday. A blind person could see the sparks flying off those two.” I wasn’t sure what was up with Gray and Kassa. Hell, I didn’t even know them. Regardless, I could tell there was something going on with them.

  “Those two give me whiplash …” He paused. “Scratch that. Gray gives me whiplash. Kassa is just about the only person who could put up with him for longer than an hour.

  “They grew up together. His aunt adopted her and Jace, and then he had to move in with them. She became his best friend in the world, more so than me or even Sin.” He frowned. “Before we came out here, Gray and Kas were inseparable. She was his shadow, and he ate it up. Then, we get here and it was like he was always on the phone with her. If she couldn’t talk to him for whatever reason, he became the biggest dick this side of the equator.”

  “I’m not sure that’s changed,” I assured him.

  “That’s because he’s only gotten worse since she moved out here. The girl can’t leave their apartment without him giving her the third degree. He’s become this overbearing dickhead. She’s starting to see how he really is, but she doesn’t seem to care. She loves him, anyway, and he can’t see that all she wants is for him to love her back.”

  “That’s really sad.”

  Even though I had barely spoken to Kassa, I felt sorry for her. I’d seen how easy it was for her to make Gray act like a decent human being, and I had spotted the longing in her big blue eyes that she tried to hide from the world. She hid it well, I would give her that, but I was used to seeing into strangers’ souls. It was why I was so good at reading people.