Claiming Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 2)

“English, hmm?” Doctor Pritchard observed keenly. He adjusted his glasses against his nose and peered towards me. “What part of England are you from?”

I was surprised by his sudden interest.

“Uh, South London.”

“I see,” he murmured. “Interesting. I spent a decade teaching in London. Awful food, too much drinking, but it was, overall, a pleasant experience.” He turned to Clara, who seemed amused by this assessment. “Is it true that you joined in the last twenty-four hours?”

“This morning, actually,” she answered.

“Better last minute than a week late,” he nodded with a tentative smile. “What’s your name? You won’t be on my attendance sheet unless I pencil you in.”

“Clara Campbell,” she answered.

I smiled privately. Alliterative. I like it. Also, not a far cry from ‘Clara Carlyle’…

With a brief moment of horror, I banished the thought away. There was no reason to have thoughts even remotely like that… until I realized that, if our parents married, that could possibly wind up becoming her name, anyway…

Once he made the corrections, Doctor Pritchard continued the roll call, leaving me plenty pleased with my thoughts. Well, maybe he’ll be a little easier on me with the grade.

The rest of the class wound up fairly straightforward. This professor didn’t employ casual starter days – we were already reviewing material and assigned homework at the end of the session.

It was hard to stay committed to paying attention to him with Clara right there. I felt myself enamored by the way she focused on the material, biting her bottom lip when she was heavily concentrating or perplexed.

She was so effortlessly beautiful.

That’s when I knew I had to take things seriously with her… that I had to try. I could have just written her off, but honestly? All that destiny stuff I had told her?

I believed it.

It was weird to me that I’d seen so much of her in such a short period of time. We were definitely supposed to be paying attention to each other, and the more that I did so, and the longer that I watched her out of the corner of my eye, the more I felt a little something tug inside me for her.

It was small and easily overlooked, but from that small flicker in my heart, I could build the foundation of something much bigger.

I knew my soul could burn for her if I let it.

That’s why, when class was over, I followed her outside and redirected her towards the nearby overhang. It was a covered seating area; other students mostly filled the available tables, so I leaned against a pillar instead.

“Yeah? What did you want?” She asked impatiently. I could see that she was slightly on edge, nervously looking around and absent-mindedly sliding her hair behind her ear… something that only encouraged me further.

“You and I need to talk,” I told her.

“I, uh, we don’t need to talk.”

“We definitely do,” I smiled softly.

“No.” She was trying to put her foot down here, but her hesitance gave her away. Sure, she knew what I was going to say… but she wanted me to say it.

“I’m just going to go out and say it,” I sighed, choosing my words very carefully. “Clara, you’ve had my attention since the moment that we first met, and I want to see where that goes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll remind you that when we first met, you were publicly humiliating me in front of your Marine friends, and making horrible sexual passes at me.”

“So I came off the wrong way,” I shrugged. “I know that I fucked up. You were only going to be a harmless little bit of amusement, but then I ran into you immediately afterwards, and you seemed so…”

“So what?” She asked with feigned apathy, poorly disguising how she was clutching onto my every word.

“So… wildly attractive,” I conceded. “Seeing you there by yourself, outside of your banquet serving attire, as just a girl trying to buy a drink… it compounded inside me. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. I had to get to know you.”

Clara scoffed. “So, you see me in my street clothes, and suddenly everything changes? Real smooth, bucko.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I insisted. “Once we were alone and back in our elements, we clicked. Sure, you pushed me away a little, but I deserved that. And once we got to talking, I felt a spark grow.”

“A spark? You’re a real walking cliché, you know that?” She muttered, shaking her head. Her hair falling forward didn’t hide the smile that I saw developing across that beautiful little face of hers.

Testing the waters, I reached down and lifted her chin. Instead of flinching or recoiling, her eyes went wild with fear, gazing deeply into mine like a frightened animal… but Clara didn’t dare move away.

“I know you feel something between us,” I whispered, stroking her cheek with the backs of my knuckles. “I know it’s happening fast, and it doesn’t make sense to either of us… but I know you do, because I can feel it too.”

Clara sucked in a small gasp of air, clearly filled with conflict. “But it’s wrong,” she huskily replied. “And we only just met. We can’t. You know we can’t…”

“We can,” I pushed her, staring deep into her eyes with every ounce of conviction I had. I just have to break down this barrier between us. “We’re not related… our parents are only dating… time is on our side. I just don’t want to kill this thing we feel before it starts.”

Clara’s face was growing flush; her chest was visibly rising and falling with mounting intensity. “Maybe that’s for the best,” she tried to concede, although I could see her grasp slipping.

“I don’t think so,” I nudged caringly, “and I know you don’t really believe that, either.”

Her eyes slid open, half-rimmed by her heavy eyelids. When she spoke, her silky voice was like honey to my ears. “Then, what do you suggest?”

“You know what I suggest,” I replied calmly, tracing the shape of her cheek with my thumb. “We take the plunge. We see where this goes. If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work… but I can’t let it end without trying.”

When she nodded involuntarily, drawn into the rising sexual tension between us, I knew that I had my moment.

I pulled Clara Campbell close.

My hungry lips met hers.

And for that heated, magical moment, all was right with the world.

Chapter 6

Life grew far more complicated the second that Dalton kissed me. It was so hard to look back on that instant as a fleeting moment of weakness when it just felt so right.

While my senses heightened with pleasure, it was as if a garden of butterflies released into my stomach. I felt blood rush to my face while a tiny jolt of pleasure slipped down to my toes, filling my body with warmth.

Is this what a kiss is really supposed to feel like? I wondered to myself. This isn’t like any kiss I’ve ever had before, not even with my ex-boyfriend…

The Marine pulled back slightly, his warm lips still so achingly near. As his eyes briefly searched mine, I grasped onto his shoulders and pulled him back into another passionate kiss.

This feels good, I thought to myself. This feels appropriate… it feels right.

The voice of reason inside my head was struggling to be heard, shouting about impropriety, my parents, the age difference between us, anything at all that could dissuade me from continuing this. But that voice couldn’t be heard through the thick fog of pleasure that dulled my mind now, killing any interjecting thoughts.

All that mattered was the taste of him.

But we both had follow-up classes, so Dalton and I separated with a smile and headed towards our prospective directions. All the while I walked that way, I had a beaming smile on my face.

I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t think that I really needed to. It wasn’t exactly quantifiable. The feeling was something mysterious to me, a sensation that kissing him, and being near him, brought me a happiness I hadn’t

experienced in a long time… maybe never.

Natalie is going to want to hear all about this.

After Psychology 1001, I was scheduled Math 1001, Sociology 1028, Physical Science 1001, a late lunch period, and Mathematics 1001. It was a pretty rough workload, but luckily none of the succeeding professors assigned any homework or expected us to have our textbooks already.

Unfortunately, Dalton wasn’t in any of my other classes, although that might have been too much of a distraction for me.

This could have easily been a more stressful day. Everywhere I turned, I could see fledgling Freshmen stopping upperclassmen and asking for directions, looking like lost little lambs. Most of them didn’t really know where anything was, and I stopped and helped a few when time permitted.

Luckily, I’d come prepared.