Just a Kiss, Chapter 4
Title: Just a Kiss
Fandom : Moonlight
Characters : Mick, Beth, Josef, Simone
Rating : R, for some sexual content and strong language.
Spoilers: Post -"Sonata"
Summary: Eleventh in my post-Sonata series. Josef finally confronts Beth with his growing feelings for her, and it has serious consequences for his relationships with Mick and Simone. Told from alternating pov's of all the main characters.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters; no copyright infringement intended.
Chapter 4
JOSEF
Before I could even get up, Mick was in front of me, hauling me up by the collar of my best Versace dress shirt.
I put up my hands defensively. “Wait! Wait! I’m sorry! It was just a kiss! It didn’t mean anything, I swear!”
But Mick was already totally vamped out, his silver eyes up close and personal. “You son of a bitch! You swore to me that you wouldn’t touch her, and I swore to you that if you did, I’d rip your fuckin’ head off, you self-centered, self-indulgent bastard!”
He pushed my head back into the tree, so hard I blacked out for a second.
“Mick, please-let me explain,” I murmured, dazed. And then the pummeling began. I could have fought back. I was older, so I could have given him a run for his money. Except, I knew I had broken one of the cardinal rules of friendship, and he had every right to get even for that.
I kept hearing screaming, and wondered if it was from me, then, when the hitting suddenly stopped, I realized it had been Beth. I slumped to the base of the tree, my ears ringing, the blood from my nose mixing with the blood from my lip.
“Mick! Stop! You’ll kill him!” I wanted to tell her he’d have to behead me or break my neck to do that, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas.
“Yeah, Mick, you can stop now…” I muttered.
“You shut the hell up!” He turned to Beth. “I saw him kissing you, saw you punch him. What else did he do-was he feeling you up?”
“Huh? No! It was just a kiss, then a right hook. It was like kissing…my brother.”
I laughed, then coughed, spitting up blood. “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” I said, trying to get up. Mick kicked my feet out from under me, and I landed in a heap again.
“Sit down and shut up, Josef, or I swear to God--!”
“Mick,” Beth was saying, “you have to settle down. There was no harm done. It wasn’t even much of a kiss.”
“Hey!” I protested. I’d used some of my best moves, by God.
Mick finally seemed calm enough for Beth to put her hand on his arm, trying to calm him further. Her voice softened, like she was talking to a growling dog. Not too far off, really.
“Look, Mick, Josef was just…comforting me, that’s all. I was pretty upset about Josh. He must have just gotten caught up in the moment.”
I opened my mouth to concur, but Mick’s eyes narrowed on me dangerously, so I closed it again.
“Yeah, I’ll bet he did. He’s just been waiting for the right opportunity to make a move on you, but it had to be when I wasn’t around, the sneaky bastard.”
“What?” Beth said, incredulous. “You’ve known he might do this? Why didn’t you warn me?”
I smirked, then grimaced in pain. Mick was apparently guilty of withholding valuable information. Well, not like I was planning this whole kissing debacle. It’s true--I was just caught up in the moment. It was an accident, really. Mick looked sheepishly at Beth, then glared angrily in my general direction.
“I caught him looking at you in a certain way a couple months ago. I didn’t like it. I warned him to stay the hell away from you, to get a handle on any misguided feelings he might have for you. He swore to me-“ He clenched his jaw as if he were in pain, closing his eyes against it.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the guilt slammed into me harder than my recent collision with the juniper tree. I looked up at Mick, realizing that my selfishness, my inability to control my baser desires, had hurt my best friend more than I thought it could. I had counted on his anger; I hadn’t counted on his obvious disappointment in me. I rose hesitantly to my feet, but he didn’t stop me this time.
“Mick, you have every right to be pissed right now; I know I fucked up. This-this meant nothing. Just a kiss, like I said. I can guarantee you it will never happen again, that I was wrong about those feelings for Beth. I made a mistake. Can we please try to get past this?”
All the anger seemed to leave him at once, and his shoulders slumped in what I could only describe as defeat. He went over to Beth’s makeshift picnic area, gathering up her things and putting them into the tote bag. He reached for her hand and she took it, but her eyes were on me. That connection I perceived from her had been love, after all. Love for Mick. When I had kissed her, I had hurt Mick, and I couldn’t at that moment see a way we could all come back from this. I almost wished he had broken my neck.
“Josef,” he finally said, his voice devoid of emotion. His eyes were dead as he handed down my sentence. “I never want to see you again.”
Beth gasped and looked back at me as he pulled her by the hand back toward their cars.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed to me, then I watched in shock as they walked quickly over the hill, shielding his face from the sun with the bright red tote bag.
I grabbed my chest as if I’d been staked, reaching blindly for the tree’s trunk to prop me up so I wouldn’t fall down again. A few seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sound of crashing metal. I stumbled toward the hill, tripping on the damn juniper’s exposed roots and landing with my face in the grass. When I got up to look, Mick and Beth were speeding away in his Mercedes. My vampire vision clearly made out the Ferrari, and it was just as I had feared. The driver’s side door was completely smashed in.
I couldn’t help but smile. He’d definitely found a way to hurt me where I lived, so to speak.
“Way to go, Mick,” I said softly to the tombstones around me. But this was good news, I realized. I’d been scared when Mick had left me there, his face empty and blank. But plowing into my car showed me there was still anger there, which meant there was hope that this could still be fixed. He’d left me alive, hadn’t he? I wasn’t fooling myself though (for once); it would take a lot of sucking up and proving myself worthy again, but I would get him back.
I laughed, sucking in sharply from what were probably cracked ribs. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara (in a totally masculine, completely butch way), after Rhett Butler had told her he no longer gave a damn. Scarlett wasn’t going to let a little thing like his leaving get her down. No, she planned to fight for him, as I was going to fight to win Mick’s friendship back.
“After all,” I said wistfully, “tomorrow is another day, my friend.”
I limped back to my car, giving a low whistle as I surveyed the damage, laughing because I’d have to climb through the window to get into the driver’s seat, and that was gonna hurt like hell.
MICK
I drove Beth back to the DA’s office in silence. I’m sure she had been frightened by my violent, vamp-faced reaction. I had been too. I knew Beth wasn’t hurt by Josef, that yes, it was just a kiss. For one thing, he’d be dead right now if he’d tried to do more. I admired my own self-restraint. But he’d taken something from me today, and I wasn’t talking about Beth. He took my trust, my respect , and my best friend. I felt almost as bereft as that day I thought he had been killed in his office explosion.
We sat in the parking lot, and Beth tentatively reached for my hand.
“Your car will be here when you get off work,” I told her, not wanting to talk about this yet.
“Thanks… Mick-“
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, then I’ll talk. I know you’re angry-“
“That doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“But Mick, you have to find a way to get past this. I know you don’t want to hear the details of what happened, but I think you need to.”
“No, I really don’t”
I tried to disentangle her hand from mine, but she held fast, and I couldn’t make her let go without hurting her. She squeezed tighter, urging me to look at her.
“When Josef…kissed me…we both knew it was just wrong. Not only because he was betraying you, but because there was no sexual connection. By the time he’d pulled away, we were both obviously relieved that it was over, that his little experiment, or whatever that was, had failed. It was like he was trying to decide something with that kiss. And now we both know that there could never be more than friendship between us, nothing more.”
“I take it you didn’t kiss him back…” I hadn’t thought of that until that moment, but I had to be sure that she had not wanted it, had not felt anything when my former best friend had his tongue down her throat.
“You didn’t see me punch him?” she asked, grinning proudly while showing me the reddened knuckles of her right hand.
I brought her proffered hand up to kiss it. “I should stake him for that.”
“To what end? You beat the hell out of him, and he learned a big lesson today. Josef Kostan can’t always get what he wants, and sometimes he doesn’t really even want it in the first place. Maybe that’s what’s really going on between him and Simone.”
I wanted to jump at her excuses for him, to use them to forgive him and go back to the way things were. But forgiveness was obviously what he wanted, and I wasn’t just going to hand that over to him too. I had to think about this. I guess Beth saw that I had heard her, so she loosened her hold on my hand.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do about this Beth. I need to think about it, okay? I get what happened, I do, but I certainly don’t have to excuse it, and I need to figure out if I can ever trust him again.”
She nodded, then reached over to kiss my cheek. “I understand. And it will be good to make him squirm. He deserves to, the idiot. I only wish I’d hit him harder.”
I chuckled, remembering the image of Josef, knocked flat by a human girl half his height.
I got out of the car and opened the door for her, squinting in the sunlight, even with my sunglasses on.
“I love you, Mick, and I’m sorry if I somehow encouraged him, even unintentionally.”
“This isn’t your fault. You were the victim here.”
She smiled mischievously. “The kiss wasn’t that bad.”
I pulled her to me, capturing her lips with mine, feeling the sudden need to re-stake my claim, to prove to her just who knew the best way to kiss my Beth. When I lifted my head, we were both hot, me even more so from the heat of the direct sunlight.
“No one will ever love you like I do, Beth.”
“Shhh…I know this. You don’t have to prove anything to me.” She tiptoed up to kiss me again, softly, gently, sweetly. “Now get out of this sun before you fry.”
I got reluctantly back into the car and waved to her as she walked back into the building. I didn’t know what I was going to do about Josef, but at that moment, I knew one thing for sure. I definitely needed a drink.
A/N: This may be the last chapter for about a week and a half. I’ll be out of town, and may not have time or internet access. So, hope this will tide you over. Thanks in advance for any review bones you might throw my way .
Fandom : Moonlight
Characters : Mick, Beth, Josef, Simone
Rating : R, for some sexual content and strong language.
Spoilers: Post -"Sonata"
Summary: Eleventh in my post-Sonata series. Josef finally confronts Beth with his growing feelings for her, and it has serious consequences for his relationships with Mick and Simone. Told from alternating pov's of all the main characters.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters; no copyright infringement intended.
Chapter 4
JOSEF
Before I could even get up, Mick was in front of me, hauling me up by the collar of my best Versace dress shirt.
I put up my hands defensively. “Wait! Wait! I’m sorry! It was just a kiss! It didn’t mean anything, I swear!”
But Mick was already totally vamped out, his silver eyes up close and personal. “You son of a bitch! You swore to me that you wouldn’t touch her, and I swore to you that if you did, I’d rip your fuckin’ head off, you self-centered, self-indulgent bastard!”
He pushed my head back into the tree, so hard I blacked out for a second.
“Mick, please-let me explain,” I murmured, dazed. And then the pummeling began. I could have fought back. I was older, so I could have given him a run for his money. Except, I knew I had broken one of the cardinal rules of friendship, and he had every right to get even for that.
I kept hearing screaming, and wondered if it was from me, then, when the hitting suddenly stopped, I realized it had been Beth. I slumped to the base of the tree, my ears ringing, the blood from my nose mixing with the blood from my lip.
“Mick! Stop! You’ll kill him!” I wanted to tell her he’d have to behead me or break my neck to do that, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas.
“Yeah, Mick, you can stop now…” I muttered.
“You shut the hell up!” He turned to Beth. “I saw him kissing you, saw you punch him. What else did he do-was he feeling you up?”
“Huh? No! It was just a kiss, then a right hook. It was like kissing…my brother.”
I laughed, then coughed, spitting up blood. “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” I said, trying to get up. Mick kicked my feet out from under me, and I landed in a heap again.
“Sit down and shut up, Josef, or I swear to God--!”
“Mick,” Beth was saying, “you have to settle down. There was no harm done. It wasn’t even much of a kiss.”
“Hey!” I protested. I’d used some of my best moves, by God.
Mick finally seemed calm enough for Beth to put her hand on his arm, trying to calm him further. Her voice softened, like she was talking to a growling dog. Not too far off, really.
“Look, Mick, Josef was just…comforting me, that’s all. I was pretty upset about Josh. He must have just gotten caught up in the moment.”
I opened my mouth to concur, but Mick’s eyes narrowed on me dangerously, so I closed it again.
“Yeah, I’ll bet he did. He’s just been waiting for the right opportunity to make a move on you, but it had to be when I wasn’t around, the sneaky bastard.”
“What?” Beth said, incredulous. “You’ve known he might do this? Why didn’t you warn me?”
I smirked, then grimaced in pain. Mick was apparently guilty of withholding valuable information. Well, not like I was planning this whole kissing debacle. It’s true--I was just caught up in the moment. It was an accident, really. Mick looked sheepishly at Beth, then glared angrily in my general direction.
“I caught him looking at you in a certain way a couple months ago. I didn’t like it. I warned him to stay the hell away from you, to get a handle on any misguided feelings he might have for you. He swore to me-“ He clenched his jaw as if he were in pain, closing his eyes against it.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the guilt slammed into me harder than my recent collision with the juniper tree. I looked up at Mick, realizing that my selfishness, my inability to control my baser desires, had hurt my best friend more than I thought it could. I had counted on his anger; I hadn’t counted on his obvious disappointment in me. I rose hesitantly to my feet, but he didn’t stop me this time.
“Mick, you have every right to be pissed right now; I know I fucked up. This-this meant nothing. Just a kiss, like I said. I can guarantee you it will never happen again, that I was wrong about those feelings for Beth. I made a mistake. Can we please try to get past this?”
All the anger seemed to leave him at once, and his shoulders slumped in what I could only describe as defeat. He went over to Beth’s makeshift picnic area, gathering up her things and putting them into the tote bag. He reached for her hand and she took it, but her eyes were on me. That connection I perceived from her had been love, after all. Love for Mick. When I had kissed her, I had hurt Mick, and I couldn’t at that moment see a way we could all come back from this. I almost wished he had broken my neck.
“Josef,” he finally said, his voice devoid of emotion. His eyes were dead as he handed down my sentence. “I never want to see you again.”
Beth gasped and looked back at me as he pulled her by the hand back toward their cars.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed to me, then I watched in shock as they walked quickly over the hill, shielding his face from the sun with the bright red tote bag.
I grabbed my chest as if I’d been staked, reaching blindly for the tree’s trunk to prop me up so I wouldn’t fall down again. A few seconds later, I heard the unmistakable sound of crashing metal. I stumbled toward the hill, tripping on the damn juniper’s exposed roots and landing with my face in the grass. When I got up to look, Mick and Beth were speeding away in his Mercedes. My vampire vision clearly made out the Ferrari, and it was just as I had feared. The driver’s side door was completely smashed in.
I couldn’t help but smile. He’d definitely found a way to hurt me where I lived, so to speak.
“Way to go, Mick,” I said softly to the tombstones around me. But this was good news, I realized. I’d been scared when Mick had left me there, his face empty and blank. But plowing into my car showed me there was still anger there, which meant there was hope that this could still be fixed. He’d left me alive, hadn’t he? I wasn’t fooling myself though (for once); it would take a lot of sucking up and proving myself worthy again, but I would get him back.
I laughed, sucking in sharply from what were probably cracked ribs. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara (in a totally masculine, completely butch way), after Rhett Butler had told her he no longer gave a damn. Scarlett wasn’t going to let a little thing like his leaving get her down. No, she planned to fight for him, as I was going to fight to win Mick’s friendship back.
“After all,” I said wistfully, “tomorrow is another day, my friend.”
I limped back to my car, giving a low whistle as I surveyed the damage, laughing because I’d have to climb through the window to get into the driver’s seat, and that was gonna hurt like hell.
MICK
I drove Beth back to the DA’s office in silence. I’m sure she had been frightened by my violent, vamp-faced reaction. I had been too. I knew Beth wasn’t hurt by Josef, that yes, it was just a kiss. For one thing, he’d be dead right now if he’d tried to do more. I admired my own self-restraint. But he’d taken something from me today, and I wasn’t talking about Beth. He took my trust, my respect , and my best friend. I felt almost as bereft as that day I thought he had been killed in his office explosion.
We sat in the parking lot, and Beth tentatively reached for my hand.
“Your car will be here when you get off work,” I told her, not wanting to talk about this yet.
“Thanks… Mick-“
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, then I’ll talk. I know you’re angry-“
“That doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“But Mick, you have to find a way to get past this. I know you don’t want to hear the details of what happened, but I think you need to.”
“No, I really don’t”
I tried to disentangle her hand from mine, but she held fast, and I couldn’t make her let go without hurting her. She squeezed tighter, urging me to look at her.
“When Josef…kissed me…we both knew it was just wrong. Not only because he was betraying you, but because there was no sexual connection. By the time he’d pulled away, we were both obviously relieved that it was over, that his little experiment, or whatever that was, had failed. It was like he was trying to decide something with that kiss. And now we both know that there could never be more than friendship between us, nothing more.”
“I take it you didn’t kiss him back…” I hadn’t thought of that until that moment, but I had to be sure that she had not wanted it, had not felt anything when my former best friend had his tongue down her throat.
“You didn’t see me punch him?” she asked, grinning proudly while showing me the reddened knuckles of her right hand.
I brought her proffered hand up to kiss it. “I should stake him for that.”
“To what end? You beat the hell out of him, and he learned a big lesson today. Josef Kostan can’t always get what he wants, and sometimes he doesn’t really even want it in the first place. Maybe that’s what’s really going on between him and Simone.”
I wanted to jump at her excuses for him, to use them to forgive him and go back to the way things were. But forgiveness was obviously what he wanted, and I wasn’t just going to hand that over to him too. I had to think about this. I guess Beth saw that I had heard her, so she loosened her hold on my hand.
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do about this Beth. I need to think about it, okay? I get what happened, I do, but I certainly don’t have to excuse it, and I need to figure out if I can ever trust him again.”
She nodded, then reached over to kiss my cheek. “I understand. And it will be good to make him squirm. He deserves to, the idiot. I only wish I’d hit him harder.”
I chuckled, remembering the image of Josef, knocked flat by a human girl half his height.
I got out of the car and opened the door for her, squinting in the sunlight, even with my sunglasses on.
“I love you, Mick, and I’m sorry if I somehow encouraged him, even unintentionally.”
“This isn’t your fault. You were the victim here.”
She smiled mischievously. “The kiss wasn’t that bad.”
I pulled her to me, capturing her lips with mine, feeling the sudden need to re-stake my claim, to prove to her just who knew the best way to kiss my Beth. When I lifted my head, we were both hot, me even more so from the heat of the direct sunlight.
“No one will ever love you like I do, Beth.”
“Shhh…I know this. You don’t have to prove anything to me.” She tiptoed up to kiss me again, softly, gently, sweetly. “Now get out of this sun before you fry.”
I got reluctantly back into the car and waved to her as she walked back into the building. I didn’t know what I was going to do about Josef, but at that moment, I knew one thing for sure. I definitely needed a drink.
A/N: This may be the last chapter for about a week and a half. I’ll be out of town, and may not have time or internet access. So, hope this will tide you over. Thanks in advance for any review bones you might throw my way .