Until Next Year: A Novellette

By Annabel Joseph

Amara and Patrick meet every year on the same day, no matter what. They walk across the beach toward one another and embrace, then retreat to a shoddy rental nearby to connect in a deeper way. Their original meeting was fraught with danger, but their subsequent meetings have felt bright and hopeful. And sexy. God, the sex.

But something feels different this year...

Annabel Joseph delivers a profound emotional punch in this short story about second chances and the saving power of love.

This 6K word novellette was originally published as part of AUSTRALIA: A Romance Anthology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annabel Joseph
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005238919

Annabel Joseph

Annabel Joseph is a NYT and USA Today Bestselling BDSM romance author. She writes mainly contemporary romance, although she’s been known to dabble in the medieval and Regency eras. She is known for writing emotionally intense BDSM storylines, and strives to create characters that seem real—even flawed—so readers are better able to relate to them. Annabel also writes non-BDSM romance under the pen name Molly Joseph.You can follow Annabel on Twitter (@annabeljoseph) or Facebook (facebook.com/annabeljosephnovels), or sign up for her mailing list at annabeljoseph.com.She's always working on something new, so stay tuned!

Book preview

ONE

Amara tiptoed over coarse sand, too shy to look up, although she knew he was there. Her floral-printed skirt skimmed almost down to her ankles, yet she felt naked. She always felt naked when she met Patrick. He affected her that way.

She might have been any beach goer, except that it wasn’t beach season. Still, she wore sandals, and her hair was twisted up in a bun to prevent frizziness and tangles from the salted, humid air. She wore a short-sleeved shirt because it was warm enough, even in October, and a lightweight skirt…

The first time she’d met Patrick here, she’d had on a long black skirt. A wearable pall, because she’d been so miserable, so dead inside. She still wore skirts every year because she liked the way they blew in the breeze and billowed around her legs, but she didn’t wear black ones.

Sometimes the wind at Danger Beach was light, like today, a calm, soothing whisper. Once, two years ago, it had blown nearly as hard as it had the first day they met, when the tropical storm ripped shingles from the stilt-perched beach homes behind them and blew deck chairs out to sea.

Patrick had arrived before her, as always, to wait on the pile of rocks beside the pier. They’d sat there together on this exact day five years ago, and now this had become their day to meet at Danger Beach and remember the storm and everything that had come after.

He was rugged and beautiful, as Australian men were. He’d moved to the U.S. as a child, but the accent was still there. She teased him about it sometimes, about his folksy, unfamiliar turns of phrase, but the truth was, his deep, broad down under