Kiss a Stranger (23 page)

             
“Really?” I let out incredulously.

             
He eyed my sad face and burst out laughing. Tucking his hand into his pocket, he replied, “No, actually, that’s not it. But your face! Fuck, that was great. For me, anyway.”

             
“What?”

             
He pulled out a card and gave it to me. “He wanted me to give you this.”

             
I took the card that had a four letter word in thick, black font on the front.

            
 
DARE

             
He gave me a… dare card?

My heart spiked. I glanced at Jamie, but he was too busy checking out Emily, and Emily was practically humping the wa
ll behind me to get closer to him.

             
Uncaring about their session of eye-fucking, I turned the card around and read six words. Six small, easy to understand words that made my being soar with every happy feeling I’d ever felt combined.

             
I dare you to follow me.

             
“What does he mean by that?” I wondered out loud in confusion. “Is this all he gave me?”

             
When I received no response, I looked back up and puffed out in irritation. “Stop looking at her! Emily is off limits and you’re in a relationship!”

             
“I’m not in a relationship,” he retorted. “It’s complicated.”

             
“Yeah, and until you’re in an uncomplicated situation, leave Emily alone.”

             
“I’ll be alright,” replied Emily. “I’m not some easy girl that’ll bend over to some guy in a suit.”
Liar.

             
Ignoring her, I took hold of Jamie’s face and directed it back to me. “Focus, was this all he gave you?”

             
“Hmm?” He looked back at me. “Oh, right. No, that’s not all. He also gave me this very important thing right here.”

             
He reached into his pocket again and produced a folded piece of paper. I took it from him and unfolded it. I looked it over, trembling from adrenaline.

             
“This is information for a flight,” I muttered, “with my name booked in.”

             
“Mhm, indeed it is,” he replied.

             
“To…” I felt my lips curve up. “To Morocco.”

             
“Mhm.” Something then occurred to him, and he tapped the paper quickly. “About that, see, I was supposed to give this to you last night so that you had better time preparing.”

             
“What do mean?”

             
When he didn’t answer, I focused on the details of the flight. Then I looked up and glared at him. “Are you fucking serious? This flight leaves in three hours, you asshole!”

             
He shrugged. “That’s not so bad. Just grab a few pairs of clothes and… whatever it is you girls do and you should be alright. Right?”

             
Ignoring him, I whipped around and ran to my room. I tore apart my closet, pulling random clothes off hangers until every surface of my bedroom was covered. It was absolute madness! Unable to find a suitcase, and too panicked to even give a shit, I grabbed the biggest purse I owned and stuffed it with random crap. My brain was going a million miles an hour, and I was shaking harder with every passing second.

             
Was this really happening? Was I seriously leaving the country in three hours’ time?

             
If you hurry the fuck up, Claire, then yes!

             
While Jamie waited downstairs, Emily came in and helped pack some clothes while I hunted down my passport and wallet.

             
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” she exclaimed. “I’m so excited for you, babe. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”

             
I was too busy packing and getting my things in order to properly digest my feelings. It was surreal. I threw on the first thing I saw – skinny jeans and a plain white tee – and grabbed the bag Emily had packed for me. I took off back down the stairs, and she followed closely behind, yammering away in my ear about how much she envied me.

             
“I’m taking you to the airport,” Jamie told me once he saw me. He’d been patiently waiting in the kitchen, and was munching away on an ice cold chocolate bar he’d stolen from the fridge.

             
I snatched the bar out of his hands. “I need breakfast. Now let’s get out of here. I have to be gone in two and a half hours.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight
Going to make this right

Jamie sped down the roads in his impressive Ferrari, cutting through traffic and slamming on the brakes half a million times. We didn’t say anything. I was too preoccupied with my hectic thoughts. My body tingled with nerves as I clung to my packed purse and wallet, checking the time every few minutes.

             
He made it to the airport in record time and stopped in front of the entrance.

             
“I can take it from here,” I told him. “Thank you for driving me.”

             
“No problem,” he replied. He then took his aviator sunglasses off and handed them to me. “You’re going to need these when you’re there.”

             
I smiled and took them. “Thanks.”

             
“Yeah. Well, say hello to big brother for me, and try not to betray him often. Alright?”

             
I raised a brow. “Yeah, right. Great and appropriate timing and all to bring that up, Jamie.”

             
“Too soon?”

             
“Just a little.”

             
He chuckled. “Get lost then. I’m not going to wait around a second longer. You’ve got a man to grovel to, and I’ve got a lovely blonde to work my moves on.”

             
My eyes widened. “Hell no. Stay away from Emily, Jamie. She’s not the relationship kind of girl.”

             
“And I’m not the relationship kind of guy. We should be good.”

             
I just shook my head at him. I opened the door and stepped out. He honked once at me as he drove off. I turned around and hurried past the crowd of people with one thought in mind.

             
I have a plane to catch.

*****

Thirty two hours.

             
Thirty. Two. Freaking. Hours.

             
Why did people like to travel when their destinations were thirty two freaking hours away?

             
It gave me a shitload of time to reflect on everything. I ran our last encounter together, particularly the hate in his voice when he had spoken to me. What had changed since then for him to dare me to follow him?

             
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when we saw each other. I tried to come up with lines in my head, but not even then could I properly piece together the right words for the occasion. It was overwhelming thinking about it, so I strayed from it and thought instead about Mom and the last words we’d said on the phone while I was waiting to board.

             
“If you knew I was leaving the country, but that I was going to be happy, would you understand?” I asked her.

             
“Well, I left the state to find my happiness, didn’t I?” she countered with a small sigh. “This is about Ben, though, isn’t it?”

             
“Yeah, it is.”

             
“How long will you be gone?”

             
“I don’t know. Could be a day. Could be a month.”

             
She was quiet, deliberating. “Well, sweetheart, you grew up before my eyes. You graduated high school, you graduated College, and you’re officially a qualified teacher. You’re not a rebellious party bopper, and you’ve matured into a beautiful young lady. I don’t have a say in what you do, but you have my approval.”

             
I smiled, blinking back the tears. “Then I’m going to Morocco.”

             
“Oh, hell, Claire,” she groaned. “That’s not a short distance away!”

             
Her approval meant the world to me.

             
It was 6pm Aussie time when the plane landed in Tangier. However, here, it was ten in the morning and crowded as hell.

             
As the plane began its descent, Tangier looked like a tropical paradise – a coastal city along the Mediterranean Sea, packed with people and, according to pamphlets I’d been given, highly historic places that made for good tourism. It looked like my kind of heaven.

I didn’t need to collect any luggage – I had the purse I’d packed everything into hanging on my shoulder. I was sweaty, tired, and uncertain of my next step.

              Once I made it passed immigration, I stood in the airport as a line-up of family members crowded around, waiting for their loved ones to show. I looked all around me, feeling small and unimportant as I stood alone. I searched for his face, at times standing on my tippy-toes to glance over people’s shoulders.

             
But no grey eyes met mine.

             
After fifteen minutes of this, I was growing increasingly worried. Had I done something wrong? What if he had never intended on showing up to begin with? A feeling of melancholy passed through me. My hopes started to dwindle. I spun around frantically, searching and searching until…

             
My body froze. My mind froze.
Everything
froze.

             
Except my heart.

That little or
gan sped up, hammering away in my chest, as I stared on in front of me.

             
He stood ten feet away from me in grey cargo shorts and a casual, white button up. Still the most delectable man I remembered him to be, his black hair had grown some, curling at the nape of his neck. He was bigger than I remembered, and, like always, he stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of people around him.

             
Those intense grey eyes were locked to me. I could feel them sweeping up and down my body, taking all of me in. The look on his face was hard to read, but he seemed to be as affected as me judging by the way his chest rose and fell more rapidly.

             
There was no way I was going to allow him to make the first move. I was aware that even though he’d brought me here, that didn’t necessarily mean everything was okay. I had a lot of work on my hands, but I wanted to do it. I’d do anything to have another chance with him again.

             
I shook out of shock and began moving to him. My eyes stayed locked to his as I brushed past people. My body grew warmer the closer I got, as though I’d been a planet that’d spiralled out of orbit only to be thrust back around the sun again. And when I was finally standing a foot away from him, staring up at that beautiful face, all the anguish and pain I’d endured without him the last four months caught up to me, and I crumbled.

             
The tears fell and I tsked at them angrily, cursing, “I didn’t want to cry, dammit.”

             
His lips twitched, signalling a bit of life under that stoic expression.

             
I wiped the tears away quickly, unsure of what to say or how to react. So we just stood there for a few minutes in silence, in the noisy public airport, as I tried to overcome this heavy wave of emotion.

             
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, staring up at him. “I know you don’t want me to say it, but fuck, Ben, I’m so sorry. I’ll do anything to have you back. I’ll prove it any way that’s good enough for you to believe me. I will never mess it up with you because I’d rather die than face losing you again. I just… I really love you and I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know where you stand. I don’t know anything. I haven’t heard your voice in four months, and I’m desperate to. I want to touch you too, but you’re staring at me like I’ve gone mad and I’m pretty sure I should shut up right now.”

             
Rambling like a madwoman in front of the love of my life was unbecoming of me. I couldn’t help it, though.

             
I needed him.

             
He moved a little closer to me, and when his hand pressed against the left side of my face, my heart swelled. He was touching me.
God, I dreamed this every night
.

             
He licked his lips slowly and whispered, “You said in your letter that you wondered if any part of my heart still belonged to you.”

             
I held my breath, waiting for him to continue.

             
“My whole heart never stopped belonging to you, beauty.”

             
I settled my hand over his and cried into it as he moved in even closer.

             
“I was hard on you,” he continued. “I was so angry at you that it blinded me from understanding what you’d done. I’m sorry for that.”

             
“Don’t you dare apologize to me,” I shot back. “You did nothing wrong.”

             
“But I did. I spent those few months trying to end the dirty side of business I’d been wrapped up in, and I never opened up to you about it. I never explained to you what was happening, never prepared you for what might have come. I didn’t want you to know because I was ashamed of it. If I’d communicated with you a bit more, then maybe none of this would have happened.”

             
He dipped his face and pressed his forehead against mine.

             
“It took me a very long time to look past that anger,” he said. “But when I did, I saw it from your point of view. The night you gave me the watch, it hit me. The reason you’d brought up my relationship history the night before, it occurred to me that’s what Hardman had used to turn you against me. They’d been on my case heatedly when I was seeing her, and when I broke it off with her, I’d also broken it off with Jamie. I could see they’d depended on that to make their lie work, thinking she wouldn’t re-enter my life. And I was so angry at it all, I wanted you to see Melinda with Jamie first hand.”

             
“And that’s why you told him the apartment was his for a few hours.”

             
“Yes, I knew he was with her, and I wanted you to see it for yourself. That whatever they told you I’d done to her, you’d come to realize it was the complete opposite. I wanted you to feel the shock, wanted you to feel the pain – anything to get you to feel what I did in that moment. And it was wrong of me.”

             
I shook my head. “I deserved it.”

             
His hold against my face tightened as he solemnly let out, “We had this discussion before, Claire, about what you do and do not deserve. You did
not
deserve that kind of emotional pain.”

             
“But I needed to feel it. I needed to know your pain, and I’m sorry for it.”

             
Pulling away from me, he dropped his hand and wrapped it around mine. “You’re mine,” he told me with conviction. “And I’m yours. We’re going to spend every moment together while we’re here, and we’re going to make this right.”

             
I smiled at him, and it felt like the first real smile in months, coming from deep within my soul.

             
“Let me take your bag.” His other hand grabbed hold of the strap around my shoulder. He took it off and settled it around his own before pulling me to him. “You’re going to enjoy it here. Weather’s beautiful, food’s even better, and the people are wonderful.”

             
“And how long are we going to be here?” I asked happily.

             
He shrugged, smiling down at me. “As long as we want. We can go wherever we want. Travel the world, work a few jobs here and there in-between, and then who knows? Maybe we’ll find somewhere we want to settle down, a place where I can marry you and start a completely different journey.”

             
My heart clenched as I stared at him, stunned stupid. “You see yourself marrying me?”

             
He chuckled at my disbelief. “You
will
marry me one day. I don’t have to ask it. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. Hell, I’ll write it on a damn card since you clearly do whatever they demand of you.”

             
“You know, it’s still romantic if you asked, Ben.”

             
He looked mischievously at me. “One day, little lady. I’ll ask you to be mine on paper one day very soon.”

             
I smiled, swallowing back my tears. “I’ll be waiting.”

*****

We fit together so perfectly. Our bodies entwined like we were made for each other. Four months of separation had done nothing to our relationship. We simply picked up where we left off.

             
Except sexually.

             
We had a lot of catching up to do in that way.

             
The second we stepped foot into his enormous rental apartment, Ben dropped my bag and picked me up. He hurried me into the bedroom, ignoring my protests, uncaring that I’d been on a thirty two hour journey and felt grimy as hell.