The International Kissing Club (41 page)

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “That’s the last thing I want to discuss tonight.” Lucas bent and kissed the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Cassidy’s eyes fluttered closed. She bit her lower lip against the soft moan that gathered at the back of her throat.

“What about me, Cass? Are you going to miss me?”

More than she wanted to think about. Eight weeks ago, she’d been counting the days until she could leave, but now she wished the hours would slow to give her more time. It was true she couldn’t wait to see her friends and her mom after so long apart, but the fact that she might never see Lucas again was like a punch in the gut. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so, but the words got stuck between her brain and her vocal chords. Cassidy decided showing him would be easier.

Threading her fingers into the waves of his hair, she pulled him down, taking his mouth and putting everything she couldn’t say in words into her kiss. Her tongue slid against his, tasting him, while she breathed in his scent—sun, sea, salt, and sand—and tried to burn it to memory. Lucas rolled on top of her and she twined her legs around his, rubbing her bare feet up his calves, wanting her body as close to his as she could make it.

The kiss was tender. Their chests rose and fell together as their breaths began and ended with each other’s. Lucas’s hand slowly inched up her dress to brush the bare skin of her thigh at the same time her fingers slipped beneath his shirt to skim across the taut muscles of his stomach.

Then his mouth left hers, pressing feather-soft kisses down her jaw and throat to the neckline of the dress, kissing her through its light cotton material.
Oh my God.
The intimate touch burned against her skin. It was almost too much.

She knew she should stop this, that they were going way beyond anywhere they’d been before, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She wanted everything Lucas was doing, everything he was making her feel. And she wanted him to feel it, too.

Reaching for the buttons of his shirt, her fingers sure and confident, she began undoing them one by one. He slid her dress straps down her arms, trailing kisses across her shoulder to just below one earlobe. His warm breath tickled her ear.

“I love you, Cassidy,” he whispered.

Desire froze in her veins. Of all the beautiful words he could have said tonight, those were the last ones she’d wanted to hear. Her eyes flew open to find Lucas’s, shining and heavy lidded, gazing down at her as if she were the most perfect thing he had ever seen. Everything—the night, the moment, Lucas—suddenly seemed
too
perfect.

Too good to be true …

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

What was she doing? She couldn’t do this. She
knew
better. Hadn’t
she learned anything from what had happened between her mother and father?

Her whole body tensed as her fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. She pushed Lucas away from her, the movement catching him off guard and knocking him back, hard.

“Cassidy, what’s wrong?” Bewilderment colored his voice.

She stood, straightening her dress, and searched for her shoes. “I have to go. Now.”

He grabbed her hand. “Cassidy, wait. Tell me what’s wrong. Did I do something?”

She jerked away from him, turning over blankets and flinging pillows. Damn it, where were those frickin’ sandals?

Lucas stood and held her by the arms, bending down until she was forced to look at him. The confusion and hurt she saw in his face made her turn away. “Cass, whatever I did, I’m sorry. If I got carried away … I promise I would never do anything you don’t want. I love you.”

“Stop saying that,” she cried. “Guys only say that when they want to get laid. You don’t mean it.”

Lucas went very still, but he didn’t let go of her. The boat rocked beneath them, the mast and rigging jangled, echoing in the silence after her outburst.

“Listen to me, Cass,” Lucas said, his voice soft and calm, as if he were speaking to a frightened child. “I love you.”

She didn’t move.

“I love you,” he repeated.

She couldn’t breathe.

“I love you.”

His face wavered before her as tears spilled over the rims of her eyes. Screw the sandals.

She jerked out of his grasp, ran down the deck, and hopped over the rail before he could stop her. Lucas yelled for her to stop, but she kept running.

There was a ferry dock just down the street, its lights a beacon in
the dark. She heard him running behind her but even barefoot she was faster. She ran down to the landing just as the ferry whistle blew.

“Cassidy!” The sound made her pause for a split second at the threshold, but she didn’t look back as she quickly jumped onto the boat. The worker closed the ramp behind her.

The boat pushed away from the dock and sailed into the harbor. The flash of the fireworks in the distance reflected on the inky water, their percussive booms covering up the sound of the racking sobs that were tearing from her chest.

Heavy gray clouds shrouded the tops of the central business district in the distance and rain dribbled down the windshield of the taxicab.

“Hope you’re not a bad flyer—it may be pretty bumpy on the takeoff,” said the driver. Cassidy stared out the window as he navigated the winding maze of roads that led through the sprawling airport to the international terminal. Her flight didn’t leave for another five hours, but she couldn’t stand sitting around at Mrs. Gatwick’s making small talk anymore. She just wanted to go home.

Bzzz.
She didn’t have to look at the phone in her hand to know who it was—Lucas had called at least a dozen times since last night and sent twice as many texts. Cassidy hadn’t answered any of them; there was no point. What could she say to him?
Sorry I’m such a freak, but the thought of a gorgeous, perfect sweetheart of a guy being in love with me is more than I’m capable of handling.

She turned off her phone and dropped it to the bottom of her backpack. A few hours from now she’d be over the Pacific on her way home to Texas, to her real life. And maybe, if she were lucky just this once, the numbness that had settled over her body would last until she could crawl into her own bed, pull the covers over her head, and stay there forever.

Cassidy checked her luggage, waited through the endless line at security, and mentally slipped out of Vacation Cassidy mode when she
walked through the scanner. On the other side of security, she turned and glanced back the way she’d come, half expecting to see the discarded shell of the girl she’d been here in Australia. But all she saw was the flood of sunburned tourists and impatient business travelers, oblivious to the emotions churning inside of her. So much had changed in the ten weeks she’d been in Australia, it was hard to believe that there was no physical evidence. But then, why should there be? All the changes were inside of her.

Shrugging it off, she wandered up and down the airport corridor, ducking into each store in turn. Not to shop, of course, but to stay one step ahead of her emotions. It almost worked. At last, the PA system announced her flight would begin boarding, so she made her way to the gate and through another round of security for flights heading to the United States.

That’s when she saw him, propped against the window, her forgotten sandals dangling from his hand. In a wrinkled tee and pants, his hair damp from the rain and unkempt, as if he’d dragged his fingers through it a thousand times, he had the same dark circles beneath his eyes that she knew she did. His beautiful face sagged with worry and so much dejection that if she’d had any tears left in her at all, she would have broken down right there in front of the hundreds of other passengers waiting in the gate area.

“You forgot these,” he said as he approached, handing her the sandals.

“How did you get here?” were the words that tumbled from her mouth.

“I drove.”

“No, I mean how did you get back
here,
through security to the gate?”

“I bought a ticket.” Her mouth must have popped open in shock because he shrugged, as if it were nothing that he had just spent a couple thousand dollars on a plane ticket. “I didn’t have a choice—you wouldn’t answer my calls and I had to see you before you left.”

This was like some clichéd scene in a movie—the hero racing to the airport to stop the heroine from leaving, turning the female audience into romantic mush. But Cassidy would be getting on this plane and Lucas would not, ticket or no. She was made of sterner stuff than the average American moviegoer.

“You shouldn’t have come, Lucas,” she said. They weren’t the words she wanted to say. So many thoughts, so many phrases, bubbled up inside her that she couldn’t keep track of them all. Any more than she could keep track of the regrets. God, how many of those did she have?

Make a clean break, Cass. Smooth and easy.
“I’m sorry about running away last night. It wasn’t how I wanted things to end with us. But it—us—we’re done. I had an incredible time with you, but I’m leaving now. There’s nothing else to say.”

Lucas made another tentative step toward her, not too close, as if he thought she might run again if he did, but close enough for her to smell that appealing scent that was all his own. She had to put her hands in her jeans pockets to keep from reaching out to him, to let him hold her one last time and make this horrible hollow feeling go away.

“Cassidy, what I said last night is the truth: I do love you. And I think that you love me, and that’s why you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she countered, but it sounded like a lie.

“So then why run away from me last night, barefoot? You know I drove all the way to Mrs. Gatwick’s house after you jumped on that damn ferry to make sure you got home okay?”

God, why did he have to be so sweet? It flustered her, making her tone more abrupt than she meant it to be. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t going anywhere, Lucas. I’m a junior in high school and you live halfway around the world.”

“I don’t have to—I can live anywhere.”

Now she was getting angry. This wasn’t smooth, this wasn’t easy.
Why couldn’t he just let it go?
“If that’s true, then you definitely don’t want to live in Paris, Texas.”

“I’m not ready for this to be over, and if you’re honest with yourself, Cassidy, you’re not, either.”

“This isn’t real. You don’t know the real me. This was just a—a fling. I was Vacation Cassidy and now it’s over. That’s it, end of story.”

She folded her arms across her chest, daring him to argue. Instead, Lucas closed the space between them and kissed her, holding her by the waist so she couldn’t bolt. Not that she could have—her legs had rubberized. Even as unprepared for this as she’d been, it took her a moment to realize this was no tender kiss good-bye. No, it was hot and hungry, and before she knew it, she was kissing him back with everything she had. She’d never felt like this before, not even on the boat last night. She’d never felt this unbelievable connection with another human being. Like Lucas had managed to crawl inside of her. Like he would always be there. And worse, like she would always want him to be.

Her fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt, holding him to her. Holding on to him as desperately as she’d been pushing him away the night before.

Then he stopped, before she was ready, and she stumbled forward into him.

Lucas caught her before she could fall. His gaze searched her face and then, slowly, he gave her a knowing grin. “That’s what I thought.” He began to walk away, throwing his expensive boarding pass on the ground.

“I’ll see you, American girl,” he called out. “Don’t be catching a ride with any cowboys once you land in Texas. Oh, and I better not see any more points for you on that damn kissing club page, or there’ll be hell to pay when I see you. Hell. To. Pay.” And then he was gone.

Dazed by the whole scene, Cassidy boarded the plane. Her seat was the middle of three, smack between a good-looking Dutch student
from South Africa and a really cute Canadian semipro hockey player—it was a veritable buffet for a founding member of the International Kissing Club.

Cassidy couldn’t have cared less. She’d had all the kissing she could take for a while. Her three points would have to stand.

The cab driver had been right … it was going to be a rocky flight.

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