Kiss a Stranger

by R. J. Lewis

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Revenge

  PRIVATE NUMBER CALLING

  I stared at my flashing, muted phone. Once upon a time those words on my screen would have made me jump up and down with excitement. Now I just felt disgusted. I had no desire to answer. The last thing I wanted was to hear his voice. He was oblivious to my week of turmoil, and there was no way I could be around that ignorance and pretend all was fine and right.

  I turned the phone off and threw it in the drawer of my desk. Then I continued cleaning the room I’d smashed to bits a week ago. After I finished, I went down to the kitchen and grabbed a can of soda and the leftover pizza box Emily ordered for herself last night. I took it up to my bedroom and, without giving a fuck anymore of what might come up in the morning, I sat in my bed and ate every bit of it.

  I lay down afterwards to digest and flicked through my Kindle. Deciding on a depressing novel, I read parts of Wuthering Heights, trying for the millionth time to connect to Heathcliff and his sadism. I wondered, just as Heathcliff masterfully sought his revenge, if I could somehow do the same to Ben. Could I be capable of pretending all was fine, and would I really enjoy watching his world come crashing down once he was put away for good?

  Was revenge going to bring me light in the end? Was it going to shed some clarity in the murky waters I’d submerged myself in? Or would I just feel emptier than I already did?

  Time to find out, Claire.

  Suddenly a woman on a mission, I put the kindle down and got out of bed. I searched for the card Detective Hardman gave me right before I left the station. I found it in the pocket of my shorts in the laundry pile. I grabbed the phone out of the drawer – ignoring the five missed calls from Ben – and dialled his number.

  It was time to get even.

  *****

  You didn’t always have to hear or see something to know it was there. Sometimes your body sensed it long before your mind registered.

  In this case, my body was aware of him before I opened my eyes and had my first thought. He entered the bedroom and loomed over me. I was on my side, my back to him. I didn’t know how long he stood there, but at some point I finally opened my eyes and stared at the wall, waiting for him to make a move. He didn’t say a word as the sound of his clothes coming off hit my ears.

  The mattress dipped, and his hand touched my hip. I flinched, and I was sure it was a giveaway I was awake.

  “Hey,” he said guardedly, his mouth close my ear. “It’s me, beauty.”

  Beauty.

  I held my breath and waited for the pain in my chest to pass, but it didn’t. My heart picked up pace and my skin tingled warmly. How could I be feeling such good emotions when everything inside of me wanted to scream and push him away?

  “I tried calling you to tell you I got back,” he said, running his lips along my bare shoulder.

  The December summer heat had me in nothing but my singlet and panties. I felt vulnerable, wanting nothing more than to cover my skin so there was a barrier between his touch.

  “I misplaced my phone,” I lied.

  He wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me against his bare chest, further enveloping me in his scent. “I missed you.”

  Yeah? Didn’t seem like it. “You didn’t call.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  Right. I shut my eyes and tried to endure his gentle touch, knowing already it wasn’t real. He was a lie.

  His hand dipped below my shirt and his fingers grazed my stomach before descending lower and lower. I flinched when he inched his way into my panties and squirmed uncomfortably. My body both heated in lust and tensed in disgust.

  “Please stop,” I pleaded in a whisper. My throat closed and tears threatened to surface.

  He instantly stopped and pulled out. “What’s the matter?” he asked cautiously.

  Fuck. I didn’t know what to do at this point. I reflected quickly on Hardman’s words.

  Do not let him suspect you.

  You’re the last person he’s threatened by. Keep it that way.

  Be the same as you were before.

  “I’m just feeling sick,” I lied again, hoping my voice didn’t give me away.

  “Not sick enough to eat judging by the pizza.”

  “It’s because of the pizza. Stomach ache. And I’m worried any motion will make me throw up.”

  “Is it too much motion to ask you to kiss me?”

  I gingerly twisted my head and felt his cool mouth over mine. His hand touched my face delicately as he kissed me. He was so gentle about it, and it twisted me even worse.

  When he finally pulled away, he whispered, “I missed these lips.”

  “I missed yours too.” Half of a lie.

  I went back to my position and prayed for sleep. I wouldn’t survive the night if he expected more from me.

  Thankfully he didn’t, but his grip around me never loosened even long after he fell asleep. He held me like I belonged to him, and for a moment I pretended this last week had never happened. I wanted to pretend for a minute that he wasn’t responsible for my pain and that he hadn’t marred someone like he marred me. He could never offer an explanation that I’d forgive, but in a way I wanted to give him the opportunity. There was so much to be said and it sat at the tip of my tongue, but I had to keep my mouth shut.

  Because at the end of the day he was a criminal.

  And he had to be put away for all the hurt he was responsible for; mine and all the women he destroyed before me.

  *****

  I pretended to be happy the next morning. I threw on a black and white skirt and white top. He changed into clean clothes out of his suitcase and we went out for breakfast. We found a nice place nearby and ate at a table outside. The heat was oppressive, but the overhead cover offered some cool shade.

  “How was your trip?” I asked him, forcing a smile.

  “Long,” he answered. “It’s good to be back and with you.”

  I could hardly look at him eat while I kicked around my food. This fucker had no idea I knew everything, and looking at him felt like a kick in the gut. My body trembled. I wanted so much to inflict pain on him the way he did to me.

  But I just plodded on through.

  “How’s your mother?” he then asked.

  “Good.” Having cut myself off of everyone, I hadn’t talked to her in over a week, but the move had made her really happy. I was sure nothing changed in a week’s time.

  “So I have a confession,” I declared, trying not to get annoyed by his constant need to stare at me. It made me constantly aware of my façade, and the amount of times I caught myself beginning to glare at him disturbed me.

  “Is that so?” he said with a smile. “What is it, little lady?”

  Little lady. I wished he’d stop with that stupid nickname. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t endearing. I hated it now.

  “Well, you gave me your apartment key and… well, you know how what happens when you give a woman your key, right?”

  He chuckled, and even that sounded like a fucking wailing dog. “I take it you went to my apartment?”

  “And?”

  He shrugged. “Snooped?”

  I nodded slowly. I had to bring this up. He needed to hear it from me in case Jamie opened his bloody mouth and beat me to it. And if it was said by him first, that would have made Ben suspicious. And what was Ben like when he was suspicious? I didn’t want to know.

  “Yes,” I admitted coyly. “I did. I went everywhere, including your office. It was only after Jamie found me that I felt so guilty. Then I realized you might be very upset by that –”

  “You were alone with Jamie?” he interrupted, all humour gone.

  “I didn’t know he was there.”

  “So you were.”

  “Well, yes.”

  A look of anger flashed through him, and it made my insides coil. How had I ever found this man attractive when his anger was set off so quickly?

  “What happened between you two?”
he then asked, tightly.

  Now I was genuinely confused. “We just talked.”

  “About?”

  “I wanted to know about you and he offered some explanations that helped.”

  He abandoned his food and looked away from me, balling a hand tightly. “Why couldn’t you come to me for explanations?” he then let out, angrily.

  “You never say anything. It’s always some reserved response –”

  “So you go behind my back and look for answers from my brother?”

  My heart spiked. I nervously said, “He offered, and… at that point I was too curious to pass it up.”

  “And what did my admirable brother tell you?” he demanded bitterly.

  I couldn’t meet his eye when I muttered, “He told me what happened to your parents, and the reason you don’t drive.”

  The silence that followed stretched on for minutes. When I willed myself to peek at him, that anger from before was gone. In fact, his walls were too. He looked lost, and it was startling to witness him so sad.

  “I should have died with them,” he muttered reflectively. “It should have been me. I’d rather it was me if it meant not seeing that hole in the earth. Everything burnt. Dead. I got this just by trying to sort the mess out.” He pointed to the scar above his eyebrow, and then he showed me the scars on his knuckles. “And these. Sharp, burning bits everywhere. The shrapnel cut into my knuckles as I desperately tried to sort through the mess. Millions of pieces of metal and burnt flesh everywhere, and you could smell it in the air. Pungent and overwhelming. You could never escape that smell. It still follows me around like a shadow.”

  I didn’t move. I don’t even think I blinked. The look of pain on his face tore me to pieces, and I hated that it wrecked me. I kept scolding myself to pull it together, to not feel, yet he looked so human, and so like the man I fell in love with.

  What was wrong with me?

  I rested my hand over his, cringing and seeking it at the same time. “It shouldn’t have been you,” I lied, because it should have. If he’d died, my life would have been whole.

  Ben looked into my eyes just then. For a second I thought he caught my lie until he grasped my hand tighter and said, “I never wanted the life that was handed to me. It fell into my lap. It had always been set for me, but I want nothing to do with it. I want out, and I don’t have to start over here. We can do it somewhere else. Nothing stopping us. You’ve finished your schooling. I can leave everything to Jamie. And we can get away from here and find some tropical paradise to live in.”

  We.

  I tensed in my chair. “Where would we go?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  I tried not to look warily at him.

  “Morocco,” I said with a faint smile. “You said you loved it there. That’s where I’d go on the first leg of our journey.”

  He smiled back, disarming me with what I would have thought was genuine affection. But now it seemed like a smokescreen for something else.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Morocco it is then. We’ll disappear just you and me.”

  Disappear.

  I pressed my lips down to stop them from trembling.

  If I went anywhere with him, I’d disappear forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  You’re mine.

  That evening he took me to Kings Park, located on the business edge of the city. We walked hand in hand across the botanical gardens, and I got lost in the scenery. It was peaceful and isolated. There were enough people around that I didn’t feel nervous to be alone with him.

  And how crazy was that? I was scared to be alone with Ben.

  Unbelievable.

  I saw him from a different perspective. The way he glared at any man that checked my body out. The way he possessively kept me close by to him, always making sure I was an arm’s length away. The way he touched my scars repeatedly, staring at my face with a look of awe and lust. The way he told me countless times in that gruff voice how exquisite he thought I was.

  I’d have loved it all before. And I still wished I did. I wished that what I was tricked into believing was real, because my emotions were still the same.

  And that was the cruel thing about love. You couldn’t turn it off. You couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist because it was outside logic’s control. It had its own selfish agenda, and it lived to cloud your judgment and to trick you into believing there was more than what you were told.

  We went to his apartment, and he took me straight into his bedroom. I couldn’t put off sex, even though I wanted to. That would have been a dead giveaway.

  “I want you in my bed,” he said to me, pushing me to climb on to it. “I want to fuck you ‘til you can’t breathe. I haven’t been inside of you in forever and I’m losing my mind.”

  I told myself to breathe, because being intimate with him scared me. The mattress dipped behind me, and my being became acutely aware of him.

  “You want it from behind, beauty?” he said in that hard voice.

  I nodded. My throat was too thick for words. I just wanted this over and done with.

  And yet, when his hand touched my body, it soared. Fucking soared for him. How could that be? How could it yearn to be felt by a man that hurt me?

  But it didn’t care, and all at once everything around me blurred. I could hardly breathe or make sense of it.

  My emotions and thoughts clashed.

  I loved him.

  I loathed him.

  I wanted to bring him close, and I wanted to push him away.

  The warring of emotions inside of me made me feel like I was caught up in a whirlwind of hate and love. But which was overpowering the other?

  He pressed my face down against the mattress as he swiftly undid his belt. I shook with need and cried with desperation. If I could only just look at him again… I’d choose ignorance over truth, if only I could look at him the way I used to.

  He threw my skirt up over my hips and took me hard and fast. My mouth opened and my eyes glazed over as the feeling of pleasure swept me away into a place I’d reserved deep inside of me. A place where, once upon a time, he made me feel cherished and loved.

  Tears burned down my face.

  The truth.

  That disgusting bitch of a thing called truth.

  I’d do anything to hide from it. Because its grip was cold as death around my neck, and it was choking the life right out of me.

  He was going to be the death of me.

  Yet he took me there. He brought me to the precipice of pleasure, and I let myself fall. Let myself believe in his lies.

  When he finished, he collapsed next to me and tucked me into his side. He fell asleep, completely oblivious to the woman against him – the woman that hated herself for enjoying what he just did to her.

  *****

  “Open your eyes,” he told me.

  I opened them and saw his face looking back at me. He was on his side, facing me, and he had the brightest smile on his face. Anger swirled in my chest at the sight of it. How could a monster look so genuine?

  “I have something for you,” he claimed.

  “And what’s that?” I garbled out.

  “It’s something very pretty.”

  I tried to stir the deadness inside of me alive, but this morning it was particularly stubborn. So if he wanted excitement, I couldn’t offer it.

  “Okay,” I said simply, “show me.”

  “First, tell me you love me.”

  I swallowed hard. “I love you.”

  He couldn’t question that. I was telling the truth, and it killed me to do it.

  Those grey eyes warmed. He leaned into me and kissed me lightly. “It’s under your pillow.”

  I reached under my pillow and felt a long, thin box. I pulled it out. It was wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper, and when I raised a brow and looked at him, he said, “I couldn’t wait another week. I needed to see a real smile on your face now.”

  “What do you mean ‘real
smile’?” I asked him curiously.

  “You’ve been out of sorts, and you haven’t been open about it.”

  “I told you I’ve been feeling a bit sick –”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” His face fell and he stared gravely at me. “You’ve hidden yourself from me. Don’t think I can’t read you, because I can, beauty. Probably better than you can read yourself.”

  I was lost for words. I looked away from those penetrating eyes and stared at the box.

  Stick as far to the truth as possible, I told myself.

  “I just feel like this is too good to be true,” I explained quietly. “Like I’m somehow your plaything until you get tired of me. And maybe everything you’ve ever told me has been said to others before me. I’ve been hurt a lot, but you’re going to hurt me the most.”

  I took a deep breath before I looked at him again. He stared incredulously at me, and that hurt look made me cry. I covered my face with one hand and set the box down. I sat up and turned away from him. I was sure I’d blown my cover. He probably knew I was on to him. I’d said too much, but it was the closest thing I could say without fully telling him everything outright.

  But his arms wrapped around me quickly, and his chest pressed against my back.

  “Claire,” he said hastily, “I’m not sure what I’ve done to make you feel like that –”

  I pulled away from him and stood up. I wiped away the tears and faced him. He was sitting up now too, bare chested in nothing but his briefs. The sun that flooded through the windows made him look like a fucking angel, and I would have believed it days ago. I might have crumbled then and there too had I not run Melinda’s scars through my mind. He did that to her, and he did this to me, and the difference was I didn’t want to be a photo sliding across a table in some police station, horrifying another poor victim.

  “Who was before me?” I demanded.

  His brows came together. “What do you mean?”

  “Who were you with before me? I heard Jamie say her name once. Why can’t you say it to me now?”

  “Melinda was her name.”

  “And how long was that relationship?”