“Maybe you were just so irresistible.”
He chuckled. “You’re not a very good liar.”
“I know,” I admitted with a sheepish smile. “That’s landed me in hot waters too many times to count.”
“Lying?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded heartily. “I believe that. You made a series of lies when we met. Dropping those skittles into my lap intentionally –”
“M&Ms.”
“Then you told me you were a tourist.”
I smiled. “Clearly giving you my wallet told you I wasn’t.”
“It had nothing to do with your wallet. It was what you were wearing.”
My eyes widened. “How did that give it away?”
“You looked nothing like a tourist would, in your fancy clothes and done up hair. Nothing like the backpackers strolling the city streets.”
“Why would you think I would have been a backpacker if I really was a tourist?”
“You’re young, and you were riding public transport. You had a brand name bag, no camera. You were relaxed with your good Australian friend, like you’d done the trek a million times before. You were certainly not a tourist. Tourists your age riding public transport have a look, one that you certainly didn’t possess.”
When I didn’t respond right away, he added, “And you knew what ‘Pommie’ meant. Not many people on the other side of the world do.”
My goodness, this guy. “You sound like you really know what you’re talking about.”
“I do. I’m very well-travelled. It’s a reason why I couldn’t reach out, actually. I’ve been away for months.”
I tilted my head to the side, intrigued already by this. “You told me you live here.”
“I told you that among other places I live here.”
Had he said that? I thought back at our conversation on the train. It was such a small detail, I must not have paid any attention to it. “Where have you been?”
“Everywhere,” he said, looking thoughtful now. “A good while in Tangier, though.”
“Tangier, Morocco?”
“You’ve been?”
I nearly laughed. “Oh, my God, no! I haven’t travelled at all except when I came here. Why were you in Morocco?”
“Business,” he simply said.
My eyes narrowed. “What sort of business?”
A thought crossed his mind before he answered, “I own a furniture business in Malaga. I get my stock imported from parts of Asia, but I’ve been exploring other places, checking to see if there’s any competition.”
“Sounds tiring.”
“It is. In the long term, I might move on to something else.”
“Long term?” I eyed him inquisitively now, uncaring that my face was in full view of him. “How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
I paused. Nine years older than me. Well, shit, that was a pretty big age difference.
“What is it?” he asked, amused once again. “Am I too old to be around you? Not hip enough or something?”
“No, I just guess I would have thought at thirty you’d be in something you wanted to make a career out of.”
Something dark flashed in his eyes. With some unease, he looked away from me and rested his arm on the armrest. “Sometimes who you are is nothing like the person you want to be. And that’s something I realized a short while ago. I may be now in my thirties, but I’m probably just as clueless as you.”
Wryly, I raised a brow. “Who says I’m clueless?”
“You’re not? What are you doing with your life?”
Feeling a lot more relaxed by our conversation and its normalcy (sort of), I rested my back against the cushion and got comfortable. “I’m studying.”
“To become what?”
“A teacher.”
“Is that something you’re passionate about?”
I thought about it, and then I shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed like an easy decision at the time I began studying. Felt right I guess.” And at the time I chose, I wasn’t scarred. Now the idea of being a teacher in front of a classroom with all that attention on me was unnerving.
With a wicked gleam in his eye, he cheekily said, “I can see you being a teacher. You’d carry yourself well. Of course you might distract the boys, but I’m sure they’d rather you than some hairy old woman with taco breath.”
My face reddened as I laughed at that, and he smiled widely, chuffed with himself as his eyes roamed my face. His gaze deepened when he remarked softly, “You’re incredibly beautiful.”
A swarm of tingles settled into the bottom of my belly. I looked away from him and back into my lap. God, you can’t handle a compliment now?
“That was one of the things I said to you on that train,” he continued. “But your beauty then was filled with arrogance.”
“And now it’s not?”
“No, not at all.”
And anybody could guess why.
“You’re not too bad yourself,” I muttered.
“Oh? You like what you see?”
My heart pumped harder as I willed myself to look at him again. His piercing gaze left my body feeling like it was being squeezed tight by an invisible force, knocking me breathless. I was on fire, and I was sure my face gave away what he was doing to me.
“No response?” he whispered.
I felt his body draw nearer to me.
“Of course I do,” I replied shakily.
His fingers suddenly trailed my arm, igniting a trial of goose bumps. The skin he touched blazed for him. The silence between us was thick with hot tension. I could feel the very pit of my belly stir with desire. He was turning me on just by his bloody fingers and I was immediately aware of what was going on here. The only question I was asking myself was, “Should I go through with it?”
I did. I wanted to. Hell, I imagined myself being taken right then and there on that couch. But…
Abruptly, I stood up, breaking the contact of his touch. Shit, what the hell was I doing?
“Did you want me to get you anything?” I asked him, not meeting his eye. “Something to drink and eat or…?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him run a hand through his hair. “Uh, sure. Whatever you have will do.”