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My lungs are suddenly oxygen-starved again. “You're in love with me?”
“I'm crazy in love with you. I can't think of anything but you. I'll do anything for you, Claire. Including coming home.”
I close my eyes, knowing just what that means to him. Knowing what it means to me and for our relationship. He's prepared to compromise and sacrifice, and so am I. We can meet in the middle. There's a chance this might work after all.
It's all the more reason to jump. “I love you, too. I think I always have, and that means I want you to be happy. I don't want you to come home before you're ready. I'm sure I can take some time out to travel with you. Then maybe we can come home?”
“You know your timeouts are my favourite kind of timeouts.”
I can hear the smirk behind the words. “Will we have time for that and all the sightseeing you have planned?”
He chuckles. “We'll make it work.”
I believe him.
36
Dylan
I stand in the baggage claim area at LAX waiting for Claire's plane to get in. This is where we agreed to meet – the starting point of our adventure together. Now that I'm done in New Zealand and she's wrapped up her job at the bank, we can finally be together. The past two and a half months have bitterly tested my patience. It doesn't matter that I talked to Claire every night on the phone. It doesn't matter I had some of the steamiest conversations of my life and hottest phone sex these past months. I've never missed anyone this much.
With all my heart, I've been looking forward to the moment I'd lay eyes on my woman again.
Yes, Claire Chase is my woman. There is no doubt about it. She's been mine from the moment Austin introduced us. No one has ever made me feel the complete gamut of emotions that Claire does, and even if someone could make me feel any of those things, Claire got there first. My heart is hers. She owns me, heart and soul.
There are things about Claire that have shocked, surprised, and awed me, like the fact she's leaving everything she knows behind to take this adventure with me. I've questioned constantly if this is right for her, worrying she might resent me later for putting a hiatus on her plans. But the more we talked and the more we planned our trip, the surer I became that she isn't just doing this for me anymore – she's excited and ready for it, too.
Claire Chase is no longer the uptight and tightly controlled teenager I met and perhaps started to fall for right from the beginning. She's now a woman completely in charge of hersexuality and her life and the way she rocks my world every time we talk leaves me desperate for her.
Talking to Claire, and loving her, falling for her a little more every day – it's the ultimate extreme sport. I don't know where the ground is when it comes to my love for this woman. Everything she makes me feel seems endless. There is no rope, no net, nothing to contain everything I feel for her. The adrenaline rush that comes with those bottomless feelings is addictive.
When I see the screen show Claire's flight from Melbourne is due in the luggage claim area, I stand up with my backpack and suitcase, my heart going a mile a minute, hands clammy as I wait to see my girl for the first time in three months.
I watch every person walking into baggage claim, waiting desperately to see her face. Then the crowd parts just for us and I see her walking behind a couple holding hands.
The moment Claire sees me standing there and smiles, her happiness lighting up her face, I feel a sense of completeness and rightness that's been missing ever since I left for New Zealand.
I run for her, suitcase and all, and I breathe in the moment she lands in my arms. I squeeze her so hard, she laughs before pulling away.
“Hi,” she says almost a little shyly.
“Hi.”
Then I lower my head and kiss her, letting her know in no uncertain terms just much I love her, how much I've missed her and how seeing her is the best thing that has happened to me since I left Australia.
“I'm really glad I brushed my teeth in the toilets before now,” she says, laughing.
“I wouldn't care if you hadn't brushed your teeth in years. I've been waiting to kiss you for three months.”
There's an intensity in the way she looks at me that makes me wish we were alone. The jostling of people walking by doesn't faze me. I'd take her here if it didn't mean getting arrested. We've rented hotel rooms for the first week of our trip, something I'm relieved about now. Food can come to us. I have so much time to catch up on with her and the sooner we're in a bed, the better.
“Stop it,” she whispers huskily.
“I can't help it. It's so good to see you.”
“I know how you feel. Let me grab my case and we can get out of here.”
It's music to my ears.
