unbothered by the attention on us. In fact, he looks as cool as the devil, his gaze hard and unyielding as he stares at me, his thumb stroking and awakening flutters in my belly.
I blink and stare at him, hardly believing that he just said that. I want to slap him across the face, but I don’t want to suffer through another embarrassing moment inspired by him.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper, my voice hoarse and raw.
“That, Little Minx, was a cruel kiss.”
“A cruel kiss? There’s no such thing.”
“Little Minx, who lied to you that kisses can’t be cruel?” he questions, a light mocking in his voice that sends a shiver of awareness through my body. “You thought you could run away from me a second time, Mia?” he questions, a dangerous note in his voice. “I won’t have that shit and if I have to be cruel in order for you to learn your lesson, then so be it.”
A thrill runs through me when he says that, but the cold, hard, unrelenting bitch in me takes his words and phrases them as a command one would give a dog.
“Excuse me?” I reel back, moving away from his touch. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m not yours.”
That angers him all over again because he grabs the back of my neck and brings me closer to him where he kisses me again, but this time I fight, but he kisses me even harder, then bites my lower lip, making a small moan escape my lips.
Oh, my freaking God.
When he pulls back to look at me, I swear I shiver in my seat. I’ve never been looked at the way Julian looks at me. Like he wants me naked and below him right in this moment but at the same time, he wants to worship and adore the hell out of me.
“You’re a damn fool to think you’re not mine,” he growls low in his chest, his gaze penetrating into my insides. “You’re mine!”
“I’m not yours.” I aim for strong and independent when I say that, but it all comes out as an insecure, half-bitter, needy question instead. Like I want him to repeat what he just said and tell me that I’m his. Maybe then I’ll finally get a sense of belonging because right now, I’m so lost.
“Yeah, but your body is saying something else completely different,” he says gruffly. “But more than that, Mia, it’s your eyes. They have a story. A story that I won’t fucking allow to hurt you anymore than it already has.”
Oh God, does he know?
“I appreciate that, but unless you can tell me that you didn’t know what your father was doing to my mother—I mean, Nancy—then there’s really no point in venturing down the sink hole, is there?”
“Oh that,” he murmurs, making my jaw drop open.
“Oh that?” I shriek, making heads turn again to look at us, so I drop my voice to heated whisper. “Oh that? You knew?”
“I only find out after you,” he says, looking calm and collected, not at all bothered by the conversation we’re currently having.
“I can’t believe this shit,” I whisper more to myself than to him. Urgh. This isn’t going anywhere. “Please, just go away,” I say, looking away from him and to the window.
“To hell with that,” he growls, turning heads with the viciousness of his voice. Oh God, he doesn’t give a damn that he’s making us that cliché, spectacle on the plane. “I don’t give a damn if you want me here or not, I am here.”
“Well I do give a damn! You’re fucking everything up for me.”
To my horror, my words come out like a choked sob, breaking voice as tears well up in my eyes. I can feel multiple pairs of eyes on us, making my frustration even more acute. “Just go away, leave me alone. I want to be alone.”
“Fuck, Mia,” he says gruffly, cupping my face in his hands, then he presses his forehead to mine, dropping his voice to a low, husky tone that does me in. “Don’t you understand, baby? I can’t stay away from you. Don’t you think that I would have left you alone if I could? It’s messing me up as well.”
I want to wrap my arms around him. I want to say something, but words fail me. Julian pulls back slightly and presses a soft kiss on my forehead that I feel down to my toes.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“How?” I