Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,66
question instead, still stunned that he’s here. “How are you here? How did you know I’d be here?”
“I saw you leave the hotel in a rush like you had just robbed a fucking bank. I knew you were about to run.”
I knew it! I was being followed! It looks like my gut is still on point—which can’t be said about the rest of me.
“But how did you know I’d take this flight?” I mean, I booked the New York flight with my real name and then this one with the identity Nicky gave me.
“You could have been a bit smarter in covering your tracks if that was your goal,” he murmurs, sitting back in his seat, but still looking at me. “I paid the front desk asshole to tell me who you were. Looks like Amy Hazel booked that hotel room.”
The way he says that name though makes me pause. He stares at me as if he’s waiting or something after saying it, but I pretend to be unfazed, like I can’t sense the unspoken question.
“So, this is you extending your stalker tendencies?” I whisper hotly instead. “I don’t want you here.”
“Fuck that shit, Mia,” he growls. “You had me losing my damn mind these past few days. I couldn’t find you, couldn’t get to you. I was worried sick out of my mind with not finding you and you were what? Being a fucking coward, running away from your shit?”
I hate the way he says that because it hits me straight in my chest because it’s true. I was being a coward. I still am.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I murmur, looking away.
“Then tell me, goddamn it, Mia!” he curses, running a hand through his hair again, the frustration on his face making everything in me ache. “Tell me! Make me understand. Show me where you’re bleeding and let me stop it.”
“You can’t make it stop!” I shout, causing a few heads to turn around to look at us. Urgh, I hate this.
“Little Minx…” he starts, his voice dropping to a soft, intimate tone that completely undoes me.
“Julian, please,” I plead with a hoarse voice, looking away from him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Silence stretches between us for a long second or maybe it was minutes and then hours, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets up and grabs his coat. Then he opens the overhead compartment and grabs my bag, then he looks at me, holding out his hand.
“What are you doing?” I question, tugging at my sleeves.
“Come with me,” he prompts, staring at me along with almost everyone else in the cabin.
“No,” I whisper, pressing my arms to my sides. Paranoia and anxiety take root square in the middle of my chest. My mind starts racing I don’t want Julian to see what I did to myself. I don’t what him to know how weak and pathetic I am.
“Mia.” I don’t know how he manages to make my name sound like a warning and a curse all at the same time, but I stare at home uncertain. Let’s go.”
Looking at his outstretched hand now does something to my insides. Couple that with the look in his eyes, as if daring me to refuse him, to deny him this. If I do deny, I know two things.
I’ll be signing over all the rights I have to my dignity because he will definitely make a spectacle again if I don’t.
Denying him right now would translate into a lot of different things. It’ll mean that I don’t feel what’s going on between us. It’ll mean that I don’t want him in the way he wants me. It’ll mean that I don’t trust him but all of that are lies. I feel everything. I want him so much, it’s almost as if I want to crawl inside his heart and soul and die there. And finally, against my better judgement and common sense, I feel so damn safe with him it’s terrifying.
So, with multiple pair of eyes on us and the flight attendants watching on, but not daring to approach us, I tug my sleeve and make sure my wrists are covered, then place my hand in his, standing up.
Triumph lights up in his eyes, then he tugs me closer to him and kisses me. It’s a light, chaste kiss but I feel it all over my body. He tugs me down the aisle, passing rows upon rows of curious, wandering eyes but I just keep