Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,102

when I look down again, I see tears trailing down her face, crying in my arms.

She’s been awake all this time.

Fuck!

Chapter Thirty-One

Mia

I felt his tumultuous, broody presence before he even touched me.

I have no idea how long it was I laid in my bed after Roxy left, crying my heart out, moaning the loss of something I never really had in the first place, but when Julian touched me, everything in me grew still.

His sweet breath washed over my face as he said my name in that way of his, as if he’s fucking my name into his submission and loving me all in the same breath.

I knew he thought I was having a nightmare, and so I kept on with it, desperate to hear his voice and to be touched by him… but my heart almost burst when he slid into my surprisingly wide hospital bed with me.

Julian has almost always done the unexpected. When I thought he was going to leave, he pulled me into his arms without any hesitation, and held me like a small child, trying to calm me from my heartbreak and scattered mind.

And then without any warning whatsoever, he started talking and my soul left my body like a freaking dark mist. And I heard everything, but I couldn’t stay silent for long. Not after everything he said.

“You’re awake,” he murmurs, surprise coloring his words as he tenses under me.

For a moment, I don’t say anything, feeling the weight of his cast on my back, unable to stop myself and the yearning in my soul, I circle my arms around his torso, holding him to me as fiercely as he’s holding me.

“I was awake.” I confess. I can feel he’s stunned, but after everything he’s said, honesty is really all I have now, no matter how ugly it is. “And I don’t have amnesia.”

He’s silent, but his heart is beating so fast against my back, I’m starting to worry.

“Figures. It would have been weird for you to cry when you can’t relate to anything I said,” he says, his voice oh-so sexy and oh-so deep, my entire body tingles in the most delicious and painful way, the combination is devastating.

“Maybe your confession could make nuns weep, so why would I be immune?” I whisper, not ready to look at him yet. “I am capable of feelings.”

Actually, I feel too much and now, I’m bursting at the seams and can’t seem to be able to handle my emotions, crying like a little girl in the arms of a guy who says he loves me but then turns around and says the most hurtful despicable things to my face that tell me otherwise.

And with that thought alone, my anger comes back.

I slowly and methodically start to get up so I can extract myself from his arm, but he doesn’t budge.

“You weren’t meant to hear that,” he growls the words vibrating in his chest and into me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Anywhere far away from you,” I grit out, tears stinging my eyes. Just hold on. Don’t cry now.

“You don’t mean that,” he whispers softly, holding me like he’s never going to let go, but I’m livid, I can’t even breathe.

“I do mean it, now let me go!”

“Never.”

“Don’t say never now when you were willing, eager even, to believe that I would do something as sinister and fucked up as to set you up for crimes like that.”

A low, animalistic growl starts in his chest. I can feel his agitation and as the tension in the room becomes unbearable.

“I didn’t know any better, Mia.”

“But you did!” I cry, pounding his chest with balled up fists, not caring about his groans of pain. “You could have trusted me!”

He really could’ve. I didn’t ask for much. And now, the rift between us is so great, so twisted and messed up, we can’t even stop hurting each other.

“Mia…” he starts, his voice scratchy but I don’t want to hear it.

“How could you do that to me, you sonofabitch? Come after me like fury personified and have the guts to make me feel cherished, safe and wanted when I hated myself and wanted to end my own life,” I whisper brokenly. “I wanted to end my life and you… you.” He what? Watched me like a hawk with these intense eyes as if he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let me die. He made me believe that life is worth living. Held me through my nightmares and made love to me so good, OI swear