Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,112

but in my heart, they don’t sit right. They sound… incomplete. So, I repeat them again, hoping they fill in the strange missing parts. “I fight for myself.”

Nothing happens. If anything, I can feel the ragged gap in the middle of my chest widening a bit more.

Julian stands there for a moment, like the god he is, glaring at the door, then he turns around and stares at me with his penetrating gaze, it holds me in place.

“Really?” he mutters, walking back to me on the bed. Without a hint of what he’s thinking, he reaches for my face in heartbeat, then our he stares deep into my eyes in a way that’s different from anything we’ve ever been through. “You’re wrong.”

“What?” I whisper, hardly able to blink. Or breathe.

“Me, Mia,” he mutters so tenderly, I think we can both hear my soul shatter all over again. “I’ve always fought for you, Little Minx.”

My God.

“I—”

“I’ve always fought for you. I saw you. I hated you. I wanted you. I couldn’t stop myself from having a taste of you,” he murmurs. “And for the record, to fix whatever lie you’ve been told that has you this livid with me, no one was ever going to be mine, but you Mia. There’s never been anyone like you and quite frankly, there’ll never be anyone but you.” I gasp, his words snaking down into the pits of my soul where everything is burning. “There’s no Bishop girl or anyone else. It was always you, Mia. Right from the start. Or else why would they fight us this hard to scare you away from me?”

No, don’t…

“Julian, I—”

“Everyone has declared war over this, over you and me being together. Me kissing you like this.” He presses a kiss to the corner of my lips. “Or like this.” He presses another kiss at the other corner of my lips that has me gasping. “They’ve fought this right the start and now, you’ve joined the fray.” He pulls back and runs his thumb over my lips. “But I told you before, Mia, against me, you’ll lose, Little Minx.”

I blink a billion times, something in me kick starting into hyperventilation.

“I’ll be kissing these lips soon, baby,” he whispers against my lips, then he places a kiss on my forehead. “I’ll be kissing every inch of you, slowly, deliberately, until this fucking world full of haters hears you scream my name from just a kiss. You know why, Mia?”

I’m breathless, so forget words. All I can do is shake my head, transfixed and totally pulled into his web of charm and red-hot lusty haze.

“Because you gave me you that first night, I fucked you, Little Minx,” he whispers in my ear. Then he steps back, giving me a look so possessive, so hot, I swear, I want to jump his bones right now. “You’ll love me, Little Minx. Even if it kills us.”

And with that, he’s gone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Mia

The next few days are as dramatic as they are nightmarish as you’d expect from a scandal of this magnitude.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to stop crying since the last time Julian held me in his arms, since he last kissed me like he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing so, but I did.

It felt like I wouldn’t be able to stop breaking since he left, leaving an ominous threat that made my heart pound harder than it’s ever done before, but I think I’m doing a good job holding it all in.

I’m still not sure how to feel about what Julian said, but by all accounts—and my own messy self-preservation—I should run, right?

When you hear something as alpha—borderline toxic—like that, you should tuck tail and run, right? So why were parts of me still tingling as if those words electrocuted parts of me back to life?

Nope, don’t you dare! That chapter is closed. If Julian thinks he can get his way, he’s going to get a rude awakening.

Anyway, while I was blissfully unaware of the happenings beyond my room, life has apparently been moving forward.

Nicky—I mean, my Mom—is the one who informs me about the press and gossip tabloids reps loitering around the hospital, with their cameras on the ready, trying to get snap a picture of me.

Apparently, I’m linked to an ongoing investigation into the shady lives of Sean and Shane Matthews. When I asked her for more information on what the investigation was about, she just shrugged with a hard glint in her eye and