Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,153
so masterfully done to arouse my panic.
“Breathe, Mia,” he whispers.
“Breathe?” I shriek. “Seriously? Breathe?”
I stare at him dumbfounded, disbelief coursing through my veins.
“Unless you want to get a stroke without a doctor on board, yes, breathe,” Julian says nonchalantly, not even bothered that I just screamed at the top of my lungs.
Hell, he doesn’t even bat an eye as I finally manage to unclip myself from the seatbelt then get up and practically jump over him as, trying to escape like my ass is on fire.
I get as far away from Julian as I can, shaking my head.
I expect him to say something, to call me back, to come after me at the very least, but he does none of those things.
He just remains seated, looking like a statue of a Greek god, twirling and flicking the lighter in his hands every four seconds.
Yes, I do count. In my heart.
“This was a mistake,” I breathe.
No, this is a nightmare!
I turn on my heel and run down the aisle and out the First-Class cabin only to come to a dead stop when I realize that this section of the plane… is totally empty as well.
“No way,” I whisper, my panic level rising all over again. I quickly run down the aisle of this section to the rest of the plane, until the very end but it’s all the same. The plane is empty.
The flight attendants, the passengers I saw before, all gone.
Oh my God.
I rush the length of this large plane back to the First-Class, bursting through the curtain only to find total darkness.
The slight light that was there before is all but gone. Am I having some sort of hallucination?
“What kind of fuckery is this?” I whisper to myself.
“The kind of fuckery you’ve forced me to play,” a voice says behind me.
I whip around so fast; my breath catches in my throat.
“Julian,” I gasp, backing away and bumping into seats as I go. “W-what are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he whispers. “I’m here for you, Little Minx.”
I blink rapidly, his softly spoken words sinking into my fractured mind as I try to trace his face, or even his body, with my eyes, but I can’t see anything.
“What happened to the lights? Where is everyone? Is this plane even in the air?”
“You’re not having a nightmare. This is real life, Mia.”
His voice. Sweet Jesus, his voice.
It’s so cultured and deep with a rough timbre to it that awakens something in me. He sounds familiar, sure, but also so different, it’s as if he’s someone else in a way.
I shake my head, still backing away. “Stay away from me,” I warn.
I feel an arm snake its way around my waist and the next thing I know, Julian pulls me flush into his hard, solid body.
“I tried that,” he says hoarsely. “I really did, and I barely made it here.”
I plant my hands on his chest and start pushing, as if I can move him that way. “Let me go!”
“That’s not happening,” he seethes. In the dark of the cabin, I can feel his anger and feel his hunger for me with the pulsing of electricity between us. It’s both wicked, addictive and so fucking out of control, I can’t help but stop breathing. “I’m not letting you go.”
But he did! He’s been gone for years, popping back mid-way just to get his rocks off.
“Unhand me, Julian,” I snap. “My boyfriend wouldn’t like you touching me like this. I’m not yours.”
The lie just slips from my lips before I can even think about it, and worse, dread sinks into the pit of my stomach at the bitterness of the lie.
“Your boyfriend, huh?” he mutters. I can hear his deep breathing, I can feel the way his chest rises and falls with intent, as if he’s a driving force of pulsing energy that sparks me back to life, matching his breathing. Suddenly, we’re in some twisted sync in the dark.
He breathes in, I breathe out.
“There’s been no one in your life since me,” he states simply.
“How do you know that?”
“I made sure of it.”
Suddenly it makes sense. All the dates I had half-heartedly planned on going to only with the intention of getting over Julian that then disappeared on me. Being stood up in bars and at parties… that was all him.
“You’re a piece of shit, you know.”
Urgh, that was pathetic. I should shout at him some more for finding a stalkerish, creepy way of controlling my life, right?