Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,157

standing on the precipice. But it doesn’t matter, Julian holds me like he never wants to let me go.

We didn’t talk at all. I just listened to his heartbeat and he held me, placing kisses in my hair and my shoulder repeatedly.

The flight is short, maybe an hour and a half, so I think we’re somewhere close to Massachusetts.

“That was fast,” I mumble grabbing my bag and my since abandoned Kindle and phone. “Where are we?”

“A private airfield in upstate New York.”

“New York? You’ve been this close all this time?” I demand. I mean, it makes sense the way he was able to sneak into my apartment in Cambridge for a few hours, fuck me to oblivion and then sneak right out.

“Not exactly,” he says, leading me down the steps of the plane to where a car is waiting for us. “I’ve been all over the world, working to get closer to you.”

I glance up at him, my heart in my throat. The Fitzgeralds have always lived a lavish lifestyle but this… this is another level altogether. A level that Julian now wields with a kind of power that’s always been there but now… amplified.

“My bags?” I whisper.

“Already loaded, I’m sure,” he murmurs, steering me toward the car with a firm touch at the small of my back. “Come on, baby.”

The backseat doors are open but instead, Julian opens the passenger side door for me and helps me in. he even reaches for the seatbelt and click it in.

“A little extreme, don’t you think?” I ask.

“I waited for this day when I could finally come get you, Little Minx,” he whispers in my ear. “I’m not taking any chances and besides, I meant what I said. I’m never letting you go. And I never did.”

He shuts the door, then I see him signal someone before he gets in the driver’s seat with confidence and finesse, like a the most dangerous predator.

In short order, we leave the airfield. It’s around nine in the evening as we drive. Even then, we’re both silent, but fully aware of the pulsing energy growing every second in the car. Watching Julian drive is so fucking sexy to me in a way I can’t explain. The way the muscles in his arm are corded tight, his large hands that were just now securing me in this seat… fuck me.

I try not to fidget in my seat, but my breasts are swollen, and my nipples are hard. My panties are totally soaked, and my clit is throbbing like never before.

There was a weighted expectation in the air, an early sign of a war about to break-out the longer we stay in silence.

Occasionally, I feel him watching me. I look at him.

“What?” I mutter.

“You have no idea how much I want to know what you’re thinking right now,” he says quietly.

“Well, it’s not that hard to guess, really,” I whisper, looking out the window. “I’m thinking of how crazy this is. I’m thinking of how I’ve missed you so much I felt so…” I trail off. Is opening up giving up my power to him? “How could you put me through hell and on purpose too, Julian?”

“Mia, don’t you think that if there was a way I could’ve avoided all of this torture, I would’ve done it?” he says tersely. “You called me that night almost three years ago and told me you were heartbroken and in hell, how do you think that made me feel, Mia? Do you think I could sleep knowing that my girl needed me, and she couldn’t tell me that because she was livid with me and she couldn’t trust me anymore because I failed her?”

“Julian…”

“My brother and best friend call you and hang out with you during holidays, your birthday, hell, every other day I know they’re with you, how do you think that makes me feel, Mia?” he seethes, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “I was suffering, baby. I already suffer from insomnia but without you, there’s no rest. There isn’t a moment I don’t want to just drop everything and come and get you.”

I have to admit, listening to him admit his own anguish makes me feel like my own pain is just a tiny bit justified, like I’m not alone in this misery.

When Julian pulls up to a beautiful gate and punches in a code and scan his fingerprint on the sensor, I become jittery all over again. Julian glances at me as the gates open, then we’re driving