Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,160

brokenly, tears now steaming down my face like rushing streams. “I want you to kiss me. You have to kiss me. Please.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Mia

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

—Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare.

So what if I begged him?

I wanted Julian to kiss me, to press his lips against mine and erase the horror on my tongue, the fear on lips and the agony that had seeped into my bones for four long years.

“Why, Little Minx?” he demands, his voice low without a trace of judgement or pity at my pathetic behavior as he steps closer to me until I’m in his arms again.

He stares into my eyes, wanting the truth—demanding it really and I have no walls left to keep him from finding the shattered truth in me. “Why me, baby?”

“Julian…”

“Say it.”

If I say it now, if I confess… the control I’m holding onto with a thin thread will snap in two.

“I don’t think that matters,” I whisper.

“It fucking matters, Mia, because we matter. Now, tell me.”

How can I refuse him? When every single inch of me, broken and traumatized, the recovering beauty and the remaining ugly ruins, every cell in my body responds to him on another level unlike anything I’ve ever known.

“Because that first time, you awakened feelings in me I never knew I was capable of. With just one kiss, you touched my soul and I know that when you kiss me again, you can heal it again because Julian my soul…” I trail off, fat hot tears falling down my cheeks, my voice hoarse with pain. “My soul is broken.”

“It’s not!” he growls, his denial as sudden as the anger that clouds his handsome face. “No one will ever destroy your soul. No one has a right to even get close to hurt you. Not ever again. Over my fucking dead body.”

He means it. Every single word. I know from the way the words rock between us like they’re about to cause a tornado.

It’s like a vow cemented in the blood of our past, present and in some way, paving a path toward an uncertain future.

“I don’t want you to die though,” I mumble, looking down at where my hands are clutching his chest and he laughs.

“Baby, mortality is inevitable but even then, you’re mine. I know what it feels like to be without you. I know what it’s like to feel like I’ve lost you and Mia, I refuse to ever live like that. Hell, I’d not even survive it again.”

“The feeling is definitely mutual,” I breathe.

“It better be, Little Minx because now, I’m going to kiss you, Mia Montague,” he murmurs sexily, his gorgeous eyes dilated with arousal that makes me wet, and something else that makes my heart flutter. “I’m going to kiss you and give you back your soul because you’ve trusted me enough to do that. I’m going to kiss you because I think I’ll die if I don’t have taste of you, baby.”

Oh God. There goes my heart again, breaking all over again but this time, the pain is sweet.

“Please,” I whisper, surprised at the lack of shame to beg in my voice. I step even closer, staring at his lips with a hungry desperation that would put starving construction workers to shame. “Please, Julian.”

“Shh,” he murmurs now, then he leans down and places a kiss on my forehead, lingering there.

Then he places another kiss on the tip of my nose, my eyelids—kissing and lapping up the tears on my cheeks.

My heart is pounding, I clutch his shirt tighter, sure I’m hurting his skin beneath but not giving a damn as my anticipation builds and fucking builds like waiting for cannons to be fired.

He kisses the corner of lip and I drop them open, feeling like I’m about to combust.

“Julian…”

“Hush, baby,” he whispers, cupping my face in his hands delicately, tenderly, heartbreakingly. “Let me do you right.”

Jesus Christ.

The words that come out of this man’s mouth sometimes. He’s already like sex on a stick but when he makes love to my mind before he gets to my body like this, I can’t help but want him even more.

He places another lingering kiss on the left corner of my lips, then, in a tantalizing move, he places a ghost kiss to just my bottom lip.

An unadulterated moan escapes me, my heart breaking at the tenderness alone.

I feel the tears falling even more and then, finally, he kisses me full on