“Love what you see?” he demands tersely, the impatience in his voice makes me shudder again. “Because I fucking crave what I’m looking at. I love your hair. I love everything about you.”
Jesus, He doesn’t have to disarm me like that.
“I don’t feel the same.”
“You don’t?” he asks, his voice dangerously soft.
“Yes,” I mutter. “The last time I really laid my eyes on you and saw you, you were wrapped in bandages, recovering from burns and a broken arm and sweet empty nothings that give me nightmares still.”
“Nightmares? You think you’re the only one who’s been suffering al this time, Mia?” he demands. “Because the last time I saw you, you had just been shot, fighting an asshole of a father, with your body in all sorts of bruises and aches!”
“Yes, and knowing all that I was going through, you still left!” I shout. “You disappeared on me, just because you were butt hurt that I didn’t kiss you when you wanted me to!”
In a few strides, he’s right back in front of me, but this time, he’s careful not to touch me. His fists are clenched at his sides. A bit of fear awakens in my stomach, but then he slowly unfurls his right hand and then he slowly reaches up… and starts tracing the outline of my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.
“You have no idea the things I’d do for these lips,” he whispers roughly. “I told you there’d be consequences because of these lips and guess what, the consequences came.”
I gasp, my lips parting at the way he’s touching me. This, his thumb on my lips, it’s the only connection we have right now, and I feel like I’m drowning.
“Do those connections include stalking me, breaking into my apartment in the middle of the night then seducing me until I lose my mind and let you fuck me while I just laid there.”
“If it makes it better to deal with how much you fucking ache for me, then sure,” he says. “And just so we’re clear, you were not just lying there. You met me thrust for thrust, Little Minx.” He leans down, holding my gaze as his free arm snakes it’s way around my waist again, but this time, he gives me an opportunity to step back and when I don’t, he smirks. “These sweet lips begged me to make you come. You screamed my name when I did. You raised these hips and welcomed me home, that greedy tight pussy of your clenching with desperation for me.”
God. Julian was made for sex.
He was made to drive women wild but if people died from verbal stimulation taken from a retelling of a night I wish I could forget and yet I love to recall, then I would’ve stopped breathing seconds ago.
Instead, my heart is pounding so freaking hard, I’m sure he can feel it.
“Is that all you remember?” I breathe, “Screwing me when I had received some fucking shocking news on my birthday?”
“What news?” he demands, stepping back.
Oh. He doesn’t know about this tidbit, does he?
“You saw me read that text,” I mutter. “Don’t act like you didn’t see it.”
I see the tension in his shoulders fade as he visibly relaxes in front of my eyes.
“Oh that,” he mutters. Then he walks toward the well-stocked bar and proceeds to fix fucking drinks like he’s a damn bartender.
“What do you mean by that, you jerk?” I demand.
“It means I know the text because I sent it.”
And with that catastrophic bomb, everything and I do mean everything seems to go up in flames.
“You?” I stutter. “It was you?”
Julian looks at me, capturing and holding my gaze with his force of will alone.
“I think you have this ability to brush off what I tell you when I actually mean it, Mia. It’s a bad habit,” he says softly, his voice too low, too calm like a storm warning of some sort. “I told you no one will ever hurt you. No one will ever touch you. You belong to me, Little Minx I meant that.”
“And so, you… bought the contract?” I whisper, feeling odd. I still don’t know if I’m feeling horrified or something else. I can’t exactly hear myself think or even feel over the roar of chaos from the bomb he just dropped.
“I didn’t fucking buy a piece of paper, Mia.” His jaw is clenched tight. Even though he looks sophisticated, urbane and oozing major sex appeal, Julian stands like a warrior, reminding me of the time he saved me from the warehouse. Looking at him awakens memories, sure, but it also awakens my hunger for him.
“W-what does that mean?”
“It means I did what I always knew I’d have to do to keep you, baby,” he rasps softly. “I gave up everything for you.”
It’s there in his eyes, the truth of his words.
I can’t resist the allure of him anymore than I can look for lies in his eyes. I can see that something is different with him. Something deliciously sinister is close to the surface now than it was years ago.
“Everything?” I mutter.
“I wanted to play football,” Julian whispers instead. “You know how much I wanted that. And now, my best friend was a first NFL draft pick last year.”
Yes, Cole’s moving up the ranks and I knew that night got to Julian. I knew it probably hurt him that he was not there with Cole, being picked together or something.
“I know.”
“I gave that up way before my arm was broken in that warehouse, Mia.”
“Before?”
“In the years I couldn’t be with you, I’ve thought of a million things I never got to say to you and the ten things I did. I thought of everything I wasn’t aware that I was doing and guess what, the day I boarded that place to Paris, coming after you is the day I gave up everything for you.”
My knees weaken. My legs start trembling so hard that I stumble over to the nearest seat and plop down as shivers races down my back. I don’t know what Julian sees on my face, but he abandons the drinks of the bar and comes over to me, only to kneel before.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he mutters softly as he reaches for my hands.
“You… you seem so different,” I confess. “You feel different. That look in your eyes… Julian, what do you mean you gave up everything for me?”
I heat the deep breath he takes, but he never once looks away from me.
“Do you want to talk about it, really?” he demands, a feverish kind of energy radiating from him.
Do I? Do I really want to know?
“You disappeared on me for four years and now you tell me that you’re the one who bought the contract I was forced to sign and then ask if I want to talk about it? Julian, all I ever wanted from the day I saw you in that hospital hallway was to know you, otherwise why would I be so nosy?”
We stare at each other, the realness of this moment catching up to me. I never thought I’d have this, that I’d finally see him, the one my soul has been sobbing and moaning in grief for.
“You are a nosy, devious Little Minx, though,” Julian whispers. “But first, I have to show it to you before I explain. Will you let me?”
I can hear what he’s asking me. Do I trust him enough to explain everything to me?
“Against my better judgement, there’s no one I would let explain but you,” I whisper.