I don’t know why my voice drops to a whisper or why I can’t seem to be able to look him in the eye. I’m a brave girl. I’m the shit no matter where I am, so this, whatever this is, is making me extremely nervous.
I try to calm down, my virgin lips tingling as he looks down at them. I suddenly feel warm inside, and I want it. For the first time since ever, I want a boy to kiss me.
Not just any other boy, but him. He’s tall, dark, handsome, well-spoken, his voice is deep and makes my insides knot up, exactly what older girls say in my ballet class.
He looks like a young warrior, with that menacing expression on his face, his emerald eyes dark and heavy with emotion he’s trying so hard to keep in check. And I want him to take my first kiss.
If I’m lucky, he’ll probably be at my new high school, St. Jude High. The best school in Palos Verdes and something tells me that he’s one of the popular guys there. He has to be. It’ll all be perfect because I’ll be popular too.
“What’s your name?” he questions instead, snapping me out of my steamy fantasy that I’ve never had about anyone before, not even for Shane Matthews.
“Why does that matter?” I croak, grabbing the bandage with buttery fingers as I try to ignore the burning in my cheeks. I can feel his eyes on me, so I carefully start wrapping the bandage around his knuckles like a pro. I’ve learned to take care of my own injuries alone in the past two years.
“What’s your name?” he demands again, watching me with a hooded gaze that’s clear of pain but now looks so dark and threatening, I gasp.
“I… it doesn’t matter.”
In one move, he grabs my chin in his right hand, bringing it up to hold my gaze.
“You just eavesdropped on a private conversation about sensitive, private information that no one in this town beside a few people know,” he starts, emerald green orbs pouring into me. “You know that my brother is in there. You know he has Down syndrome. But what you don’t know is that my brothers are the most important people in my life and I will always protect them against anyone and anything that tries to so much as attempt to threaten them in any way or form.”
Like a deer in headlights, I stare up at him, his fingers digging into my chin.
“Now, what’s your name?”
So, his anger is wrapped up in family matters, huh? He cares for his brother. He looks protective, alpha, and strong. I dare not deny him anything now.
“Mia.”
He waits, silently, eyes boring into me, taking all my secrets, my truths, maybe even my soul. Because a name isn’t just a name. It’s your identity, your past and present and right now that he’s about to know, it’s my future.
“Mia Montague.”
“Mia,” he says my name like he’s been saying it all his life in a prayer, in his sleep, and during the day. He says it like it means something to him and I want him to say it again, but he doesn’t.
“Why are you here?” he echoes the same question he asked before.
“That’s none of your business.” I try to move away from him, but he doesn’t let my chin go.
“It is my business, especially if I find out that you’re just some girl about to attend my school and you want to come in rolling as the queen bee, knowing a secret about my family that will only harm you.”
That angers me all over again. The fact that this asshole feels entitled to everything and everyone is not only off-putting, it’s disgusting.
I’m the daughter of a prima ballerina with enough sass to teach seasoned divas new tricks, and my father is a lawyer who lets me read his law journals and does mock court trials with me. I don’t take shit from anyone and I sure as hell won’t be belittled like this.
“Listen here, asshole,” I start, my voice low and deadly. “I don’t know who you are but clearly you’re quite insecure about your identity. Is that because you have daddy issues or is it because you’re alone in here, caring about your brother that’s making you an ornery ass with self-entitlement written all over you?”
I hold his stare, not backing away. I know it’s a bitch move to bring up his family but he did say I’m a little bitch before so this shouldn’t surprise him. And who the hell does he think he is?
“Careful with your next words, they might hurt you in the long run,” he warns, his voice low, gaze hooded and narrowed now.
I snort, shaking my head as I get up and start packing up the first-aid kit. He stands up as well, watching me like he wants to devour me.
“I’m sorry about what you must be going through, I really am, but that doesn’t give you the right to assume that I have any ill intentions about you or your family. Hell, I don’t even know who you are and…”
Before I can finish that, he snakes a hand in my hair and fists it, pulling me to him and then…he’s kissing me.
I freeze.
I don’t dare breathe as my virgin lips are taken by a rough, angry bad boy in a hospital hallway.
The kiss is awkward at first, our lips locking with a fiery hesitation, his hot breath making my lips tingle.
Of all the fantasies and dreams I’ve had about my first kiss, this isn’t anywhere near one of those romantic, candle flickering in the background, kisses I imagined. This is, in so many ways, much better and so damn scary, as the need to feel something other than the icy chill within, blooms in my chest with an intensity that should embarrass me.
I want to feel him, to taste him. Maybe this kiss will heal something seriously broken inside of me. Maybe this is the kiss that will repair my lack of sympathy for other people or it will tame the monster inside that my mother always warns me about.
Coaxing my lips with a gentleness that disarms me, his tongue probes, licks, and caresses until I have no choice but to open my mouth to a burst of sensation I’ve never felt before. My eyes flutter closed. I feel light and a bit euphoric. It’s happening!
The moment our tongues join, I feel like I’ve just been zapped by electricity. It travels through my body until all I can do is lean in closer, melting into his hard chest.
And the next thing I know, he pulls away, his eyes dilated a bit. Breathless, my eyes fly open. I can hear the almost violent whooshing of blood rushing through my veins. My heart is pounding so hard, my ears are ringing.
It’s like he just tattooed half his soul to all of mine through that kiss. Like he just gave me half of himself, like I don’t deserve the rest.
Is this what kisses do?
Do they fry one’s brain to a crisp like mine is right now? Then why do I feel like doing it again?
But as I stare up at him, the euphoria I was beginning to feel starts to die down as I notice the impassive look on his face. His jaw locks, and he looks like he felt…nothing.
Like the kiss we just had, was nothing to him. I suck in a deep breath, my lips still tingling.
His eyes are dead, watching me back like he’s regretting placing his lips over mine.
Fear grips me by the throat, the ringing in my ears growing louder.
I know what he’s thinking of me. That I’m cold and dead inside. I’ve heard it so often in middle school, but I wasn’t expecting it to be transferred through a kiss with a stranger.
“You kissed me,” I whisper then groan. Way to go pointing out the obvious, dumb head. I risk looking up at him and regret it immediately. I can see the battle in his eyes so clearly, it punctures my heart.
He regrets kissing me.
Common sense seems to slam into both of us, it’s then that I realize what that was.
“You kissed me,” I repeat.
Kismet with a stranger, which in our case, is really the kiss of death.
The kiss that broke my heart.
He steps away, leaving me an almost hyperventilating mess. We stare at each other, but don’t say a word. I want him to say something. I want him to let me know that I’m not cold. That I’m wanted. That he cares, even though I don’t know his name.
I want him to tell me that he wants to kiss me aga
in.
“There,” he whispers instead, watching me like he would a rock in his way. Disinterested, bored and maybe even annoyed. He looks away from me. “Now you can go tell your sick mother that you kissed a jerk like me with problems downstairs that I don’t have for your own information. And make sure to tell her that you loved it.”
I gasp, shocked by the way he just brushes me off and brought up my mother like an insult.
“What?” I’m so confused, I think my head is starting to spin. Hurt and unease unfurl in the pit of my stomach, it’s like I’ve been drenched in ice-cold water.
“That was your first kiss, wasn’t it?” he snaps the question like he wants me gone. “Wasn’t it?”
He’s so cavalier about it, like he’s amused but he really doesn’t care.
“It wasn’t…” I lie, blinking so fast. What’s happening? “You know your mood swings are giving me whiplash.”
“Too bad.”
Please don’t… please don’t break my heart like you’re about to do right now.
“Why did you kiss me?” I demand, standing up now, wanting the floor to open up and swallow me whole
“I just wanted you to shut up. It’s nothing special and it means just that, nothing.”
Hurt blooms in my chest with those words, morphing into pain the more I stare into his dark eyes. The brilliant emerald is almost gone.
“You’re a horrible kisser,” he says it so casually, like it doesn’t matter that he’s breaking me apart.
“I—,” I start to defend myself, wanting to tell him that I can do better, but he cuts me off.
“I didn’t feel anything, so I don’t think all that should fall on a guy’s shoulders,” he states, his jaw clenched. “Your mother was wrong. Or maybe she meant that those kind of kisses are for girls that know what they’re doing.”
It almost feels like my heart is being torn into two uneven, bloody halves with cracks all through it. The silly thing was fragile before, but I never took precautions to actually care for it. I never thought I’d meet anyone who would want to rip it out of my chest in one encounter. Hell, I didn’t even know that he had my heart in his calloused, rough, bloody palms until now.
The ground starts shaking beneath my feet. The room seems to be spinning but his gorgeous face is clear right in front of me.
“Don’t look at me like you just fell in love with me,” he grits out, his words clipped, as his fists clench. “It was nothing and no one can love a nosy, mouthy girl like you.”
In the distance, I can hear the sound of shattering glass like it’s happening to my heart. My insides tighten. I feel faint, the ringing in my ears growing louder.
Spinning on my heels, I don’t stay to look at him, I run down the hall, a scream lodged in my chest and throat.
I can feel his eyes following me, watching me, but I don’t turn around. I can see my mom’s hospital room at the end of the hall, and I debate whether or not I should go and hide in there with her, but I decide not to.
Tears burn my eyes for the second time in two days. The first time was when I had to call an ambulance for Mom when her entire body couldn’t stop shaking and now, after I’ve just had the most amazing kiss with a cold jerk.
My vision gets blurry with unshed tears and as I round the corner, I run smack dab into a group of people.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, the urge to run and hide overwhelming me.
“Oh hello,” a strange guy says, watching me with excitement in his eyes. He’s got a notebook in his hand and a camera around his neck. “Say sweetheart, have you seen a powerful family here.”
“Who?” My voice is choked up, but the other people start gathering around me, firing questions.
“You look like you’re in high school. Have you seen the Fitz brothers? Our source says they’re here.”
I don’t know any Fitz brothers or whoever these journalists are looking for. A lot of celebrities live in Palos Verdes, so this is stupid.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, excuse me.”
“Come on, you can tell us,” another lady with desperate hunger for something I can’t place, flashing in her eyes says, stepping closer to me. “I can give you a hundred if you just tell us if you saw some boys, tall, dark-haired around the hospital.”
Tall and dark-haired…
“You know who we’re talking about,” the woman presses, and then she quickly takes out a crisp Benjamin Franklin and waves it in my face. “Just tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know…”
“Surely you know a little bit of something juicy, like what he’s sick with or maybe if they’re being discharged.”
The guy I just kissed wasn’t sick with anything other than assholeness, but other than that…
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Their voices start buzzing around me as we stand there. I can’t breathe, their questions getting louder and louder.
I suddenly feel claustrophobic. The lights get brighter around me, the faces of the mob getting longer and stranger. I feel faint.
I need out right now.
“Listen!” I shout, my voice uneven and scratchy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or who you’re looking for.”
They pause for a moment, but the lady gets in my face again, her breath smelling so foul I almost gag.
“But you know something, don’t you?” she presses.
“I don’t know anything other than a boy who has Down syndrome is in there and he’s…”
Gasp and shock moves over the crowd as they all start scrambling to jot down everything I’ve just said while I stand there, dread and something that I can’t place my finger on growing in the pit of my stomach, like acid is burning holes into my guts.
I just messed up.
“One of the Fitz brothers has Down syndrome?” the shouts grow louder, a sickening buzz growing stronger among them. “It has to be a newborn baby. Is it a newborn baby?
“Are Courtney and John still together?”
“Did John father a child with another woman?”
“Did the brothers see the twenty-one-year-old model their father, John Fitzgerald was caught with leaving the Four Seasons last night?”
Each question is like an arrow to my chest, the grim, sick glint in their eyes flashing down at me, making me step back.
“I…”
But before I can finish that, the journalists and reporter’s attention turn to someone who’s standing a few feet behind me.
“Julian!” They shout now, rushing to him, dismissing me. “Julian, is it true that you have another brother and that he has Down syndrome?”
“Julian, why has your family kept your brother a secret all these years?”
“Is your brother a bastard child?”
“Did your mother, Courtney lie about her miscarriage when she first got married to your father, John?”
“Julian, so you’re three in the Fitz household. What does that mean for the heir?”
“What do you think of your family history, Julian what with all the infidelity, the lies, the horrors?”
Slowly, I turn around like I have a ball and chain strapped around both my ankles, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, I think I’m going to pass out as each repulsive question targeted at destroying a family fills the air around us.
I did this.
As soon as our gaze meets, I know without a doubt that whatever we had between us just died a very short death and for as long as I live, I’ll never forget the look in his eyes right now.
I did this.
I’ll never forget the way he made me feel small and passionless.
I did this.
I’ll never forget the words he said.
I did this.
I’ll never forget that I opened my mouth and spilled information that wasn’t mine to spill and that I might have opened a can of worms too big to manage.
I fucking did this.
The noise around us blurs and disappear
s as we stare at each other. His nostrils flare with pent-up anger, eyes flashing with barely concealed hurt and betrayal. Betrayal that I caused.
And as I stare at him, I notice the way he seems to alter right in front of my eyes.
Gone is the boy that had so many complicated emotions inside him that all translated to overprotective of his family.
Gone is the boy who kissed me just to prove a point.
Gone is the boy who insulted unicorns and rainbows just to make me laugh.
Gone is the boy who I saw a piece of myself I’ve never seen before.
In his place now, I notice the coldness coming over him, like a cloak. He seems to get bigger right then, as the journalists rush to surround him, he just stands there watching me.
A vow of revenge flashing in his eyes.
With the echoes of my heart shattering outside the ER, I turn on my heel and run out into the rain, feeling a heavy pressure on my chest that’s suffocating me.
As I run, I start hyperventilating, even though I know there’s enough air around me.
I don’t look back. I don’t dare look for him hours later when I come back to check for my mother. But when I go trudging back to that hallway from hell, dripping like a wet dog, four-hundred-dollar shoes ruined like the thin makings of my damn heart, I see him again.
He’s standing with a tall man who looks exactly like him, only older and meaner looking, standing in the hallway.
It was his father.
They both looked at me for a minute, his father staring at me like he knew what I did and Julian… he looked at me with hate in his eyes burning to a point where I felt it in my guts.
There was a promise in his eyes, a promise that he was going to not only break me, but he was going to make me suffer.
A kiss does more than tell you how a person feels about you. It shows you that no matter what, those feels might take you out if you let them, and that kisses like sickness and diseases, are deadly.
And still, the rain couldn’t wash away his blood still in the palm of my hands.
Devious Kisses: A Bully Enemies -To-Lovers Romance (It's Just High School Book 1) Page 4
