“Can’t handle your emotions?” Liam taunts, winking when he glances over his shoulder. I notice phones pointed at us, recording.
No! I won’t let him destroy me or make a fool out of me. I have a reputation to uphold.
“You should’ve just moved your shit car, but you chose not to. You made your bed the moment your blood decided to come for mine. Now you’ll lie in it.” Liam smiles, then turns around as if to leave. “Against me and my brother, cupcake, you’ll always lose.”
“Really?” I start. “That’s comical coming from you.”
Clearing my throat, I shake away the shock and the hurt, feeling my bitchy tendencies coming over me like an armor of steel. I step closer to him, shaking off the blows he just dealt, ignoring the watchful, intense eyes coming from the black car.
“You know, I’ve heard about you, Liam Fitzgerald. The golden boy that ruthlessly destroys people for getting in his way.” I tap my chin, pretending to mull it over. “I’ve always wondered to myself, what is it about a guy like you, so spoiled, lusted after by harems of bimbos, bad-mouthed behind your back by people you think are loyal to you, that makes you the way you—are?”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move, his hair blowing in the breeze, frozen in place.
“Clearly you have a thing for making people feel small.” I chuckle, keeping the hurt I’m feeling out of it. “Could it be that you’ve always been a small, insignificant, scared little boy?”
I tsk, tapping my chin, knowing damn well that everyone is listening.
“And now, you drive a shitty neon green Lambo to make people notice you. Is it because nobody noticed you? At home, perhaps?”
“I think you should shut up now,” Liam grits out, turning around to stare me down, a menacing look on his face that I think he gets from his brother. Hmm, it doesn’t feel so good to have your guts spilled out so publicly, huh?
I stare right back at him, my eyes wide with an innocent smile on my face, knowing that every word I utter is being recorded and this shit is going to stay alive forever. Satisfied, I watch as his body goes rigid with tension and anger, a definite replica of his brother.
But I’m not done, not by a long shot.
“Or do you embarrass people without mercy, knowing what it does to their mental state of being because maybe the same thing has happened to you before?”
“Tread carefully, cupcake. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm, I don’t know, Liam.” I shake my head, stepping closer to him like he did before, but as I move, I catch Roxy’s strangely pale face from the corner of my eye. She’s standing right in front of the crowd, a bewildered look on her face. Then I notice Kendra as well, standing there, watching us with wide eyes. Liam notices who I’m looking at then he whips his head around so fast, bloody murder lighting his eyes. “I think I do know what I’m talking about!”
Holy shit.
Kendra, Roxy, and Liam?
O.M.G!
“You don’t know shit,” Liam grits out each word like he’s in pain and I relish every second of it.
I tsk-tsk him.
“Come now, Liam, you know I know stuff.” Boy, do I know some stuff!
“Yeah, that you run your mouth to the wrong people about stuff that doesn’t concern you,” he grits out.
“Is that hurt I detect in your eyes?” I mock, bending down slightly in my six-inch Gucci boots, then look up into his eyes like I’m trying to see his pathetic, sad salty tears that are not there, but a girl can imagine.
But true to my prediction, there’s hurt in his eyes, so intense it clouds his eyes for a second, like he wears his heartbreak in his eyes!
“Ding, ding, ding, slutty ladies and sleazy gentleman,” I raise my voice, spreading my arms out wide with a bitter smile on my face. I make sure my voice is loud, clear and dripping of the same bitter mockery that he just served me. “We have a fucking St. Jude heartbroken, little boy with us tonight.”
Liam doesn’t say anything, it’s almost like he’s suddenly tongue-tied, his chest heaving up and down so fast like he’s trying so damn hard to keep himself together.
For a moment, I can feel his hurt deep within myself, like it’s a mirror image of mine. I gasp, but then I blink.
“He’s an unloved playboy, living out loud for someone—” I turn around, noticing the smirks on familiar faces. Clintwood crew. All of them proud of my handy work. This is a rival after all. “—anyone, to notice him, since he’s only looking for attention and warmth that he wasn’t given at…”
Before I can finish that sentence, out of nowhere, a large, calloused hand wraps around my throat and squeezes, choking me almost half to death as the person drags me away into the shadows where there are no prying eyes and I’m at his complete mercy.
I’m going to freaking die tonight!
12
Eyes wide, I start coughing, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I can feel it in my toes.
Looking up like I’m being compelled to, my frantic gaze clashes with cold, empty, void green eyes that I see so often in my steamy dreams and nightmares, I almost think this isn’t real.
But then, he squeezes my neck again.
“Finish the crap that you were about to spew about my brother.”
Julian’s voice is like a mix between a rumble of thunder incased in silk and sheet clawing sex. It’s low, almost beguiling, with the promise of violence that can’t be mistaken.
My body stills like deadweight, choosing not to fight him as we stare angrily at each other, standing in the shadows of the trees, with the low, distant murmurs of a crowd close by. My blood starts simmering the longer we stand there, anger and fear making a wild concoction that makes me feel a little light-headed. Or maybe, that’s just his magnetism.
“I dare you to finish that shit,” he growls again, pushing my body hard against a tree that’s behind me. I suck in a breath, all the while hoping that he doesn’t hurt me but who will stop him?
His large body cages me in, pressing my body even more against the tree that bites into my back. I have nowhere to escape. I know the guy hates me and I know that I’m in trouble but the only thing I can think about now is, just how much he’s changed in the last two years since I last saw him.
He’s harder now than he ever was.
He’s angrier, taller, even more sexy than I remember. A frisson of awareness of his primal male body covering mine rushes through me to a point of pain.
But his eyes, that were once so expressive with emotions he allowed himself to feel, are all but empty and hard now.
And all I can do is see myself in those dark eyes. I can resonate with that darkness, I can feel myself in the depth of his coldness and that…scares the crap out of me.
“Let me go,” I choke out, my eyes watering. “You’re hurting me.”
He eases his grip just a little bit, but he doesn’t let go.
“Finish what you were about to say,” he growls, like a caged animal that wants to do irreparable damage to my soul.
As we stare at each other in the dimly lit space between us, with trees all around us, blocking us from the view of prying eyes, I’m sucked into the vortex of his anger, hatred, and lust that he weaves.
Liam is sexy, sure, but he’s got nothing on his older brother. Dark hair, a face chiseled by God himself, with a strong jaw that I want to touch, kissable lips that I can’t look away from because I want to kiss him again. A shiver of lust races up and down my spine as I stare up into in tormented eyes.
“Julian—,” I start but he cuts me off with a low, menacing growl.
“Don’t say my fucking name like you deserve it,” he grits out, each word dripping with anger; my heart aches with it. “You’re nothing to me.”
That stings. A lot.
But I won’t let him see that.
“Don’t touch me either.” I struggle to get away from him, hoping that someone is coming to check on me, but he doesn’t move, and he’s not worried about anyone coming. �
�You don’t have a right to touch me.”
“Like you slapped my brother?” He leans in closer, just as his knee separates my thighs in one fluid move. “Like you kissed him and touched him?”
I tremble just a little bit, remembering the way he shattered the beer bottle in that room in Malibu. I remember the way he was standing in the doorway of the balcony, breathing hard and deep like he is now.
He’s large, with perfect bone structure, tight and toned without an inch of give or fat anywhere on him. He’s so male and so damn built, perfect for the defense lineman position that he plays so well, hell, he was picked by several Division 1 schools. No one knows which one he chose of course, because everything about him is secretive, lethal, silent. At least, that’s what they say about him.
But as we stare at each other, I can’t help but feel that people don’t know him as well as they think.
Liam might be mean and a smart talker, but Julian is a nightmare all on his own.
A chilly shudder moves through me and into him like an electric current, followed closely by a bucket of ice water, drenching us back into the reality of how fucked up we both are.
We both freeze. I frown and his eyes narrow on me.
“Listen, I didn’t mean for that to happen with Liam.” I stutter, my nipples hard, brushing against his hard chest like a cat in heat. I don’t mean to, but I need warmth and he’s so damn warm, I can’t help but want to be closer to him. He watches me, knowing exactly what’s going on with me. My cheeks warm up in embarrassment when his pupils dilate.
“Yeah, you did,” he counters. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
In that moment, it feels like we’re talking about something else entirely, but I refuse to go there, especially when he won’t hear my side of the mess. Not now.
“Your brother provoked me!” I start, my anger returning tenfold. “I didn’t walk up to him and start shit with him that I couldn’t handle.”
“Neither did Aiden.”
Those three words kill me right then and there.
It’s then that I notice the grief intertwined with the hate in his eyes. I noticed it in Liam’s eyes too just now and it shatters something in me that I’m left almost panting.
We’re standing in the dark. There’s no way that anyone’s emotions can be this…brazen and so damn real, it chokes the air out of me. My lungs tighten, I can’t breathe without feeling the grief in him, all the while feeling the impending grief I’m yet to face.
Soon.
He breathes slowly, deep and so careful, waiting for what I have to say but I’ve got nothing. I can feel his hot breath on my face. It should distress me, but it doesn’t. My heart calms down some as we stand there, but everything else is hyperaware of him. I can’t help it.
There’s so much I want to say right now. So much I’m feeling, and I know he’s feeling it too, so I look up into his eyes.
“Listen, I—,” I look around, now on the brink of bursting out in tears, but it would give him so much satisfaction if I cry. “I’m…”
“Finish what you wanted to say about my brother,” he growls, cutting me off, now angrier than he was before.
His grip tightening around my neck. Not enough to leave a bruise, but enough to remind me that my life is literally in his hands.
I remain mute, fear radiating all over my body in waves that he doesn’t care for.
This is the reunion that I was scared of. I avoided all of the games with St. Jude, because I was a coward, hiding from him and his brother. I ran away a few minutes after getting to a party because I would’ve seen him across the room. I escaped every space and every corner that I knew he might be at, like he was made up of gluten.
“Let go of me,” I whimper now.
I’m scared but I won’t beg him. I’m not a punk.
He smells so clean, like an ocean breeze and something uniquely him, a scent that has only matured and aged with time, but I got a hint of it the day he kissed me. And now, he smells like my undoing, and I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with that.
“Let go of me,” I repeat, watching him cautiously. “Or I’ll scream for everyone to hear. Imagine what they’ll think you’re doing to me.”
“Go ahead,” he challenges.
“I will…” I frown at him.
“That should’ve been your first move when I grabbed you, Little Minx.”
I almost melt the moment he says those words. I heard that pet peeve only once in my life, but I got so attached to it, I can’t breathe now that I’m hearing it again.
Little Minx.
My heart stops, every inch of me freezes and for a moment, I’m suspended in time by those two words.
Little Minx.
He remembers. He never forgot.
Then he snaps me out of my reverie.
“Why didn’t you scream the first time?”
I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t I scream when he grabbed my throat?
“I—” I start but he cuts me off.
“You knew it was me,” he growls, leaning into my ear, his lips almost skimming the shell of my ear. “You wanted my attention tonight, didn’t you?”
I freeze.
Who the fuck does this guy think I am? An easy hit for him?
“Get your filthy hands off of me!” I grit out. “I’m not your whore, and I sure as hell don’t want or need attention from your stupid brother or you for that matter.”
In one move, he pulls my body from the tree then bangs it with light pressure back, making me wince, but it’s surprisingly there’s no pain.
“So, this is who you are now?” I croak the words out, breathing hard as adrenaline spikes in me. “You assault women?”
“Don’t assess me like you know me,” he counters. “You’re not a woman. You’re a whiny little snitch-puppet.”
Three years ago, I opened my mouth…
We stare at each other for a long minute. There’s a darkness in his eyes that steals my breath away.
For that moment, I forget myself, forget where I am or who’s watching. All I want to do is reach up and touch him. Soothe his pain…because he’s in so much pain, I feel it in my bones.
He growls low in his chest, snapping me out of my trance.
He might be in pain, but that’s not my problem. But then, I can’t help but think… is his pain because of me?
“Do you have something to say?” he rumbles, looking pissed off and slightly confused. I frown, watching him. His eyes are so captivating, but then I get what he means. I scoff.
“I’m not apologizing for minding my own damn business.” I don’t know what he sees in my eyes but it’s obvious this brute is one of those assholes who don’t like it when someone stands up for themselves, let alone deny him anything. “And I don’t give a damn about bullies.”
“Bullies like yourself?” he counters, watching me. He doesn’t smile or smirk like his brother. He just… watches me.
“I’m not a bully.” I huff, but don’t make a move otherwise, afraid that he’ll kill me.
“Just violent then?”
“I’m not the one who attacked myself or spoke about my family out of nowhere,” I accuse, unable to mask the pain in my voice. He notices but doesn’t react.
He doesn’t care.
“Besides, I told you. I didn’t mean to slap your brother.”
“So, it just happened?” he mocks. “You keep hurting my brothers and it’s just what, coincidence?”
I shrug and look away. I hurt Aiden by opening my big mouth that day, but I never meant to. And with Liam, it just happened. I didn’t know he was Julian’s brother at the party, and what happened just now, I didn’t start that mess. But I know better than to say that now.
He won’t believe me anyway, not when the damage I caused at the hospital and at the party is too great a price for an innocent bystander to pay and a relationship between two brothers to suffer.
“Was it a fucking coincidence?” he growls.
&n
bsp; “I don’t know,” I murmur instead, the silence between us so damn loud, I can hear both our thundering hearts pounding.
“You don’t know?” He snickers, eyes darkening, but that’s the truth.
I don’t know what happened just now.
I’m still reeling from the fact that Liam called me and the women in my family whores. Then there’s the fact that I just remembered my dad accused Mom of sleeping around three years ago when life started to subtly change for us. I don’t know what happened that made me snap and slap Liam, but one of those two things made me see red and all I could do was act.
“Being a bitch is part of who you are, isn’t it?” he whispers. “You don’t care who you hurt so long as you come out as the bigger bitch.”
“That’s not true.” I feel small in front of him. So vulnerable and alone. “I don’t hurt people.”
I just correct them on their errors about me.
As we look at each other, it feels like I’m seeing something else in his eyes, something I only ever see in myself if I stare in the mirror too long.
Burden mixed with grief with a nice, cute bow of self-loathing wrapped around it, like a Pandora’s box.
I gasp, blinking several times. He narrows his eyes at me, as if trying to figure me out.
“I don’t hurt people,” I repeat, trying to convince him, convince myself.
“Are you sure about that?” he grunts, bringing his gorgeous face closer to mine, I can feel his hot breath on my face.
Maybe it’s the fact that my life is literally in this guy’s hands, or maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but for some reason, I can’t look away from his dark turbulent gaze, forced to look up as he plasters his large body to my tiny frame, effectively blocking the cold breeze as his hot body shields mine.
But this isn’t about shielding me.
Julian’s instinct of protecting anyone who isn’t his brother, just for the hell of it or at the very least, because of humanity with a code for ethical morals—is off like a broken compass.
He doesn’t care about me. He kissed me, sure, but it meant nothing to him. As for me, it was everything. In a way, he broke my heart with that kiss.
Devious Kisses: A Bully Enemies -To-Lovers Romance (It's Just High School Book 1) Page 17
