I pause, not knowing how to respond to that. But still, I refuse to let him see that’s right.
“I don’t know. Maybe I would have called home or called the police in Palos Verdes and told them that I’m all right and I’m alive.”
“Really?” he scoffs. “Why didn’t you then?”
Well shit. If the police were looking for me, then it means they probably questioned everyone who is in one capacity or the other connected to my life. That includes Nicky. She must have told them that she also doesn’t know what happened to me. I mean, what else could she say?
“I’ll admit that calling the police right now would be a gamble with the devil,” I say. “I have no idea how to protect Nicky if that happens.”
“Not to mention you’re underage, in Paris under a fake name.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re excused for keeping this from me!” I wave at the screen again. “How am I going to go back to Palos Verdes, to that community, to that school and face everyone after this much attention?”
He’s silent for a moment, then he pushes away from the counter and strides over to me in a slow, predatory way that makes my jaw slack. I look up at him, helplessly drawn into his charisma and the way he’s looking at me.
He leans down now and cups my face in his large palm, his gaze holding mine.
“You’re not anyone’s pinata, Little Minx,” he purrs, his eyes dark as they rake me from head to toe again. “You’re my fierce girl. You don’t take shit lying down. You’d never allow them to kick you. I fucking know that you kick back. You bite back if you have to, fight back and give as good as you get. I mean, you know the drill.”
“A drill, Julian, that’s all it was. It wasn’t real, just a mask I put on,” I whisper, looking down. “Things are going to be different from now on. You can’t tell me they won’t.”
“While things change, Little Minx,” he starts as he pushes me back to lie on the couch gently, then he hovers over me with one hand on my left ankle, his hot, intense gaze never leaving mine. “Other things stay the same.”
“Because that power, baby, it’s who you are. It just doesn’t go away because you’re going through shit.”
I bite my lip, my eyes welling with tears as I look up at him. How do I respond to that? How do I tell him that no one has ever said such words to me or told me that I’m strong?
Then he starts caressing my legs, the rough callouses of his fingers awakening a darkness in me that only he can call out to play. I love the way he touches me, the way he looks at me like he is now, making me hot, needy and way too vulnerable to be able to utter a word. All I can do is swallow. Hard.
A shiver of arousal goes through me as his caresses become more intentional, running up my legs and back. He looks up at me then, his gaze dark and knowing.
“Why, Mia?” he purrs, a ghost of a smirk on his face that makes another shiver go through me. I already know what he’s asking for but how do I answer that? I have no idea what I wanted to accomplish by wearing this skimpy thing.
“I wanted to try my new lingerie,” I whisper, but my voice is thick with arousal.
“While you are mad at me?”
Huh?
“I wasn’t mad at you,” I defend myself, but his fingers get closer to my sex, and he runs a finger over my panties, right at the seams of my wet lips. It’s like a bolt of electricity, making me jump on the couch. He smirks then, looking up at me.
“You see, Little Minx,” he starts, bringing his face closer to mine as if he’s about to kiss me, but he doesn’t, leaving me starved and ready for him. “The thing about your anger is you express it in actions. When you put this on, you knew what you wanted. You knew what you were asking for.”
Was I? I swear I just wanted to have a good time with him after the call I received.
“I’m not asking for anything,” I whisper, looking up at him, my fingers itching with the need to touch him, so I fist my palms tightly, and press them to my sides.
Lowering his face, he starts planting wet, wicked kisses in the crook of my neck, while his fingers start rubbing my clit over my panties.
“Is that why you’re wet?” he purrs in my ear. “I’ve barely touched you and here you are, a second away from shooting off like a firecracker.”
“Maybe I was practicing my new skills,” I whisper seductively. “I mean it was you who taught me how to touch myself, wasn’t it?” I bat my eyelashes at him, biting down on the moan that wants to rip out of me.
“I also taught you to take your pleasure seriously, didn’t I?” he groans in my ear, sucking and biting my neck then in one move, he rips my panties off me, making me gasp. “Didn’t I, Mia?”
All I can do is nod, looking up at him. He holds my gaze as he plunges three fingers into me in one go and I buck off the bed when he starts thrusting in earnest. Well, let’s just get into it then, shall we?
“If you did pleasure yourself, why are you still so wound up, baby?” he purrs, thrusting in rhythm to each word he utters, making my body produce more lubricant, greedy for orgasm. Greedy for him. “Were you waiting for me to finish the job?”
I open my mouth to say something snarky, but he shuts me up with a lush, wet kiss. His tongue does that wicked slow dance it does as he fucks me with his fingers, creating a sort of tempo that only he and I understand, and only he and I can move to it, creating our own choreography.
My hands move on their own accord, reaching up to grip his hair as I feel a freight train of an orgasm rip through me with an intensity that makes me scream, staring up at the ceiling. But before I can calm down, Julian moves away from me, leaving me lying on the bed, panting and breathless.
“What…” I stutter, looking up at him. But he doesn’t say anything as he removes his t-shirt, pushing it over his head, flexing his muscles as he does. My. God. I know with football, he trains like crazy every day, but the way he looks is ridiculous. It’s the kind of stuff wet dreams, porn and Heaven are made of.
He watches me as he removes his jeans, pushing them down his muscular legs. He’s been commando since we got here and now, he takes himself in his hand and starts to stroke himself as his gaze rakes over me, searing my body.
“Damn,” I whisper when he brings his leg up on the couch and really starts stroking himself, his gaze touching each part of my body.
“Strip,” he demands, nodding at the baby doll. “Strip out of it, slowly.”
A thrill rushes through me and I feel it again, that naughty, dangerous vibe between us that makes my heart race, but still, I do as I’m told.
Instead of getting up, I lie there and start pleasuring myself slowly with one hand as I remove the strap of the dress with the other. I hold his gaze the entire time, watching him struggle on what to look at. I know he hates that, feeling like his attention is being pulled in different directions. But Julian Fitzgerald excelled in just about everything, including making good girls go bad, driving them insane with need—to come and to make him come.
“Fuck,” he groans, and I see pre-cum on the head of his large, hard cock, making me swallow. I want him in me. I want to taste him. I want all of him. Watching him stroke himself makes me so delirious with arousal that I moan and thrust two fingers in me.
“Uh, fuck this shit!”
I go to remove the other strap but in a single step, Julian is hovering over me then he reaches down and tears the baby doll in two, the sound of fabric tearing sounding so scandalous and taboo that I can’t help but moan again.
“You’re such a fucking tease,” he growls, picking me up now.
“Julian,” I moan when he sits down on the couch, kissing me like he’s gone way too long without tasting me, without kissing me with such desperation and longing.
“I have to have you, Mia,” he groans, his touch now desperate. “I need to have you.”
“Oh God, yes,” I moan breathlessly, clinging on to him. I have no idea where he gets the condom, but he puts it in my mouth, and he holds the other end as
I tear the top. Then the takes it and rolls it on.
“You need to get on birth control soon,” he groans in my ear.
“And you’re incredibly ornery right now,” I tease, biting his neck like a wanton fiend. But then he cups my ass and thrusts into me with one powerful lurch that makes me lose my breath, and suddenly, nothing is so funny anymore.
I’ve never had Julian like this before. I’m stretched tight, the bite of pain so real, that I clutch his shoulders, my fingers digging in.
“I… I can’t,” I gasp, but he holds still, his jaw locked.
“Yes, you can, Little Minx,” he whispers in my ear. He starts kissing me, then I feel his fingers at my clit, rubbing and fingering just as he’s kissing me until I start making these carnal sounds, holding on to him as my body produces more lubricant and the next thing I know, I clench down hard on his dick and he swears.
“Fuck, Mia,” he hisses, his voice so dark. I feel him growing bigger in me, so I do it again, this time clenching harder, a wicked grin on my face. “Shit, shit.”
He cups my ass again, then he starts fucking me in earnest, pumping into me with hard, measured thrusts that make my eyes roll to the back of my head.
Holy shit!
“You’re a wicked, dirty, Little Minx, aren’t you?” he whispers hotly, fucking me like the world is about to burn to the ground and even if it did, I doubt he’d stop. And God, I wouldn’t want him to stop either.
He hits my G-spot each time. I scream, my orgasm hovering close. Then he starts kissing me, frantically, deeply, like the way he’s fucking me.
Julian Fitzgerald was made for this. He was made to fuck and he does it like he knows he’s the best and he has ruined me for sex with anyone else.
As if hearing my thoughts, he pulls back and stares into my eyes. “Mine,” he growls, with a dark warning in. his eyes. “You’re fucking mine, Mia.”
Hot damn, did I even belong to myself before this man?
I moan loudly, my jaw slack with pleasure. He literally holds all my weight as he fucks me and all I can do is hold on and take it. And God, do I take it. Everything this man gives me, his kisses, his attention, his love. I take it and still demand more.
The orgasm builds inside me, and I begin to moan louder, my legs beginning to shake with the impending storm. But before I can allow myself to go over, Julian stops, and I stare at him shocked.
“You didn’t just do that,” I gasp, breathless, but there’s a darkness in his eyes as he stares at me, the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on who sees me more than I see myself.
“Ride me,” he demands, and I stare at him, fighting not to drop my jaw to my lap.
“What?”
He leans back on the couch, making himself comfortable as he stares up at me, a challenge in his eyes. “I said ride me, Mia.”
Fuck. There’s something about being wanted by him that makes me want to do everything possible to please him, to keep his attention on me.
So I lean down, sucking, biting and kissing his neck, knowing damn well that I’m retuning the hickey favor, then slowly, I start riding him.
My mouth opens on a silent gasp, stunned by how I’m moving, the flexibility in my body that makes me ride him like a porn star.
“Fuck, Mia,” he hisses, grabbing my hips but he doesn’t try to control me, he just holds on and suddenly, I want him to come.
I want him to groan my name as he does so.
I get back up and start riding him in earnest, my breasts bouncing up and down. He grabs them, pinching my hardened nipples to the point of pain.
“Ah!” I scream.
“Yeah, that’s right, baby,” he purrs. “Show me how you fucking feel about me, Mia. Show me how you ride for me.”
Holy sex! What do I say to that besides clenching and riding and moaning?
“Yeah, you’re a Little Minx. Who do you belong to?” he hisses.
“Oh God, you!” I moan. “I belong to you.”
“That’s fucking right,” he moans, now meeting me thrust for thrust. “Don’t try to control it. Just let go.”
I do as I’m told. I don’t have a chance of holding back my orgasm, or any part of me from him.
I clench down on him so hard as I come that he sits up and starts fucking me and I know he’s right there with me. I thought I was done coming, but I’m a fucking liar, because as he fucks me deeper and harder than before, I clench even harder and he groans so loud that it moves through his chest and into me, making me moan loudly as a powerful, intense orgasm rips between us.
I have no idea how long we stay there, but tremors of my orgasm still rock me, and Julian holds me to him, his cock till hard in me. He runs a finger down my spine and I know that shook him off balance like it did me, and we don’t know how to pick up the pieces from here, both of us vulnerable and lost in each other.
It’s there. On the tip of my tongue. I can’t hold on to them any longer. I’ve known of course, for a fucking long time, but he’s Julian and I’m me. Name a more toxic, unwanted relationship than us?
I pull back and cup his jaw, tears welling up in my eyes, blurring my vision.
“I love you,” I whisper, the words heavy yet so damn true as they fall off my tongue. “Julian, I love you.”
This man, he has saved my life. He has broken me before, but he put me together again with so much tenderness, care, and affection that I’ve never known in my life.
I feel his cock swell inside me as he stares at me.
“Say it again,” he demands, his hold around me tighter now.
“I love you.” Tears fall down my cheeks as I say it again, this time the words coming out easier, fitting right where they should.
His stare grows darker. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t look relieved. Instead he looks like I’m making a declaration of sorts, an oath, a fucking promise that will tie us together for the rest of our lives.
“Fuck, Mia,” he whispers, cupping my cheek. “I fucking love the hell out of you.”
Unadulterated, unfiltered, untainted happiness slams into me and for the first time in my life, my world feels right. And when he takes us to our room and lays me down on our bed for round two—is it three—we love the fuck out of each other is what we do.
26
Have you ever heard people who have survived near death experiences talk about how they think they saw the end come hurtling toward them, ready to take them? It’s like that one person who once swore they could see lightning coming down to strike them, but everyone else declared them as crazy?
Yeah well, I didn’t think it all started that way, not at all. I felt the danger hovering over me like a dark cloud from the night I found Mia but when I’m with her, everything just falls away.
She becomes the center of my world in a way that made me uncomfortable on some days. I didn’t know how to feel about that, but since she told me she loved me, it’s been full steam ahead.
There was no question, no doubt, nothing at all other than the rawest, truest parts of ourselves, discovering each other, with the world completely shut off from us.
Mia and I travel through Europe for the next two weeks. Neither one of us has a phone with us, choosing instead to stay away from the internet and its pure fucking bliss. The freedom of not being online is liberating and I know it makes her lighter. She likes that.
Waking up each morning with her in my arms, her sexy body snuggled to my back, our legs tangled together, her arms around me. She snored lightly in her sleep and the fact that she wasn’t having any nightmares anymore was also pretty fucking amazing.
Of course, I did that shit to indulge her. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Louvre, or the damn Colosseum, or the many fountains in Italy she wanted to visit—all of this, both of us have seen before—but she wanted to do it so bad.
Maybe it was all for her to soothe over her stinging ballet rejection or maybe she just wanted to torture me, but I held her hand, took her damn pictures, grumbled my way through and got to fu
ck her, no holds barred each night, sometimes twice.
But then there are these few times when she looks like she’s a thousand miles away, a worried look on her face that makes me so tense, I want it gone from her face.
She jumps when my phone rings after switching it on, asking who it is—something she’s never done.
Then there’s the little paranoia she has of looking over her shoulder like we’re being followed. She wasn’t wrong though. We were being followed, but from a distance.
Before leaving for our first stop, Croatia, I called dad and he sent in security detail to watch over us from a respectable distance, including Max.
I didn’t tell Mia, of course, she was already a bit anxious as it was. All I wanted was to keep her safe, happy and relaxed before we inevitably have to go back to our lives and handle shit that needs handling, like dismantling that damn marriage contract between me and the girl my brother might possibly still be in love with.
“Do you think I should get in contact with Nicky?” she questions, glancing at me from her lounger. We’re on a beautiful beach in Mallorca, with water so blue, it matches Mia’s eyes.
In three days, we have to go home. I need to go for my early football practice at school and Mia needs to face her father—something I hate already. I have no idea why she wants to do it but I take comfort in the fact that I’ll be there with Cole, Liam, dad if he’s needed.
“Didn’t you say she was all right when you last talked to her over two weeks ago?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I just feel like I should call her or something,” she murmurs, looking up to the sky.
“Then why don’t you call her?” I question. “What’s stopping you?”
“I don’t have a phone remember, Einstein?”
Hmm, about that…
“What happened to your burner phone, the one you used to call her?”
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had too much sun or if my eyes are deceiving me for nothing at all, but from the corner of my eye, I notice her tense up, her lips pursing. But then she shrugs it off.
Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2 Page 28