Chapter 105: Obsession

My eyebrow twitched when he called me *Beautiful* again and I stopped swaying with him after his confession. “Julian… we’re not–”

“Not dating anymore, I know.” it sounded as if he were still trying to dig himself out of a dark trench. It almost made me feel bad for him. “That doesn’t change my feelings.”

I leaned my head off of his chest to look up at him with dull eyes. “Dying for me is one thing but killing for me as a whole ‘nother ball game. In fact, how about you don’t do either, aight?”

My disapproval got a different reaction out of him than what I expected. Instead of being downhearted by my cold tone and rejecting words, he grinned and leaned down further to where our foreheads and noses were pressed together. “You don’t want me to die? That’s very comforting.”

“C’mon, I’m not that big of an ass!”

“Your demeanor begs to differ some days. More often than not.”

I winced and looked away from him. The man pissed me off and made me cautious with each step I took, but I never wanted him to literally *die.* I’m not that cruel! I just wanted to be left alone. He was no different from anybody else. I wanted to get off of my sore back.

Even with our foreheads and noses touching, I completely avoided looking at his face. My racing heart and fidgeting body had finally begun to calm down during our little dance, and I knew that as soon as I made eye contact with him again, I’d get more flustered than a spooked cat. “Would you be sad if I died too?” his sudden question made my heart jump and my breath hitch.

*Would I be sad? What kinda fucking question is that??*

“I hope so.” he sounded worried this time as he leaned his head away and pressed his cheek against mine.

“Would I be sad?” my inner question repeated off of my tongue. “You’re a bigger fucking idiot than I thought.”

Julian’s cheek slid away from mine so that he could look down at my face. My words were blunt, as always, but he knew what I meant. “How much would you care?”

I was trying to avoid my cheeks from lighting up like fucking Christmas trees again this whole time but it was pointless when the answer to his question instantly clicked in my head.

*Fucking hell and fuck my life… ugh, I’m never gonna live this down.*

My head hung in an attempt to hide it behind my curly hair. “...A lot.”

This time it was his turn for his breath to hitch and even though my ear wasn’t against his chest, I could’ve sworn I heard his heartbeat speed up. *Does it really mean that much to him?* It was embarrassing for me to admit it but it felt as if it brought a piece of him back to life. It made me feel good but… do I deserve to feel good?

Jack was still lingering in the back of my mind, even if the weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders. For now, anyway. Julian’s arms squeezed tighter around my lithe frame as he smothered his face into my hair, breathing in my scent as if he had been holding his breath underwater for hours. It brought a familiar shiver zapping up my spine, from bone to bone.

“I’m so glad…” Julian took his lips from my hair to my cheek, giving it a light kiss–the pressure was so gentle that all I could feel was the graze of skin against skin. But, like an old, bad habit, his kisses continued in a trail leading towards my lips. The pressure and texture of his lips pressed against mine normally would’ve made me cave and leap at him but this time I turned my head away.

“Nah, I… no. I can’t.” *I can’t do this anymore.* I kept the second part locked away in my head. This time I couldn’t meet his gaze for other feelings that engulfed me, brutal and cold, as if using my heart as a punching bag. I had half the mind of at least attempting to have him return as my brother figure, but deep down I knew too much had happened between us to consider each other as family anymore, at least not like that.

Julian looked like a kicked puppy and it only made my rejection of him hurt more. “What? But after everything I said–”

“Mom has suspicions, Julian.” my tone is blunt as I attempt to lean away from him but his strong arms hold me in place. “She thinks something is going on… and I hate lying to her.”

We stood there in silence. My words and my tone sounded the same; cold and uncaring. But the truth was that I did care. Too much. And I hated it. *Fuck… I really have gone soft.* As I anxiously waited for his response, his grip around me loosened further as he pressed his lips against my forehead. “Do you at least feel a little better?”

I was caught off guard by his question. He opened up the sensitive parts of his heart and even showed me the secret place he goes to clear his mind and yet I still rejected him, but he’s more concerned about me?

*Fuuuuck, you really know how to make me feel like the stinkiest, giant piece of shit.*

I sighed as my shoulders sagged. “Yeah… I do. Uh, thanks.” I still tried to keep my head leaned away from his body so that I didn’t hear his heartbeat, but his addicting scent still clogged my nose. Not that I was complaining. “Listen, we should be heading back. Mom will–” Unexpectedly, his arms tightened around me the moment I tried to leave. They tightened enough that I knew I couldn’t push or slip out of his ‘embrace.’

“No. Let's stay like this a little longer.” despite his body language, his voice was still kind and gentle as if talking to a frightened child.

“Dude, we seriously need to be getting back. If Mom notices the both of us have disappeared, she’ll just get more suspicious. I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but I know she’s thinking that we don’t have that brother-sister- relationship between us anymore. I’m not ready to–no, I won’t let her know about any of this. I can’t let her know.”

“What?” his attentive gaze turned into an intense stare. “Why not? I thought we agreed… we agreed to admit that we were in love when the time was right–”

“Yeah, well, we’re not dating anymore!” I snapped impatiently.

“I didn’t say *dating*…”

My lips pursed as I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away from him as far as I could. The manipulative man was trying to force an answer out of me. An answer that’ll change the mood, and likely the situation, really fast.

*Fuck it all. Fucking hell.*

“I know you didn’t.” as much as I wanted to shoot him my feisty glare, I still couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact. “That’s all it was to me. Is dating.” I was about to leave it at that, but I knew Julian would keep reaching for that tiny ray of light until I shut it out completely. “I never loved you, Julian. I just wanted to know what it felt like. That’s all.”

As I predicted, the mood between us changed. No, not just the mood… it felt more intense than that. It's like the atmosphere itself just shifted. Julian’s firm hug tightened further to the point my cheek was forced against his chest again and I couldn’t move my shoulders. “What the fuck? I can’t breeze–loosen up!” My hostility swayed when I felt his body start to shake and he began to mumble inaudibly. “What? I can’t hear you.”

“You’re lying.” Those two words rolled off his tongue in a shaking breath. “You *love* me. I know you do. You have since our first night together! You fail to see it because you are completely deprived of it."

“The hell? I’m not fucking deprived of love, Julian. I just don’t have those kinds of feelings for you. That night you were…” I hesitated as I felt that familiar shame poking at my pride with a sharp knife. “... You were just a moment of weakness.”

“No… no, no. No. NO!” his trembling whisper shifted into a booming shout that made me give a startled jump.

“Jul–AGH!” right as I was about to ‘be nice’ by telling him to calm down and let's talk, he shoved me down to the ground with ease, my smaller body never standing a chance. Thankfully, the moss was soft enough that I didn’t get any scrapes or bruises, but that became the least of my problems when Julian mounted me.

“You’re mine.”