Page 27 of Blood Moon

Prick, I thought as I glared. He’d saved my life, but at what cost? For him to torture me with useless apologies and inconveniences. For just a second, I had been concerned by his absence, and now that he wouldn’t stop popping up, I regretted my prior feelings. I wanted him to just go away.

I heaved a frustrated sigh, and it was my own breath that betrayed me.

Julian noticed my scowling, and he bit down on his bottom lip before smirking.

A beautiful and treacherous sight. As if he knew I was aggravated by him.

As if he knew he had an advantage. Then he turned his attention back to the girl that was transfixed by him, and I rolled my eyes. Dingleberry.

Suddenly, seven minutes felt like two seconds. Before I knew it, the two that had gone into the closet were bursting out with laughter and swollen lips, stammering back to the circle, and I was up next.

All eyes were on me as I held the glass bottle in my hand. My breathing came slow while I watched it spin round and round. It eased after a few seconds, landing in front of none other than Julian.

The universe found my hatred funny, apparently. Because if it had been listening, then it would understand that this was a very bad idea … unless, more cleverly than me, it had conspired a plan, a new opportunity to use this as a way to dig for more information.

My mouth went slack, and Julian shook his head nonchalantly as he rose to his feet. His back was already to me as he shifted past the crowd to the closet.

Damn. Even if this was a chance to get answers, I could barely gather myself.

I grabbed a water bottle from the person beside me and took a swig, trying my best to stall.

I didn’t want to be alone with Julian, not really.

With him, it was always the same story; he’d leave me feeling empty and breathless.

But the crowd was already cheering me on, and someone I didn’t know helped me to my feet.

Fine. Fine. If these were the cards that fate had dealt, I’d go along with the charade—get the intel I needed—but not without complaining the entire time.

As expected, I groaned reluctantly while I was shoved away, and before I exited the living room, I swore I saw Seven staring in my direction.

The person in front of the coat closet reminded me to set a timer on my phone, and then I was inside. Alone, in the dark, with him .

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Julian said while I set the timer and turned on my flashlight. The bright light made me feel more at ease.

I clicked my tongue. “That’s a bit rich coming from you.”

“I’m just saying … you have a choice.”

“Hmm.” I twisted my lips. “It sounds like you’re afraid of me.”

Julian chuckled, and it actually offended me. “ Fear? Is that what you think this is?”

I had to tip my head back to truly see him.

His face was illuminated, but around him were meandering shadows.

They hovered like rain clouds. “Sure … why else would you want me to leave this place so badly? You say it’s because it’s not safe for me to be around you …

but what if it’s not safe for you to be around me? ”

He pressed his lips thin, holding back a grin or a laugh, though he wasn’t very good at it. Watching him now, I could sense that something had changed about Julian, though I still didn’t understand what that something was.

“Sure,” he said softly, dragging his fingers through that hair of his. “But aren’t you supposed to be upset with me?” he reminded. “You never accepted my apology, and it’s feeling like this is a waste of breath for you.”

I glowered, observing how his gaze drifted from my eyes, to my mouth, down to the hammering pulse in my neck. It filled me with a warmth that tugged at my center, tickled my thighs. It was tormenting. I didn’t like how he tried to use my words against me.

I inhaled, tried to will that warmth away.

“Yes,” I said, hoping his eyes would meet mine again because, every second they trailed me, my heart raced harder.

It was this treacherous feeling, like being caught by the ankle and pulled into murky waters.

I needed to cut myself loose, release my body from the confused state it was in.

“You’re kind of a dick, Julian. An apology doesn’t resolve that.”

At that, he fixed his eyes to mine, and while I’d assumed it would make this easier, it didn’t. Focus, I reminded myself. I needed to be on my A game. “That’s fair,” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“Of course it’s fair. It’s also true. You see how I did that? I told the truth.”

“Yeah, I see how you did that. I’m taking notes as we speak.”

I sneered, crossing my arms as I leaned against the wall. This place was so small … and he was so incredibly close. But that was the point, wasn’t it? “So why aren’t you afraid of me, anyway? You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

When he grinned this time, I caught a flash of just how white his teeth were in the light, and how they were a hint sharper than I remembered. “Oh, I know exactly what you’re capable of, Mirabella … and trust me, I’m capable of more.”

“First off, that’s offensive because I can kick ass.

Secondly, you don’t have to call me Mirabella.

It’s weird coming from you. And third, I’m not even slightly afraid of you,” I said, even if it was a small lie.

It wasn’t that I was scared, per se, but it was the way he was wide-eyed and sanguine, the subtle slope of his shoulders as he leaned in, the small space between us that made me feel comfortable—and comfort was a distraction from how I wanted to feel.

I went from angry to needing to press my fingers into the corded muscles on his arms, to craving what it would be like if his face were closer to mine.

That was what terrified me.

The rest of my speech concluded with “I’m sure your bark is louder than your bite.” But before I could continue, Julian chuckled. It was slight at first, a small bounce in his shoulders, his mouth closed to keep the sound in, but when I gasped in fury, he folded over, busting out in laughter.

My nostrils flared. He was literally laughing in my face. “It wasn’t even funny.”

He continued to snicker, sniffling now, and I rolled my eyes. “It was,” he said. “I didn’t realize you had that in you.”

“Get over yourself,” I said, pushing him back, but he caught my hand in his, held it to his chest so I could feel it move while he laughed.

And I stayed there, my palm pressed against his beating heart, my fingers curving into the hardness of his torso.

That warmth took over me again, and I could feel the sides of my face burn ravenously.

Get it together, Mira. You are better than this. I adjusted my spine and recoiled a little as I pulled my hand back slowly. “Are we going to do this or not?” I said, wiping my palms on the side of my jeans.

Julian took a deep breath and a step forward. He smelled sweet. I couldn’t comprehend how. It wasn’t the cologne that clung to his skin; it was something else, something deeper. “Why,” he murmured. “Can’t wait to make out with your mortal enemy?”

I smirked, looking him square in the face. Was this what that girl out there had seen when she looked at Julian? He was mesmerizing, but there was a dimness behind the gild of his eyes. “Detesting you is an honor I take pride in.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“I am,” he admitted.

My impulses got the best of me, and I reached my free hand to his face, letting my fingers trail the outline of his bruise. I couldn’t not touch him; he was an enigma of sorts, and I supposed I wasn’t better than this. “What has gotten into you?” I breathed.

“ You ,” he said completely.

And it was the way he said it that snapped something in me.

It brought me back to the here and now. “Look.” My voice faltered, and I withdrew my hand, checked the timer.

There were only a couple minutes left. “I agreed to come in here because I thought there might be a chance you’d tell me the truth, tell me what’s happening between us and why you approached me like you had a vendetta against me on the day we met.

Do you think I’ll ever forget what you said to me in class the other day?

” I broke my speech to glare at him, so he’d see me for who I was.

“You said my existence was your demise. A statement like that is unforgivable. Before a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know you, Julian.

What could I have done to make you so infuriated? ”

A sort of remorse pulled at his features, and he straightened his posture, moving an inch closer to me. “I—”

“You what? ” I said between clenched teeth, pressing myself further against the wall.

“You can’t because of some oath?” He tightened the muscles in his jaw, but didn’t move otherwise, didn’t break the proximity between us.

“You talk a whole hell of a lot for someone with their hands tied behind them. And if this game hadn’t happened, would you have found yourself in here with me, or is someone deciding that for you, too?

You probably don’t even have the balls to kiss me, Julian. It’s pathetic, really.”

And there he was, his chest on mine, sending a quiver down my body. Our ribs met, hearts slapped against muscle, and we stared at each other for a drawn-out second before I said, “You should know that I hate you, too.”

“Do you?” His fingers touched my chin, holding me there.

“Yes,” I whispered, and my stomach twisted. “More than anything. More than anyone.”

Julian placed his forehead to mine, and a few strands of his hair fell beside my ear. “The thing is, Mira,” he mumbled, and it was the way he said Mira that made me want to hear him say it again. “If I kissed you, you wouldn’t want me to stop.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

The tip of Julian’s nose touched mine, and I could feel his soft exhale on my lips. A sweet kind of poison—the deadliest ones usually were. “So then tell me, right now, what you want.” It was a question that truly stumped me. The wires had crossed, gone awry. I wanted … I wanted …

I drank in a breath, his lips there, almost skimming mine.

It was so unlike me to be caught up in this.

I wanted to stay here, next to him, in a bliss that didn’t exist outside these walls.

I wanted him to hold me closer without pressing a dagger through my spine.

I wanted us to play pretend, if only for the few moments that remained.

Then, as transfixed by him as I’d ever been, I said, “Does it matter, Julian? Because what I want,” I murmured, “you wouldn’t have the guts to do anyway.”

Julian smiled into my mouth, and he brushed my hair behind my ear before his hands skimmed down my waist, to my thighs.

Everywhere he touched left sparks, and a silence fell over us, the sounds of the party dissipating slowly.

The only consistent noise was my trembling breath as I anticipated what would come next.

Gently, he lifted me off my feet, wrapping my thighs around his waist, and my phone fell from my hand to hold onto him. I dug my fingers into the bumps on the back of his neck, until I slid them up, grabbing at his hair—so desperate to finally feel it in my grasp.

His lips found the base of my collarbone, glided past my neck, edged toward my jaw before pausing at the abrupt sound of my alarm. It’d been seven minutes.

Julian pulled away, carefully planting me to my feet.

Only, I wanted to be uprooted, pulled back into the void.

I collected my phone from the ground, my hands shaky as I turned off the alarm.

The sound from the party rushed back in, and it was as if a levee had broken, because I couldn’t stop looking at him, and he couldn’t stop looking at me.

We continued that way, in a haze of unforeseen realization that something had changed between us. A split in the ether. He fixed a strand of my hair, brushed his thumb against my bottom lip, and I let him. How baffling of me.

It was as if we were seeing each other for the first time, and it took someone pulling me out of the closet and into a sea of people to simply move again.