Chapter 34 #2
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
“What’s going on here?” I heard her ask as James slipped the bag in his pocket.
“Nothing,” I muttered, before running away so she wouldn’t see my purple face. I walked out of the living room and headed to the hallway where I noticed Jasper who, a little disoriented, was walking up the stairs.
“Jasper, wait, where are you going?” I followed him.
He reached door of my bedroom and stopped like he was waiting for me to let him go in. If Jasper had been taught some manners, his brother seemed to have been raised by wolves.
“Um, look, Jas, Madeline’s secret diary,” exclaimed James, walking right past and touching my stuff.
I rolled my eyes and expressed my annoyance when James grabbed a notebook.
“‘Dear, diary.’”
“James, enough.”
“‘I got straight As today.’” He pretended to read, fabricating everything.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper go toward a bookshelf.
“‘I daydreamed about Brian Hood in class today, that dick who keeps looking at me thinking nobody notices. Then I smothered my boyfriend, William, with kisses.’”
“Cut it out!” I ordered him, trying to tear the notebook out of his hands.
James laughed and continued. “‘I’m such a good girl that they’re gonna give me an award for being the most boring girl in school.’”
“Go fuck yourself,” I whispered scathingly.
But he wasn’t aggravated. His lips curved arrogantly, and I felt a tremor that felt so good that it almost seemed painful when he ran his hand through my loose hair.
“‘And that James is a real moron. I hate him so much. Argh, he really bothers me!’” he continued, imitating my voice.
James put his arm on the door behind me, trapping me between his body and the wood.
“I hate you,” I muttered under my breath.
I shivered when his lips grazed my ear. I turned around to Jasper, who was busy leafing through my books and didn’t seem to be paying attention to us.
“‘I hate James with my whole heart, yeah, but he’s so sexy and fascinating that—’” I heard him take a pause to bite his lip.
“‘I want to plunge my nails into his back and feel his body on mine as he pushes his dick inside up all the way.’” He whispered it slightly raspily, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Are you crazy, your brother’s here!” I croaked, out of breath.
But Jasper didn’t seem to hear anything. James looked down at me, satisfied that he’d made me blush and scandalized me at the same time.
“You want to end up in a bad spot!” I raved, then ripped the notebook from his hands. I lost my balance grabbing the notebook and stumbled into him.
“Of course you can’t even pretend, you always take what I say literally.” He laughed, amused.
“You’re the only one laughing.”
“Tell me something, White.”
I didn’t answer, but watched him backing away from me. I was still trembling.
“Why’d you kiss her?”
I ignored the question, and cleared my throat and pointed at Jasper, who was still looking through the books.
“You made out with Tiffany. Again,” insisted James without taking his eyes off me. Damn it, the ride always goes too fast when James is around me.
“Do we have to have this discussion right now, Hunter?”
“Can you answer?”
“Look, I felt like it. Don’t bother me,” I retorted sharply, before going over to Jasper.
“Great choice. I’ll loan it to you if you want,” I exclaimed, when I saw him leafing through The Alchemist, one of my favorite books.
“And other than the books.” James was about to harass me again. “Snow White likes taking drastic measures.”
“Sorry, what?”
Suddenly, I turned around, and my heart stopped in that moment. James had gone into my bathroom and was holding my curling iron.
Oh for Christ’s sake, I shouldn’t have left it on the sink.
“I recommend you turn it off when you use it,” he taunted, mimicking the gesture of putting the piece of metal in his mouth.
I drew nearer to take it out of his hands, when James started staring at me with a serious frown.
“What do you do with it?”
“What do you think someone does with a curling iron? Idiot.”
I tried to hide the nervous chuckle that overtook me every time I was in a tough spot.
“It’s still warm,” whispered James, becoming even more somber.
His eyes darted to my spaghetti-straight hair. A moment of embarrassment that seemed to last an eternity arose. My heart started pounding in my chest.
James wasn’t stupid—now what?
I avoided his gaze and looked at Jasper, who was looking at me without understanding what was going on. I suddenly had the strong fear that James would say something inappropriate in front of his brother.
“Um, Jasper, can you go downstairs for a minute?” James asked him.
Jasper looked at him, confused.
“I think the long-awaited moment for desserts has finally arrived.” James played that card, and even though Jasper looked at him suspiciously, he decided to leave anyway.
And when James took two steps closer to me, I pulled back, afraid, and bumped into the desk. I heard the rustle of papers dropping to the floor.
“What now?”
For Christ’s sake, why was my voice shaking?
“You’re weird.”
“That’s not true.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
I looked around.
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
“Are you afraid that you really like me, Snow White?”
Seriously? Who did he think he was?
“I’ll never like you, James.”
He sneered, then his intense eyes narrowed to two slits.
“Sure, sure.”
“Everything’s a challenge to you, isn’t it?”
He shrugged it off, without wiping the smirk off his face.
“I hate you!” I repeated, this time more resolutely.
James grabbed my hips, causing a pleasant quiver in my stomach. His lips quivered against mine then parted when he continued talking seductively.
“Say it again.”
We were close; I’d just have to stick out my tongue to taste him. While he could have kissed me at the drop of a hat, he didn’t. I looked down at his chest, which rhythmically moved against his white shirt.
“Your shirt’s wrinkled.” I said the first thing that came into my head. I saw him glance at my curling iron then turn back to me, this time without taunting me. I didn’t feel like talking about what he’d just seen, and he seemed to understand that.
“My shirt is fine, it’s my tie that—”
James tried to give me a way to get out of the uncomfortable situation, but a hiccup got caught in his throat.
For a moment he stared at my lips, but it seemed that that gesture was the one that annoyed him.
“Shitty tie. I didn’t even want to put it on.” He groaned, fighting with the piece of fabric hanging on his chest.
“I’ll help you.”
We were so close that all I had to do was lift my hands to put them around his neck. In response, James leaned his head back, annoyed by my initiative.
“Can you not—”
“Not?” I pressed, avoiding our eyes from meeting.
I saw him bite his lip and struggle to swallow.
“James.”
“Um?”
Our eyes met at the same instant, exploding in a breathtaking gaze.
Pressed against his chest and sucked in by his magnetic eyes, I felt weak, incapable of thinking rationally.
But James didn’t waste time. I felt his warm hand grab my hip and turn me around.
I stood in front of him with his lingering gaze firmly fixed on the mirror, and exploring my mirror image.
“Not bad for a princess,” he whispered in my ear.
His head fell softly on my shoulder, while his hands softened their grip like they were ready to move over my body from one moment to the next.
Every cell in my body became more alive in the exact instant that his eyes sparkled with an undeniable light.
And when I saw his reflection, I realized that he wasn’t looking even looking at himself for a moment, but just at me, lingering on the areas he wanted to study the most.
His right hand slowly slid lower and lower down the fabric of my skirt until it found my bare leg.
My eyes were a prisoner of his every move; I followed his measured movements like I was under a spell. James toyed with the edge of my skirt as he absentmindedly stroked my bare thigh with his thumb.
The touch with his cold ring made me shiver, but his touch was so slow and delicate that a pleasant wave of shivers spread throughout my whole body, exciting me.
I plucked up the courage and lifted up my chin to find his face in the mirror, ending up captivated by the sight of his full lips now pressed between the strands of hair covering my neck.
I felt his warm breath touch my skin more.
The warm sensation radiated down to my center of gravity, and it felt so good that for a moment I didn’t notice how his hand was deliberately trespassing past the edge of my skirt.
Was I letting him do it?
We were still standing, suspended in time that seemed to freeze when knocks on the door made us both jump at the same time.
“June?”
Oh my god, Will’s voice.
“Um.”
“James, are you here?” I heard Will ask from behind the door. His words were enough to make him move away.
“Yeah, your girlfriend takes forever to tie knots.”
“I’m not his girlfriend, and you know that,” I snarled quietly, yanking the tie on him.
“Shut up.”
I panted, but the tension that shook every cell of my body didn’t seem to disappear like I hoped it would.
I went to open the door for Will, who greeted me with a dull smile and his hands hidden in his dress pants pockets.
I didn’t glimpse any anxiety or suspicion in his eyes.
William seemed calm, like the same guy I’d met the first day of school.
“What are you doing?”
“Hiding from the asshole art aficionados,” retorted James absentmindedly, focused on fiddling with a lighter in his pocket.
“Jasper just went downstairs,” I said, wanting to justify being caught with James in my room.
“My parents are downstairs too.”
Will’s comment made me smile sincerely, maybe because he said it without hiding how happy he was. He went up to the open window and pointed out a tall blond lady in an animated conversation with other people in my backyard.
“That’s my mom.”