Page 12 of Goldsin

I can’t afford myself any distractions now. Not when Adrian has just finished with his own dose of snooping around.

“Can’t I come over to say hello?” The corner of his mouth turns up and my heart amps to a hammering state, betraying the calm façade I’m so desperately trying to maintain.

He wants to just ... come over and say hello after ten years?

“Since when have you ever cared about pleasantries?” I raise my chin slightly as I look up at him. “Don’t think your charms will work on me anymore.”

“Anymore, huh? Who said anything about charm?” He leans in closer. A strand of jet-black hair falls over his eye. “I’m just curious what’s got you so worked up.” He plays with a strand of my hair, and my eyes widen as the shock of his ice-cold touch sends shivers down my spine.

The silence I was craving is punctuated by the sound of my racing heart and his slow, measured breathing. In a second I’m transported back to the old days, when his touch was a certainty.

It’s the night before my first day of high school. He’s lying on my bed, one arm behind his head, as he follows my fretful figure while I pace back and forth across my room trying to choose what to wear for the occasion. You only get one first day of high school, and I want it to be special.

He’s supposed to be helping me, but all he does is stare, the corner of his plump lips curving ever so slightly whenever a grunt of frustration leaves mine. He looks lost in thought, someplace else, until something flickers in his eyes, and he calls me over to him. His long arm lifts, and I crawl into the nook beneath it.

He plays with the strands of my messy hair before whispering how good red looks on me.

So I wear red . . .

The day he started ignoring me I wore red. Like the blood that seeped out of the cracks he made in my heart.

“Nothing.” I hold in the gasp that threatens to leave my lips at how good his body feels up against mine. “Now leave me alone.”

I can almost taste the heat radiating from his body. His intense gaze is becoming more difficult to hold without flinching away.

“Or what?” His eyes fall to my lips before he grips my chin between his fingers, brushing his thumb over my lower lip. “What will you do, Aurelia? Run to Adrian for protection?”

The way my name sounds coming from his lips sends a shiver down my spine. Could be the fact it’s been years since he last called me by my name, or that this is the longest conversation we’ve had since I started dating Adrian ten years ago.

“Oh, please. Jealousy is beneath even someone like you.”

Then I shove him back.

Even with all the force I put into it he doesn’t move much, only enough to get his hands away from me.

He chuckles, the sound so foreign for someone I’ve known most of my life. His eyes glint, and I think he might be laughing for a different reason.

“Talk,” I spit.

“Not yet.”

He steps back into my personal space, forcing me to crane my neck to maintain eye contact as he towers over me.

“What are you waiting for?” My voice loses strength as I fall deep into his eyes.

As the confines of the corridor seem to shrink even more around us, my nerves start to unravel.

“Patience, golden one,” he murmurs. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Iball my hands into fists as I do my best to prevent my body from reacting to his closeness. “Stop playing games, Julian,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “I don’t have time for this.”

His icy eyes darken, the specks of white between the cerulean ocean swallowed by his dilating pupils. His features take on a predatory air that makes my pulse quicken despite myself.

“Tell me, Aurelia.” He leans in, our noses almost touching as he cages me in.

I try to angle my face away from his, but having him this close clouds my reasoning, and now I want him closer.

“What’s going on between you and my brother? You two seemed awfully ... intimate earlier.”

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