Page 87 of Goldsin

After a while he makes his way back to his room, and I hide in the shadows. I don’t want him to see me. I don’t know how he’d react if he knew what I saw happen tonight.

He enters his room, and without bothering to take a shower or change his clothes, he collapses onto his bed.

And he stays like that, surrounded by darkness, unmoving on his bed, for hours.

You take care of her, but who takes care of you?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AURELIA

Click, click.

At the muffled sound my hand freezes in the air. Head tilting toward the entrance door, I hold my breath as I strain my ears.

The door creaks open, and a set of piercing eyes crash with mine.

“Still not over your bad habits?” I raise a brow, clutching the black beadedJacquemusshoulder bag Eleanora gifted me for my twenty-fifth birthday. “You know you can knock, right?”

Julian rests his body sideways against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, creasing his black shirt. He’s wearing all-black today, and I can’t help but feel like it’s an omen of how things are going to be from now on after last night.

“Knocking is for strangers.”

His voice is a delicate frost to the skin: pleasant on the surface, but painful once it reaches past your layers. I truly listen to it, hearing those icy undertones caused bya night of suffering at the hands he should expect an embrace from.

He’s good at masking.

How many times has he hid behind a wall of indifference? How many times did I not see what was really going on inside of him?

“We need to leave.” He makes a scene of checking his clock before adding, “Now.”

“What? Why?” I frown.

“Doesn’t matter. We only have half an?—”

“Excuse me!” I all but scoff. “Wearen’t going anywhere.Ihave a date with Eleanora. So if you’ll excuse me?—”

He stares at me, expressionless, like I never cut him off. “... hour to get there, and at this hour, the streets will be jammed. Grab your things, and let’s go.”

So I play him at his own game.

“If you’ll excuse me, she is expecting me.” I grab the keys to the apartment and twirl them around my finger.

“Eleanora won’t be joining your little tea party tonight,” he says casually, closing the space between us until he’s towering over me. “She’ll be too busy sucking Emeric’s dick.”

My cheeks burn up at his words, heat spreading to my belly, my whole body betrayed by the desire he just plunged into me with those three little words.

I shouldn’t be so affected. Even if the words swirled around his mouth before reaching my ears in the form of velvet.

His finger dances on my skin as he tracks the pink staining my cheeks, my neck, and my chest. “Little fox,”he whispers, reading the expansion of my pupils perfectly. Noticing the hitch of my breath.

I raise a brow at the unexpected nickname before my eyes flick down to his lips. So damn close. If I detested myself—and I do—it would take me a second to taste them. To press all my wants and needs onto the tip of his tongue.

I want him to thrust into me with enough force to make me forget all those years he ignored me. I want him to match the scars he left inside of me, on my bare skin. I want to feel every single emotion he ever caused me, even the bad ones, because those will taste sweeter than honey once I remind myself how all the shit he put me through brought me here.

Julian breaks the moment, taking a step away from me. The dark circles under his eyes are the same shade as his hair, holding my gaze captive as images of last night flood my mind.

He notices the way I’m studying him and in a second turns around, heading for the door. I watch his lean yet muscular figure retreat, and all I can think of is the way those muscles strain when he fights.

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