I took a step forward. “Julian?”
“How do you do that?” he blurted. “How do you just say whatever you want? You can’t. You can’t just kiss me like you did. You can’t just do and say whatever it is you want. It’s stupid and reckless and …” He shook his head and tore his eyes away, turning his ear to the trees as if he could hear the whispers of the answers he was seeking, his eyes squinting as if in deep thought before they slammed back into my own. “What am I supposed to do?”
“It’s said and done, and I don’t take anything back.”
Julian’s features softened, and he took a step toward me and laid his hands over my shoulders. Then up the length of my neck. And through my hair. He opened his mouth to speak, but something in the distance caught his attention. My gaze followed his before our eyes returned to each other. “It’s too dangerous out in the open like this. Come with me.”
Julian grabbed my hand, and together we walked deeper into the woods. His steps were quick and quiet and secretive, effortlessly weaving through the trees as if the map of the forest was imprinted on his soles. Anticipation hummed along my skin, having no idea where he was taking me. Every so often, Julian looked back as if his stare could hold and protect me. It catapulted an icy wave of nostalgia into my bones.
Train tracks crossed our path, and he led me down the way of the tracks to an abandoned train car when he let go of my hand and hopped up on the wobbly platform. Julian held out his hand, and I hesitated at first, scanning the small and dark space and the door that could trap us in. It was nothing but a hollow, metal bin on wheels with four walls. Darkness inside.
“Please,” he moved his fingers, his hand stretched out for me to take, “I’ll be in here with you the whole time.”
My eyes dropped to his hand.
I’d come to the woods to find him, and here he was, standing over an unsteady train car platform with a steady hand and defiance in his eyes. He looked down at me, pleading for me to join him in the darkness.
My hand linked to his, and he pulled me up.
Julian anchored his gaze to mine, and the platform teetered to a standstill. “There aren’t many places I can take off my mask and be myself,” he explained, his shoulders tensing under his black coat as if he were nervous. He unlinked my folded arms from my chest and held my hands in his. “I want this too, but I want it to be with me and not some wretched Heathen.”
My heart ruptured. Those words, they crawled and wrapped their arms over my heart. Until a few hours ago, a boy named Roger was the only boy I’d ever kissed, and it was only because of a dare at a party. The senior class only had invited me for their entertainment, calling me acircus actbecause I was a freak.
I licked my lips and swallowed. “Okay,” I said with a nod, and my skin heated.
Julian pulled the train car door, and it rolled shut. The sound bounced off the steel walls. It was pitch dark, and I froze in place, waiting for him with shallow breaths.
“Julian?” I whispered. My eyes bounced around, seeing nothing but black.
Trapped, trapped, trapped.
“I’m right here,” he said, and I felt his fingers on my cheeks.
Julian, Julian, Julian.
I bit my lip. “Okay.”
He walked me backward against a wall, and I felt his cold breath first. It tingled over my lips like a warning. He remained there, hovering, testing the waters. My mouth drew over his, and our noses brushed.
I brought my fingers to his face, noticing his mask was gone.
Julian was without hismask!and exposed. I squeezed my eyes shut, holding back the blend of intensity and emotions filling the room, filling us, wondering how someone could only be free in the dark. I fanned my finger over his long lashes, the slight curve of his nose, his high cheekbones, his bottom lip, along his jaw, picturing his face in my mind. And Julian let me, sinking his face into my hands, seeking more as if it were the first time anyone had ever touched him like this.
The tips of my fingers touched every inch of his face. And touching Julian was like touching neon, invigorating yet forbidden. He leaned his hips into me, and I moved my hand to the back of his neck, threading my fingers through his soft, thick hair, seeing nothing but darkness but feeling him all around me. They were not the same.
His nose brushed mine again, then again. Then his mouth coasted over my lips. Our breaths quickened, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Julian …” his name hummed inside me like a chorus, and he pressed his cheek to my own, his breath on my neck, in my ear, he surrounded me like the abyss of a shadow––everywhere and nowhere enough, inside every corner of my soul even I was too scared to venture. A deep moan rattled in his chest when he dropped his palms to the wall, and the vibrations, him, it all plunged into me.
He was so loud and bold and free now.
He grabbed my jaw and slid his palm down my throat, his mouth guiding mine to open.
Then he thrust his tongue into my opened mouth with sweet and slow agony.
And I sank, sank, sank, and faded into his kiss. His taste was nocturnal. His touch, an eclipse. Every sweep of Julian’s tongue, every desperate and eager touch, coursed an electric and addicting feeling, one I wanted to chain-smoke. I had no idea if I was doing this right, but I submitted, letting go and letting him have me. He pulled my top lip between his, sucking when he growled, his chest echoing against mine as we sank together. He kissed me as if he had been searching, as if he found a piece of himself again within me. A thing he’d lost somewhere along his way.
“I know…” he tried to get out, grabbing my neck and pushing his hands to the back of my head until they gripped my hair. “I know what’s”—he crushed his mouth to mine once more before letting off—“happened to me, why it’s like this with only you.” His voice was coarse and raw as the very moment.
