Chapter 311 Uninvited Guest
Quinn drew the door open, expecting the corridor’s hushed emptiness<b>. </b>Instead, she stopped <b>cold</b><b>, </b>fingers tightening on the knob.
Julius stood on the threshold, tall, immacte, and burning with something that did not belong <b>to </b><b>the </b>
quiet hallway lights.
<i>What </i><i>on </i>earth is <i>he </i><i>doing </i><i>here</i>? The thought red even before she could shape his name.
Before any greeting could form, Julius swept inside, mmed the door with a backward shove, and herded her against the wall like a storm cornering a fragile shore.
His voice, usually winter–hard and remote, cracked with raw impatience. “Why was Han Ingram in your room for so long? What exactly did you two do?”
She frowned, the wall cold against her shoulder. “Are you spying on me?”
Julius lifted his hand. “I checked the hallway cameras. Tell me what happened between you and Han.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed, indignation stiffening her spine. “Whatever I did with him is none of your business.”
She pressed a palm to his chest, meaning to shove him away. In the next breath, he caged her against the wall, and his mouth crashed onto hers with a violence that tasted of usation and need.
Instinct screamed for her to break free, yet her fingers brushed the rigid splint on his fingers and faltered. She could have forced him back–maybe a sixty–percent chance–but that shove would tear at his already damaged fingers. Turning her head hard to one side, she escaped the punishing kiss.
Breath ragged, she red at him. “Julius, have you lost your mind? We already broke up.”
His lips, still brushed with hers, chased the words. “You said it, not me. I never agreed to any breakup.”
She tried to angle her face away from him, voice muffled between their stubborn closeness. “I told you–a breakup takes only one vote. Mine. Now let go… Stop…”
<i>This has </i><i>to </i><i>end </i><i>now</i><i>! </i>
A sudden fury zed through her; she mped her teeth on his lower lip, biting down with merciless precision.
Metallic warmth burst across her tongue, copper blooming like a dark flower between them.
Julius did not recoil. Blood threaded across their mouths while he kept kissing her, relentless as surf against rock. Only when the taste turned thick, almost choking, did he finally pull back, breath ragged, eyes wild.
She wiped the smear from her lips, fury flickering hotter than the pain. “You’re aplete lunatic!”
The usation seemed to soften him, not harden; his voice fell to a broken whisper. “Quinn, if you really abandon me, I will go insane.”
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Chapter 311 Uninvited Guest
<b>Silence </b>stretched <b>a </b>heartbeat. Quinn drew a steadying breath. “Let me go first<b>. </b><b>I </b><b>need </b><b>to </b><b>ringe </b>my mouth.
The metallic tang of blood coated every inhale.
Julius‘ grip loosened. She shoved past him and disappeared into the bathroom, the click of the door echoing like a verdict.
She rinsed once, twice, three times, spitting crimson each round until the water ran nearly clear.
When she stepped back into the room, Julius sat on the couch as if rooted there, eyes zing at her; blood still beaded on the split of his lower lip, bright against the pale of him.
Quinn stepped forward, each measured stride whisper–soft against the marble, the overhead light <b>catching </b>in her dark hair like distant starlight. “Wipe the blood from your lips,” she said, offering a neatly folded tissue that gleamed as pale as surrender.
Julius did not reach for the tissue. Instead, he tilted his head back, the line of his throat stark beneath the lobby’s chandelier. “Will you do it for me?” His voice wavered between plea andmand, raw need vibrating in every syble.
Quinn’s first instinct was to refuse. The word hovered, hot and hard, behind her teeth. But then she met his eyes—those bruised, storm–colored eyes brimming with a boyish, desperate hope–and the denial splintered, lodged somewhere in her throat where even breath felt sharp.
A brittle aura clung to him, as though hisposure were nothing more than fractured ss arranged into the shape of a man. She sensed–down to her bones–that if she turned away now, the shards would scatter and Julius would shatter beyond repair.
She exhaled, a sigh both weary and tender, pinched the tissue between slender fingers, and dabbed <i>at </i>the crimson smudge staining his mouth. “If you ever bully me like that again,” she warned, voice quiet yet edged with steel, “I won’t forgive you.”
A flicker–half guilt, half stubborn pride–shed across Julius‘ eyes. He knew he had let fury drive him past reason only moments ago.
The image of Quinn arriving in Doria with Han, the two of them shut away together for far too long, gnawed at him like acid. Jealousy, bright and sick, curled tight around his ribs.
“I’m sorry.” The words left him rough, yet earnest, as though scraped free from a throat scorched by regret.
She brushed away the final trace of blood, the gesture almost maternal, then stepped back. “All done. It’ste. I need rest, and you should go.”
“You still haven’t told me what you and Han were doing,” Julius pressed, voice dropping to a growl that reverberated in the empty hallway
“Discussing how to find my brother, nothing more,” Quinn answered, choosing each word with surgical care, determined to leave no space for rumor to bloom.
“Then why,” he asked, eyes drilling into her, “did it look like you kissed him at the door a moment ago<b>?</b>” Quinn blinked, utterly thrown. “I kissed Han? Are you serious?<b>” </b>
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<b>Chapter </b><b>311 </b><b>Uninvited </b>Guest
The <b>tension </b>bled from Julius’s shoulders. <b>“</b>Thank heaven you didn’t, he murmured<b>. </b>d you done s <b>can’t </b>say what I might have done.”
Her brows knitted. “Leave Han out of whatever this is between us.”
“Then don’t fall for him,” Julius said. “Quinn, I’m only now realizing how monstrous <b>my </b><b>jealousy </b><b>can </b>be Perhaps the rumors about the Whitethorn temper are truc–I might be a madman after <b>all</b><b>.. </b>
“Han is family to me–nothing else. But listen closely: if you every a hand on him, I will <b>not </b><b>stand </b>idle.” Her tone, usually velvet, snapped like a de drawn too fast.
Warning zed in her almond–shaped eyes, bright as a lit fuse.
Julius‘ jaw tightened; his nails carved crescents into his palms. Pain was easier to manage than the <b>wildfire </b>raging in his chest.
Her fierce defense of Han told Julius exactly how much the young man meant to her, every syble <b>of </b>caution another stone added to the weight on his heart.
She might call Han her brother, yet jealousy, uninvited and uncontroble, continued to leak through Julius‘ veins like ink in water.
“Very well,” he said atst, voice low but steady. “As long <b>as </b>you don’t fall for him, I won’t harm him.”