King of My Heart

Chapter 5 - The Countdown

Claire Kinsley's POV

"10, 9, 8, 7..." I could hear Liam counting down from where he stood outside my house as he checked his watch. That made me sprinted at such a fast speed that it felt seemingly unrivalled by Superman or Usaine Bolt.

"I'm... here! I'm here!" I panted so hard as I bent down with my palms against my knees to catch my breath.

Liam lowered his wrist as he dragged his hawkish gaze at me for a brief moment before he tilted up my chin and interrogated me with one heavy brow slanted in disapproval, "Where have you been?"

I gave him the best poker face that I could ever put up to conceal the truth that I have actually been indulging in overeating once again, something that Liam has zero tolerance for it, strangely only towards me.

"Oh, I... I was just revising at the school's library," I replied him, blinking in feigned innocence.

I am going to be a compulsive liar at this rate...

He stepped up towards me with his furrowed brow as his mouth turned grim. I could feel the daunting danger that I was about to face, the fear of my exposed lie to him was real and it made me jittery. With the pressure of imminent danger before me, my flight mode kicked in and I tried to step back to escape from him. He pulled me back and I ended up pouncing against his chest. He held my chin up, took a sniff and wiped my mouth with his thumb.

"Revising? Are you sure?" He questioned with a cold bite to his tone.

Shit... I'm exposed.

I broke into a wide smile of contrite and tried to mellow down to appease him.

"You're grounded," He snapped with his dagger of deadpan look.

"What? Why?!" I rebutted.

"For drinking and for lying," He stuck out his two fingers as he counted the number of "crime" that I was convicted for under the very "judicial law" of Liam.

I stomped my feet as I admitted to him with much discontent, "Yea, yea, I did go drinking and feasting again. And this happened all because of you!"

Surprisingly, he just falls silent before he turned to me and said, "Tomorrow is your first day of the intern, you should rest early tonight. I will fetch you to work tomorrow morning."

I dismissed his offer upfront without hesitation, "No, thank you, I would prefer to take the public transport instead. In fact, we should stay away from each other at work because I don't want any gossips about us."

I probably pushed things too far with that sentence out of my mouth because the next moment he pinned me against the wall, towering over me with his 6.4 tall built. I was trapped by his domineering persona at this instance.

He leaned his head forward and that really caught me off guard. I flinched my eyes away from him as I fought against this tension of awkwardness between us, especially when such closeness reminds me of the kiss that happened last night.

Seriously... what is wrong with Liam?!

Then a light wave of breeze just have to blow in at this time, sending a waft of Liam's scent up my nose that was admittedly irresistibly...enticing? Maybe it was the scent of his musky cologne, but at this moment it just struck me how I have never really paid attention to his scent even after knowing each other all our life.

"Li...Liam?" I stuttered as I finally mustered the courage to eye at him warily from nose down, avoiding any eye contact. That was when I realised the heaviness of his breath against my lips, his strong chiselled jawline and his prominent adam's apple that all spoke of masculinity, setting my heart a thump.

Wait... what is this that I'm feeling?

Somehow, all of these were imploring to cruise my gaze upwards, to realise how much Liam has grown to be a full note of manliness and how undeniably charming his face was. From his high nose bridge to his deep set of gunmetal eyes beneath his full sweeping brows, so lethal yet there was this nebulous silver of emotion in them when he asked me in his low melodious voice, "Do you really wish to escape from my sight so badly?"

His penetrative gaze continued to probe into me, they were anchored so boldly onto me, so unrelenting...that it led my heart fluttering.

Just when did Liam start looking at me this way...?

No... Eew! Stop! Stop! Stop! This is madness, Liam has always been like a brother to me, how could I ever have thought of him in another way?!

I unglued my eyes from him and pushed him away from him as I have snapped firmly at him, "Yes! More than ever, I want to escape from a control freak like you!"

He shuttered his gaze away from me at an instance with a wrench as though he was holding back his emotion. Instead of flaring at me, he just swallowed a lump down his throat and said to me stoically, "I will still fetch you to work tomorrow morning."

He then turned around and walked out from my sight with this unexplainable heaviness.

Somehow, I felt guilty for saying such harsh words to him. Somehow, somewhere deep in me don't want to hurt him. Somehow... I didn't really mean what I said?

Maybe because Liam is like family to me and we don't hurt our family, don't we? Maybe...?