Jia Li continued to follow him, to annoy him. She had the feeling it was really working, too. He’d gone silent for a moment even after he’d swallowed the drink from his flask. Then, he swung toward her, and as she flinched away, she suddenly remembered why she wasn’t usually one to purposely try to mess with people. People could be cruel. People would lash out under the right amount of stress.
But he didn’t hit her. Instead, he caught the sides of her face in his hands, and he pressed his lips against hers. She froze, her pulse rushing through her veins as her heart threatened to hammer right through her chest. Her mind went blank. No, that wasn’t right. So many things crammed their way into her mind that she could make neither heads nor tails of what was really going on.
Then, slowly, things started to make some semblance of sense. Maybe her mind still wasn’t functioning properly, but her hormones had definitely taken over, and while she wasn’t relaxed, she sort of leaned into the kiss so lightly it could almost be missed by an onlooker. He would feel her lips respond, press gently into his.
Her mind slowly began working out the kinks as he pressed against her, as his whiskey breath misted over her lips. She began to shake, but he had already released her and began walking away. Jia Li felt like she was breaking. Too many things were filling her at once, too many thoughts, and too many feelings. She felt like she couldn’t hold them all, and she just stood there, eyes wide with shock.
The dryad against everything she would have wanted, had felt a spark when he’d kissed her. Anywhere he’d touched her felt like it was on fire, including where his body had pressed against her. How could anyone who said such horrible things be so gentle, so physically kind? Despite the taste of whiskey on his lips, she had… enjoyed it.
Jia Li’s gut clenched with so many feelings: embarrassment, fear, guilt, shame… He hadn’t done that because he’d wanted anything to do with her. She pressed her fist into her stomach, willing the feelings to dissipate, but they didn’t. He had even gone so far as to call her a bitch. It was just something to prove to her, no doubt something about which to laugh about with his friends later.
Her jaw clenched as fury began to settle to defend her from the feelings that had accumulated inside her, suffocating her. Anger was her champion against it all, and she suddenly wanted to hurt him back, forgetting her pacifistic nature.
He had obtained a good distance from her as she’d stood there, shaking, but she could easily catch him. The dryad melted into a tree, reemerging from one that was in front of where he was. Anger was written all over her face, and she drew back her hand before swinging it hard against his cheek. “I’ll collect on that apology later.” She growled before disappearing back into the tree.