After Midnight

Prologue

There were two things I was most afraid of.

Number one: The boy I loved was forbidden for me.

Number two: I was falling in love with him despite.

He was looking at me. I loved the way he looked at me. As if I was the only beautiful thing in his life, as if I gave him what he had always desired. My heart always sped up in his presence, and I wasn't a fool to think it was because he was off limits for me.

He was a forbidden fruit, but I had already taken a bite. I could never think of marrying someone else, spending my life with whom my parents wanted me to be. I was done trying to live up to their expectations. Done trying to be a good daughter who would plaster smiles in the presence of strangers and mask her emotions. I never let anyone see the real me, the one I hide behind my walls. The one that is guarded, and only this boy sitting across from me knows me.

"Stop staring," I chuckle, rolling my eyes. "You know better than to how to make a girl uncomfortable."

His ocean eyes dance with amusement. If I am not wrong, there's always this mischief in his eyes. "Do I make you uncomfortable? I thought I made you uneasy?" he mocks, reminding me of the time when he sneaked into my bedroom with just a vest on, and how I told him he should wear something—as it makes me uneasy.

Who would blame me? I am prone to have feelings.

I pull up a leg and hug my arms around it. "You make everything seem so easy." I tilt my head at him, not surprised he is still gazing. "Tell me, how is it that you do it?"

"I don't do anything. Or maybe I do. My parents raised me like this. Like—"

"Responsible," I cut in. "You're responsible. And you care. You also know what exactly to do in difficult situations."

"Like the one right now?" he raises a brow. "Where I am about to make you mine despite like a hundred cops after us?"

My heart sank at the mention of the police. I know what we were doing was risky, but it was legal. We aren't doing anything wrong. There's nothing wrong in loving a boy you've known for the most part of your life. Did my parents expect me to play/spend my time with him as a child, and growing up not love him? Wasn't it pretty self explanatory that I was going to love him even at this point? That even if they mark him as forbidden for me, I wouldn't be a rebel and turn to him anyway?

I suck in a sharp breath and buckle my seatbelt. "Exactly this situation. Lets go now. Or are you having second thoughts?"

His face broke out in a grin before the engine roared to life. "Never," he promises and puts the car in drive.