Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 35281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
After applying some balm to his back, he collapsed on the bed and hasn’t moved since. His breathing is labored, but I know he’s awake.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about when you use the lighter on yourself,” I say, staring up at the ceiling.
Silence fills the room as he sucks in his breath and holds it. “The world around me crumbled when Lex died. I let him down, and the guilt fucking eats away at me.” Honesty makes his words raw and ragged.
“So the burn is to punish yourself?”
“It was at first, and now it’s a need—a craving to escape my head.”
Leaning up on my elbow, I turn to face him, stroking over his shoulder in a soft caress.
“How did he die?”
“Overdose.” His voice thickens with emotion.
“He was gay, right?”
He turns sharply, his brow crashing. “How would you know that?”
“I’m a detective. It was a hunch.”
His head drops back onto the pillow as he faces me, shifting his body to get comfortable. “Lex had this energy, you know? He could walk in a room, and immediately, it was a party, a better place to be. His laughter was contagious. He infected everyone he came into contact with.” A smile dances on his lips. “The night he died…” he swallows hard, “we spoke about his feelings for me.” Tears build in his dark eyes. I want so bad to catch it, kiss it away, but I don’t move. I allow him to finally release what’s inside him. “I fucking felt it too, you know? But I was so scared, so terrified of what it meant about me. His brother, Owen? He was always talking about marketability and how our image is what sold us. Four single guys was sellable to our female fans. I felt the pressure to be something I wasn’t. Owen needed me to be this perfect front man—straight and a pussy magnet.” Squeezing his eyes closed, he chokes. “I told Lex I wasn’t gay. That I was flattered, but we were just friends and would only ever be friends. Just fucking friends.” Water drips from his eyes, scorching a path over his nose and seeping into the pillow. “I made him feel like shit, made him want that hit.”
“No, don’t do that. He was an addict. He injected that shit into himself.”
“But if I was honest with him,” he whispers. “If I’d told him it was real… Blaine, it was real, and I lied to him.”
“Then what? His addiction would have disappeared? Whatever happened, he was still going to inject that poison into his veins that night, Xavi.”
He nods, the movements stiff and his jaw tense. “Deep down, I know that. But he still died with my lie in his mind.”
“You weren’t ready, and he probably knew that. You were best friends. He knew you, Xa—he fucking knew you.” I pull him into my arms, letting him release all his anger and tears. “It’s going to be okay, boy. I promise.”
I need a reprieve from me.
I don’t even know who I am. I don’t even know who I want to be.
I need a reprieve from me.
I like the pain. I fucking need it.
To feel the flame, suppress the blame.
I need a reprieve from me.
Why won’t you let me burn?
Show me how. Make me learn.
Burn…burn…burn…
I need a reprieve from me.
Show me how. Make me learn.
Burn…burn…burn…
I don’t want to feel anymore. Everything’s too raw.
Pain and sorrow are too hard to swallow.
I need a reprieve from me.
I’m already burning.
Ignite my yearning.
Burn…burn…burn...
Show me.
See me.
Please me.
Burn…burn…burn…
Hurt me.
I reread the lyrics he eloquently wrote in his open notebook, and a heavy sigh leaves my lips. We’ve been at the cabin for two weeks now, and I expected him to go stir fucking crazy with no Internet or parties to act foolish at, but he’s surprised me. Writing new lyrics every day, strumming new melodies. It’s incredible to watch his process, to see the magic come together before my very eyes. He appears to have reclaimed himself while being out here.
Opening up sexually has lifted an enormous weight from him, but it worries me that in a week we will be back in the city and the pressure will be back on him. A knot forms in my gut at the idea of not having him in my bed. Ever since the night of his first whipping, he’s spent every night in my bed, sleeping and touching, but not fucking. That’s new for me—the buildup, the intimacy—and I don’t want to let go of it. He will be going back to his own soon enough, and that leaves a chill around my heart.
I didn’t expect to be this invested, this connected to someone. But it’s undeniable, the affection I have for the boy. A week left of having him to myself. Then back to reality. Back to our lives. Back to the pressure of being this pussy-eating rock god.