Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87142 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
She studied me carefully, and whatever she saw was enough to drain some of her tension. “Have you considered that writing about what you’re going through might help? I heard what your therapist said—”
“Have you considered that I might not want the world to sing along to what I’m going through?” I challenged as the sweat chilled on my skin. “That maybe there are pieces of my pain you can’t profit off?”
“Me?” She drew back like I’d hit her. “I would never—”
“Sure you would,” I snapped. “You all do. You, Ben, Harvey, Ethan…everyone in this industry makes money when Jonas falls in love and Quinn goes back to the guy she left behind. Usually I’m cool with it. I’ve made a lot of damn money ripping my heart open and bleeding out for the audience. But this part of me isn’t for sale.” I marched toward her, but she didn’t budge from the doorway. “Get out of my way.”
“No.” She raised her chin and stared me down.
“I’m sorry?” I had more than a foot on her, and she still looked undaunted.
“I said, no. I’m not moving. We’re having a discussion.” She shifted her weight, popping her hip like she was digging in for the fight. “You run away from everyone but me, Nixon Winters.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” I snapped.
“Right now? I’d settle for you understanding one fact.”
“And that would be?” I glared down at her.
“I don’t give a shit if you give Harvey the song. If you need to write something to work through everything that’s eating you from the inside, then go lock yourself in the studio, write it, then burn it for all I care.” She looked up at me unflinchingly, with nothing but honesty radiating from her eyes.
“You’re serious,” I said softly.
“As a heart attack. I chose this business for the same reason you did—because I love music. I love the way it can change my emotions, and the way it can give voice to things I can’t seem to say. I love when a song becomes the soundtrack to a moment in my life, and then hearing it takes me right back. I love the feeling that courses through my body when you’re on stage, playing a solo that speaks through the music instead of the words. It skips right over my brain with a direct hit to my heart.” She tapped right above her neckline.
My chest tightened—swelled—but I couldn’t look away. Her emotional honesty was magnetic, humbling, and turned me on faster than any half-naked groupie in my dressing room ever could.
“So, don’t you dare stand there and accuse me of wanting to profit off everything you’re going through, when I only care about you surviving this. Don’t you dare think, for one minute, that you love the music more than I do, just because I can’t carry a tune. The only difference between you and me is that you were born with a once-in-a-generation talent to make music, and I was born with the brains to make sure that music gets heard.”
Damn.
My gaze dropped to her lips. I wanted to back her against the wall and sink into her mouth to see if all that passion had an outlet. Hell, I wanted to be the outlet. My fingers curled at the idea of sinking them into her hair, and my pulse kicked up a notch like I’d started running again. There was a palpable hum of energy between us.
This was dangerous.
Sex was a need I fulfilled. It was an itch to scratch, a thirst to quench, or a way to pass the time while feeling really damned good. It was another source of the oblivion I was always chasing. But the person I was having it with never mattered.
I’d never wanted someone more than I wanted the act.
Until now.
“Do you understand?” she questioned, her eyes bright with purpose. God, they really were gorgeous.
“I understand.”
“Good. Now go shower. You’re all sweaty.”
“You like it.”
She scoffed and spun on her heels to stride down the hall, not swaying her hips like most women did around me, because she honestly didn’t care if I found her attractive or not.
Which only served to make her more attractive.
Shit.
I headed straight for the shower. We had to get out of this apartment, and not just because I needed to know I could look at booze and not drink it. Sure, that was part of it. I couldn’t be sure of my power to resist until I was tempted, right? The city was too much, and I knew it. We needed to get somewhere far enough from civilization to keep me from fucking up but close enough to build my resiliency.
Mostly, we had to get somewhere I could find enough space to kill whatever this…chemistry was between us. The close confines of the past two and a half weeks were going straight to my dick, and I didn’t fuck the women on staff. I wasn’t supposed to be fucking anyone right now, according to the rehab protocols. No new dependencies—including people.