Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 220
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 861(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Stop looking at him.
I take a seat on the edge of his bed and thread my arms over my chest. When Tom casts a glance back, he makes me more aware that A.) my leg is jostling and B.) my thighs are spread wide open. He’s staring at my dick.
I glare. “Eyes up here, Tom.”
“You’re the one committing a crime, Phoenix,” he retorts, angrily whipping one of the wires. “It’s illegal for my bandmates to manspread on my bed.”
“Sorry I broke your fake law.”
“You’re not sorry,” he says while crouching down to a pedal. When his gaze flits up to me, I suck in a deep breath through my nose to control a base desire.
He’s not the first attractive guy I’ve been around.
Not an issue.
Because it can’t be an issue. Hooking up with Tom would be the worst thing for the band.
For the next hour, we both hyperfixate on “Nuclear Winter.” The song suffocates, and I don’t even want to breathe around him. I want to pick up a pair of drumsticks and bleed into the raw emotion he sings.
I lose myself to the hour as it passes like seconds. There’s something tragic about enjoying sixty minutes but only remembering the feeling of five.
My eyes are dry and sore as we wrap up the song for the night.
Tom looks spent, seconds away from passing out on his bed. “Can I call you a cab?” he asks into a yawn in his bicep. The offer is kinder than I deserve.
I’m collecting my journal off the mattress and shrugging on my moto jacket. My fingers are stained with ink. “I’m taking the train.” I look him over. His eyelids drooping. “You need to be tucked in before I leave?”
He flips me off in the middle of another yawn. “I don’t even need to think of a pithy reply, dude. You’ll be thinking of me until we see each other again. It’s going to fuck you up.”
“You’re not supposed to tell me your bedtime wishes, nepo baby. They don’t come true that way.”
He groans. “Can you let me have the last fucking word?”
“No,” I say and head to the door. “Same time tomorrow?”
He plops his head against his pillow and closes his eyes. “Yeah, but not here. Your place?”
I think about my roommates. “We’ll find neutral territory.” I’d like to work on the drums, so we might just book some time at a rehearsal studio.
Tom doesn’t say anything in reply, and I realize he’s already fallen asleep. Even the cockatoo has stopped mimicking the sharp E that Tom kept playing. The quiet feels so unusual around him. There’s normally so much noise, whether it’s music or talking, and the stillness throws me for a second. It’s too intimate—me being in his room while he’s sleeping.
Especially after tonight.
Especially after I know what he wants. A boyfriend. A relationship.
I can’t be that. But our partnership requires so much time spent together, and I don’t want him to think this is something it’s not.
“Night, Tom,” I whisper and flick off the wall lights.
I leave the apartment. It’s so late, I’m not shocked I don’t run into any of his brothers. I make it home to an even quieter apartment.
No one is awake this early. And I try, I really fucking try, to go to sleep. But I toss and turn on my full-size bed, the comforter heavier tonight than normal. I’m still suffocating. Constricted. I kick it to the floor.
The fan above me whirls in slow circles. My brain spins and spins and spins with it. The song we wrote tonight circulates in my head, but it’s Tom’s voice that has me spiraling. The way he sings is a mindfuck. His powder-blue eyes scream, plead for understanding. For compassion. It’s still tearing through me. Flesh and bone. In one night, I understood how badly he desires connection.
So yeah, Tom wasn’t wrong.
I keep thinking about him.
And it’s fucking me up at 6 a.m. I cannot sleep.
Fuck it. I jump out of bed, grab my towel hanging on the door, and head to the shower.
Hot water pelts me in the face, and steam fogs the bathroom. I spend countless minutes doing my shower routine. Raking my fingers against my scalp, scrubbing shampoo through my hair, washing my body with soap from my neck to my feet. After I rinse the suds off, I just breathe beneath the water. Letting it pelt my neck and drip off my face.
He’s. In. My. Head.
Fuck.
Fuck.
My hand lowers to my hardening shaft, and I start stroking myself in slow, languid movements.
Not him, I coach myself. Don’t think about him.
I try to visualize favorite actors, favorite musicians. Anyone other than him. Every single time an image fills my mind, I see his emotive blue eyes, carrying fire and angst. His fucking face. Lighting up like he’s about to play with a hundred matches around me.