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)
His rasp is spine-tingling. It pricks the hairs on my neck. As he belts the first verse, he sounds so raw yet controlled. Like he’s spent hours perfecting his timbre and pitch and won’t let a note derail.
I want to hear him scream.
But I’m too wrapped in the haunting sound against my ears to suggest one coming off the last verse.
His voice is blood-pumping, soul-smashing. Destructive power. A blizzard hurting to be a firestorm. I have trouble not staring at Tom when he emotes with the same intensity as the bleeding noise pouring out of him. It’s hypnotic.
He’s hypnotic.
A lump forms in my throat. My nose flares. I swallow hard and focus on jotting down the lyrics.
Is this what you wanted?
Frozen into eternity
Is this what you wanted?
Nuclear winter
In a nuclear cold
Is this what you wanted? (wanted)
Where nothing good grows
Tortured into eternity (left alone)
Is this what you wanted?
Nuclear winter
In a nuclear cold
(Flesh and bone)
Ice Age in a chokehold (oh no)
Where nothing good grows
Tom stops singing the same time my pen stops moving. Our eyes catch, and he tells me, “The drums should feel as fast as ‘Motivation’ from Sum 41 but heavier, like lungs trying to burst.” It dawns on me; that’s the only song he’s heard me play on drums. I bet he’s watched my little brother a dozen times.
“It won’t be a light hi-hat.” I throw my head into the rhythm I hear in the silence. “I’m thinking a forceful driving beat, propulsive, but I’ll sit right on it, so it doesn’t feel like I’m getting ahead of you. Maybe a deep kick drum, hard snare on the twos.” I jot some notes down for when I get behind a kit.
“We’re not doing a kick drum on every beat,” he says aggressively, like he grabbed a shotgun expecting a fight.
“Did I suggest a four-on-the-floor?” I snap.
“It’s the first thing every drummer I’ve played with wants to do,” he defends.
“Again, I’m not every drummer you’ve had,” I force out.
Tom opens his mouth, then takes a big swig of an energy drink. I watch his left hand rub his thigh, and heat builds against my neck when I see that I turned him on.
It’s dialing up the temperature in the room.
In me.
Thick arousal gathers in my body, and I flex my abs to stop from getting hard. Fuck. I force my gaze on my journal. “Let’s lean darker with more reverb.”
“Yeah, okay,” Tom relents too quickly. I realize his attention has veered to his brother’s side of the room. Then he looks at his phone. “Fuck, fuck, it’s already one a.m.”
My stomach caves.
I’m not ready to leave. Not when we haven’t finished and we’re making actual strides.
Tom climbs off the bed in a rush. “Take five. I need to go check on Ben.”
“You can’t send him a text?” I frown.
“I need eyes on him.” Reaching the door, he whirls back to face me. “Don’t go anywhere. Seriously. Stay.”
“Not a dog.” Relief loosens my muscles knowing he wants me here for longer. “And I wasn’t planning on leaving.”
He exhales, then he’s out the door in a flash. He said Ben’s on the eighteenth floor hanging out in his cousin’s apartment, so I’m not expecting Tom to be forever.
I don’t take a break. I grab his guitar and fixate on the melody to the chorus. Less than fifteen minutes later, Tom returns.
By 3 a.m., he’s checked on his younger brother four times.
Apparently, they’re engrossed playing a horror video game called Until Dawn downstairs—one where their choices would affect who’d survive in the end.
“And I thought I had a sick sense of humor,” Tom mutters. He seems in his head about the video game.
I wonder what’s so sensitive that his brain is a fucking dam and not a sieve—when I have a feeling I’ve heard at least eighty percent of his internal thoughts.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask while I do a deep squat to stretch out my cramped legs.
He grabs a sky-blue Gibson off the wall. “Let’s pick up at the first verse. I think the tempo should be faster.”
“So that’s a fuck no.” I straighten up.
“Glad you can read between the lines.” He plugs the electric guitar into the amp, then takes out some pedals. The deep slits in his black muscle shirt show off his ribs…his abs, and I snap my gaze away from him as my blood runs even hotter.
Tom is lean, over six-foot, and definitely my type. But like fuck was I going to tell him that. He bites down on his guitar pick while he untangles wires at his feet. I think about helping him, but I force myself to stay the fuck away.
His confidence says he doesn’t need an assist. He combs a hand through his golden-brown hair. The waistband of his Calvin Klein underwear sticks out from his jeans and rests against his bare skin.