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)
I’ve had what feels like a thousand crushes, and yet, I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my whole life than I do him.
His fingers find the hem of my muscle shirt, tugging me nearer. I hold the crook of his neck and shoulder. Drawing him closer—I’m drawing him too close.
His knee finds entrance between my legs, breaking them apart so we fit like a perfect puzzle piece. His warm palm is on my back. He pushes me tighter against his muscled build. His erection—hidden in the dark and beneath his clothes—grinds against my throbbing cock. A shockwave shoots up my entire tortured body at the friction.
The music. The movement. The look in his eyes.
I don’t know if I’m breathing. Our foreheads nearly touch. I stare at his pink lips. My hand crawls up to the back of his skull.
Phoenix holds my jaw, his fingers slipping toward my hair, and our eyes meet in a congregation of arousal and need. With his free hand, he pushes back his own damp hair, then his tongue wets his lips in the sexiest slow-mo moment of eternity. Because he’s staring at my mouth. Then he dips his head to kiss me—and I flinch back.
I.
Flinch.
Back.
It’s pulverizing.
22
TOM COBALT
Phoenix has gone deathly still among an oblivious, raucous, dancing crowd. I’m stationary with him, but at least he keeps a hand on my ribs.
He bows close just so I can hear him. “No?” he asks, and it’s this moment that I realize he is willing to risk our goals.
I swallow an ascending boulder in my throat. “The album.”
His nose flares like he’s restraining a surge of crashing emotion. “The album will be fine—”
“You really want to gamble that?” I choke out.
“Some feelings are worth the gamble!” he shouts as he leans back from me, as his hands drop off me. “Don’t you think?!”
I know I hate the feeling of him leaving me. I hate the absence of his hands on my body. I’m beginning to hate the part of me that won’t allow myself to break free from this constraint.
My eyes burn. “I can’t fail!” I yell, my heart pounding viciously in my chest. “Some feelings I can’t gamble with!” I don’t ever want to feel failure that devastating.
Phoenix sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. He blinks too many times. He can’t even look at me. His hurt is eviscerating me inside-out. Then, he just closes off, walls off. There is nothing legible on his face.
“Phoenix!”
“It’s fine, man.” He turns toward me. “I’m just really pent-up! This”—he draws the air around me with two fingers—“hasn’t helped!”
“Same,” I mention.
“Yeah.” It’s a harsh yeah.
Then he tries to reinvest himself in the music, the rhythm, but I watch him catch the eager gaze of a pale, redheaded dude, a smattering of freckles across his thick biceps and angular face.
The redhead bobs his head and stalks over to the dark-haired drummer of my dreams.
They’re the same height, and Red moves scarily quick—he’s slipping behind my drummer, grinding against him, and his hands fall to Phoenix’s hips.
Phoenix barely bats an eye like this has happened a thousand times before. He digs out a vape, takes a hit, and blows smoke up at the ceiling, and for a second, I think about saving him from this dude’s gropey fucking hands. But then Phoenix reaches an arm backward and cups his skull. He brings the guy’s head down, and…they’re kissing.
My insides form an intricate knot.
I try to play it off. I keep bouncing on my feet, downing the remainder of my drink with fake enthusiasm. The rum scalds the back of my throat. I barely taste the Fizz. I avoid lingering looks from other guys who check me out. My bodyguard takes the hint that I do not want to be grinded on or approached by a stranger. So he subtly cuts off advances. It isn’t until the track changes to a remixed NSYNC song that I bail off the dance floor, not giving Phoenix a single glance back.
I’m at the bar. My breathing shaken.
It’s fine.
He’s not your boyfriend, Tom Carraway. This is what you want. No. This is what you need. This is the best thing for the band.
It’s just confusing. Everything. I don’t want it to be. But I’ve never spent this much time with someone outside family. Not a friend. Not even a bandmate. Warner and my other old band members dragged their feet at the late nights and early mornings. Phoenix is different. He replies to my voice memos at four in the morning and will keep working well into the night with me, even after my head throbs and my fingers ache.
We’ve been together nonstop for over two months, and maybe that was good for the album, but it’s obviously been a mistake for my brain. All the wires are mixed up. Because holy shit, I should not be this crushed seeing him kiss another guy.