Collaring Chaz (Dante's Infernal #2) - Joel Abernathy Page 0,83

tone.

Dante smirked, giving him a flirtatious look that immediately made me jealous. “Oh, it is,” he said, reaching for Chaz’s hand and getting down on one knee. “Charles Lockheed...will you be my co-writer?”

Chaz burst out laughing and dragged Dante back to his feet. “Get up, you fucking weirdo,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around the shorter man. I stood back, reminding myself that I had to share him, whether I wanted to or not.

To a degree.

“So is that a yes?” Dante pressed, clinging to his arm.

“It’s a yes,” Chaz laughed.

“Sounds like the band’s back together,” Cash said, ruffling Chaz’s hair. “Welcome back, kid.”

“It’s good to be back,” Chaz agreed, his eyes meeting mine with a knowing look. “Being on stage with you guys is the first time I’ve felt like I was home in a long time.”

“Good,” I said, pulling him back into my arms for another kiss when I decided I’d shared him enough. “Because now that you’re here, I’m not letting you go.”

He just laughed, slipping his arms around my neck. “No complaints here.”

Chapter 28

Chaz

I had been in the studio with Drake since six in the morning, and while time itself had long since lost any meaning as a concept, I knew it had been A Long Damn Time because my eyes were crossing. I flopped down on the couch in the studio since he’d finally agreed to a break from the “save the kittens” fundraiser Christmas album he was making everyone at the label record a song for.

“Enjoy your five minutes of melodramatic antics, because after we wrap this up, you need to rehearse for the Vice interview tomorrow,” Drake said from across the room as he scrolled on his phone.

I thought I could get away with flipping him off, but without looking up, he said, “I saw that, you little twerp. Just for that, you’re playing the CEO’s daughter’s quinceanera, too.”

I groaned, flopping over onto my back and staring up at the speckled patterns on the ceiling in despair. It was admittedly kind of nice for my brain not to fill in creepy patterns on the blank space. Who knew you weren’t supposed to see nightmarish hellscapes whenever you shut your eyes? What a world.

At first, being officially diagnosed with schizophrenia had been shocking, but it turned out having a name for what had been plaguing me for years was freeing.

So was being Raf’s live-in pup.

Funny how wearing a collar could be so empowering.

“Don’t whine. You wanted daddy’s attention, and now you have it,” Drake said flatly.

I glared at him. “Just because your real son calls the ex-Marine ‘Daddy’ doesn’t mean you get to torture me.”

“No, but it does mean I have plenty of time and a void to fill, so here we are,” he said without missing a beat. “Careful what you wish for.”

“Spoken like Satan,” I said, letting my arm drop off the couch.

The corners of his lips quirked slightly. The door opened, and his amusement vanished as he looked over his shoulder at my rescuer.

“Raf!” I scrambled up from the couch and jumped into his arms, kissing him like my life depended on it. “I’m saved.”

Rafael laughed, hitching one hand under my thigh and pulling his other arm around my waist to keep us both from toppling over. “Would’ve come sooner if I knew this would be the reception I got.”

“Does the recording light mean nothing anymore?” Drake asked, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“Sorry, but he’s contractually bound to me, too,” Rafael said, smirking against my lips. Before I kissed him back, I saw Drake’s face distort into pure disgust.

“We’ll pick this up tomorrow,” Drake finally said in a tone of defeat. He stopped at the door and looked right at Raf. “He has an interview first thing in the morning, so he’d better be walking right by then.”

“No promises,” Raf said, pulling me down onto the couch. He kissed me again as the door fell shut and I straddled his lap, too fixated on the taste of his lips to bother looking up. I was pretty sure the guy in the sound booth had fled with Drake anyway, and if not, it wouldn’t be the worst thing we’d ever had an audience for.

“You’ve got a condom, right?” I asked, already groping his pockets. Not that I usually cared, but I didn’t feel like getting cleaned up in the tiny studio bathroom.

“What do you think I am, a pop star?” he teased, pulling one out of his pocket. He held it up