Provoke_ A Seaside Pictures Novella (Seaside Pictures #3.7) - Rachel Van Dyken Page 0,28

a waterspout?”

I slowly turned. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Yeah, like a water tornado!”

“Do you know where we are?” I said slowly.

She glared. “Why did you run?”

“Oh, that.” I smirked. “I was just seeing if pigs were flying. Alas, they’re not, so you really did just ask me for direction instead of giving orders.” I patted her on the head. “I’m so damn proud.”

She swatted my hand away. “Technically, I don’t work for you anymore.”

“Good.” I pushed her against the nearest wall and captured her mouth with mine. “Then you don’t have to feel guilty for enjoying this,” I murmured against her lips.

She pulled back with a coy smile. “Who says I’m enjoying this?”

I pressed my palm to her chest and found her rapidly beating heart. “This does.”

“Maybe I’m just excited about vision boards.”

“Maybe you’re a little liar,” I argued and then slid my hand up her shirt, feeling her bare skin and finding a nipple. I grinned. “Yup, she’s a liar.”

She let out a little moan, and then I was lifting up her shirt and sucking, swirling my tongue around my new favorite spot and wondering why we hadn’t already explored.

Guilt on my part?

Contracts on hers?

Hell, the heart wants what it wants. I’d always heard that from my mom, but I’d never understood it until now. I just wanted her.

Her head fell back, banging against the wall, and a picture crashed to the floor.

We broke apart. I laughed since I’d just been thinking about my mother. “It’s okay, it was just a picture of my mom, no big.”

“Oh no, really?”

“Yeah maybe just don’t mention that to her when you meet her. Like, ‘Oh yeah, he was totally sucking off my right tit and then bam, I nearly orgasmed, hit my head against the wall, and your picture just…died.’”

Her face flamed red like a tomato. “That’s…I would never!”

“You’re beautiful when you’re embarrassed and horrified because of me. It’s kind of a turn on, you know?”

She shoved playfully at my chest. “All right, so, we have the rest of the day, and you’re still not ready to go on tour. What are you ready to do? What’s going to get you prepared for the crowds, the noise, the stares?”

I tilted my head and really thought about it. “Maybe the dark?”

“The dark?” she repeated. “Like hiding out in the dark?”

“No. Like going to the movies dark. You can still see things, but you have to focus harder. It was really dark that night.” A tremor rippled along my spine until I started to shake a bit.

Warm palms settled against my cheeks as she cupped them gently, and I looked up.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” she pleaded softly.

“It’s a vicious cycle, you know, re-living that moment.”

“The news said you saved a lot of people,” she whispered in comfort.

I scowled. “Saved? Saved?”

“Braden—”

“Fuck them!” I roared. “It was because of my music that the dickhead was even there. As if I would somehow send a fan a secret message to kill all my other fans! He was psychotic! No, I didn’t save shit. Five people still died, at my concert, with my music playing, with me singing on stage. I got fucking shot in the leg. I didn’t save shit. I might as well have been holding the damn gun, pulling the fucking trigger myself.” I shook my head and stomped away, pissed at myself for blowing up, pissed that I was talking about it, just pissed.

I charged into my room and threw my fist against the wall.

Maybe I wasn’t scared.

Perhaps what I thought was fear was anger and rage. Not even directed toward the shooter but at myself because I should have seen. I should have known. I should have acted faster. The music had been too loud. I was too into the dance sequence going on around me, tuned in to the screams of my name, living it up without even knowing that people around me were dying…for one whole minute, I had kept singing.

And then a girl in front of me just…fell, blood all over her. I grabbed her and pulled her up onto the stage, and then kept grabbing people, as many people as I could. I shouted.

Nobody heard.

I slumped against the floor and held my face in my hands.

A knock sounded on the door, and then Piper was walking in my room, sitting down next to me and putting her head on my shoulder like I hadn’t just lost my shit all over her. As if it was her fault that I