Twisted Rhythm: A Dark Rockstar Romance (Twisted Rhythm Series Book 1) Read online

  God, Amanda thought, if only he could be this intuitive, open, sweet and caring all the time. They’d never fight if, underneath it all, he didn’t have to be such an asshole. But, as Katelyn had pointed out earlier, and the rag mags continuously asserted, Amanda Wilder only liked assholes, genuinely dangerous bad boys with balls behind their hype and a carefully defined depraved but rugged handsomeness behind their brawn. Vile and bestial with intellect, a savage sexiness that oozed warmth and an uneasy comfort within the brutality. And of course a loving, gentle, vulnerable but unpredictable side. Jake.

  She sighed and gazed wistfully at him, her very own wild, bad boy to cause her heartache and pain. Jesus, maybe she was as nuts as the paparazzi said, as unstable and crazy as Jake himself often proclaimed. She’d chosen not to worry about it a long time ago, when first arriving in L.A., especially after shedding the binds of Alison Jameson, especially after she’d met Jake. Suddenly, his look chilled her to the bone.

  “You know...You already know...” he groaned, resigned, weary, “We’re fire and ammo together. We bring out the absolute fucking worst in each other.”

  An inescapable certainty stabbed at her chest. Yeah, she knew. But the real question was, did she care? It had been so damn long since she’d seen him apart from yesterday, the last day of his trial. A year and a half since their final battle, their last explosive argument that had ended in bloodshed, with Jake taking revenge on her for transgressions imagined but never proven, accusations hurled but never substantiated. Her memory blazed with caustic scenes of their last days and nights together, their final conflict before sirens screamed, before the crowds gathered in the rain outside the spiked wrought iron gates of Jake’s cleverly melded Gothic-French Renaissance mansion and before the heroic men in blue swarmed in to save her body and soul.

  Naked. Face down, spread eagle. Bound tightly to the bed posts. Jake’s brightly colored scarves slicing into her ankles and wrists. The quick hiss and sharp, stinging crack of his whip and later, the heavy smash of his motorcycle chains as they ravaged her shoulders, her ass and back. The sticky-slippery warm sweet sensation of Jake sliding on top of her, his nipple ring raking her bloodied flesh, his strong, skilled hands grasping her hair, soaked with blood and sweat. His weight. His anger. His ultimate control.

  “You fucked him, didn’t you...You think I don’t know but I know everything!” he’d raged for hours, his luscious green eyes on fire, sweat glistening his face, his hair, shoulders, arms, neck and chest. Out of breath from beating her. Out of his mind from not wanting to stop.

  It’s only rape if she’s resisting. Crawling on top of her. His arm braced, his hand shoving her face hard into the mattress. No room to gasp, aching to breathe as he took her from behind, again and again. His cock hard and slick and deep, thrusting into her pussy and then up into her ass as she moaned and cried. His long silken hair slapping her shoulders as he pumped, his raspy labored breath the song every groupie longed to hear.

  “Did he do this to you?!” he shrieked, insane with rage and jealousy, and then whispered, “Did he do this to you...” soft and enticing as he slithered sensually on top of her back and exploded in her ass, filling her hot and comforting with his juices. Beyond the boundaries, even in his anger, connecting with her on levels unimaginable for most.

  Visions of their final incident haunting her with the ambrosial agony of a vampire’s kiss, she clutched Jake’s shoulders, then raised her shaking arms taking his face into her hands. His eyes so electrifying, his expression so tortured.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way...”

  But her words hung in the stilted air like mummified roses in a dank and darkened crypt. Searching his eyes for confirmation, she found none. Who the fuck was she kidding? Certainly not Jake who erupted in violence at less than a moment’s notice, sometimes with provocation, mostly without. This was the man who’d exploded into her life with such force and intensity it had floored her, numbed her and catapulted her off guard so that as he ravaged her body he also raped her soul. The man whose violent and bloody sexual attack hospitalized her for almost a month as the fans and hungry media hovered like vultures, shrieking for more. Her blood coursing and heart pounding at the carnal memories, she wasn’t kidding herself either. Her breath quickened, loins heated at the risk of another violent and degenerate attack, even now.

  Jake looked at her evenly, his own heart pounding violently in his chest. Searching his memories, his answer emerging the same. Things would never be any different between them. As much as a part of them wanted that, another part embraced their torturous status quo, the violence, the anger, jealousies, insecurities and rage. He blinked tiredly, wisps of bangs flowing softly into his radiant green eyes. Amanda was toxic and he was her poison. Together, they rained impenetrable chaos.

  Looking down at her pointedly, he gently lifted his hands, covering hers still on his face. What the fuck am I gonna do, his heart and senses screamed. He tilted his head back, shutting his eyes tightly, to escape the reality engorging his world. If only for a moment. Desperately trying to shake the onslaught of unwelcome thoughts that deluged, excited, enticed and enraged his spirit.

  Like cold, metallic handcuffs they encircled him, reigned him in, trapped him in the sordid spiral of his memories and the imposing threat of even present turmoil. But he reminisced, and remembered. Amanda, her long, straight, silky blonde hair teasing his chest as she kissed him, warm and deep and generous, releasing sweet shivers far past his crotch, all the way down to his toes. Her eyes hesitant but accepting as later, he shackled her, mastered her and took her, sweet medicine for his famished soul.

  Wade. He shuddered and sickened at the thought of that malignant asshole. How could she have betrayed him with that slice of scum after he’d given her so much of himself, his heart, his trust and love, his body and soul. Their one night reunion a shocking, stinging slap in his face, a crippling blow to his pride and ego. He swallowed hard, choking back rabid tears.

  She’d degraded herself like a worthless whore, not his whore anymore, and fled to her ex for comfort, some sort of self-actualizing validation and re-establishment of self-worth. And that piece of trash ass-humping druggie loser who’d never had the balls to leave Conroy, Texas sure had the balls to take advantage, to fuck the now-famous dang he’d dumped in high school, the coveted star who now belonged to someone else.

  Weary, so goddamn fucking weary. Tired of the pain and rage but skirting their pervious elastic boundaries all the same. Jake lifted his head, opened his eyes slowly and gazed down at her.

  “It is that way Amanda. And it’s always fuckin’ gonna stay that way.” Struggling to stay in control. His voice raspy-deep with conviction and pain.

  Eyes scorching through her as his hands slid down roughly from atop hers to tightly grip her wrists. She gasped, not knowing what to say, contradictions lodging in her throat because she knew what he knew. And in their knowledge they grieved.

  “It doesn’t fuckin’ matter anymore,” he decided. His voice deep and dark and determined. “We’re done. We’re so goddamn motherfuckin’ done.” His eyes blazed, on fire. His soul already scorched bare.

  It would have hurt less if he’d stabbed her. The zillion excruciating months without him, the agonizing tempestuous trial, the tabloids screaming their names. It all culminated with this for Amanda, his resignation, before she’d even had a chance to explain, to try and clear her name. She threw herself against him, even as he still gripped her wrists tightly. She screamed, writhed and struggled but he held her fast, unwavering. Crying uncontrollably until he shook her roughly and she stilled. She gazed up into his face, his piercing eyes, so cold and inflexible. Her voice cracked and wan and bleak, a tiny sliver of what remained of her inside.

  “No...Please...Don’t fuckin’ do this to me Jake. I love you so much,” she whispered, “I’ll always love you, till the day I die.”

  And then she collapsed against his strong shoulders, her sobs and uneven breath out of sync
with his, out of rhythm with the rise and fall of his own labored breathing, the movement of his muscular chest. It was then that he released her wrists, dropping his arms impotently to his sides. She clung to him, held him, snuggled her face into his neck, tangled her hands through his long wild hair and cried. It was then, she thought back upon it much later, staring through tears at her computer at Heart of Steel’s first blank page, that everything turned surreal. Jake’s coldness, his distance, his resoluteness and soon, her shattered life without him, her emotions in tatters, her soul reaped barren.

  But back then, for a time, Jake finally held her. Tighter than he had in a long time, his welcome hands tangled in her tousled hair, sometimes caressing her neck or massaging her back gently before hugging her tightly to him once again, rampant tears streaming down his face all the while. His lover, his soulmate, his confidante and his brace against the ravages of the world, and most importantly, his best friend. They’d embraced there like that for what seemed like an eternity, the threat of separation looming, and cried until there was nothing left. Until the only sound in the room apart from the pacing, grunting of the cats was their own heavy breathing as they struggled to stay sane. As they struggled to hold on to the moment, before the current raged into the storm.

  Media vultures, Steel Demon fans, the entertainment hungry populace everywhere thrashed in orgasmic literacy when, just over three years later, they peered into Amanda’s tiger house for what she’d thought at the time was her and Jake’s final, excruciating goodbye. Heart of Steel rocketed to the top of The New York Times bestseller list not so much because of storyline but more so because of its “profound, haunting plunge into the blackest depths of the human psyche” and because, “agonizingly carved in blood from the author’s heart,” it “generously lured into an effortless, engrossing read from which visitors only reluctantly emerged.” As one reviewer put it, Heart of Steel was a “riveting sexual and psychological odyssey driven by hope of salvation, despite the crushing inevitability of fate, right to the last page and bitter end.”

  Standing against time, wrapped tightly in Jake’s protective, muscular arms, her face buried soulfully in his neck and enraptured in the rhythm of his powerfully beating heart, Amanda’s thoughts slammed up against the grim reality of predestination. No matter how much she wanted it, no matter how strongly Jake craved it, salvation was a sprinkling of stardust, enchantingly beautiful but horrifically elusive, a vicious tease in the face of doom. Their magic together spawned destruction by its very nature, parasitically deadly precisely because of its sadomasochistic thrill and startlingly sensual, evil allure.

  Lost in the labyrinth of her thoughts, Amanda jolted alert as Jake eased the pressure of his encircling arms. Although he leaned back merely inches, not even releasing his grip, she gasped in renewed panic. He was her lifeline, her one rock in the chaotic world, and she abhorred letting go.

  She clutched him tighter, buried her face deeper into his hair, his neck, and murmured, sobbing, “No...Oh God Jake, no...Don’t, don’t you dare let go...”

  So he held her, caressed her, running his fingers brazenly through her long, silken blonde hair, and moaned. Fuck, she was making this so hard, much fucking harder than he’d intended. Way fucking more difficult than the situation entailed. But even as he gently leaned into her, grasping the back of her head and nuzzling so they were cheek to cheek, he knew she wasn’t the only reluctant departing captive. Blinking away the fresh assault of tears, he faced the sobering reality of just how much he really didn’t want to let her go.

  Nevertheless, the cats huffing serenely in the background, he was the one to finally regain control. Stepping back a few inches, so they remained locked momentarily in their bitter embrace, he unraveled his arms from her shoulders, took her head in his hands and decisively lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. So tortured and wet with his tears that Amanda’s heart ached at the sight of him. Her soul reeled at the depths of his pain.

  “Listen to me,” he crooned, his voice low and commanding, his touch firm and reassuring. “You’re gonna be all right.”

  But she knew he couldn’t possibly believe it, denying with every fiber of her being right down to her toes, that it could possibly turn out that way. He was in her blood, he flowed through her veins, her soul, and without him her life, her aura, would surely ebb away. Sobbing, screaming, she yelled, “No!” and tore at his hair, and even as he held her back, shaking, she slowly wiped the tears from his somber, jaded eyes.

  Up against the concrete wall of her determination, for a moment, he didn’t know what to do. He blinked wearily and sighed, tried to dry her moist cheeks with the palm of his own shaking hand and then, giving up, eased his bandana slowly from his hair and gently wiped most of her tears away. But not the pain that accompanied them.

  “Stay with me Jake,” she begged, her pain and desperation a cancerous lump in her throat. “Please fuckin’ God stay with me...”

  Exhausted, bitter, assaulted by a fresh flood of his own tears, Jake took one long excruciating step back, tilting his head towards the ceiling at nothing in particular, and sobbed, choking on a storm of unwanted emotions, and swallowed hard. Jesus, how the fuck did things turn out like this? For a rare moment that he remembered thinking about later he’d wished he was back home in Louisiana, or back on the streets of Hollywood or L.A., or anywhere but in this tiger house with his poisonous bitch. Amanda’s hands grasping at his muscle shirt jolted him back to reality and he grabbed them roughly, forcing her back, and glared down at her and moaned.

  But she was desperate, so determined to hold on, and lunged forward again, nuzzling her face into his shoulder, even as he cried, and then finally lifting her head between gasps of panic and slowly, skillfully, she smoothed her mouth along the delicious curve of his neck. Her kisses, so warm and soft, nourishing and sweet, were the double edged sword he was already wrestling with and, to his horror, despite his tears, he felt the familiar intoxicating twinge between his thighs, felt his dick rise to attention, felt his heart shatter into a million pieces within his aching chest.

  Why the fuck was this happening to him? He’d done so well this past year and a half at keeping his distance, at staying away. Even when she lay clinging to life at USC University Hospital, long after he’d made bail, long after he’d torn his hand-delivered restraining order into a billion pieces, not that its sanctions meant anything to him anyway, not that it was that piece of paper that kept him away. Thoughts of Wade had accomplished that far better than any court order. And despite his lawyer’s daily updates as she vacillated from better to worse, he’d held strong, so fragilely afraid of her dying and so devastatingly afraid that if she lived and was released that he’d kill her anyway. And later, as she recovered out of the hospital, his rage had diluted to indifference and then simply, into nothing at all.

  Now, as his dick strained against his tight bicycle shorts and balls threatened to explode from their pressure, he grabbed her shoulders, her hair, yanking her head back so she was forced to look up at him. But it was too late. Fueled by the familiar urgency and heat of his touch, she knew. And craved. Incomprehensible agony gift wrapped in a swell of anger, pain and desire.

  “Stupid bitch, why couldn’t you just leave it alone...” he sneered, twisting and glaring down at her so his long, straight hair, free of his bandana, swung forward, down his broad shoulders, taut biceps, and his bangs hung wispy and tantalizing into his haunted, fiery green eyes, still moist and vulnerable with his tears.

  “Time to pay the piper, right fuckin’ now,” he groaned, his breath labored, heart thrashing as he imprisoned her in his powerful, manic grip.

  And by its very insanity at that moment, Amanda’s world transfigured sane once again. Passion and pain nudged her into that familiar comfort zone and she reached up, pulling him closer to her, and ran her fingers through his long brown silky hair and gently caressed his neck. Felt the rush of dangerous exhilaration as he leaned towards her and was captured
by his raw, ripe scent, the pungent odor of his anger and sweat, and the blazing determination in his lustrous green eyes. They grabbed at each other, two more battling tigers, and when their lips met, she tasted his savage tears with an insatiable hunger that rivaled his own and impaled them both to their very core.

  His kisses, deep and hot and angry and urgent, were the bad medicine she needed for her withering soul and she devoured them, returned them with all the conviction of a red-tailed hawk spiraling in a death plunge towards its victim.

  His strong hands tangled in her hair, his mouth biting tauntingly at her neck, he whispered hoarsely, “I didn’t want this. Fuck, I didn’t want this...” but he wanted it now and seized control.

  For Jake, his entire world centered on control, or the lack of it. In regression therapy he’d recalled his desperation, sense of abandonment and impotent anger at being locked alone in his bedroom before he’d even turned two while his mother entertained a succession of “uncles” while his father toiled, knee deep in grease and motor oil at Riley’s Auto Body on the outskirts of Clayton, his Louisiana hometown. And he’d recalled when only about a year later at the age of three, after his dad’s departure and stepfather’s grand arrival, he was beaten and sodomized by the man he was told to now call dad.

  Those memories, suppressed for so many years buried within the darkest recesses of his mind, remained free once emancipated, lurking in every corner, every confrontation, every business deal and relationship and now, amidst his churning thoughts and forebodings as he struggled to let go of Amanda, to free himself of her spider web and insidious control.

  God, it struck him suddenly, even as he wanted her, even as he craved her submission with every pore of his body and beat of his heart, if he were anywhere close to being the monster the fuckin’ press made him out to be then Amanda was surely the motherfuckin’ Black Widow. Even as his dick throbbed at the feel of her warm firm body beneath his hands, large, delicious breasts against his chest as he pressed up roughly against her he realized that his control over her was a vice, an illusion of supremacy, the sickly-sweet addiction that creamed his jeans and kept him pumping as it deceivingly, tenderly, hijacked his soul.