Page 67 of Hollow Heart

Lou always makes sure the bar here is stocked to the brim. He knows my vices just as well as the rest of the band.

The overwhelming need for a drink is strong, but I need to be stronger.

I can’t do the shit I’ve always done and expect different fucking results, right?

Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

“What is your fucking deal today?” Duncan says. I can feel his presence behind me like an ogre. “You’ve been on a rip and a tear since I got here.”

I stare at the clear decanter of vodka, and I swear I can smell the stringent scent like a sweet perfume.

But I can also smell Duncan’s sweat, mixed with his Old Spice body wash, and guilt.

So much fucking guilt.

“Oh please, don’t play innocent,” I hiss, feeling the demons beneath my surface rising once more.

Memories flash in my brain of all the fights I’ve endured.

The men I lost because I’m not enough for them.

Because I’m an accident, a mistake.

A regret.

I can’t let them hurt me.

I can’t lethimhurt me.

Duncan’s eyebrows knit together, his lips pursed into a straight line, which makes the collection of coarse hair above his lips twitch, and all I can think about is how I know what it feels like, scratching against my skin.

And I’ll never not know that little detail. It’ll eat at me like a poison, in the dead of night, when I’m alone.

Because I’m always alone.

That’s how my story ends, right?

A tortured heart writes the best songs, after all.

“Me? You’re blaming your fucking temper tantrums on me? Real smooth, Felix,” he growls as he angles himself closer, backing me up against the bar.

My back collides with hard metal, and the fight or flight instinct in me wants to attack.

To tell him awful things, sugarcoating my guilt and carving my desire into weapons.

The masculine scent of sweat, rock and roll, and Old Spice fills my lungs as I stare up at him with fury.

But I barely get to open my mouth, before his hand is around my throat, and like a goddamn idiot I let out a strangled sound, a cross between a groan and whisper.

My cock twitches with anticipation and I feel like I might explode into a hundred pieces. I want to fight, to argue, to tell him to fuck off.

That I never want to see him again.

But I don’t get to speak.

Because Duncan presses his body against mine, his fingers tightening their grip as his fingertips brush the edge of the hair at the nape of my neck. His touch is rough, but somehow soft at the same time, scratching an itch deep within my soul. My entire body releases all its tension and I think I might dissolve into the fucking floor.

His gaze burns me, and my demons.

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