Chapter 6
SAWYER
The sunset sky’s bleeding pink across the stage canopy when the last band finally finishes their set.
I should be exhausted, but all I feel is the weight of the moment pressing into my spine.
My fingers check my camera one more time. ISO, shutter speed, battery. I already did this. Twice. I need to chill.
I shift my position near the photo pit, just left of center stage. The barricade groans under the weight of bodies pressing harder, a wall of heat and voices rising around me in pulsing anticipation. Lights dim and screams swell.
They chant his name like it’s holy.
“Jasper! Jasper! Jasper!”
Then he walks onstage and I swear time fractures.
He’s not just a man. He’s a storm wrapped in black ink and arrogance, with a voice that could raise the dead or bury you in your sins.
Torn black tank clings to his sides, soaked through in places, ripped and raw, exposing muscle and mayhem in equal measure.
Every tattoo on his skin appears to be a threat.
Every step he takes claims the stage as if it were built for him and no one else.
The crowd loses its mind.
And me? I forget how to breathe. All I can think about is how hot he looks.
What is wrong with me? You don’t want him, Sawyer.
He steps up to the mic, eyes sweeping the audience like he’s choosing who to ruin first. And then he finds me.
Eyes lock, and everything else dissolves. The stage lights are blinding, but somehow I feel more exposed than he does. His smirk curls slowly, laced with a promise that doesn’t stay innocent.
“Did you miss me already, Little Demon?”
He says it like an afterthought, tossed into the crowd like a match into gasoline.
To them?
Or to me?
They cheer as if he has just promised them salvation.
I grip my camera tighter, throat closing, and lift the lens like it might shield me from the fire in his eyes.
But he turns back to the crowd like he didn’t just unravel me with a single look. His voice dips low, almost reverent.
“This one’s for the ones who were never safe to begin with.”
A roar rises, wild and aching.
“For the broken, the haunted, the ones who find beauty in blood.”
Then Ash, on his guitar, rips through the silence like a scream, and Silas is hitting the drums like it means war.
I try to focus.
On angles, lighting, and shadows.
But his voice wraps around me, almost making me forget what I’m supposed to be doing.
I catch pieces of verses between clicks…
“I saw the angel in you—
and carved it out with my tongue.”
Click.
“Don’t pretend you’re not addicted—
I’m the high you hide from everyone.”
Click.
“You say you’re fine—
but you flinch like you’ve been burned before.”
Click.
And I don’t even realize I’ve stopped moving until I hear my heartbeat in my ears.
He screams, and the guitars part around it like metal doors blown off their hinges. I bite my lip trying to distract from the heat pooling in between my legs from the sound alone. When he cuts the scream off, he looks right at me and grins.
He knows exactly what that scream did to me.
And I realize I’m not just watching a show. I’m being hunted… And why do I want to be caught?
***
The second they step off stage after their set, the world keeps spinning, but I don’t.
Not really.
My ears are ringing from the screams, my fingers still twitching around the camera, heart racing like I’ve just run a mile barefoot on broken glass. But it’s not from adrenaline; it’s from Jasper.
He looked at me, spoke to me over the mic in front of thousands. Every word feels like it’s burned into my skin.
I plan to sneak off so I can calm down, hide behind the press booth, maybe duck into a trailer, anywhere I can breathe without his voice crawling down my spine.
Too late.
Footsteps hit the asphalt behind the stage.
“Running off already?”
Shit.
I turn around and—fuck me.
He’s still glowing from the stage lights, sweat clinging to his throat and collarbone, that goddamn smirk playing on his lips like he already knows what he’s done to me.
And he’s shirtless. It’s probably tossed somewhere backstage, and now I have a full view of his chest. I try not to stare at the skeleton hands holding an anatomical heart that’s inked there, but I am struggling.
I cross my arms, trying to bite the inside of my cheek to stay grounded. “You’re supposed to be hydrating. Whatever it is rockstars do when they’re not—”
“Making you stare?”
“Wrecking my nerves,” I mutter, but it sounds weak. Pathetic. And the way he’s looking at me makes me press my thighs together.
And he saw it. Oh, he saw all of it.
“You flinched when I sang that second verse,” he says, like an accusation and a dare rolled into one. His voice cutting through every flimsy wall I’ve tried to put up. “You thought no one noticed, didn’t you?”
“You imagined it, I was just doing my job,” I snap, but it comes out too fast. Too defensive.
“You don’t flinch because of a job, sweetheart. You flinch at ghosts.”
The words land like a blade, sliding between bone and memory.
“Get some water, Jasper,” I said, trying to turn away.
His fingers catch my wrist with enough pressure to remind me he’s stronger, faster, and dangerously close to everything I keep hidden.
“You look too good shaking like that,” he says, eyes locked on mine like I’m the only thing worth seeing. “Makes me wonder what else would make you tremble.”
My pulse spikes as I yank my arm back, forcing air into my lungs. “I’ve got work to do.”
“And I’ve got time to kill,” he counters. “Funny how the universe keeps putting us in the same damn place.”
I move to walk off again, but I only make it two steps when his hand is grabs the back of my neck, turning me so I’m almost nose to nose, and forcing me against the wall of crates.
Too close. Too sudden. My ribs cinch like a trap. Instinct screams, move, but something hotter holds me there.
The air shifts instantly. Not to mention my brain completely going silent once he’s caging me in with a presence so heavy I forget how to stand on my own feet. One hand braces the wall beside my head, his chest close enough that the heat from his skin bleeds into me.
Caged used to mean danger. With him it feels like a warning…and a shelter. I don’t know which one to choose.
“The groupies will be descending later,” he says arrogantly. “Like they always do.”
The words slam through me harder than the crates at my back, but I’m still fighting.
“Why do you think I care?”
I hate my face gives me away, just the slightest flicker, but he catches it. He catches everything. His expression changes, not softer, but more predatory.
His fingers trail along my cheek, unbearably slow. With the lightest touch, my pulse reacts as if he just pinned me by the throat.
“Tell me what you want, Sawyer,” he murmurs, leaning in so close I can feel the tip of his nose against mine and the whisper of his breath brushing my jaw.
God, he’s beautiful. Not the beautiful that feels safe, but the kind that leaves blood on the altar when you’re done worshiping.
I exhale slowly, mouth twisting with another fight.
“I want you to let me go. You’re ridiculous.”
“Hmm. I’ve been called worse, Little Sin.”
I should shove him away. I should say no in a tone sharp enough to cut through his arrogance. I should look anywhere except at his mouth, because the sight of it is already a problem.
But I don’t.
He stays close, breathing me in like I’m something he’s been waiting for. His breath brushes my cheek again, and he’s looking at me as if he’s savoring the way I freeze when he’s near.
“I thought I told you not to lie to me.”
His fingers drift lower, ghosting over the base of my throat. It’s not a choke, not even a hold, but every nerve under my skin ignites. My eyes flutter, thoughts scatter, ripped apart by the idea of those fingers gripping tighter.
“You don’t really want me to let you go, do you? You keep pretending I’m not under your skin,” he says, tone rougher now. “But I’m the itch you can’t scratch. The ache you’re trying to outwork.”
He’s not wrong and that makes it worse.
Unholy thoughts are the only thing on my mind, and when I finally find my voice, it’s a whisper, and my last defence.
“You know I have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” he says, eyes fixed on mine, “and I have a soul somewhere too. Doesn’t mean I use it.”
His hand wraps around the base of my throat. Soft and teasing. A warning dressed as a caress. He leans in closer—his lips now just a breath from my jaw, his presence crowding out the rest of the world.
“Let me ruin you, Wicked Thing.”
Ruin used to mean hurting me. With him it sounds like worshipping.
My stomach flips as if it’s caught between fear and something far more dangerous. My thighs squeeze together on their own as soon as the heat pools low.
His palm stays there on my throat. Just enough to tell me he owns this moment.
If he squeezed the hand on my throat, I’d be a goner. It would be game over.
And you’d let him. The thought is a spark and a siren.
“Still think I’m ridiculous?” he murmurs, lips grazing the shell of my ear.
"Even more so.”
His hand begins moving. Sinfully tracing the curve of my side like he’s writing fire under my skin. My breath hitches when his fingers reach the dip of my navel. And then lower.
Say stop if you mean it. But I say nothing.
My body arches like it’s been waiting for this exact pressure, this exact moment.
He leans in, his nose brushing my neck like he’s testing the limits of how far I’ll let him go. Instinct betrays me—my head tilts for him. Voluntarily. His lips don’t touch me, but I feel the heat of them hovering, like a dare against my pulse.
“See?” he whispers. “Your body’s a worse liar than your mouth.”
His hand drifts across my lower stomach, skating just above the waistband of my shorts. A single finger hooks over the fabric, teasing, testing—
“Jasper!”
The voice cuts through the haze—loud, male, too close.
I jolt, breath catching like I’ve been pulled out of a dream.