Chapter 8 The Boy Is Not Alright
THE BOY IS NOT ALRIGHT
RUBY
Zane shadows me like a starving wolf.
Not figuratively or poetically.
Hell, not even romantically.
Literally.
We’ve been on the road for barely a week, headed for Vegas first, then Joshua Tree for the desert shots, before cutting north through Santa Fe, on to Red Rocks in Colorado, and eventually landing in Minneapolis for the cold-weather performance scenes.
The idea is for the band to combine live shows with the music video.
It’s clever, chaotic and exhausting.
Very “Zane.”
But every time I step away from him, I feel his gaze on the back of my neck, hot enough to brand.
Every time I breathe too far from his orbit, he’s suddenly right behind me, touching my waist, my shoulder, my hair—something—claiming me in quiet, unhinged little gestures that make the crew pretend they don’t see anything.
And maybe I should be irritated.
I’m not.
I’m alive.
Jolted awake and wise enough to know this feeling is trouble wearing tattoos and manic silver eyes.
We’re done with one long shoot where I’m covered in sweat that is 60% mine, 40% Zane’s, and 100% not tax-deductible.
I need space. Just five minutes of air.
Five minutes where I’m not being stared at like I’m the last drop of water in his personal desert.
I duck around a lighting rig and slip behind a stack of crates.
Clipboard Carl is measuring something on a tablet.
Perfect.
“Carl?”
He jumps three solid feet. “Holy—Ruby, don’t sneak up on me. My chiropractor already hates my spine.”
I roll my eyes. “Calm down. I need to ask you something.”
Carl looks around as if Zane might materialize through the walls.
Smart man.
“About what happened the other day,” I whisper. “The umm…meltdown. The way he snapped out of it when I—”
“Hummed,” Carl finishes, nodding like he’s talking about a bomb they just successfully defused.
I swallow. “Yeah. That. Has that happened before?”
Carl exhales sharply and his eyes dart around like marbles on a pinball machine.
“Uhhh, yeah,” he whispers back. But there’s no official diagnosis if that’s what you’re asking.
No doctor wants to label the front man of Riot Saints as clinically anything.
So we just call it ‘episodes.’ The mania.
The tension spikes. The break in… regulation. He eventually snaps out of it.”
Regulation.
Of course Zane’s emotions need regulation. I’ve met toddlers with fewer mood swings. “When did it start?” I ask.
Carl hesitates. “Years ago. And when it was bad? Mama Draven was the only one who could calm him down.”
“Mama Draven?”
He nods. “His mom. Sometimes she’d show up on tour just to… tune him.”
Tune him? Good lord.
“But it’s gotten better,” he says quickly. “Fewer episodes. Lighter. Until this last one, it’d been months.”
I chew on my bottom lip as my heart sinks a little. “And you think I…” My voice tightens. “You think I made it worse?”
“Worse?” Carl sputters, eyes going wide. “Ruby, please. That was the fastest and best way I’ve seen him snap out of one. Ever. He didn’t break anything serious besides a few guitars and speakers, no one got shoved, he didn’t walk out and disappear for a week. And—bonus—no lawsuits.”
I wince. “Carl, that’s not as reassuring as—”
“He’s obsessed with your humming,” he says, backing away nervously. “Like you’re the disease and the antidote. Please, Ruby. Don’t do anything to change—” He freezes, eyes flicking over my shoulder. “Oh God,” he whispers. “Incoming.”
And then he bolts.
I turn.
Zane is striding toward me like a storm.
He’s all wet hair and smudged eyeliner and a chest rising too fast under an unbuttoned shirt. He looks hungry and frustrated and completely out of patience.
“There you are,” he rasps, grabbing my hip like he’s anchoring himself. “Why’d you walk away?”
“I needed a minute.”
“I need every fucking minute,” he fires back.
Hoists me up. Tosses me over his shoulder.
Oh fucking hell. Here we go.
He sets me down in his private dressing room.
The door slams.
Lock clicks.
And Zane moves in a tight circle, fingers raking through his hair, chest heaving like he’s trying to outrun something inside him. Then he crosses the room, crowds me against the vanity, and cups my jaw with hands that shake just enough to gut me.
“I don’t like it when I can’t see you, baby,” he mutters, pacing. “It makes my skin fucking crawl. It makes the walls move. It makes the noise get too loud.” He stops abruptly and looks at me like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. “Hum for me.”
“Zane—”
He drops to his knees and grips my hips again. “Ruby, sweetheart,” he pleads. “Hum.”
I do. Quietly. Deepening the vibrations as his eyes drift shut.
And like a switch, he settles.
His shoulders drop, his breathing evens and his jaw unclenches.
I swallow hard, my throat tight.
There’s something so intimate about this, about him on his knees for me. Not because he’s worshipping me, but because he needs me to ground him.
To quiet the storm inside him.
I prolong the soft, steady vibration humming in my chest, awed all over again at the effect it has on him as the sound fills the trailer.
Zane Draven is putty in my hands.
His grip on my hips loosens just a fraction, his forehead rests on my belly, and he exhales sharply, like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
“Magnificent,” he murmurs, voice rough with relief. His thumbs trace slow, possessive circles over my hip bones, his touch almost reverent now.
The contrast, this tender moment right after the way he just stomped and snarled and carted me around, sends a fresh wave of warmth through my chest, followed swiftly and alarmingly by a wave of heat between my thighs.
I ignore the need prowling through me, keep humming for several more minutes until my throat, still unused to this prolonged pressure, starts to ache a little.
His gaze lifts, locks onto mine, and hunger floods his eyes again. Darker this time. More dangerous.
Zane Draven locking onto a different predator mode.
“Glitter looks good on you,” he murmurs as his fingers brush over the curve of my waist where the sparkly residue from earlier still clings to my bare skin. He plucks a single speck between his fingertips, holds it up to the dim light, then blows it away. Then his lips curl into something wicked.
“Wonder if it’ll look better mixed with my cum.” His voice drops, a filthy promise. “Shall we find out?”
“Zane?” My breath hitches when he licks a line to my belly button, my body reacting before my mind can even keep up.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. In one fluid motion, he surges to his feet, his hand tangling in my hair as he crashes his mouth onto mine.
The kiss is a brutal invasion of teeth clashing, tongues twisting, his free hand gripping my ass hard enough to bruise.
A moan spills out of me and my fingers claw at his shoulders, my body arching into him like I don’t have a choice.
He growls and the sound vibrates straight through me, and then, suddenly he rips his mouth away.
The loss makes a whimper break from my throat, raw and involuntary, but he’s already on me again. Hands clamp around my waist, he spins me around and shoves me toward the bed.
I stumble, catching myself on the mattress and my ass in the air, the flimsy, floaty dress I wore for the video shoot riding up.
Cold air hits my exposed skin, but it’s nothing compared to the molten heat of Zane’s gaze burning into me. I feel him surge behind me, his presence overwhelming and his control snapping as tension coils around us like live snakes ready to consume us whole.
Giddiness spikes through my veins and I don’t have to look to know he’s stripping, his movements rough and impatient. The bed dips behind me and his thighs press against the backs of mine, his cock already hard and throbbing against my ass.
I bite my lip, my body aching for him, my pussy already wet and ready.
“Fuck, you’re dripping,” he groans as his fingers slide between my thighs, gathering my slickness before dragging it up to my ass.
I gasp as he circles my tight hole, his touch teasing, possessive.
“Been thinking about this all day. About how tight you’d be.
About how good you’d take me here.” His voice is a dark, dirty murmur.
“But we’ll save it for another day, hmm?
Need time with that special little hole.
Now…let’s take care of this other precious hole. ”
I snatch in an anticipatory breath and before I can breathe out, his cock is there, pressing against my entrance, thick and demanding.
His grip on my hip is punishing and even though I brace myself, the first thrust is brutal.
Sublime and perfect in its pain/pleasure ratio.
In one week of fucking Zane, I’ve only managed to take another inch, a situation that makes him growl with frustration every time he hits my end and I whimper.
He thrusts into me now in one deep, relentless stroke, filling me completely, stretching me around him until I’m gasping, my fingers clawing at the sheets.
“Oh god—I’m so full. Zane…argh!” The words tumble from my throat as my voice breaks.
I’m not sure how it’s possible but he feels bigger every time, his cock hitting places inside me that ruin my vision.
I try to keep my voice down but Saint Sin has made it clear to his crew and everyone within a hundred-mile radius that we’re fucking.
And so when his hands dig deeper into my hips, when he pulls back and slams into me again, I don’t hold back my shout.
“So fucking tight,” he groans, his voice strained. “Like you were made for me.” His cock pistons in and out of me, each thrust deeper than the last, his balls slapping against my clit with every snap of his hips.
I feel him everywhere—inside me, surrounding me, owning me.
Hands callused by guitar strumming trail down my back. Then he’s toying with my asshole again, pushing against my puckered flesh.
I’ve never had anal, and I suspect it’s only a matter of time before Zane Draven breaks my last virginity.