Lyrical (Academy of Stardom Book 2)

Zayn

Pen stands before me, a fucking goddess. Wild, beautiful, angry.

The glow of our masks, and the orange flames flickering in the oil barrels around the warehouse catches the auburn lights in her long dark hair and dusts her skin in a fiery glow.

Her wrath, her fire and fury, it all bleeds out of her, scalding me with a passion that is raw, powerful, and oxygen stealing.

I can’t fucking breathe.

She just bent over provocatively. Her shapely legs, her rounded arse and the slash of her knicker-covered pussy bared for me. I damn near fucking came in my pants like a teenage boy. I wanted to press my face against her slit and fuck her with my tongue. I wanted to do that so fucking bad. I’m hard for her. So fucking hard. I don’t doubt that everyone around this table is too.

But everything about this is wrong.

So fucking wrong.

When Jeb had asked me to stand in for him, I’d agreed because I knew that this warehouse would be filled with his enemies. I don’t think that there’s a crew here that the Skins haven’t clashed with over the last few years. Grim might think she has control of these fucking arseholes, but I know better. Any one of the gangsters here will take a hit for their crew just so they can take Jeb out and whilst I know he fucking deserves it, he’s still blood, he’s still the leader of the Skins. Besides, I took an oath— just like the rest of the Breakers did— one we can’t break. But this, I sure as fuck didn’t agree to this. It doesn’t take a goddamn genius to see why he invited Pen tonight. Now his words from earlier make sense.

“Zayn, you’ve had my back all this time. I owe you. Tonight, I’ve got an extra special gift for you,” he’d said with a fucking wink and a smile.

I figured he was talking about a new ride.

Not this.

The music adds to the potency of the moment. The beat of the snare drum pounding in time with my bastard heart. Hozier, might not produce music that I usually listen too but he sure as fuck knows how to write a song that gets your blood pumping.

I’m itching to move. To let go. Really let go.

I lost my passion for dance the night Pen walked away from us.

We all did.

The only one who continued to dance was Xeno and that wasn’t because he wanted to, but because he had to. Now, as Pen stares at me with a rage befitting the music flooding my senses, all I want to do is dance with her just like we did when we were kids. She’s lit a match between all of us. Xeno can deny it all he wants, but I know him, and he wants Pen as much as the rest of us. Fuck, if I thought she wanted it, I’d take her here and now.

“Pen…” I murmur, my fingers curling into my trousers so tightly I think my knucklebones might just rip through my skin.

Her eyes glisten in the dim lighting. I see the rage brimming on her lashes, but she holds back her angry tears. She’s so fucking strong. She always was. I hold her gaze, forcing myself to take on her wrath. This is the first time since she danced in the studio that she’s allowed us to see her. And, boy, do I fucking see her. When she rests her hands on my shoulders, and leans over, I bite down on this feral need I have to take her. Gritting my jaw, I hold back not because I don’t want her, not because I’m afraid to finish what we started all those years ago, but because Pen hasn’t agreed to this. She doesn’t want me to fuck her and to give in to my base needs. There’s a pang in my chest that has never, ever fucking gone away when it comes to this woman. To fuck her now like this would be rape. Plain and fucking simple.

I’m not that kid she once knew. I’m not a good man. None of us are.

But I sure as fuck am not a rapist.

Her fingers squeeze tighter as her lips graze across my ear. “You cannot take what isn’t freely given, Zayn Bernard. You fucking disappoint me.”

And even though her words sting, her naivety floors me because I could take, I just choose not to. With one last fleeting look, she steps up onto the table, then takes my fucking breath away.