Page 6 of Pretty When It Burns (When The Lights Go Down #1)

Chapter four

"I Need Help" - Nerv

Grayson

Iattempt to sleep the night after the show, but instead find myself awake thinking about Mia Alexander. I’m laying on my stomach with my head shoved under my pillow, trying to quiet all the thoughts swirling around in my mind that are making sleep impossible.

I can’t stop picturing her. Every damn second, she’s there. The curve of her mouth when she smiles. The fire in her eyes. The way her body moves when she thinks no one is watching. But I can’t help it. I’m always watching her and—because I clearly need a lesson in subtlety—I think she knows it.

My body is restless, tense with a need I haven’t felt in years.

If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way.

Even with Lily, even when we weren’t just fighting all the time, I never truly felt the kind of need that makes my balls tighten and my cock ache.

The kind that makes my hands itch just thinking about the softness of her skin, or the sounds she might make if I fuck her the way I want to.

I can’t take it anymore.

I toss my pillow to the side and roll over onto my back, shoving the sheets down and groaning as I adjust myself in my black silk briefs. I’m already more than hard from every damn thought of her I can’t seem to shake.

It’s her mouth with those pouty, perfect lips. Her laugh and the way it fills an entire room. The way her ass looks in jeans and the way her hair tumbles down her back. It’s everything about her that makes it impossible to think about anything or anyone else.

This isn’t just an attraction.

It’s damn near an obsession.

I close my eyes and let the image in my mind take over, letting my hand slide beneath the waistband of the boxers and using the other to shove them down to my knees.

Exhaling sharply when my fingers wrap around the length of my cock, already thick and leaking with need, the tension coils tighter in my core the second I stroke upward.

My hips lift slightly off the mattress like I’m chasing something just out of reach.

All I can see is Mia fucking Alexander.

I picture what she’d look like in the bathtub, soapy and sexy with her hair tied up in a messy bun. What she’d look like with her perfect mouth on my dick, making all my dreams come true. What she’d say after—that it was the best night of her life and I’ve ruined her for anyone else.

“Fuck,” I whisper into the dark, my jaw clenched.

I picture her riding me with her head thrown back, nails clawing down my chest, her voice breaking as she moans my name over and over like it’s the only word she knows.

I imagine grabbing her hips and fucking up into her so hard the headboard slams into the wall, her body shuddering as she comes apart around me.

I pump faster now, hips flexing into my own hand, chasing the high I’m now fucking desperate for. The slide of skin is slick and tight and nearly enough to satiate me—for now.

My orgasm builds fast, white-hot and sharp, curling deep in my gut.

I bite down on my knuckle to keep from moaning her name like a lunatic, letting out a fucking whimper as I come hard, thick streams spilling across my stomach, vision blurring with only remnants of her.

It’s not just release—it’s what I have to fall back on every night, what’s going to keep me sane while knowing I have to be around her for the next few days.

I lay there afterward, chest rising and falling, hand still wrapped loosely around my softening cock as the high fades and the ache comes back in crushing, suffocating waves.

I could make this happen for real.

But every time I feel the urge to go and knock on her door, just a few feet away, I can’t help but stop myself and think about the same thing that keeps catching me off guard.

I’m thirty years old, about to be divorced, and a musician who spends most of his life on the road—living out of a suitcase on a tour bus.

I’m bitter. Burned out. Barely holding it together.

Mia is twenty-six, brilliant and beautiful, and from what I understand, has an amazing career ahead of her. She deserves clarity. Commitment. Someone better than a man on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.

I have no right to distract her from that. No business looking at her the way I am, no business getting off to the thought of her like a horny teenager. But there’s a part of me that doesn’t give a fuck—that wants to break the door down and give her the best night of her life.

God, I want to be selfish.

I want to walk in there, pin her to the bed, and fuck her until she forgets every reason she should tell me not to.

Ruin her in the best way possible. Live out the fantasy that’s been playing on a near constant loop in my head—my hands on her waist, her mouth on my neck while she’s sitting in my lap giving the tension that’s built up in my boxers the outlet it so desperately needs.

But I remember the conversation I had with Eric right after the show, the one where he asked me point-blank what the hell I think I’m doing with Mia when my marriage isn’t even officially over yet.

He’s right—but still, it doesn’t stop me from wanting her. Needing her.

The scariest part? It isn’t just lust. It’s so much more dangerous than that.

Because with Mia, I already know—it won’t just be about one night. It will be about everything after.

I hear the sound of my alarm blaring the next morning, not knowing whether or not I had actually fallen asleep the night before.

When we first started playing, show days would light me up, but lately? Every morning, I feel like a shadow of myself. It isn’t the way I want to feel going into a performance, but there’s nothing I can do to change it now.

Pulling myself out of bed and into the attached bathroom, I splash cold water on my face, brush my teeth, and tell myself to get my shit together.

Just as I’m throwing on one of my dad’s old band t-shirts and a hopefully clean pair of jeans, thinking that the day ahead can’t get any more difficult, my phone buzzes with a new message from my little sister.

Johanna Harris

Coming to visit tonight! Got a huge opportunity out in LA. See you at the show xoxo

I sigh and put the phone back on the counter without replying.

It’s classic Johanna to not tell me that she’s coming to visit until the last possible minute so I can’t tell her not to.

With everything going on in my head, I really don’t need my sister blowing in and making an even bigger mess of everything.

She’s Mia and Rylee’s age, and her nickname growing up in our house was Hurricane Johanna.

I make my way out to the living area where the guys are discussing tonight’s show, but they look at me expectantly once they notice I’d entered the room.

Most of our stuff is already at the venue, as it’s the same place we’d played at the night before, so there isn’t all that much left to do before we can head out.

I take a seat beside Eric and put my head back against the recliner, closing my eyes.

“You and Mia get freaky last night?” Tony asks in his usual playful manner.

Eric shoots him a disapproving look to which Tony simply shrugs in response.

Meanwhile, I try to control the feeling of panic and frustration rising in my chest.

I’m already having a hard enough time not letting myself go there as it is.

“No, we did not get freaky, Tony,” I huff. “We just talked. Ate. It was nice.”

Thankfully, the guys leave it at that.

I know Brandon and Eric both realize how troubled I am by Mia’s arrival and my feelings towards it. Even though Tony jokes around, I know he understands it, too. As always, he’s just trying to lighten the mood.

Not too long after our conversation ends, Rylee and Mia emerge from the hallway leading to the bedrooms, ready for the day.

My eyes wander up from Mia’s white Chuck Taylors, noticing the way her tight, dark blue jeans hug her curves and, of course, those green eyes that I know could level me.

She’s radiant in a way that makes it impossible to think straight.

If I didn’t know it before, I sure as hell know it now.

I’m screwed.

Once we finish our soundcheck, the guys and I head to the dressing room. Rylee and Mia are waiting for us there, and I expect Johanna will be arriving shortly. I want to make sure I get there before my sister does.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt in my element at a venue, but tonight, I just feel the stress and exhaustion from the lack of sleep the night before, even more than usual. Even the relief I found from getting off to the thought of Mia last night was short-lived, much to my dismay.

I can only hope that actually getting on stage and performing tonight will lift my spirits and get me out of the hole I’ve dug for myself. Realistically, I know it’ll take a lot more than that, but a guy can hope—although it doesn’t seem like I have much left.

Then the door opens and, entering from stage left: Hurricane Johanna.

She’s wearing head-to-toe designer clothes, perfectly styled as if she’s stepping off a Fashion Week runway rather than walking into a dingy backstage dressing room at a rock concert.

Her jet-black hair is tied back into a sleek high pony tail and her blue eyes that match mine still glow even under the poor dressing room lights.

She throws her arms around me like it hasn’t been months since our last conversation.

“Well, if it isn’t my big brother, the stranger,” Johanna says.

“Hi, Joey,” I smile as sincerely as I can. “How was the flight?”

Johanna had flown in from our hometown in Maine, where she spends most of her time when she isn’t off galavanting around the world doing her modeling.

She’s a cover model, a rising star in the industry, so it seems that she spends more time traveling than she does in Cumberland, practically living on her agency’s jet.

“Fine, fine,” she replies. “Mom says hello.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I say flatly, rolling my eyes.

I know my mother didn’t tell Johanna to say anything to me. She hadn’t said a word to me herself since I left home to pursue music when I was eighteen, and she wouldn’t have talked to me through Johanna, either.

“Okay, well, at least I tried,” Johanna sighs, then turns to face Mia. “Who’s this?”

“You remember Mia Alexander,” I prompt.

Her eyes light up in realization and she grabs Mia in a hug like she had done with me.

“No way!” Johanna exclaims excitedly in her almost shrill voice. “Mia! How the hell are you? What are you doing at my brother’s show? I can’t believe it’s been, what, eight years?”

“Johanna, wow!” Mia laughs nervously. “You look incredible. It’s been since high school graduation that I’ve seen you, I guess.”

“She’s here with Rylee,” I add. “They’re staying at the house with us and doing some media work for the band. You’ll still have your room, of course.”

“Ah,” Johanna says, her face shifting and tone icing over as it always does when it comes to Rylee.

“So happy to see you, too, Jo,” Rylee smirks from her position on the couch.

“Well, I have news,” Johanna announces, changing the subject and ignoring Rylee’s comment entirely. “I’m moving to LA! There’s more booking potential for my modeling if I live here. As excited as I am to watch you play, Gray, I’m really here to look for a house.”

“Wow, Joey, that is… exciting!” I exclaim, my eyes widening in surprise.

God help us all.

Johanna isn’t just a force of nature. She’s a category five emotional storm.

At least she isn’t expecting to move in with me, but if I could barely handle seeing my sister a few times a year, how am I going to handle having her here all the time?

There’s a reason her nickname is Hurricane Johanna; she blows in and out, leaving only destruction in her path.