Rhythm of Us: Book 2 Of The Fated Hearts Series by Aimee Nicole Walker Read Free Book Online

Chase had enough and called me out for it.
    We formed a truce and have since become really good friends. In fact, the day he slammed into my office to confront me about my behavior was the very same day he introduced me to Xavier at lunch. Hmmm, coincidence or another example of his Cupid skills? Well, it certainly felt like someone shot me with something. I leaned my head back against my chair and closed my eyes in contemplation. I needed an action plan, because waiting patiently wasn’t an option. So the rest of the day was filled with work and brainstorming ideas for how I could make Xavier mine.

I HAD ANOTHER nightmare about Damien and the night he attacked me; I woke up mad at the world. I was tired of remembering how helpless and defenseless I felt when he held me down and nearly choked the life out of me. He had never taken things that far before that night. He usually chose to throw things and yell, so I was completely unprepared for his attack. I would’ve died that night if my bandmates hadn’t overheard the scuffling and the threats he screamed at me and came to my rescue.
    “You were a nobody until I came along. I created you, and only I get to fuck you, Cruz. You belong to ME!”
    Damien had me pinned to the floor of my dressing room with his knees on my chest. He’d cuffed my hands to the base of a metal shelving unit that was bolted to the floor and was immovable no matter how hard I tried. The harder I fought him the tighter he squeezed my neck with his strong hands. My lungs burned with lack of oxygen and my chest felt like it was going to cave in from the pressure of Damien’s weight on my chest. Black dots had appeared in my vision and I started to welcome the darkness, but nothing could block the evil sound of his voice and his words from penetrating my soul.
    “ You thought you could sneak around behind my back and meet another man? I found all of your emails to Kevin Smithson, Cruz. Were you planning on fucking him behind my back? Were all those sweet little exchanges about helping you get clean so he could fuck what belonged to me? I will be the last man you ever fuck, do you hear me? I’d rather kill you than ever let someone touch what is mine.”
    I had accepted that I was going to die that night, and almost welcomed it, but then my bandmates kicked down the dressing room door and pulled Damien off of me. By that point, my once tight-knit relationship with my bandmates had deteriorated until they felt like virtual strangers to me. I had harbored a lot of resentment toward them, because at times I blamed them for my predicament. It was my band who talked me into coming back to LA by promising me that things would change and that Damien promised to accept that things were over between us.
    I had been stupid to believe any of them and had quickly learned my mistake when I arrived the first night to find them all stoned out of their minds together. It was easier to blame my bandmates than myself for falling back into Damien’s arms. Not a single one of them made me take Ecstasy that first time nor any of the times after. None of them forced me to smoke weed to bring myself down from my high. Even though things were strained between us, I had never been so glad to look up and see Pax and Stix pulling Damien off of me. But, in my most recent nightmare they didn’t pull Damien off of me. Instead, they stood over me and laughed with him while the life faded from my body.
    I was determined to do something about my fear, beat it down like I did my addiction to E. So, I signed up for kickboxing classes at the local gym and just doing that simple task made me feel so much better. It cleared the lingering cobwebs of the nightmare from my brain and let me focus on the here and now rather than the then and there.
    I decided to go to the store and pick up a few things for Ellie, because she didn’t look very good this morning. I begged her not to go to work, but she insisted she was fine and didn’t need