by Shey Stahl
Something roots itself deep inside my chest, a feeling, a nervousness that this might be the last time. What if this is the last time we’re together like this?
In a matter of weeks, he’s taken over my entire world. Revel’s breath is harsh and ragged against my neck. I love how caught up in the moment he gets. How this wild man you see on stage and the quiet one backstage is nothing compared to the one I get now, the one so completely undone for me he’s begging and pleading for more. “Fuck,” he groans, his hand sliding up to my waist, to my breasts. His eyes are set on mine, but then he drops them lower to where we’re connected, watching himself slide in and out of me. My eyes follow and focus on the tightness in his abdomen and sheen of sweat that’s gathered over his skin, the dampness on his brow and the way the rays of light leaking through the stage illuminate his body and mine.
I’m not exactly sure what compels me to do this, but I wrap my legs around him tighter and then lie back against the box, my body laid out before him. Revel’s hand goes to my clit. We’re too caught up and it doesn’t take long before I start to unravel beneath him, spread out and bathed in neon lights. I feel beautiful in the harsh light, alive, consumed.
“Don’t stop,” I cry, my voice pleading. “God, Rev, I’m going to come. . . .”
But he does stop. Suddenly he withdraws his hand, flips me over so that my chest is pressed into the box and then roughly grabs my hips to enter me again. It’s not gentle or even comfortable as he pumps into me faster, grunting with each thrust. “This is what you do to me. You leave me wanting more,” he whispers, his movements so hard and painful, I want to tell him to stop, but I don’t.
I start to cry out because even though I didn’t get to finish, it still feels amazing having him hit the deepest parts of me. His hand presses my face down against the metal, the cold a relief in comparison to the heat from the two of us. Leaning forward, he keeps one hand firmly on my hips, gripping me so hard I think it’s going to bruise later while the other fists in my hair. Tugging harshly, he yanks my head back so that his mouth finds mine, hunching over me and driving my hips into his.
He grunts as the release claims him, making his body shudder and shake violently behind mine. His mouth parts from mine as he lets out a low groan, face pinched in ecstasy. It’s freaking hot, yet damaging all the same. Part of me feels used because he didn’t wait for me. He purposely turned me around when he knew I was going to come.
His pace slows, then stops altogether. With his breathing heavy, his grip on me loosens, and he lifts up, one arm supporting his weight. Twisting around, I let a hand drift up to the side of his face, running my fingertips along the edge of his cheek, and for a split second, he opens his eyes to me. I want to see warmth and the connection reach his eyes. And when I don’t see it, a hint of fear hits me when I realize it’s sadness. His lids fall shut, and then he kisses me again, this time harder.
“Why did you do that?” I ask, my voice soft and timid.
He doesn’t answer me. I know he heard me because his eyes meet mine, but no explanation is given.
Straightening his posture, he slides out of me and my breathing begins to even out. Only Revel’s doesn’t. Something isn’t right. Shaking, he begins gasping and yanks up his jeans, fastening them just as quickly. Leaning into the box, his hands find his hair. “Fuck,” he breathes out, his entire body trembling now.
He looks over at me, almost confused as he continues breathing heavily, trying to keep his lips closed, but eventually he gives up and gasps for air. His head slumps forward as he pants in harsh breaths, drowned out by the cheering of the crowd behind us. I shift on the box, reaching for my shirt and then my pants he hands me.
When our eyes finally catch after I’m finally dressed, he stands there staring at me for a moment, the rush of the moment wearing off. My pulse should be pounding, but it’s struggling to even beat at this point. With the way he’s looking at me, I’m dying trying to decipher the look on his face but I can’t. He’s normally so sure of himself, but right now, he looks uncertain. Something flickers in his eyes, though, a realization I can see. Of what, I don’t know. Rejection maybe. Does he think this isn’t going to work? Did I do something wrong? Where’d the change happen? Did I miss it? What the hell is going on?
And I want to scream all of that in his face, but then he moves away from me, quickly, telling me he’s going to be sick. He finds a nearby trash can and vomits.
Fearing he’s going to hurt himself or smack his head on a bar underneath the stage and pass out, I follow him. Hovering over a trash can, he looks back at me, and then the can again. He doesn’t get sick again but sinks to the concrete floor, his face in his hands.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
He looks up at me, his eyes so bloodshot, so lost, I gasp. “No.”
I sit down next to him and wrap my arms around my legs, our shoulders touching. “What can I do?”
He presses his forehead against his forearm and shakes his head back and forth. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s crying by the subtle shake of his shoulders. “Just don’t leave me.”
I don’t. I wrap my arms around him and hold him because if I can’t change the look in his eyes, I can at least do this for him.
REALITY COMES CRASHING IN
TAYLAN
I knew the stories were coming after that performance, and though Revel told me not to read them, and broke my phone after I did, I can’t forget what they said about us.
POP PRINCESS GETTING HOT AND HEAVY WITH THE BAD BOY OF ROCK! The surprise performance at Madison Square Garden got a huge reaction from fans, many excited to see their chemistry on stage, but their actions leave most obsessing over if there’s more to their relationship away from the public eye. The question remains, are they together or not?
I take in Revel’s appearance before the show in Denver two nights after our performance at Madison Square Garden. His attitude, his demeanor, it’s all different and a product of the bottle of wine he consumes during the meet and greet. I try to take it away from him, as does Liz, and even Cruz, but I’m beginning to understand that if Revel doesn’t want to listen to you, he won’t.
During the meet and greet, he’s clearly drunk and bordering on obnoxious. He signs a lady’s tits, shoves a male fan away from me when he tries to get a little grabby, and then proceeds to tell another he can suck his dick because he’s not playing “Disturbed” tonight, a song he wrote with Hensley.
I attempt to take the bottle from him once more when the fans are ushered out and it’s just me and his band, and the drunk guy. Revel raises the bottle in the air, his cheeks flushed and smiles. “Let’s celebrate.”
“Celebrate what, bud?” Cruz laughs, running his hand over the back of his neck, clearly done with Revel’s outbursts for the week. Believe me, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to take alcohol away from him, and drugs.
He doesn’t answer Cruz. Instead, he grabs my hand and yanks me toward him and onto his lap, the wine in his other hand. He doesn’t smile. In fact, there’s a hardness to his eyes I haven’t seen in a while. I touch his face, leaning into him. “Maybe it’s time you stop drinking for the day. I think you’ve had enough.” I try again to reach for the bottle.
He pulls it back making a humming sound. “Nobody tells me when I’ve had enough. Not even you, Princess.”
The harshness of his words sink in, but it’s heavy eyes set on mine that holds me in place. For a moment. “Yeah? Well. . . .” I stand, pushing away from him. “You can suck my ginger balls. Nobody talks to me like that either.”
And I walk out of the room, ignoring the looks I get from his bandmates. Bella’s outside the door, wide-eyed and following closely as I storm back to my dressing room. “How much has he had to drink today?”
“Apparently too much,” I bite back, stomping down the hall, my heels angrily clicking against concrete. I should have known he wouldn’t change, for anyone. I didn’t go into this thinking I could chan
ge him either, but I’m beginning to think I might have underestimated his addiction.
“He destroys. He doesn’t know any different.”
Hensley’s words scream inside my mind. That’s what she said to me the other day, and at the moment, my heart wants to scream back at her, “You don’t even know him.”
The reality is, she does know him. She spent five years with him. She knows him and what he’s capable of. I’m only just beginning to see it.
The deafening vibration of thousands of fans screaming at the Pepsi Center in Denver Colorado creates a huge adrenaline rush for both the band and everyone teeming the very edges of the stadium. For Revel beside me, he’s unfazed, and still drinking. It’s been three hours since the meet and greet and none of us have been able to control him. In those three hours, he broke down the door to my dressing room, apologized for being a dick, and then proceeded to throw up for an hour. Then went back to drinking.
I go on stage first where I perform “Black Velvet” that leaves everyone screaming my name as Revved is set to come on. My performance, it’s flawless and erotic. I know how to rock a black dress and seduction when I need to. Why did I choose that song? Because I love it, and if you listen to the lyrics, the original song writer might have been talking about Elvis when he wrote it, but to me, it’s all Revel.
My eyes catch his, heavy on mine when the song just about ends and I strut toward him on the stage, male fans screaming for me to come closer to them in the front row. Nervousness wretches through me when I notice the look in Revel’s eyes. His jaw tightens, his eyes narrowing in on the catwalk of the stage where I was just standing. Without warning, he comes on stage and the initial roar of the crowd intensifies as he causally walks toward me, center stage, and yanks me into him. I stare at him, waiting for the reaction I know is coming. And then he lays probably the most erotic kiss he’s ever given me, let alone in front of thousands of people.
“What are you doing?” I ask, breathing heavy when he pulls back.
Cold dark eyes never reach mine as he whispers, “I should fuck you on that stage so every motherfucker out there knows your mine.” And then he takes the microphone from me and yells, “Keep dreaming fuckers.”
Staring at the crowd, I’m speechless, waiting on their reaction. With a yeah-I-just-did-that smirk, Revel hands me back the mic, flipping the crowd off as he exits the stage.
I smile, finish with my hit song “Love Rewind” and then I too, leave the stage.
Backstage, I find him standing in the shadows, smoking. Cruz looks at me and shrugs, as if to say he doesn’t know what to say.
Part of me wants to slap my hand upside Revel’s head and tell him to knock it off. The other wants another kiss like the one he just gave me. I don’t do either and instead, I stare at Revel once I see him and the rest of the members of Revved getting ready to come on stage. My face heats, my heart doing flip flops with my stomach as I look to Bella, then Revel. There’s a stabbing sensation in my chest as I stand there, waiting, hoping he would apologize or give me an excuse as to why he’s acting like this. He won’t look at me. I want to ask him what that was, why he’s acting like this. What changed? Did I do something? No. . . it doesn’t feel like it’s me. This is him and the alcohol, and drugs, swimming in his veins.
“Revel,” I begin, reaching for his arm when he passes by me.
“Don’t,” he mumbles, his voice an angry warning.
“What are you doing? You’re acting crazy.”
His restless eyes sweep to mine, narrowing in the darkness. “It’s precious.”
“What?”
Smoke billows and eddies around him, twisting in almost an artistic way. He blinks, slowly, his cheeks red, eyes glossy. Never have I seen him look this way before. He can barely stand up, watching me with dark eyes, his breathing heavy, his anger slow, silent, and strong. “The way you think I give a goddamn.”
Did he really just say that to me? His words are a slap to my face. I bite my lip, holding my breath and fighting back the tears I don’t want falling. I won’t let them. Not over this. Not over him being drunk and cruel. “You’re such a dick sometimes.”
He snorts and lifts the strap of his guitar over his shoulders but says nothing in response.
“I think we need to call someone,” Liz tells Patrick, watching Revel reach for his guitar, swaying in the process. “This isn’t going to end well.”
Liz looks about as nervous as I feel, but still, Revel hears none of it and brushes off their attempts to have Cruz take lead vocals tonight.
Smoke machines hiss out a mood for the lights to cut through as they pulse to life. Anticipating the disaster upon us, my heart hurts, each beat harsher than the next. “The fuck he will,” Revel snaps, his eyes livid. “Go fuck yourself,” he mutters in passing, to no one in particular, but it’s next to Breckin who’s standing backstage too, so I don’t know, it could have been directed at him.
Breckin shakes his head, looking over at me. I don’t like the look he gives me. It’s somewhere between vindictive and curious, like he’s planning something. I’ve known him for a long time and I’ve never seen this look.
After the opening riff, Revel glides effortlessly on stage, the initial roar for the band already on stage reaches an entirely different level when Revel staggers into their view holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a mic in the other. The overhead rigs shift into position, blazing with purple light as the pyrotechnics explode.
Just like every other time they perform together, the air in the venue is electric, ripe with sexual tension as Revel entices the audience—teasing, cajoling like only he can. Spellbound, the audience gravitates toward the sheer power and strength of his performance as he changes the tempo and seduces them with his vulnerability, his raw sensuality. As women swoon, delirious with need, he unleashes, driving them to the heady heights of uncontrolled passion, shattering their minds with the final crescendo, then limp with sated desire as only an experienced lover can do. I feel their agony, their craving for more, their devastation as he leaves the stage without a backward glance. Just like he did to me.
Not many artists can successfully pull off “Purple Rain.” It’s not an easy song, but Revel, he’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. The emotion he pours into the lyrics, the way his eyes never leave mine, the way his chest heaves through the chorus, it’s more than I can take. What’s changing between us? I feel it, I know it. I love him, that’s obvious, but as much as I don’t want to see the truth, will Revel Slade ever really let anyone love him?
Part of me thinks I know why he chose that song, but then again, do I?
An hour later, it’s the final performance of the night and we’re in the middle of the song we do with all artists. Somewhere between the chorus of “Pour Some Sugar On Me” Breckin approaches me. I’m covered in whipped cream thanks to Revel, but it’s Breckin’s eyes that stop me in place, his demeanor off when he corners me near the drum riser.
Something pulses inside me, a realization, an inclination of what’s to come, yet I don’t see it. At least not until it’s too late. Breckin smiles vindictively. He touches my arm, my shoulder, my neck, yet I don’t move. He takes his finger, slides it across my chest and licks the whip cream from his finger. I remain rooted in place, silent, unable to react and wondering what the heck he’s doing. And before I can react, he slams his lips to mine.
“Breckin!” I shout, shoving him back away from me, my hand flies to my mouth, wiping away the kiss and the whipped cream from my mouth. “What the hell?”
Pulling me closer, I finally understand his intentions, his motive when he whispers vehemently in my ear, “Do you want me to treat you like he does? Drop to your knees and I’ll treat you like the whore you are.”
Jesus. What’s with men today? Are they all drinking the same wine of idiocy?
Raising my arms, I loosen his grip. “Let me go, asshole!”
I hear the sound before I notice him. Frantic, I search the stage, but all tha
t remains, the broken fragments of his grandfather’s Gibson.
That didn’t happen.
Revel didn’t see it.
I can tell myself that over and over again, but it doesn’t change the fact that he did see it and he has every right to be angry about it.
Here is where my life changes. Again. I never saw it coming, but I guess with change you never see it coming. How can you? If you saw it coming, you might have stopped it, and you don’t fuck with karma and chance.
It starts with a kiss, but it’s going to end so much worse.
There’s fire in Revel’s eyes but his heart, it’s so cold. Clearly out of control, I know now he’s capable of doing something crazy, I’m just not in time to stop him. The fear, it gets the better of me and I begin to cry because I can’t stop him from what he’s about to do. He’s gone too far.
“Rev, stop. Don’t make a scene,” I tell him, rushing toward him and stepping between him and Breckin. The band continues at the orders of the stage managers, despite the commotion on stage and the audience. At this point, they probably think it’s part of the show.
“Get out of the way,” he spits back at me, his eyes on Breckin, rampant and convulsive. But then his callous eyes slide to mine, and I don’t even recognize this guy. “Move. Now, Red.”
“Revel!” Patrick screams from the side-stage, rushing toward him. “Think about this. Walk away.”
Realization hits me of what’s about to happen and where we’re at.
Holy crap. This is bad. Really bad. We’re in the middle of a concert.
“This is suicide. Don’t touch that kid.” Patrick grabs Revel’s face only to be shook away. “He did that on purpose to get a reaction out of you.”
Revel’s eyes never lift from Breckin, intent and intimidating. “Yeah, well, this motherfucker is about to find out what Revved really means.”
