Page 86 of First Verse

As Mack is fond of saying: “You make the cake, we serve it.”

There are countless live streams. Radio and podcast interviews. A performance on a local morning television show. Surprise pop-up concerts in parks that inadvertently close neighboring streets and earn us citations. Within days of sending advanced copies ofFatalismto industry professionals, Mack and Shelly are flooded with interview requests from all over the country and as far away as France and Japan.

One week from release, our final and most commercially viable single, “End Times,” drops. The accompanying music video—a trippy, apocalyptic mini-film—explodes the internet. When our soft-merch store launches the same day, it sells out within an hour. Preorders for a special edition vinyl sell out as well, and preorders for the standard vinyl go through the roof.

Three days before release, the most storied music magazine of all time does a feature on us predicting at least one Grammy nomination this fall.

The final Friday of April,Fatalismreleases to the world.

In lieu of a standard launch party—which I vetoed months ago as it’s the stuff of my nightmares—Saturday night we perform a release concert at the only venue in Seattle that isn’t a stadium.

Eight thousand screaming fans greet us and carry us through the best set of our lives. And when I follow my bandmates into the greenroom after the show and see Evangeline waiting for me?

I’ve never experienced a comparable joy.

In this moment, there’s no darkness at all. Only the welcome weight of her body when she jumps into my arms with a happy squeal. The impact of my shoulder with the doorframe as I clip it rushing back out of the room. The knowing laughter and whistles from the guys and our crew. The heat of Evangeline’s cheek as she presses it to mine, as she squeezes me tighter.

“You were amazing,” she whispers against my ear.

“That was nothing compared to what I’m about to do to you,” I murmur back.

In the smallest of the three dressing rooms, the door locked behind us, we’re a storm of moving hands and sucking kisses and gasping groans. She undoes my belt, yanks my zipper down, and tugs my pants and underwear off my hips. I pull up her skirt and rip down her tights, then cup the wet heat between her legs. She wraps her hands around my dick and pumps me as I kiss my way from one side of her neck to the other.

“Wilder,” she moans. “I need you.”

“Such a slut for me,” I rumble into her soft throat.

She squeezes my dick. I bite her neck in retaliation and grin when arousal soaks my hand. Sinking two fingers inside her, I pump them slowly. My thumb makes equally slow circles around her clit.

“I love your angry little growls,” I say as I nip her earlobe. “Frustrated kitten, aren’t you? You want something thicker? Harder? Faster?”

She growls louder. “I’m going to kill you if you don’t fuck me right now.”

Chuckling darkly, I pull my fingers from her body. Before she can protest, I spin her around and bend her over an empty catering table. The tights bunched above her boots have the happy consequence of keeping her legs together. Her perfect ass lifts, providing a mouthwatering view of her dripping pink center.

She wiggles teasingly—the resulting crack of my hand on one pale cheek is shockingly loud.

For a long second, she freezes. Then she moans and thrusts her ass back in the air. “Again.”

“Fuck,” I hiss, watching the shape of my hand form in red on her pale skin. “No more foreplay for you. Arms up. Grab the table.”

She immediately seizes the edge above her head. I spank her other cheek. She yelps, then writhes. “Wilder.Please.”

I line myself up and press the head of my cock inside her. The angle and her bound legs make it an almost impossibly tight fit. By the time I’m a few inches inside, we’re both panting.

Bending over her, I growl, “Give me your mouth.”

She twists her head to meet my kiss, our tongues tangling, our breaths interspersed with moans and whispers of, “I love you.”

I start rolling my hips, my rhythm controlled and agonizingly slow. Every inch of me her body accepts feels like both victory and surrender. As with every time I’m inside her, I imagine more of my soul sliding into her possession. When our bodies are finally flush, powerful shivers rack my spine. I fight to stay still, ignoring the hammering voice of my need.Take. Possess. Defile. Mark.

I focus instead on Evangeline. She’s perfectly still, her breaths shallow, her eyes tightly closed. Her teeth press deeply into her bottom lip, her fingers bleached with tension where they grip the table.

I press a shaky kiss to her temple. “Do you want me to pull out? Make you come first?”

She shakes her head. I almost smile at her stubbornness.

“Just… talk to me,” she whispers.

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