Page 29 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Mr. Scott, the music teacher who originally taught me to play when I was a kid, gave me the mechanics of playing a guitar. The bare facts. Hold your fingershereto create this sound. Pluckhereto make this sound. Now strum likethisto create rhythm. What he didn’t give me was the longing in my veins whenever I heard something beautiful being played. That was already inside me. Over the years, I’ve relied on YouTube to find talented guitarists who made me feel that way when they played. I watched and I studied them, pausing, replaying, my fingers stumbling over the strings, until I finally figured out how they made their instruments sing and then I made mine sing along.
I have never seen someone make a guitar weep in person, the way Alex makes the scuffed, ancient old guitar inhishands weep, though, and the sight is breathtaking.
His posture is terrible, back badly bent over the guitar, head turned to one side as he listens intently to the music pouring from his fingertips. Mr. Scott always used to chide me if my back wasn’t ramrod straight, my head up, eyes forward instead of down on the strings. It’s clear that Alex isn’t watching what his hands are doing to ensure he hits the right strings. His finger picking and his fretwork are flawless. He’s watching his hands, as if he’s following along with them on a journey and the music is painting a picture that he wants to witness as it comes into being.
And the music itself...
God.
Dark. Rough. Complex and quiet in places, brash and furious in others. The ebb and flow of the melody isn’t what I’d call beautiful to the ear. It’s more than that. Better. It pulls at me, sinking its claws down deep into my bones, possessing me in a way that only happens once or twice in a lifetime if you’re lucky.
I forget to breathe as I watch him create his masterpiece. It dawns on me as he closes his eyes, straightening up, tilting his head back, the flow of the music darkening, lowering down into a frenzy of dark, bassy, frenetic notes, that this musicisAlex. It describes every part of him so perfectly that I realize he isn’t just playing a song for me. He’s showing me who he is, sharing himself with me in the most intimate, moving, personal way he knows how.
I set my guitar down, propping it up against the wall by the window, planning on closing my eyes so I can focus on nothing but the music. I can’t do it, though. Alex has to beseenlike this. The tattoos on the backs of his hands shift as his fingers fly up and down the strings—a rose and a wolf, performing in concert, one asking a question and the other answering without skipping a single beat. His dark hair has fallen into his face once again, obscuring his features, but I catch the charcoal outline of his eyelashes against his cheeks, the tiny frown line between his brows, the white flash of his front teeth gouging into his bottom lip, and each individual feature makes my heart surge.
He’s easily the hottest guy I have ever laid eyes on. No question of that. But like this, with a guitar in his hands, playing like he’s been possessed, he is more than just a man. He’s a force of nature, a storm trapped inside a glass bottle, raging and desperate to get out, and I can’t fucking look away.
The music rises, rises, rises, more frantic with every second. Just like the other night in the guest bedroom, he has me by the throat and it feels like he’ssqueezing. I press my legs together, my nipples throbbing painfully, unable to sit still. I’m so turned on by what I’m seeing, what I’m hearing, that I don’t actually think I can stand it for another second—
The music ends abruptly, cutting off on a discordant, jangling note.
I gasp out loud.
It feels as though I’ve just misstepped, distracted, and I’ve just walked off the edge of a cliff. I have to firmly press my palms against the tops of my thighs to stop myself from wobbling on the stool. Alex opens his eyes, brushes his hair back with a casual sweep of his hand, and then arches a sardonic, amused eyebrow at me, smiling like the very devil himself. “What? No standing ovation?” he murmurs. Fuck, his voice is like gravel, rough and raw, just like the music he just severed from his body. My ears are fucking ringing.
“So damn arrogant, Alessandro Moretti,” I rebuke, but I’m breathless, my voice uneven and feverish. He can hear the effect he’s had on me. He bites back a smile, turning the guitar over in his hands, looking down at it for a second appreciatively before he sets it to one side, leaning it against mine. Next second, he’s on his feet and closing the already narrow gap between us. I shiver as he cups my face in his hands, tilting my head back so that I have to look at him.
He's a towering masterpiece in a Kings of Leon t-shirt and holy fuck do I want to climb him. He breathes deeply and then sighs, angling his own head to one side as he studies my features. “Well? What do you think? Was it okay?” He sounds curious now. Intrigued. Genuinely interested to hear what I thought. What a ridiculous thing to ask; his question is akin to Mozart asking Justin Bieber if he thinks ‘Rondo Alla Turca’is any fucking good. I’m basically nowhere near qualified to answer.
“Ahh. Y’know. It was all right.”
Alex grins like a fiend. “All right?”
“Yeah.All right.”
He nods, still smiling broadly, running his tongue over his teeth. “You’re a harsh critic,Argento. I’ll have to do better next time.”
If he does any better, he’s going to set the fucking world alight. I can’t find the words to tell him this, though. His smile fades from his face, a serious look taking the place of his amusement. “Why are we here,Argento? You haven’t been up here since…”
Since the shooting. Since Alex hurried me inside the sound booth and told me to lock the door behind me. He’s right. I haven’t been up here since that day. I was scared out of my mind when Jacob, Cillian and Sam held me down and forced themselves on me, but that fear didn’t even come close to the fear I felt in that sound booth. I wasn’t just afraid for myself, then. I was terrified for Alex, so petrified something would happen to him that it felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown behind that insulated, reinforced door.
Measuring my words, weighing each one, I explain why I wanted him to meet me here, in a place that now feels haunted by dark memories. “I figured it was time to reclaim the space. After everything that happened with Jacob, I used to come and play here during my free periods. It was a sanctuary. I want it to feel that way again. Plus, I’m going to have to start teaching after school again soon, and I won’t be able to do a good job if I’m on the brink of a panic attack every time I step foot through the door now, will I?”
Alex nudges my knee with his leg. “You can take your time, though. No need to rush everything all at once. If you’re not comfortable here…”
I look around, taking in the sheet music tacked to the cork board, the scales chalked onto the board, the brass music stands in a regimented line against the opposite wall, and I’m surprised when I reach an unexpected conclusion. “Hmm. Really. I’m okay. Being here hasn’t affected me the way I thought it would. I thought we could eat lunch here, since it’s too cold for the bleachers. You hungry?”
The concern on Alex’s face transforms into something altogether different. Something mischievous and Machiavellian. “Oh, Silver. You havenoidea how hungry I am.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s he’s not hungry for the pastrami sandwich I made for him this morning and packed in my bag. A hot blush creeps up my neck, a shiver of anticipation chasing down my spine. It’s criminal that he can make me feel this way with nothing more than ten little words. In fairness, I was already turned on by the sight and sound of him coaxing that tempest out of the guitar, but still…
“Huh. Sounds to me like someone’s mind’s in the gutter. I’m surprised,” I say airily.
Alex fastens his bottom lip between his teeth again, pinning his flesh there for a second. He’s biting down hard enough that his lip has turned white. In one casual, possessive move, he reaches out and palms one of my breasts through my t-shirt, growling at the back of his throat. “And why is that?” he muses. “Let me think for a second. Could it be that you wanted me to hurt you the other night, and I haven’t touched you since?” I suck in a sharp breath when he jerks my shirt down over my shoulder—the shoulder that bears the bruised wound where his teeth broke my skin. His eyes are hard, appraising and unreadable as he considers the half-healed mark. I let out another surprised gasp when he yanks my bra strap down, shoving the lacy cup of my bra out of the way, and he frees my breast altogether. My skin burns under his ravenous gaze more than it does against the cold air of the room.
“Yes,” I admit. “I thought you were mad at me.”
His dark eyes seem bottomless as they bore into me. “And why would I be angry with you?”
