Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights 1)

“We can wait over there!” Kin screamed in my ear.

I could only nod, knowing I wouldn’t be heard over the roar of the crowd, as well as the band currently playing on stage. My hands were clammy, but Kin didn’t seem to notice or she didn’t care, as she linked our hands and tugged me past the security team that stood between the crowd and the stage.

We were out of sight of the band performing, which was a good thing because, if Jace had really been looking, he would have seen us. As much as I knew that guy had been missing his girl, I knew he would have said fuck the rest of Tainted Knights’ set and jumped down to get Kin. So, even though we knew we couldn’t be seen, we still ducked down behind the huge security guys as we climbed the steps to backstage.

Once there, she released me and took a peek through the huge black tarps that covered up the steel frames of the stage. She was so excited to see Jace she was practically dancing. I couldn’t seem to find that kind of enthusiasm.

What if Kale decided he didn’t want to wait for me to figure everything out?

What if he hadn’t missed me as much as I had missed him?

What if …?

There were a million what ifs rolling through my head. Regardless, I couldn’t wait another day to find out if those what ifs were real or not.

It had taken me three days after I had gotten home from the hospital to figure out that being sick had really fucked with my head. I had been so out of it that it had screwed up everything, and I’d been too deep in the fog to see clearly.

To see that Kale was the good guy I knew he was all along.

To see that he wouldn’t have cheated. Why would he? He cared about me. I knew he did. Maybe he hadn’t told me he loved me until the week before, but he had shown me in a hundred different ways. The fifty plus texts he would send a day. The voicemails he would leave just to tell me random things and to hear my voice on the stupid recorded message. It had been in the way he had talked to me until the middle of the night just so I could go to sleep with his voice being the last thing I heard.

I hadn’t needed a private hospital suite or those exquisite flowers he had given me to show me that he was the man I should be spending the rest of my life with.

All I had needed was those simple three words he had been texting me every night since he left me.

I love you.

They were my favorite words in the entire world. So simple. So fucking powerful.

Now, as I stood backstage, waiting for the five Tainted Knights guys to wrap up their set, I wanted to run on stage and jump Kale’s bones. I wanted to scream to the world that I loved him. At the same time, I wanted to run in the opposite direction because I was terrified that I had fucked it a

ll up by sending him away.

Not knowing was better than the knowing … right?

No. No, it definitely wasn’t better.

Kin turned toward me, her smile so radiant it was a wonder she didn’t give our location away backstage. “It’s almost time,” I thought she said as she bounced up and down on her toes.

I swallowed my nervousness and moved in closer beside her.

Shifting the tarp to the side, I looked out onto the stage. The lights were hot and brighter than the sun at midday. They flashed from white to red to blue to green then back to white and began the whole kaleidoscope of colors all over again. The lights felt like the heartbeat to the song, shifting to the rhythm.

Cash was only a few feet away, on his bass, while Sin was on the other side of the stage. In the middle was Gray with his guitar, but he was so into his music he didn’t seem to notice the crowd that were losing their minds as they rocked out with them. Meanwhile, Jace was all over the place. I didn’t know how he could sing and run around the stage, interacting with the crowd and his band and remember the words to every song. The crowd was eating it up, singing along with them and screaming for more.

I took all of them in within a few seconds before my eyes were going to the only person I was dying to see.

When I had seen him performing at First Bass, I’d been enthralled. Right then, he was covered in sweat, beating his drums to a rhythm that made my heart race. His hair was soaked, droplets flying through the air as he lost himself to the music, shaking his head wildly.

As I watched, a drumstick went sailing through the air, and people in the middle of the front rows became hysterical as they fought over who had caught it. Kale never paused. He had an entire case of drumsticks right beside him, and he pulled out another one and kept playing.

He looked good. Sexier than I had ever seen him. However, there was something about his face. Something was off, but I couldn’t see him clear enough to decipher at first.

The joy that I had seen on his face at First Bass was absent. He was completely into the music, but his heart wasn’t there.

Regret filled me. All I wanted to do was run out there and beg him to forgive me. I shouldn’t have waited so long. I should never have sent him away in the first place. My nerves were pushed to the back of my head. All I could think about was making this better, making it up to him.

Telling him I love him.