Read an exclusive excerpt from Behind the Bars by Brittainy C. Cherry, the first standalone in the Music Street series!
About ‘Behind the Bars’ by Brittainy C. Cherry:
When I first met Jasmine Greene, she came in as raindrops.
I was the awkward musician, and she was the high school queen.
The only things we had in common were our music and our loneliness.
Something in her eyes told me her smile wasn’t always the truth.
Something in her voice gave me a hope I always wished to find.
And in a flash, she was gone.
Years later, she was standing in front of me on a street in New Orleans.
She was different, but so was I. Life made us colder. Harder. Isolated.
Caged.
Even though we were different, the broken pieces of me recognized the sadness in her.
Now she was back, and I wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her go again.
When I first met Jasmine Greene, she came in as raindrops.
When we met again, she was the darkest storm.
‘Behind the Bars’ by Brittainy C. Cherry exclusive excerpt:
Elliott, Age 22
Her eyes were heavy, and she pulled on my shirt. “No, let’s do it here,” she begged, pleading for me to take her right then and there. Her hands wandered down to my crotch, and I eased them back up higher.
“Jasmine.” I grimaced. “You’re drunk.”
“Please, Eli. Please…I want you,” she whispered, slowly starting to unbutton my shirt. “Don’t you want to feel me, taste me, have me?”
God, yes.
My body reacted to every touch she gave me, craving her in every imaginable way. There were so many nights I’d imagined what it would be like to be on top of her, beneath her, behind her, inside… Jasmine was everything I’d ever dreamed of, physically, mentally, and emotionally. She was the one I wanted at the beginning of each day and at the end of each night, but she wasn’t ready.
“Come on, Elliott,” she said softly against my ear. “Please?”
I took a breath.
No.
She wasn’t in her right frame of mind. She couldn’t truthfully express what she needed. She was only there offering me the physical when I needed the total package. I needed Jasmine—mind, body, and spirit.
I needed her to be fully aware of what she was doing.
Otherwise, the sex would be just like all the other men she’d been with in the past—hollow.
“We can’t,” I told her as her lips grazed my neck. My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and my skin crawled as she touched me. “Jazz, don’t.”
“Just…please, Eli…”
“No.” I finally forced myself away from her. I shot myself across the room and shook off the effects of the drug she’d forced into my being. “We can’t.”
“Why?” she asked, clearly embarrassed, though she tried to hide it with a fake confidence. “I know you want me.”
“I do.”
“Then why won’t you sleep with me?” she questioned. “Why won’t you fuck me?”
“Because I care about you.”
Her eyes glassed over and she shook her head. She then said the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard in my life. “People don’t care about me, Elliott. People just take pieces of me and then throw the rest away.”
In that moment, I witnessed the storm behind her eyes.
How long had it been there?
How long had it been building in her heart?
She lied about being happy because it was easier than acknowledging how sad she’d become. Some days it was better to lie than to face the darkest truths.
Her heart was broken, and I hated that I hadn’t noticed until she was drunkenly stumbling around in front of me.
She pressed her body against mine and begged me to touch her, to love her, to pretend I didn’t see the storm dancing behind that chocolate gaze, but I saw it. I saw her, and it broke my fucking heart.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
“No.”
“Fuck me,” she begged.
“I can’t.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she started pounding her hands against my chest. “I hate you!” she shouted. She hit me harder and harder. I held my hands up and let her hit me, because I knew it wasn’t me she was shouting at. It wasn’t me she was hitting; it was the demons she pretended weren’t even there. Alcohol had a way of doing that—pulling out the parts of you that you didn’t want to see.
After a few more seconds of pounding, her anger shifted to pain. She started crying softly at first, and then she slipped into heavy sobs. Her hits slowed down, and she fell against my chest. She started pulling on my shirt, and my hands were still in the air. As she cried, I wanted nothing more than to be her comfort. I wanted nothing more than to wrap up all her hurts and put them into my own soul.
“Tell me what you want, Jasmine. I’m here. Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Hold me?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Love me,” she begged.
Always.
Behind the Bars by Brittainy C. Cherry will be released on December 7! Pre-order now from Amazon and add it to your Goodreads!
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