Read Online RANE: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance by Vivian Lux - Free Book Online

heated my skin and sent everything into shadow.
    I was ready.
    "Okay, Maddie, in three, two...."
    I reached down and tried to pull up the emotions I wanted to access. I knew they were there. The rage, the heartache. I was supposed to scream and throw things at Rane, to really let go. The music blared out of the speakers. Taking a deep breath, I started the scene.
    "Cut..." Warlox called before I had really even begun. "Let's try that again? Maddie, I need more."
    I took a shuddering breath and nodded. "Sorry."
    "Take two!"
    Rane raised an eyebrow. I faced him and swallowed, then the music began to pulse around us. There was so much feeling in the wailing guitars, but I felt like I was a dead thing, floating. I lifted my arms through the heavy water, my shouts sounding dully in my ears.
    "Cut!" Warlox yanked off his headphones. "Maddie, honey, I'm not getting what I need here. What's the problem?"
    "No problem." My voice caught. "I'm sorry, I just need to get there."
    Warlox raised a skeptical eyebrow.
    "Please. Just keep rolling." I bowed my head and ignored the embarrassment that roiled quickly through me. I was choking. Why was I choking?
    "Take four!"
    "Take five!"
    "Take nine!"
    "Take fifteen!"
    The music cue began again and again. The world was starting to blur together. I stumbled and sat heavily on the floor.
    "Dammit," Dee snarled, yanking off her headphones.
    From off in the wings, I heard a sharp whisper and a knowing laugh.
    My worst fears were coming true.
    I really had lost it. I was the loser everyone said I was. No talent washed up hack. I wanted to cry, but couldn't.
    "Can you keep rolling?" I whispered, pleading.
    "No. Cut." Rane stepped in front of me, shielding me from Dee's scorn. "We're taking a break."
    The authority in his voice made everyone scuttle off. I looked up at him through the haze of my failure and blinked.
    He turned and crouched in front of me. Gray eyes, dark stubble, full bottom lip...and brows knitted in concern. "Maddie."
    "I just need another take," I insisted, shaking my head. The way he looked at me was making me come apart at the seams.
    "Let go," Rane whispered, so low I barely heard him.
    "What?"
    He stood up again and yanked me to my feet. Dazed, I let him take me gently by the upper arm and lead me to a quiet corner.
    "Mads," he said quietly.
    I couldn't look at him. Those gray eyes on my skin were too intense.
    "Look at me, Maddie."
    I looked up. My breath caught when I saw him staring down at me, and when our eyes met, his grin spread like sunshine across his face. " There you are."
    "What?"
    He shifted and lowered his voice to a murmur. "Let go. I've seen what you can do. You're amazing. Stop holding on to it and just let yourself go nuts."
    Confused tears swam in front of my eyes before I blinked them hastily away. "What?" I repeated.
    He looked down, his face suddenly angry for some reason I didn't understand. "Quit the prim and proper bullshit," he snarled. "That isn't you. Let yourself go and that's how you'll get the shot."
    "How the fuck do you know who I am?"
    "The girl? In the bed yesterday? That was you. Not this," he gestured at me, "cold fish."
    I felt myself flush hot. "I'm not a cold fish. And you have no idea who I am."
    "I think I do." His lips were too close to mine. My lips wanted his, felt bare without them. Heat flowed through my body, followed swiftly by red-hot anger.
    With a sharp pop in my ears, something inside of me snapped. There was heat and then a slippery sideways slide...
    And then everything I didn't know I was holding back came up. All of the unnamed, frightening emotions crested in a wave that I rode upward and outward.  I was a tornado, a wildfire, and as I stared Rane down, I wanted to shove him, then bury my hands in his hair and bruise his lips with mine.
    He was watching this...cataclysm. "Yes," he said, guttural and rasping.
    "Fuck you," I growled. I wanted to scratch my nails down that bare chest and yank his jeans down. I wanted to see