The Rockstar I’ve Loved for So Long Read Online Free Page B

unable to say. Terror – the paralyzing fear of rejection – had negated her ability to speak and all she could do was look at him and plead with her eyes.
    After what she had learned from Ariadne, she didn’t care about what she had seen – what millions of people had seen. They thought they knew and understood what was going on, but they didn’t. Even she didn’t – hadn’t – known the truth. And now that she did, Bree no longer cared that he still hadn’t said sorry or that - if it was up to Dylan – he would never ask her to take him back.
    When he didn’t speak, tension apparent in his profile, Bree knew it was up to her to take the next step. There was no guarantee that he wouldn’t say no. Now that she understood where he was coming from, she knew that all these years he had been trying his hardest to distance himself from her.
    Swallowing, she whispered, “Dylan, could you please—”
    When he swore, it was like a knife in her heart and she was unable to speak. He was going to rebuff her. He didn’t want her. She lowered her head, not wanting him to see how his refusal was killing her.
    She struggled to breathe, struggled to be strong and figure out how to survive.
    “Bree?”
    Oh God, he was standing right in front of her!
    What did he want now? To twist the knife in deeper? Wanted her to see up close how unwilling he was to take a risk on her—
    “Bree, please.”
    She shook her head without raising her gaze to meet his. “No.”
    “Bree—” His voice broke.
    It undid her, the way he sounded like he needed her more than she needed him. Slowly, she lifted her gaze—
    In the next second, he was kissing her. 
    Dylan was kissing her.
    The rock star she had loved so long was kissing her.
    With a shaky sob, Bree wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. 

 
    Chapter Four
     
    Her first kiss.
    It seemed ironic that in the four years she had been in the company of the world’s most promiscuous rock star, Bree was only having her first kiss now.
    But she wasn’t complaining – not when it was Dylan giving Bree her first kiss.
    His hands cupped her face like she was the most precious thing he had ever held. His lips were warm as they covered hers again and again, each kiss deeper and lovelier than the rest.
    Dylan was still shaking, a part of him still reeling from the reality of having Bree in his arms. After everything he had done, she was still here. After everything, she had come to him—
    He lifted his head to look down at her. “Bree…”
    She looked up at him like he was everything she had wished for, and it made Dylan want to curse again – wanted to curse himself because, goddammit, he wanted that to be true.
    But it wasn’t.
    “I love you.”
    She started to cry.
    He wanted to wipe the tears from her eyes, wanted to kiss them away, wanted to promise that everything was going to be all right again. But he did not. Because he was a bastard, would always be a bastard, and he needed her to understand that.
    “Dylan, I—”
    “No. I need to…”
    “I know.”
    The words rendered him immobile, the meaning behind it throwing Dylan into an abyss of the darkest memories – the kind that he had spent so many years trying to bury into obscurity.
    Bree forced herself to meet his gaze even if it meant that for just a few seconds, she would need to unman him, forcing him to face the truth of his past. “I know…I know that when you were young, your mother forced you and your dad to watch her…”
    Her words slashed him, forcing Dylan to once more face the hideous truth of his past. 
    In that instant, he was no longer Dylan Charbonneau, the rock star every girl loved and the rock star who loved every girl who came his way.
    In that instant, he was young Dylan, forced by dysfunctional parents to learn – to fucking experience – just how repulsive adultery could be.
    A father with a borderline obsession…
    A mother with schizophrenia…
    It was a match made in hell and he