Page 29 of Reverb

I raised my gaze to find his eyes on mine.

“Maplethorpe.” That word, said in his low growl. My heart stuttered behind my ribs.

His pupils went dark for a second, and then his brows drew down in a scowl. He suddenly looked enraged. He grasped my arm in his big hand and tugged me into the dressing room, closing the door behind me.

“You’ve been crying,” he said.

“No, I haven’t.”

“For fuck’s sake.” He pressed me back against the dressing room table—I barely had time to take in a chair, a mirror, a small sofa—and got into my space. I could smell him now, a leather and warm-skin smell. A black leather jacket was thrown over the back of the chair. In the light from the lamp on the table, he looked more closely into my face.

“What happened?” he said. It sounded like annoyance, but I knew it was concern.

“I’m fine,” I protested.

“You’re not.” He reached for my glasses and gently removed them, placing them on the table so he could more clearly see my red eyes. “You’ve been fucking crying. Did someone say something to you? Do something? Tell me, Maplethorpe. Spill.”

He was so close. My blood was pounding in my ears. “Stone,” I managed.

His thumb, rough from playing guitar, brushed the corner of my eye. “Who did this?”

I couldn’t think. I was suffocating in his presence, and there was a thudding in my temples, an answering beat between my legs. His own mood seemed to be as wild as mine. I scrambled for the first words I could find. “You did.”

He went very still, his hand on my face, his eyes on mine. He was so close I could hear the intake of his breath. Everything between us cracked, like a pane of glass that had given way after weeks of strain. There were only shards between us, then nothing. For the first time, nothing at all.

“Fuck,” he murmured.

Then he cupped my face more securely in his hand, leaned in, and kissed me.

I expected it. I wanted it. And still I felt the shock of it, the feel of Stone against me for the first time. I was terrified and turned on at once. My logical brain said this couldn’t be happening, and my body said that it definitely was. I leaned in, curled a hand around the back of his neck, and kissed him harder.

Stone’s kiss was intent, deliberate, just on the edge of harsh. He explored my mouth, tasting me, slick and strong, but he didn’t grab me. He didn’t have to. Even without his hands on me, my body flushed hot all over, as if he already had me naked.

I’d never been kissed like this before. Not even close. I was wild for him. I pressed my body into his, seeking him, and he responded by running his big hand down my back, resting it on my ass over my jeans as he kissed me. His palm was hot, and I could feel it through my clothes, though his grip wasn’t pushy or insistent. He just let his hand stay there like it belonged.

Alarm bells went off in my head. If I wasn’t careful, I’d do something completely crazy, like beg him for sex right here, like undo his jeans and shove my hand inside, like—

I broke the kiss, taking my mouth reluctantly from his. “We need to talk,” I gasped.

Stone made a sound in his throat that was a lot like frustration. How frustrated could he be? It wasn’t like he’d thought of doing this with me before a few minutes ago. Maybe it was just the pre-show tension. But he removed his hand from my ass and his other hand from my jaw. He gave me a few inches of room, no more. I watched him drop his gaze and bite his lip for a second. Then he said, “What is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”

I took hold of my spinning thoughts. “I talked to Darren Pinsent on the phone this afternoon.”

I had never seen anything like Stone’s reaction to those words. He shut down—there was no other way to say it. I watched as his shoulders squared, his spine straightened, and his gaze went distant. He stepped back.

“I figured it out,” I said, filling his silence with words. “Gardens on Mars. The line from the song. That led me to Darren, and he agreed to an interview. He told me everything, Stone. Everything that happened in L.A. Everything that happened with—with Chase.”

At the sound of his friend’s name, Stone closed his eyes. He looked, in that moment, like a man bearing a tremendous amount of pain, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “Fuck you, Maplethorpe,” he said. “Fuck you.”

“I was trying to write about you!” My voice threatened to crack. “I was trying to learn about you! That’s the assignment. You wouldn’t talk to me, so I figured it out. That’s the job, Stone. You may not like it, but that’s the job.”

Stone opened his eyes again, and their expression was cold with anger. “That’s the job, is it?”

“Yes, it is! That experience is part of who you are. It’s part of what made you, made the Road Kings. And when Darren said what happened with your stepfather, I realized—”

“Oh, my god.” His voice was a low roar. He turned away from me, paced the room, turned back. “Is that what you wanted? All this time? The shit that happened in my childhood?”

I stared at him, speechless.

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