Rock Kiss 03 Rock Redemption(87)

So do push-ups or sit-ups until you exhaust yourself enough to catch some shut-eye, he ordered himself. Do not screw this up.

“You know there’s a Dancing with the Stars special on tonight, right?”

He groaned, his worry about sleep momentarily erased. “You’re really going to make me watch?”

She bumped him with her shoulder. “I’m inviting. If you’d rather do something else, I don’t care.”

Laughing at her fake-insulted tone, he said, “Since when are you passive-aggressive?”

A wink as she grabbed a packet of frozen blueberries from the freezer and poured a handful into a bowl. “This is war.” She held up the bag. “You want some?”

The invitation made his breath get all hard and jagged inside him. He’d never eaten frozen blueberries before Kit introduced him to what was one of her favorite desserts. And now here he was again, being given a second chance. “No, I’m good.” Trying to breathe normally, he followed her to the lounge, sprawling beside her as she took a seat on the sofa with her legs curled under her.

Since she hadn’t told him to stop doing it, he stretched out his arm along the back of the sofa and played with her hair.

Reaching back, she tugged off her hair tie so that the fall of silken strands cascaded over his hand. “You sure you don’t want a blueberry or three?”

“You twisted my arm.” He twined her hair around his fingers. “Gimme.”

She popped a couple into his mouth. Their eyes connected.

The intro to the show came on a second later, breaking the incipient tension of the sweetly intimate moment.

Noah had never had so much fun watching random famous and semi-famous people try to dance. He had to admit he had a new and serious respect for a few of them for putting themselves out there, but mostly he was horrified. “Spandex? Wasn’t that made illegal like two decades ago?”

Elbowing him, Kit spluttered with laughter. “Stop it.”

“Fuck me, he’s wearing sequins.”

“Rock stars have been known to wear sequins.”

“No rock star in his right mind has ever worn sequins in that—” His mouth fell open. “Is that a codpiece? For real?” Snorting, he said, “No way except in his dreams is his dick that big. He’s probably got two bananas in there.”

Face going red as she tried to hold in laughter, Kit ended up against him. He curled his arm around her, realizing he didn’t have to fight his need. She’d said they could try, and he liked having Kit’s warm, laughing body next to his.

She stayed against him, and every so often when he made a particularly deplorable comment, she’d lightly hit his thigh and tell him to behave. Every other time a woman had touched his thigh, it had been about sex. The first couple of times Kit did it, he tensed, but then it was okay. It was Kit and they were watching a silly show on television that she inexplicably liked. It was normal.

He hadn’t been normal for a long time.





Chapter 27


Kit worried about Noah when they headed to bed, but she didn’t want to push him on the sleep issue after the disaster with the pills. Not to mention she didn’t want to end his first day here with a fight. Smiling good night, she spent an hour awake and worrying before finally drifting off—only to wake three hours later. It took her sleep-muddled brain a minute to realize what had woken her: noises from Noah’s room.

Getting up, she pulled on her blue robe and went out to look for him. His door was open, but there was no Noah inside. A whisper of wind along the hallway told her where he’d gone. She padded to the door that led out into the garden, found him sitting on the outdoor bench in his boxer briefs, his head between his hands and his elbows on his thighs. She could see his face in the soft light from the solar-powered paper lanterns she’d hung out there.

The naked anguish in his expression threatened to break her.

Pulling back before he saw her, she pressed her spine against the wall, swallowing repeatedly and blinking in an attempt to get the burning in her eyes under control. Only when she was no longer in danger of breaking down did she step out. “Can’t sleep?”

His head jerked up. “Shit. I woke you.”

“Want to go for a run?”

He stared at her. “It’s two thirty in the morning.”

“So?” Turning to go back into the house, she said, “I’m getting changed.”

“You hate running.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”

He knocked on her bedroom door half a minute after she’d closed it. “Kit, it’s fine.”

Having already pulled out her running shorts, she opened the door. “Noah, we’re in this together. You watched Dancing with the Stars with me. I’ll go running with you. Now go get changed.” She shut the door in his face.