Rock Reclaimed (Rock Revenge Trilogy 2)

“Yes. That’s my camera’s name.”

His laugh was delighted and carefree. “Only you.” He pointed the camera down at me. “It seems fitting that I get a picture since you took quite a few of me. And painted even more.”

“No way, dude.”

He snapped two and pocketed the Polaroids before leaning back, still holding my wrists. “You’re so stupid beautiful.”

I laughed. “Mom didn’t teach you how to give a compliment?”

His grin slowly faded. “Not really.”

My chest tightened. You really earned that stupid now, girl. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

I tried not to dig into his past, but the urge to Google him was too hard to resist. Especially when there were alerts about him every five minutes on the music blogs, vlogs, and tabloids.

Everyone wanted to know about the elusive Ian Kagan.

He didn’t like to give interviews. He especially didn’t like to talk about his life in England. He only cared about his music and his future. His past was basically off limits to the press so of course they kept digging—and kept speculating.

And I was the drug addict reading all of the articles.

But the one thing that came out of all the stories was that he was used to being alone. Right now, I didn’t want him to be. He’d been there for me, and now I wanted to be something he needed. Even if it was just a laugh-filled afternoon—if that was all we had.

Based on his phone call, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be much more than that.

I sat up enough that I could lay my cheek against his chest. He let my hands free and froze as I wrapped my arms around him.

“Don’t pity me, Zoe.”

I tipped up my head. His eyes were blank. The changeable green had lost its sparkle, leaving them a little duller. But his face was all severe lines and pent-up…something. Anger. Sadness. No, it was simply a void. As if he’d crawled into his own head and blocked me out completely.

I wouldn’t have that.

Not today.

I slid my hands up the fascinating ridges and dents of muscle along his back. He stayed hovering over me, his thigh muscles rigid with trying to hold back. Determined to break through to him, I sipped from his skin. I slid out from the bridge of his legs to kneel in front of him so we were face to face.

He didn’t look away the entire time. He watched me with that unwavering stare like he was trying to figure me out. Curiosity bled into the void slowly. I ducked my head to taste the lines of his collarbone, over to his shoulder and down his arm to the scar on his inner forearm.

He jumped and jerked away, but I grabbed him again and lightly trailed my tongue over the ridges and bumps of the heavy scar tissue. Not just one scar. Endless re-scarring layered over the first one.

My heart ached for the kind of pain living inside of him that would manifest into more. Self-inflicted? Or whoever had hurt him kept doing it over and over again? Something inside me told me it was the former.

The way he touched it absently seemed too familiar.

I made a lazy trail over his forearm as he flexed under my touch. He tried to shake me off, but I wouldn’t be deterred. It felt important to let him know I didn’t care about the scars on his outside. That maybe he would someday allow me to see the ones that were surely inside of him too.

My vision blurred as I found the silvery hatched scars over his wrist. Oh, he’d tried to hide them with the chunky beads of bracelets and layered strings. But I knew what these were. I kissed them without making a big deal out of them.

They were part of him.

If he wanted to tell me about them one day, I’d listen. But for now, I just gave him the only comfort I knew how to show. When I got to the palm of his hand, I straightened, wrapping my fingers around his to kiss his knuckles.

The bruises and cuts were mostly gone from the day he’d fought for me. I could still see the rage behind his eyes when he went after Whitey and Theory. There’d been no fear inside him, although both men had outweighed him by a good thirty pounds each.

I placed his hand on my chest, under the gauzy fabric of my shirt. I needed him skin to skin with me.

Even more than just his hand.