Page 69 of Claimed By the Rockstars: Part One
The melody is haunting, something I don't recognize but feels familiar anyway, like déjà vu wrapped in minor chords.
"Just grabbing my shit so I can move to Rafael's room," I say, moving toward where I left my bag near his massive desk. My skin prickles like I'm walking through a lion's cage.
"Hm." He doesn't look up from the guitar, but I feel his attention tracking me as I gather my belongings. The few clothes I brought, my laptop, the charger I'd plugged in by his bed.
My hands shake slightly as I shove everything into my bag. Not from fear—well, not fear of Rex anyway. It's the thought of leaving this room with its reinforced door and multiple locks and cameras that watch every approach. Rafael's room won't have any of that. Just a regular door with a regular lock that anyone could get through if they really wanted to.
If mystalkerreally wanted to.
"If you like my mask collection so much," Rex says suddenly, making me jump, "we should get one made for you."
I freeze mid-zip of my bag, positive I misheard him. "What?"
He finally looks up from the guitar, that ice blue eye studying me intently. "A mask. For you. Since you were admiring mine so thoroughly after I told you explicitly not to touch my shit."
I narrow my eyes at him. "Still watching me through your cameras?"
"Not anymore," he admits, setting the guitar aside. "Not since you put on that little show." His lip curls slightly, not quite a smile. "Nice rabbit hoodie, by the way."
The way he says it—flat, unaffected, like he's commenting on the weather—makes me want to throw something at him. But there's something else there too, buried under the deadpan delivery. A tension in his shoulders, maybe. Or the way his fingers drum against the neck of his guitar before he pulls his hand away from it.
I think about that night. How I'd called him out for watching, started stripping to fuck with his head. How I'd picked up one of his guitars—this exact guitar, actually—and played it naked,to see if I could tell later on if he'd kept watching me. Because Iwouldbe able to tell. My instincts are sharp, especially when it comes to things like this, which is how I could feel him spying on me through the camera to begin with.
The fact that he's not acting weird about it, not even looking at the guitar differently, let alone me, tells me he didn't watch after I called him out.
"You're tense," Rex observes, cutting through my internal analysis. "More than usual."
"I'm fine."
"You're lying."
"So what?"
He stands, moving toward his wall of masks. His fingers trail over the blood-red filigree one I'd touched that first night, the one that had fallen and I'd hung back up. He'd told me not to touch his stuff, but picking up a mask so it wouldn't get damaged felt safe. Now I'm not so sure.
"You feel safer here," he says, not a question. "The security. The cameras. The locks."
I want to deny it. Want to tell him he's full of shit, that I couldn't care less about his paranoid fortress of a room. But the words stick in my throat because he's right. Idofeel safer here. Have felt safer here than anywhere else since those fucking roses showed up.
Not that it's any of his business.
What's his fucking problem?
"It doesn't matter," I mutter, hauling my bag over my shoulder. "Rafael's room will be?—"
"I'll take Rafael's room."
My brain short-circuits. Of all the things I'd thought he was about to say, that's at the bottom of the list.
"What?" I blink at him, sure I misheard.
"You stay here. I'll take Rafael's room." He says it like it's already decided, like there's no room for discussion.
"That's stupid. This is your room?—"
"And I'm choosing not to use it. Leave your things."
The urge to argue burns in my throat. To tell him I don't need his protection, don't want his concern, don't require him rearranging his life because I'm too fucking scared to sleep in a room without Fort Knox-level security.
