Page 56 of Reverb

“Right,” Stone said. He closed the door of his apartment behind us.

“You said you didn’t want to do a photo shoot.” I untied my boots and toed them off. For the entire Uber ride home, I couldn’t tell whether he was mad at me or not. Happy Stone and angry Stone were alarmingly similar.

If he was mad, he was refusing to actually argue with me. So I argued with myself.

“I was doing you a favor.” I dropped my purse onto the sofa. “Zena and I thought that it was best to get you while you were relaxed, in your natural habitat. Like a leopard on the Serengeti. Stone Zeeland in a club is basically the same as an animal in the wild.”

He said nothing. He had taken off his boots and now he slid off his leather jacket. Scowling, silent, and big. So big. The sight of all that size made me hot and cold.

“How tall are you, anyway?” I asked him. “Six-five? Six-six?”

“Stop changing the subject, Maplethorpe.”

I lifted my hands, like he was doing a holdup. “You told me to make you! It was an invitation. I was already planning to go to the show tonight. And I really didn’t want to go alone. I didn’t feel like being the lame, lonely nerd for once.”

“Knock it off.” He seemed more annoyed than he had about the photo. “Do not call yourself that.”

“It’s a figure of speech. I don’t really think that. I think I’m pretty awesome, actually. You may have noticed.”

“I noticed.”

I crossed my arms, a smile on my lips. “Admit you had fun.”

He crossed his arms, mirroring me. We stood facing each other. He leaned his weight on one hip and I tried not to ogle his legs in those jeans, the line of his sexy, muscled thigh.

I could read his face now, better than I had at first. Stone wasn’t truly angry. This was his I’m-a-little-annoyed expression, his what-the-hell-is-your-deal expression. I’d seen this one a lot, and it didn’t scare me.

“The picture turned out really good,” I said, buttering him up. “Zena texted it to me. Do you want to see it?”

“No.”

The picture was better than good. She’d caught Stone leaning against the lamppost, his big body relaxed. The light from the street and from the club cast moody shadows across him, and the leather jacket gave him just enough of a bad-boy look. But it was his face that was the most arresting part, because he wasn’t scowling. He looked pensive and deep in thought—Stone was maybe incapable of appearing any other way—but without the scowl his expression looked almost hopeful, as if he was anticipating something. I wondered what he was looking at in that moment.

He also looked gorgeous and knee-meltingly hot. I’d take out my phone and look at the photo again, but I was looking at the real thing right now, and that was even better.

“You look really good in the picture, trust me,” I said. “All broody and sexy and irresistible. You look like a rock star. Which tracks, because you are a rock star.”

His eyes narrowed. It occurred to me that not many people gave Stone compliments. More people should do that. Probably starting with me.

“That’s not what I am,” he said, his voice low, his words slow, as if he was choosing them. He took a step closer to me. “If you’re gonna write about me, Sienna, write about what I actually am.”

Our gazes locked. This wasn’t annoyed Stone anymore. This wasn’t bantering Stone or onstage Stone, either. This wasn’t the Stone that ribbed his bandmates or played guitar like a perfectionist. This was what he was really like underneath.

And I liked it.

I felt hot. I licked my lip, and Stone’s gaze dropped to my mouth. I remembered his hands on me in the club, his touch sliding over my skin, making my pulse jump everywhere it traveled. When he’d touched me like that, I’d thought, Holy shit, I get to go home with this guy tonight. Just me. I’d felt, for a moment, like the sexiest woman alive.

The air grew thick and heavy between us. My heart stuttered in my chest. “I’m going to wash my face,” I said, too loudly into the silence. I turned and walked to the open bathroom door.

I turned on the light, twisted the tap of cold water, and plunged my hands under it as I inhaled a breath. I splashed some water on my face and grabbed a towel. I lowered it just as Stone’s huge frame filled the bathroom doorway behind me.

His gaze caught mine in the mirror. His words were blunt. “Did you actually want me there tonight, or was it just part of the assignment?”

I nearly dropped the towel. Was that what he thought? That I didn’t actually want to spend time with him unless I had to? Why were we so doomed to misunderstand each other?

“I wanted you there, Stone,” I said to him in the mirror. “Even if I didn’t need a photo, I would have called you.”

Stone nodded, as if that satisfied him. “Good.” He hit the light switch and the bathroom was plunged into darkness, except for the light from the main room.

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