Rock Kiss 03 Rock Redemption (6 page)

N
oah managed to sleep
that night, thanks to a trick he’d discovered on the Internet. He’d put in a search term in desperation one night and hit on a video of rain falling in someone’s backyard, and before he knew it, he was asleep in his chair. He’d woken five hours later with a stiff neck and the video still playing in a loop.

He’d immediately bought the download.

The rain sounds didn’t work every time or even mostly, but they did that night. Thank God. He’d never have risked taking Kit up otherwise. He had an excellent reaction time, but fatigue could dull even the best instincts.

Awake in plenty of time, he showered and shaved, then pulled on his favorite old jeans and a dark gray T-shirt, wondering what Kit would think of his little Cessna. White with blue markings, it was parked in a hangar beside a small private airfield. As far as the sixty-something owners of the airfield and hangar were concerned, Noah was simply another weekend warrior who worked in the city and came to play with his toy in his off time.

He’d deliberately chosen a place that was out of the way, but he’d lucked out with the owners being uninterested in any music but country. Blissful anonymity was the result.

He grabbed his wallet and the keys he needed to access the hangar and plane, then got into the black SUV he kept beside his Mustang—no sense screwing up his anonymity by driving a distinctive car. This early, traffic was light enough that he’d make it to Kit’s with time to spare.

His heart beat a little too fast, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel.

When he glimpsed the lights of an all-night grocery store up ahead, he made a snap decision and swung into the parking lot. He grabbed a cart and got a few things for brunch as well as the one snack Kit could never resist. He wanted this to be a good day for her; to do that, he couldn’t allow himself to imagine it wouldn’t work, that he’d lost her forever the night he’d done the unforgiveable.

“Wow.” The pimply-faced teenage cashier’s mouth fell open. “Are you really you?”

Noah didn’t perform for the fame, but he also didn’t disdain his fans. They were the reason he could be free to live the music inside him; without that music, he’d be dead or huddled in some damn psychiatric ward. “Depends who you think I am.”

The teenager gulped. “I recognize that voice and that tattoo on your wrist.” Hand trembling, he put down the drink he’d been about to scan. “Wow. C-can I…” He just held up his phone in a wordless question.

“Sure.” Taking the phone since he was taller, Noah snapped a photo of himself with his arm around the kid’s shoulders, the teenager giving two thumbs-up and grinning so hard his face was about to crack.

The photo-taking attracted the attention of the night manager and the only other clerk on duty. By the time Noah finally left, traffic had thickened as early commuters tried to beat the chaos of LA traffic, but it was still manageable and he arrived right on time.

Kit came out of the house as he stepped out of the car. Dressed in jeans that hugged her legs, flats, and a kind of floaty tunic top in white with three-quarter-length sleeves, her hair in a ponytail, she looked fresh and pretty and like his Kit. Not Kathleen Devigny, Oscar-nominated actress on the way to superstardom. Just Kit.

“I wasn’t sure what to bring,” she said. “I have my phone and some money. Anything else?”

“No, we’re good.” He didn’t fight the happiness that was sunshine in his blood; Kit alone could make him feel that way, as if he was an ordinary man out with a woman he adored.

“Let me set the alarm. I’ve already alerted security we’re heading out.” A glance over her shoulder. “I told them not to follow today.”

Noah braced his arm against the top of the SUV, shaken by her trust. “I’ll park the SUV in the hangar so no one can get to it while we’re in the air.” Up there, she’d be safe in his hands.

Five minutes later, she was snug in the SUV.

After grabbing coffee from a drive-through, they drove in silence for over twenty minutes. It wasn’t as awkward as dinner had been, but neither was it as comfortable as they’d once been together. Noah had destroyed that. He’d done it deliberately with his eyes wide open. He’d hurt the one person he never wanted to hurt… and he knew without a doubt that it was the best thing he could’ve ever done for Kit.

No matter what happened from now on, she’d never forget or forgive the cruelty of his actions. It would keep her at a safe distance, where he couldn’t hurt her in far more vicious and irrevocable ways. Where he couldn’t stain her with his ugliness.

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Do you like the superhero movie?” he asked, needing to hear her voice, to have that much of her at least. “I mean, I know the green gunk and early starts got old, but do you have a good feeling about the final product?”

She shifted in her seat, the movement sending her scent his way, the freshness of soap and water licked with a faint trace of her perfume. It was subtle and elegant but with a hint of the earth, exactly like Kit.

“It’s good fun, has amazing stunts, and the plot makes sense, wonder of wonders,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “There was even some actual emotional acting required.” Her tone was a little too nonchalant.

“The script was phenomenal, wasn’t it?”

“Yep.” She laughed at being caught out. “Great cast too. Even if Cody did keep hitting on me.”

“Maybe you should hit back, make him uncomfortable.”

“Hah, nothing makes Cody uncomfortable.” Sounding more at ease, more like herself, she told him about the stunts she’d done herself. “The best was sliding off a motorcycle. Worth all the time it took me to learn it.”

“Jesus, Kit.” His fingers squeezed the steering wheel. “That’s dangerous.”

“That’s why it’s called a stunt. I ended up with a scraped elbow but no other bruises.”

Fighting his instinctive protective response, he said, “I’ll be first in line to see the movie.”

She didn’t ask him to go with her. No surprise. Kit had never asked him to accompany her to an event. He understood why: at first, there’d been too much chemistry between them, the sparks hot enough to burn. Then… then it had become too important.

Noah would give anything to stand next to her while she shone bright, but he didn’t trust himself to be able to keep his emotions hidden when she glowed in front of him. He was fucking proud of her, and he wanted to tell the whole world. Especially the assholes who turned up their noses and belittled her accomplishments by insinuating that her parents had bankrolled her.

He’d seen her work double shifts at the diner, watched her schlep to audition after audition and come back disappointed but determined to try again. Not once had she fallen back on the Ordaz-Castille name—and since she’d made no attempt to court publicity during her teens, no one had recognized her. She’d simply been another young, hopeful actress.

 Kit had earned her place in the limelight, and she’d done it on her own terms.

“Did you like New Zealand?” she said before the lengthening silence became painful, full of all the words they couldn’t say to one another. “I never asked.”

Because she’d refused to talk to him then. “Lots of water and sunshine, and the South Island’s crazy beautiful. Me and Abe, we took off for a week to one of the national parks, did white-water rafting, bungee jumped, even walked on a glacier.”

“It sounds incredible.” She sighed. “I’ve always wanted to go down there, never had the chance.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say he’d go with her, that they could hike through the sprawling parks full of snowcapped mountains and pristine rivers, camp under skies so clear you could nearly touch the Milky Way at night. No photographers, no stalkers, nothing but a wild beauty that would suit Kit’s grounded nature.

He bit back the offer just in time; she’d agreed to come with him today, but he was under no illusion that their new relationship was anything other than brittle. “You’d love it,” he said through the renewed tension in his gut. “If you can swim it, climb it, ride it, jump off it, or hike it, New Zealand’s got things covered.”

Kit had so many questions about the small country that the rest of the drive passed by without further silences. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east when he punched in the code to open the gates to the isolated, no-frills airfield and drove through to the hangar.

“Here she is,” he said once they were inside and by the plane. He patted the side of the Cessna, his nerves in a knot.

It mattered what Kit thought. Always had. Always would.

“She’s not what I expected.” Kit ran her hand along the buffed-clean paintwork. “I mean that in a good way.” A smile. “I expected a new, glossy plane, but she’s got age, character.”

Noah took a breath. “Yeah, she’s got a few miles on her.” Her imperfections were part of why he’d fallen in love with the machine. “I like to think she’s seen the world and now she’s showing it to me.”

K
it felt her heart
hitch at the evocative beauty of his words. It was at times like these that it was so difficult to keep her distance from Noah, fleeting moments when he showed her a piece of himself. A real piece, part of the heart he kept hidden so deep that most people never knew it existed. To the rest of the world, he was simply a bad-boy rocker, the most scandalous member of Schoolboy Choir, the one who provided the best photo ops and led the most hard rock lifestyle.

Abe’s former drug use had been tabloid fodder, of course—the paparazzi had hounded him when he was discharged from the hospital after his overdose, but Noah’s liaisons with endless women made for much prettier pictures, especially when he was snapped with a leggy model, actress, or other woman famous in her own right. If he’d kept a little black book, it would’ve been overflowing with A-list names, but Kit knew Noah didn’t keep any records—a man only did that when he wanted to see a woman again.

“Ready to go up?” he asked, the light in his eyes almost boyish. “Wait, hold on a sec. I bought some stuff for brunch.”

As he went to the car to grab the bags, she found herself hesitating. It was early now. If he planned on having brunch with her, that meant they’d be together for hours. She wasn’t sure she could handle that, but the light in his eyes, she hadn’t
ever
seen that. Not even their first time around.

She was such a sucker. She had to say no, had to back off before she placed herself in harm’s way again.

“Done.” He put the grocery bags in the plane, turned. “We can catch the sunrise if we take off now.”

Kit inhaled, held the breath before releasing it in a slow exhale. “Noah, I’m—”

Smile fading, he met her gaze, the dark gray of his eyes empty of that bright, unexpected light. However, instead of offering to take her back to the city, he braced a palm against the plane and said, “I’m not giving you up, Kit.” His jaw was granite. “You’re too important to me.”

Not important enough.

She barely bit back the angry words. They’d been through that, and if she kept dwelling on it, it would only make her bitter and broken, and poison whatever relationship remained between them. “What are we doing, Noah?” she said quietly. “You know this won’t work.” They’d never been meant to be just friends: they could be either passionate lovers or sworn enemies.

There was no middle ground.

“It can work,” Noah said, as if he could
will
a simple, uncomplicated friendship into being. “But only if you give it a shot.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. “Don’t throw in the towel on me, on us.” A pause that held like a dewdrop on a spider web, caught between sparkle and shatter. “I need you.”

Her chest ached.

She apparently still had a mile-wide weak spot when it came to Noah exposing his need. He showed it so rarely, asked for something even less. And she
had
promised to be his friend. She owed it to who they’d once been to give the attempt this one chance at least. “Let’s go watch the sunrise.”

That sunrise was spectacular, coming over the San Gabriel Mountains and bathing the world in a deep gold kissed with pink, but it didn’t hold her attention, not with Noah beside her. He was competent and efficient at the controls, a haunting lightness to him.

“You really love this,” she said, her voice soft with realization.

“Up here, it doesn’t matter who you are, what your sins.” His gorgeous voice poured into her ears through the headphones, made her stomach flutter, her thighs clench. “It’s total freedom. No expectations. No judgments. Just endless sky.”

Kit had never understood why Noah was so deeply unhappy. On paper, his life seemed picture-perfect. Born to a wealthy couple, his father a powerhouse lawyer and his mother a political lobbyist, he’d had the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth since the day he was born. He also openly adored his younger sister, Emily, had invited her along as his plus one to the music awards last year.

Even if it was about shitty parents, that was no cause for such deep anger at life.

Kit knew countless people with parents who couldn’t care less. Some grew up and dealt with it, others were constantly badly behaving teenagers trying to get their parents’ attention, but no one she’d ever met had been this
angry
—least of all anyone who’d found a passion in life and followed it. Her acting had been her lifeline, but while Noah lived for his music, it didn’t seem to penetrate the hard shell of his anger.

“Look.”

F
ollowing Noah’s pointing finger
, she saw the tiny figure of a lone hiker waving up at them before the man continued on his journey and they flew on. Noah was right—it was stunningly peaceful and freeing up here.

“I heard about your cosmetics deal. Congratulations.”

Fisting a hand against the impact of his voice so intimately close, her pulse rapid, she said, “It’s not a sure thing yet. Papers still to sign.”

“You know they won’t back out. They’d be idiots if they did.”

“I feel like such a fraud.” It was the first time she’d admitted her fears aloud. “I’m no model.” All of Adreina’s closest friends were fellow supermodels, so Kit had grown up around inhumanly perfect people, knew without a doubt that she wasn’t one of them.

“But,” she added, “it’s such an amazing opportunity that I couldn’t turn it down. Harper says it’ll grow my brand, and the money will be welcome.” Kit had earned a good amount with
Last Flight,
thanks to the profit sharing deal she’d signed in lieu of payment in advance; at the time, no one had expected the movie to turn into a blockbuster, so the contract had been generous.

Unfortunately, being forced into a premature property purchase by the combined efforts of her stalker and the paparazzi had put her in a deep financial hole. She now had a monster of a mortgage; her security team didn’t come cheap either. Neither did the gardening team she’d had to hire to maintain the property. The instant she let things go, rumors would start, and right now she needed to fake it until she made it.

“The cosmetics deal will get me mostly out of my mortgage hole unless something goes horribly wrong—like if I break out in a sudden case of acne.”

Noah snorted. “That’s what airbrushing is for.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “I’m not kidding, it’s in the contract.”

He shot her a disbelieving look. “
Acne
?”

“Not that specifically—any facial injury or outbreak or general hideousness,” Kit said, her shoulders shaking. “They can airbrush the ads, sure, but if a paparazzo gets a real-life shot of me looking unacceptably rough, there goes my value as a promotional asset.”

If Kit hoped for a renewal after the initial one-year term, she had to make sure she looked good even if she was heading to the gym or popping out to grab groceries. “There’s also an ‘unacceptable weight gain’ clause, but hey, at least my lawyer got the ‘moral turpitude’ one struck out.”

Noah scowled. “You should’ve told the assholes to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

“Giant mortgage, remember?” She shrugged. “It’s almost like another acting gig for me, and to be honest, the cosmetics people treat me nicer than most directors.”

“You’re fielding movie offers left and right.” Noah angled the plane east in the crystalline blue sky. “You don’t have to do anything that makes you unhappy.”

He was so protective of her, always had been. He’d come to her town house in the middle of the night when she’d freaked out after catching a photographer peering through the window; he’d also made the police take the stalking seriously from the very start. That protectiveness was part of the reason why his betrayal had hurt her so badly. It was as if he’d become a different person that night, a person who didn’t care about her at all.

“That’s just it.” Chest hurting, she looked out the window. “The cosmetics deal will give me the freedom to sign more movies like
Last Flight.
Not that I didn’t have fun doing the superhero movie, but my heart tends to sway toward script-driven dramas.”

“Y
ou’re an amazing actress.”
Noah loved watching her on-screen. “Whatever you choose, you make it better.”

“Some scripts can’t be saved, Noah.” An unexpected laugh.

His lungs began to work again. He’d caught Kit hesitating and choosing her words several times during the flight, and her body language… there was distance there. Distance he’d created, so he couldn’t fucking cry about it now.

“Harper got this one offer for a movie about erotic insect-women who wanted to sex men to death.” She was no longer staring out the window, her smile like sunshine. “I was meant to be the insect empress, and oh, I got to wear the ‘diamond’ string bikini.”

Noah tried very hard not to imagine Kit in a string bikini; the last thing he needed was a hard-on. Kit was flat out the sexiest woman he knew. “Tell me you still have the script,” he said, managing to pull off a light response.

“I might have saved it.”

He smiled. “Was that the worst one?” Talking to her this way, it felt like having his Kit back again. “No wait, I want to know something else more.”

“What?”

“Did Hugh make an offer yet?” he said, referring to the owner of the most well-known adult magazine in the world.

“Yep. Hundred grand.”

“Pfft. Total lowball. Hold out for at least nine figures.”

Open laughter. “I don’t think they paid that much even for Abigail Rutledge, and she’s the reigning queen of the A-list.”

Noah was suddenly sorry he’d brought up the topic. The idea of random men jacking off to Kit’s naked body made him want to punch out the lights of every other male in the fucking world. “Would you do it?” he forced himself to ask. “Pose nude for the right money or the right photographer?”

“Nope. And I won’t do nude scenes either—it’s in all my contracts. If the director wants a flash of breasts or whatever, they bring in a body double. No exceptions, and I don’t care if the stance loses me roles.”

Noah unclenched his jaw. “You feel strongly about it.” Good. So did he.

She took a long time to reply, her face pensive when he glanced over. “I love my mom, and I think she has the right to showcase her body any way she chooses.” The last words were soft and fierce both. “But… when I was in junior high, boys in my grade were ogling the nude spread she did at forty-five. It was the ‘Mrs. Robinson’ issue, and it spread through the male population of the school like wildfire.”

Noah suddenly realized he’d seen that spread; every man of a certain age probably had. He was fairly certain one of the boys in his class had tacked it up on the back of the door to the gym locker room.

Feeling a little ill, he shook his head. “Hell, Katie.” The affectionate term just slipped out, but lost in her memories, Kit didn’t seem to notice.

“It wasn’t the first time—she’d done spreads when she was younger, but I wasn’t old enough to be bothered by it then.” She reached up to fix her headphones. “I wasn’t ashamed of her. I think she’s the most astonishingly gorgeous woman I know, and I admire her confidence.” Love and pride entwined. “It was just weird and uncomfortable to know that the boy I sat next to in math class, or the boy who was my crush, would probably go home to jerk off to pictures of my
mom
.”

“They use it against you?” Noah asked, furious at the thought of her being bullied.

Hugging herself, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “A few snotty remarks, the odd snigger, one dipwad plastering my locker with the spread, but that was it. My classmates were all from prominent entertainment or sports families, so my mom was hardly the first parent to be in the media.

“Drugs, cheating, white-collar crime, public drunkenness, you name it, one of the parents had been busted for it.” She blew out a breath. “But it mattered to
me
. I want to have children, Noah, and I don’t want any child of mine to ever be put in the position of knowing other kids are passing around naked photos of Mom.”

“I get it,” Noah said, awed by her strength. If that had been him he’d probably have spent his entire school life bloodying noses and breaking jaws. “Good thing you weren’t a boy.”

“I should call you a sexist pig for saying that, but in this case you’re right. Can you imagine going over to a friend’s house and finding nude photos of your mom pinned to the walls?”

Noah shuddered, skin crawling. “Thank God I’m never going to be a father—some of the shit I’ve pulled is insane.” He’d been photographed in bed with three half-naked women for Christ’s sake. It had been for a magazine editorial, but still. “How the hell would I ever explain any of it to a son or a daughter?”

Kit shifted in her seat to face him. “What do you mean you’re never going to be a father?” A pause. “I’m sorry—that was insensitive.”

“No, it’s all right—it’s not medical. I just know I won’t make a good father, so I’m not going to saddle some poor kid with Noah St. John as a dad.”

Regardless of his mood or the demons in his head, he was always very,
very
careful. The one time he’d had a scare, it hadn’t been because he’d fallen down on the job but because the condom had torn. Thankfully, the groupie he’d been screwing at the time had been on the pill, so he’d dodged that bullet.

He’d put a private eye on her to make damn certain, because if he had fucked up and fathered a kid, he’d have taken responsibility—financially at least. “I’m actually thinking of getting it taken care of permanently.”

“
What?
” Open shock. “Noah, you can’t do that. What if you change your mind?”

“I’m not a good bet as a father, Kit. You know that.” He met her dismayed gaze. “Would you want me as the father of your child?”

Her face froze. Not saying a word, she turned to stare out the window.

It felt like a punch to the solar plexus. “Exactly,” he said quietly.

But Kit didn’t stay silent. “You could be a great father,” she said without warning. “It’d involve trying and working hard and being accountable rather than burying yourself in whatever hell it is that makes you so angry.” Her words vibrated with emotion.

The bones in his jaw grinding against one another, he didn’t respond.

“You have to make a choice, Noah.” Harsh words. “I made a choice as a child to not let my parents’ lifestyle damage me to the extent that I ended up a druggie or a self-destructive waste of space. Whatever it is that’s behind your behavior, you made the opposite choice.”

How could he tell her that he was
surviving
, that it was all he was capable of doing? He could’ve been dead a hundred times over by now. It would’ve been so easy to give in, to surrender to the pain, but he’d refused. “I didn’t,” he gritted out. “I made the choice to
live
.”

He could feel Kit’s eyes on him, incisive and penetrating… and he realized what he’d said, what he’d nearly betrayed. “Look down,” he said, slamming the door shut on the memories that made him feel soiled and desperate and used up. “I’m pretty sure that’s a mountain lion. You can use the binoculars over on your side.”

Kit didn’t reach for the binoculars. “Noah,” she said, her voice soft, private. “What happened?”

“Nothing original.” He tried a cynical smile. “Drugs and all that—I was addicted as a teen, decided to get clean.” It was a lie, but one he had to tell. It was far better that she think him weak in that respect than that she know the truth. Kit couldn’t know. He’d die before allowing that to happen.

K
it knew Noah was
lying.

It was as obvious to her as a flashing neon sign. And given that he knew her low opinion of drug addicts, the fact he’d confessed to that to get her to stop asking questions made her blood run cold. She wanted to take back her earlier harsh words, wanted to start all over again. Because she was beginning to understand that whatever had scarred Noah, it had nothing to do with the usual small tragedies of life, the things she’d seen growing up.

It had been something bad enough to make a boy want to end his life.

Shaken and not knowing where to go from here, she folded her arms and stared out at the view. It was far greener than immediately around Los Angeles. “Where are we?”

“Near a private landing field I know.” A short pause. “Actually, it’s mine.”

He’d given her so many surprises today that she took this one in her stride. “So you’d have a place to land where no one knew you?”

“Yeah.” A lopsided smile. “There’s nothing else around for miles.”

She could see it now, a cleared strip surrounded by what looked like acres of trees. “How
much
land did you buy?”

He just laughed and took the plane down, and as her stomach dived, she allowed herself a moment of weakness and let that rough, masculine sound wrap around her.

A few minutes later, Kit stepped out of the plane and, stretching her legs, took deep drafts of the air. Grass and trees, birdsong and the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind, there was nothing of civilization within sight but the plane Noah had just landed. “Do you plan to build here?”

“I have a small cabin a little bit farther in. Other than that, I think I’ll leave it.” A shrug. “Don’t need anything bigger.” He hesitated before saying, “I was planning for us to picnic nearby, but do you want to go see the cabin?”

Kit knew she should say no, put a stop to the increasing emotional intimacy between them. But this was the first, the
only
time Noah had invited her to a place that could be thought of as his home. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to see it.”

His smile, it wrecked her.

“Let me grab the food.”

Taking the smaller bag since he had a picnic blanket as well, she walked toward the trees with him, spied an overgrown path. “You haven’t been here for a while?”

“Not since before the tour—but the cabin should be fine. Unless the squirrels decided to stage an attack. Probably banged the door down with hammers shaped from acorns.”

She couldn’t not smile. “You should write children’s books.” The visuals he occasionally came up with were brilliant.

He erupted into gales of laughter, the warmth in his eyes contagious. “Can you imagine a parent buying a kid’s book penned by Noah St. John?” Not waiting for her answer, he pointed with his chin. “There it is.”

Wrenching her attention from him, she saw a log cabin beside a stream kissed by sunshine. “Noah,” she breathed. “It’s perfect.” The clearing in which the cabin stood was all lush green grass and wildflowers, like an image from a fairy tale.

“The cabin’s not very well put together,” he told her. “I did it and it won’t fall down on us, but it wouldn’t pass any inspections.” Smile fading, eyes shadowed, he looked at the small building. “I guess I just wanted a secret, private place where no one expects anything from me.”