Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  “Go ahead?” Len’s brow furrowed. “Go ahead and what? Sir.” The pauses between his words and his respect were shortening, at least. Vance would have him trained to that eventually.

  “Get yourself off,” Vance told him. “I want to see that.”

  “You’re… going to watch?”

  Vance smiled, the expression showing the Dom. “Oh yes. Show me.”

  A flush of pink raced up Len’s neck and into his cheeks. “I can’t—”

  “Oh, sure you can.” Taking Len’s smaller hand in his, Vance curled it around Len’s erection. “Do it.”

  Slowly, Len started to stroke himself, gaze fixed on Vance. “Aren’t you going to watch?”

  “I am watching.”

  Len glanced down at his hand and cock and back at Vance. “You’re looking at my face.”

  “I’ve seen jizz come out of a cock before.” Vance touched the heated pink of Len’s cheek. “This is much more interesting.”

  “OH GOD.” Len slowed his strokes, tightening his fist at Vance’s words. He couldn’t do this. He could give head till the cows came home. He could talk himself into letting Vance fuck him, eventually. But he couldn’t beat himself off while the man watched. That was too….

  “Please don’t,” he whispered.

  Vance lowered himself and kissed Len, possessive, still, but gentler now and encouraging, before he rose to look him in the face again. “Do as I say, Len.”

  Jesus, Jesus shit. Len’s entire body seemed to beat to the rhythm of his heart, pumping all his blood into his aching dick. He closed his eyes and pumped himself again, picking up speed as he got closer.

  Then Vance’s big hand circled his and he thought he’d be off the hook. Instead, the big man stopped him, clamping down on him with strength that made him giddy.

  “Open your eyes, Len.”

  Len lay still for a moment. This was something Vance couldn’t force him to do. At the same time, with his eyes closed, he deprived himself of the chance to see what refusal met with. He couldn’t say no and not know how that rebuff would be greeted.

  He opened his eyes.

  Immediately, Vance released him and his hand drifted down over his thigh, pulling it wide and exposing more of Len’s nakedness to his gaze.

  “Go slow,” Vance warned, getting up and going to one of the cupboards.

  Obeying, because this was a chance to ease some of his discomfort physically without feeling so vulnerable under his lover’s gaze, Len used a languid touch that felt soothing, rather than building him toward release.

  Vance came back with a tube of lube and Len watched him squirt some onto one finger. There could be only one place that finger was going. Len’s rhythm increased all on its own.

  The breach came, quick and decisive, burning for a split second. Air whooshed out of Len. His hips jerked, careening between thrusting back hard onto that finger and up into his own fist.

  “Oh fuck!” His cry burst out, loud enough to cover the sounds of the storm, and then Vance added a second digit.

  The burn lasted this time, Vance’s fingers distracting him from everything else. Vance’s free hand circled his wrist, lifted his hand away from his cock, and placed it on his hairy chest. The sensation zipped through Len, and he reveled in the feel of it.

  Vance moved his fingers inside Len, soothing away the burn, and Len shifted his hand, a little drunk on the feel of the hair making his palm tingle. The zinging pleasure of Vance’s fingers over his prostate took over his brain, and he panted and begged. His fingers curled and uncurled against his lover’s chest. He was so close.

  “Stop fightin’ it, darlin’.” Vance gripped one of Len’s ankles, lifting that leg high.

  “Oh Jesus.” Len ground down on the fingers inside him, well aware how slutty he must look, how encouraging Vance to do this to him could come off. But his need had taken over and he pleaded again, begging though he didn’t know which sensation he needed or wanted anymore.

  One more tweak to his prostate and Len came. The orgasm was hard, blinding, and insular, shutting him off from everything but the pressure and then the release of that pressure. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe; then he was gasping and reaching and Vance was there, furry chest under his fingertips, strong arms gathering him close.

  “Holy fuck, what just happened?” Len asked between shallow breaths as he tried to get his bearings back. Vance squeezed him tighter, and he squirmed closer to the big singer’s warmth and strength. Until he got his breath back, that embrace was answer enough.

  18

  VANCE SPRAWLED in the chair he’d dragged from its corner to beside the bed. From where he sat, he saw a tousle of red knots flopping across one pale, freckled cheek. Because the man in his bed always had that mane scraped back off his face, Vance had never really noticed just how much hair he actually had. Now it was a wild mess from the fight and the wind and rain and the sex. The only other physical evidence of the scuffle, revealed in the near darkness of the bedroom, was a series of dark lines branded across the knuckles of one of Len’s hands.

  “Oh, fuck me, you little imp,” Vance muttered, palming himself through his jeans. Just the memory of those sweet, plump lips forming the words of polite, slutty acquiescence and then sucking him off was enough to make his cock take new notice. All that surrender, turned soft and hazy in the dim lamplight of the sitting room, was going to get him hard again just by thinking about it. At the rate his heart raced, watching his latest lover sleep, he thought he might have to relieve himself with his own fist this time.

  Latest lover.

  Vance rolled that idea around in his head. Len Stevens should have been off-limits, if only in deference to Stan. But God knew, the man was enticing. Vance rubbed a hand over his face. Damn old habits. Ones like drinking too much and figuring he was impervious, or that he could tame a wild thing he had no business touching.

  He’d kicked the booze and the drugs, but he’d come to accept being a Dom just as integral to who he was as being a musician, or being gay. Hell, as being a man. Vance could admit it had been a long time since he’d had any sort of permanent fixture in his life like that. Stan filled the need for physical release, but not much else. Over the years, he’d learned it was the same for submissives. They were happiest when they had a good, stable Dom to give them what they needed.

  It made sense, then, when he’d stepped out of the car and seen Len snarling, wild-cat crazy, and doing his best to grind his best friend into the pavement, he couldn’t refrain from doing something. One of those two was going to get hurt worse if he didn’t separate them. What was he supposed to do when he’d had Len lifted off Damian and the guitarist turned on him? Only Len ended up clinging to Vance when he refused to let the little guitarist pummel him, and then what?

  Damian had tried to take Len back, and failed. He hadn’t protested nearly as hard as Vance expected at being sent home like an errant teenager. At the time, Vance had convinced himself he was protecting his investment in the singer, but if that had really been the case he’d have left Lenny there and gone with Damian. He hadn’t. Because Len leaned on him, and fit in his arms, and that had been that.

  Watching the disastrous duo over the months since Stan had signed the band, Vance had figured out exactly how to solve the problem of Damian’s dangerous benders and Len’s suffocating funks.

  Two subs, clinging to each other, could only breed trouble. He knew this. He watched it daily, even when he was on the other side of the country, and while he had no desire to tame the goth out of Firefly’s singer, he never managed to ignore the lost waif hiding inside their guitarist. And every time he caught a glimpse of the vulnerability, it was harder and harder for Vance to rein in the part of him that knew precisely what the redhead needed. Impossible to set that aside last night to worry about the headstrong rocker.

  Damian was a big boy. He always landed on his feet.

  Vance wasn’t so sure after last night that Len would. He had gone too far over the edg
e, skinny and tired and frightened. Damian loving him wasn’t going to be enough for much longer. Something had to be done to steer Len away from disaster, and Vance knew how to do that.

  Like any wild and frightened thing, the only cure for Len was calm and patience. And the liberal use of rewards when he got things right.

  Len definitely liked being rewarded. He liked being controlled and meeting Vance’s commands. Like every good, strong wild thing Vance had ever tamed, Len learned fast and obeyed because he wanted to. Because it suited him. It soothed him.

  Vance leaned over to get a better look at the sleeping guitarist. “You are a beautiful creature,” he whispered as he tucked a few of those knotted curls behind one of Len’s ears.

  Len moaned softly and shifted in his sleep, gravitating toward the sound of his voice. Even in his sleep, he wanted Vance. Like any well-trained and tempered beauty Vance had ever had in his bed, only he wasn’t trained. His compliance was a natural inclination and that turned Vance on more than the most thoroughly trained and obedient submissive ever had. It could also be dangerously easy to forget he didn’t know what he was doing.

  “Never had anyone quite like you before, darlin’.” He tilted his head so he could see round the mounded covers. “Never really….” wanted to keep any of them.

  He didn’t say that last bit out loud. Not even to a sleeping Len. The subconscious was funny, picking things up, ingraining ideas a waking mind might be prone to reject without thought. Vance wasn’t taking a chance Len’s sleeping mind might latch on to something his waking mind couldn’t abide.

  He was taking no chances. Any decisions made were going to be thought out. Discussed. Contracted, if he could manage it.

  “More fool me,” he muttered, sinking into the plush chair. He was moving too fast. Far faster than the man in his bed, and he knew it. He wanted something he wasn’t being offered and knew better than to covet.

  He wanted something he’d never wanted before: permanence.

  “What now?”

  With a sigh, he got up, put the chair back where it belonged, and retreated to the safety of the bathroom. Not being able to watch over Len might free him of the unnatural hold the young man appeared to have over him. Not that he really thought it would help.

  Horses, puppies, and subs. They all had that quality that called to him. Captured him. Kept him. He’d learned not to get attached over the years. Living on a farm, raising horses bound to be sold, breaking them and taming them, he’d learned fast getting attached only meant getting hurt when they moved on. Even with subs, he’d learned to keep the play contained. Clinical, almost.

  Not this time.

  Len would be a tough nut to crack. He had layers and layers of resistance to opening up, and how could anyone be surprised by that, given how often he’d been hurt. Even their short exploration tonight had revealed pitfalls and limits to what he wanted in bed, what he was willing to give, places he was hesitant to go. It was only a reflection of what he kept hidden and protected, and Vance wanted to know what was in there. He wanted to know why he kept it secret, and most of all, how he could unlock it all and give Len back his life and his heart.

  He stared at himself in the mirror. “What are you doing, Ashcroft? He’s too….” He sighed again. Too much. Too broken. Too vulnerable and needy. Too… much.

  Just right, his mind whispered. Just perfect. Just exactly what Vance needed: a challenge. Something to do. No. Something to care about and keep.

  “Fuck!” He leaned on the sink and dropped his head. “I need a drink.”

  But he didn’t drink anymore, and never had he been more grateful for Stan forcing him into rehab yet again. If—no, when—Len woke, Vance would be in complete control of himself. He’d had play nights with other men who’d wanted to submit at the time and then melted down when they realized what they’d done. They almost always bolted. Vance always let them, always let himself get a bit too tipsy to keep them safe. Easier not to have the capacity to deal with the fallout.

  Let some other poor sap manhandle his leftovers. He was a once only kind of guy. Except the very idea of anyone seeing what Len had shown Vance tonight? It turned Vance’s stomach.

  “This is going to be bad,” he told his reflection.

  Or very, very good, the look in his eyes said.

  Stifling yet another sigh, he abandoned his reflection and hauled himself into the shower. He liked the sound of the rainwater showerhead and enjoyed the trickle of warmth falling gently over his skin. The soothing peace and quiet would help clear his mind of the dangerously possessive thoughts running through it.

  Besides, if Len woke now, it would give the younger man the perfect opportunity to sneak out, no harm, no foul. No point in acknowledging how much the idea of that rankled, or that the thought made him want to bluster out there like a Neanderthal, soaking wet and dripping, to make sure his bed was still occupied.

  He’d barely managed to get the uncomfortable gut reaction under control when a tentative knock drew his attention to the closed bathroom door.

  “Dammit.”

  Maybe he had hoped Len would sleep through until morning. Or even slip out while he had the chance. He chuckled at himself and the way his fingers wanted to curl into a tight grip and hold on at the mere thought of the other man. Shifting so the water pelted softly on his face, Vance fought the instant sexual response to the knowledge Len hadn’t left. Or maybe his reaction was to the knowledge Len hadn’t exercised his manly right to barge into any bathroom when the door wasn’t locked.

  Vance had been on the road and shared space with enough guys to know there was a good chance another guy being in the shower wasn’t going to stop most men from coming in to take a leak. So Len had manners. He shouldn’t read too much into that. It didn’t make him the perfect sub. It simply made him polite.

  He laughed softly at himself again. If Stan could see him now, reaching for any and every hint Len was the man he wanted him to be. Perfect. Just when he had his life together, his career back on track. Just when he was finally comfortable navigating a sober life, he had to find this. A new addiction he could so easily overdose on in one night. And over what? A blow job and watching Len jack off.

  “Oh fuck.” He should not have brought that image to mind. His cock ignored his attempts to remain calm and he palmed himself, covering his erection with one hand. The last thing he needed was for Len to think he only wanted a sex toy.

  The knock sounded again, even softer.

  Sluicing dripping water off his face, Vance turned his head out of the spray.

  “Come,” he called softly.

  The door slowly opened, admitting Len as he shuffled into the room. “Um.”

  He was naked, bashful, even, with a hand cupped over his privates as he closed the door behind him. He stopped three feet from the shower, hesitated, glanced halfway up Vance’s torso. There was no missing the way his eyes widened slightly or how his lips parted at the sight of Vance’s stiffy. He dropped to his knees on the cold tile floor. Curls fell to hide his features as he ducked his chin to his chest.

  Vance’s mouth watered at the sight, but he managed to control his brain if not his body. He slid the door partway open to better see Len.

  “Still shy?” he asked, amused and touched by the show of modesty, though not really all that surprised. Len’s show earlier had been sweet and tentative. Not shy about getting off, maybe, but embarrassed to let Vance watch. It had infused Len’s entire body with a blush and he’d kept fluttering those gorgeous blue eyes closed. Vance had had to cajole and encourage getting the man to look at him. He’d wanted to see the expression in those eyes when Len finally let go. He’d needed to know if Len would reach an emotional high to match the physical, or if sex was something that shamed or frightened him. If he was doing it because Vance wanted him to, that had to be addressed. If it was because he wanted it, the shyness was incidental.

  Turned out he was bashful. When he finally, finally, let go of whatever thou
ghts circled through his mind and gave precedence to his body, it had been beautiful. Sexy. Almost as euphoric for Vance to watch as it had been for Len to experience. And it reassured Vance that whatever traumas or abuses he’d suffered, they hadn’t been sexual. He wasn’t ashamed or scared of any of it. Just shy and tentative about being with another person. It was hardly a shock he had trust issues.

  Len glanced up at him through lashes and hair and licked his lips, tongue darting out and disappearing again.

  “After you so sweetly sucked me off earlier?” He smiled at the small sound Len made. “Even after you let me watch you—”

  A low groan, issuing from deep in Len’s throat, cut him off, and he smiled wider to see an almost invisible shudder ripple through that lovely, slender body.

  “After I got to watch you make yourself come?” he continued, ruthlessly gentle in pointing out Len’s wanton behavior from earlier.

  It won him another deliciously self-conscious moan. The fingers Len had curled around his cock twitched and Vance had to note his cock wasn’t nearly as well hidden behind delicate fingers as it had been when it was limp.

  “You liked that.” Vance didn’t ask. He’d known then that Len had enjoyed it despite his embarrassment, and he knew it now.

  Len lifted his chin just enough for Vance to see a flash of white teeth dig into a perfect lower lip. Len bobbed his head. Red curls tumbled over his shoulders to brush along the pretty blush, painting delicate pink over Len’s chest.

  “Pardon?” Vance asked. His firmest rule was no dissembling, and if Len was going to voluntarily carry himself like a sub, knocking on doors and kneeling in front of him, he deserved to be treated like one. Clearly he was expecting it, and despite the circular and repetitive conversation last night that had brought them around to it, he obviously wasn’t a babe in the woods who didn’t know what he was getting into. Vance had carefully felt out his boundaries with the blow job and if his sub liked something, he admitted it. If he didn’t, he said so. No guessing. No pretending. Above all, no hiding.