Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  “You need fattenin’ up,” he noted, tightly containing any hint of guilt so it didn’t show in his voice. He stroked downward again, feeling and memorizing all the hollows he silently vowed to fill in.

  “You really know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

  Vance winced at the tone in Len’s voice, grateful Len couldn’t see. He’d thought Vance was making fun of him, maybe. There was a note of pain in his voice the quip didn’t quite eradicate.

  “No more talkin’ now,” Vance said. “Always gets my ass in trouble when I open my big mouth. Just relax.” He moved his hands up once more, flexing his fingers and kneading as he went, and underneath him, Len moaned softly, as though he was trying to hide the sounds.

  It only egged Vance on to try a little harder to elicit them again, and he curled his hands over Len’s shoulders under his shirt and prodded at the muscles.

  Len didn’t make any noise, but he did lie down and stretch his arms down to either side of Vance’s legs. Encouraged, Vance settled across Len’s thighs and massaged in earnest.

  He had to give Len props for stubbornness. No matter how many goose bumps chased across his skin under Vance’s hands, he held his tongue. The occasional sigh was mitigated by the grunts of annoyance when Vance prodded a bit too hard over a protruding bone, or a sharp huff of breath when he poked between ribs and Len squirmed like a fish to get away.

  “Interesting,” Vance whispered, trying hard to ignore that part of him that perked up to the many ideas flashing through his mind at how he could use Len’s sensitivity to edge the other man close to orgasm. Those games would have to wait, he knew, but the sight and feel of a lover writhing between his thighs gave his traitorous body ideas he couldn’t quite shut down.

  Len snarled wordlessly and settled back into place, a silent demand for the massage to continue, his body language all but screaming I’m ignoring you, now keep making me feel good.

  “Lose the shirt,” Vance said a few minutes later, telling himself the garment was in the way of the massage and not that he wanted to see more skin. “I want to get at your shoulders.” He backed down to Len’s knees, allowing Len room to kneel and strip his torso. The opening to touch was too great to pass up, especially as Len’s hands were busy over his head with the shirt. Vance took the opportunity to wrap both arms around him as soon as he was bare, and spread his hands over Len’s torso.

  Len sighed. Ready to offer more than just the embrace, Vance parted his lips, but a sideways glance showed him Len was biting down hard on his bottom lip.

  “Oh?” Vance nuzzled his ear and licked at his skin, tasting the salt of sweat as he sought out Len’s earlobe. The heat, the smell and taste of Len curled around Vance. This was the sweet ache he craved, this new, tender exploration that made his chest tight and his balls throb, that made him want so bad he couldn’t breathe.

  Skinny as he was, Len was hot, the illusion of his frailty having grown on Vance over the weeks they’d been together. Physically, Len was a gorgeous, sinewy man, and Vance could feast on him, if he chose. He could imagine all the ways this slight body, with all its hidden strength, could be played as hard as Vance had ever played any of his burlier, robust lovers. And Len would look more enticing under the bindings and restraints because he was so tiny: thin, delicate, yet tough as nails.

  Vance moaned softly, tightening his hold and nuzzling deeper under the hair at the nape of Len’s neck. This was his for the taking, if only he dared.

  “Don’t,” Len mumbled, even as he tilted his head, allowing better access. “Stop.” He sighed and ran his hands the length of Vance’s thighs, spread his fingers around his knees, and gripped tight as he arched his chest into Vance’s hands. “Vaaa….”

  Vance bit down gently on the side of his neck, covered his ribs, and held him tight and close and safe against his chest as he whispered into Len’s ear.

  “Don’t. Stop? Or don’t stop?”

  Len swallowed hard, convulsing slightly, and his bottom lip, still under his teeth, turned white.

  “How about don’t stop please, Sir?” Vance suggested in a whisper. God, he ached to pin this armful down on the bed and take him. Surely Len could feel the thump of Vance’s heart against his back.

  Finally, the first sound squeaked out of Len, and he shuddered. “Please, Sir” was all he managed as Vance ran fingers lightly over his nipples and then tweaked them hard and fast.

  The sound that action enticed out was a sweet hiss, accompanied by Len quivering in his arms.

  “You lie back down where you were,” Vance ordered, encouraging him with his body weight to resume his prone position on the bed.

  Len obeyed, settling down, arms at his sides. It took every ounce of strength Vance had to rise off that prone form. But he did it, and without slowing the momentum, he got off the bed.

  “Stay,” he commanded.

  Len’s only movement was to shiver delicately and nod. His eyes were closed and his lips parted, and that sweet flush that made Vance’s cock twitch made its appearance, creeping up Len’s neck and into the cheek Vance could see.

  “Good boy,” he said softly, touching Len’s leg to let him know where he was. The touch remained platonic, a feat easier to manage with physical distance. “Now lift your hips some so I can get those damn jeans outta my way.”

  Len’s hesitation was oh so slight, but it was there, reminding Vance, even through the blood pounding in his ears, that this was a man delicate in ways that didn’t show physically. He had to keep his head if he wanted Len’s trust.

  When Len finally lifted, Vance ran a hand soothingly down his back. “Very good,” he assured him, breathing easier once he had compliance. The ache to obtain more eased into the background, and the instinct to protect finally pushed the beast down for the moment. Vance could breathe again, and touch without fear he’d take what wasn’t being offered. “You trust me?”

  Len nodded, his lips moved, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Okay, then.” Vance reached under him, snapped open his jeans, slipped the zipper, and peeled them off. It wasn’t difficult with the way they hung, too big on his bony hips. Once they were off, Vance took a moment to appreciate the sight of the pale, still body on the bed, waiting for him. For once, his libido didn’t take over. As perfect as the sight was, Vance kept his head, his useful one, and managed to appreciate without turning into a complete Neanderthal.

  “I’m gonna do somethin’ for ya now you’ll thank me for when you get in the saddle tomorrow,” he told Len, smoothing his hands over exposed skin. He remembered countless times that long hours in the saddle had taken their toll on his body when he’d overdone the riding after stretches on the road and not being near a horse in months.

  Len barely nodded, and Vance thought maybe he was falling asleep, but when he caressed the back of one of Len’s thighs, the man’s eyes flew open and his head came up. He braced himself as he began to turn.

  “Easy, now,” Vance purred, laying a hand in the middle of his back and gently holding him down. “Just relax and spread your legs some. I need access.”

  “To what?” Len’s voice was breathy and thin.

  All thoughts of any kind of sexual possession fled Vance’s mind at the sound of fear in those two words. “Just your legs, lover, just your legs. Promise.”

  Len took in a deep breath, let it out, and calmed again, spreading his legs a tiny fraction. It wasn’t enough, but he didn’t flinch when Vance opened them wider. Deliberately, Vance spread him more than was strictly necessary, but sooner or later, they were going to work their way to actual sex again, and this was a good step to help Len understand Vance was never going to take liberties that weren’t being offered, even if they were right there on the table—or bed—for the taking. Finally, he’d reached that place where he could separate his desire for submission from his responsibility to the man.

  He couldn’t deny the sexual desire existed. He could put it aside now. He could feel it and not act on it. He
could be, right now, the safety and protection Len needed. His own wants would wait.

  “How’s that feel?” he asked, stroking down Len’s neck and over his shoulders, retracing the path of the earlier massage.

  Len sighed.

  “Okay, then?” The rapid beating of Vance’s heart slowed as Len softened, almost imperceptibly, to his touch.

  “Okay, Sir.” Len hadn’t abandoned the title since Vance had implicitly given it to him to use the moment he’d called him “boy.” He had to admit, it sounded so much better in this breathy, anticipatory voice than in the one Len used to defend himself in the daylight hours. His cock twitched. So did his heart. But his mind, mercifully, remained clear and let him focus on the simple task of easing Len’s discomfort.

  “Good. Now I want you to tell me how it feels.”

  He could sense the confused pause before Len spoke again. “It feels… your hand’s nice.” He flexed his shoulders. “Warm. I like your calluses. Rough but gentle. I like it.”

  Vance trailed his hand lower, indulging in a swift pass over Len’s ass to get to his thigh. “And here?” he asked, even as Len’s muscles tightened under his palm.

  “Fine,” Len said. His voice too was tighter.

  “Real, boy. Tell me what’s real.” He kept his hand in motion, up and down his thigh, making sure to steer clear of his privates and retain a relatively benign touch. So much easier to do this if he thought about it clinically. Where was Len bound to be sore later? How could Vance touch him, massage him, to remove some of that pain before it manifested? How to do that without spooking either of them?

  “Feels….” Len’s voice vanished under another soft moan. “There’s a place where excited stops and scared starts, only I don’t know where that place is.”

  “Are we almost there?”

  “I haven’t been naked with anyone but you since Ace,” Len said, turning the conversation aside, Vance thought. He clamped steely jaws around the throat of his anxiety that here, at last, he was about to get some answers. He forced his body to remain still and loose, like he’d learned, so very long ago, at the hands of another man who had had the patience to teach him everything he knew about being the man Len needed now.

  When Len continued, the tangent soon made sense. “He wrecked a lot of my clothes. Eventually, I just wore loose old shit or nothing at all when he was drunk or high, so he had less to fight with.” He shivered.

  Vance fitted his hand around the curve of Len’s thigh, offering comfort in the safe, platonic touch, unwilling to move to a more neutral area. Unwilling to do anything unexpected to snap Len out of the moment.

  After a few deep breaths, Len’s shaking stopped and he sighed. “Don’t want to talk about that anymore now. Just want you to touch me because it’s exactly not like him. Makes me feel good. I don’t mind so much feeling naked for the world if you’re the world.”

  Vance smiled softly and bent to kiss the small of Len’s back. He had to ignore the way his heart threw itself against his rib cage. He had to ignore the anger roused by the painful words, and the frightening images painted with so few of them. “Lover, you should write lyrics,” he said, hoping to point out the one positive thing he could see in the revelation, as sparse as it was.

  Len snorted. “I write music. O-Other people write the words.” He’d hesitated, because, as far as Vance knew, up to just about a month ago, “other people” meant Trevor, his once bandmate and best friend. The separation—from both the band and the man—still hurt him deeply.

  Vance got up off the bed, spread Len’s legs a little more, and settled between them. He could feel Len’s slight tremor as he began to work, and he suspected it was the wide stance, the very open display of his most private parts that made him tremble, but he breathed deep, curled his arms under his head, and closed his eyes as Vance kneaded his thigh muscles.

  He was soon moaning, sweating, and catching his breath as Vance got to the knots he hadn’t realized were there yet.

  “That’s what comes of spending half the day in the saddle when you’re not used to it, darlin’,” Vance said. “Gonna hurt tomorrow, but this will make it bearable.”

  “Oh, God. This is not bearable,” Len said through gritted teeth.

  “This is not bearable, Sir,” Vance corrected gently. It was a good, safe time to remind him of protocol. To take steps into the world they both wanted but that had to be navigated so very carefully.

  “Sir my ass,” Len muttered, and Vance felt the surge of ire, of pure dominance that would not ignore the impertinence. He gave Len’s ass a tiny swat for his trouble.

  Len yelped, an exaggerated sound, and tried to turn over, but Vance removed his touch, hoping the lack of contact would get Len’s attention.

  Maybe it worked, because Len settled back onto his stomach and breathed heavily, as though he had momentarily expected something vastly different.

  “What?” Vance asked.

  “I thought—I just expected….” He slowly rolled until he could look over his shoulder. “Thank you, Sir.”

  Vance lifted an eyebrow. “For?”

  Len’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his cheeks flushed, and he glanced away. “For not holding me down, Sir.”

  “Come here, darlin’,” Vance ordered, and was nearly knocked backward off the bed as Len spun and launched himself, then landed in a curled heap on Vance’s lap. “Okay.” He petted Len and held him. “You all right?”

  “I am.” Len’s bowed head didn’t stay still for long. In the next heartbeat, he was kissing along Vance’s collarbone and over his chest, squirming out of his lap and pushing on his shoulders to get him to lie down.

  “And just what do you think you’re doin’?” He was proud of the way he managed to keep from sounding as breathless as he felt.

  Len looked up at him hopefully. “You?” He licked his lips and smiled. “Sir.”

  “Okay.” Vance took him by the shoulders and put him on the bed on his back. “You can stop that right now, with your Sir and your hopeful little look. I thought I got it through to you this is not about sex.” God, didn’t he know it wasn’t about sex? His prick seemed not to have gotten that memo.

  “Your cock’s hard,” Len pointed out, small hand sneaking between his legs to squeeze.

  “Hey!”

  “Just sayin’.”

  “And I’m ‘just sayin’’ that tonight, my cock can damn well stay hard, because tonight, it’s about feeling safe.”

  “I do.” He reached again, but Vance caught him by the wrist, swung it back, and pinned it to the pillow, lacing his fingers with Len’s and looking down on him, enticing little imp that he was.

  “And what about me?” Vance snapped.

  Len stared up at him. His breath came in fast, uneven pants. His eyes were too wide, cheeks too pale.

  Vance eased his grip so their fingers were still laced but he had no weight holding Len to the mattress. Their arms rose, and Vance realized with a shock just exactly how much stronger he was. He hadn’t noticed Len straining until he’d eased the pressure. When he let their hands leave the mattress, Len gasped.

  Vance allowed their hands to hang there, a few inches off the bed. Then, slowly, breath by breath, he lowered them again.

  Len let him, and when the backs of his knuckles touched the sheets, Len let out a breath. “You? Sir?” There went his Adam’s apple again, bobbing up and down, begging for lips to slow it, control it.

  Vance breathed deep and forced himself to concentrate. To relax. “Yes, me. You forget there’s two of us in this room?”

  “’Course not.”

  “Then stop and think about it, please. What about me?”

  “You’re scared? Sir?” Len blinked rapidly a few times and sucked his bottom lip up under his teeth.

  “You think because I’m bigger’n you I can’t feel scared ’bout what you can do to me?” He touched their clasped hands to his chest over his heart. “Can we go slow? Please?” Unbelievable how hard it was to maint
ain eye contact when all he really wanted was to suck that lip free of its prison and bite it himself.

  Len stared at him, eyes once more huge, face flushed now, lips parting in that way that made it very hard for Vance not to kiss him.

  Vance cocked his head, heart hammering against the back of Len’s hand where he held it, waiting for his answer.

  Len freed himself and laid his palm over the spot where any second, Vance’s heart would break free of its cage of bone and sinew. “You’re shaking.”

  “No shit.”

  “Okay,” he said. He lay back again, drawing Vance forward as if the hand still on Vance’s chest were magnetic. The touch was hot through the thin material of Vance’s undershirt. His red hair splayed out over the pillow, and his thin body stood out starkly against the dark coverlet. “We can go slow.”

  Vance nodded, relief flooding through him and possibly making his heart beat even faster. “Love you, darlin’,” he said, bending for the kiss he could no longer resist.

  Len barely got out a whispered “Love you too,” before their lips met and sealed the agreement.

  7

  LEN WASN’T sure what woke him. The room was dark. The soft bed enveloped him. He was still naked, and the hair on Vance’s chest tickled his back. The swath of cotton of Vance’s loose boxers provided a stretch of relief where their skins weren’t stuck together with sweat.

  “You awake now?” Vance’s deep rumble vibrated against him.

  Len nodded, unsure he could trust his voice. He shifted and realized both his wrists were clasped firmly against his chest within the circles of Vance’s big hands. He twisted them slightly as his heart rate ramped up, and the hold fell away, leaving him feeling immediately and inexplicably bereft. He pawed about on the bed, looking for that comfort, but Vance was moving, rolling him onto his back.

  “Wasn’t holdin’ ya down, darlin’,” Vance said quietly. “But you were thrashin’ around, and I don’t need a black eye to go with this fat lip.”