Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  Len flushed, but he maintained eye contact. “Trust me,” he replied. “Sir.”

  That made Vance grin, and he accepted the instruction, pouring oil until Len told him it was enough.

  “Now turn it on high, and we wait for it to boil.”

  “Good.” Vance spun the dial, Len informed him he’d just turned the sauce on high, and he took a moment to figure out which knob went with which burner before turning another one.

  “All right,” he conceded. “So I’m not much use in the kitchen.”

  Len grinned at him. “No, Sir.”

  “Brat.”

  Another grin, “Yes, Sir.”

  “Oh my God, boy.” Vance took him by the scruff of the neck and kissed him. Hard. He pushed his tongue into Len’s mouth, and Len accepted the force. His back bowed so his body cleaved to Vance. A deep moan came up from Len’s gut and vibrated through them both. Vance couldn’t help but grind his groin against Len’s taut, available body, and that earned him a sharp catch to Len’s breath, and the kiss faltered.

  “Okay?” Vance asked, holding Len off and looking into his face.

  “Yes, Sir,” Len breathed. His cock pushed out his apron in a very distinct tent.

  “Okay.” Vance kissed him again, more gently this time, and set him firmly on his feet. “Come and sit.”

  There was already a towel spread over Len’s chair. He’d thought of everything, and he carefully positioned himself as comfortable as possible with his hands bound, in his seat. Vance found a straw in the wet bar and popped it into Len’s tall glass of sparkling water. He watched as Len leaned forward and took a healthy sip.

  Without a word, he rose and fetched his sub a cool glass of plain water and another straw and set that in front of him too.

  “Drink this.”

  Len did without protest and sat back in his chair. “Thank you.”

  “How do you feel?” Vance asked, studying Len’s expression. He seemed bemused and a little vague.

  Len smiled at him dreamily. “I’m good.” He shifted in his seat, and parted his lips in a silent intake of air.

  Vance had to compose himself and adjust the front of his jeans as he watched Len squirm, exploring the sensation of the beads inside him. It wouldn’t do for his sub to see how very much his antics were turning Vance on. Len probably wasn’t aware his tiny shifts of weight were painted in flushes of crimson over his cheeks every time he found a sensation he liked. It was something Vance could watch for hours, and it gave him plenty of ideas for their future play sessions.

  Soon enough, however, the water boiled, and Len glanced toward the kitchen. “We should get that, or the pot will be ruined.”

  “It’s just a pot,” Vance said, leaning an elbow on the table and his chin in his hand.

  “I like that pot.” Len glanced over to him and offered a small smile. “It’s a good pot.”

  “Okay, then.” Vance rose reluctantly and headed for the kitchen. “What do I do next?”

  Len followed him, rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms behind him, as if he was getting stiff. “You seriously don’t know how to boil pasta?”

  Vance shrugged, turned on the sink, and washed his hands. “My mama was a fine cook. I ate out a lot when I moved.” He winked at Len. “I can afford it. Plus, I have Maggie to cook for me, when she’s here.”

  “What about when she’s not here?”

  Vance grinned. “I can make scrambled eggs.”

  Len groaned and made a face. “I know.”

  Vance had to laugh at that. The lightness bubbled through him and an allover body tingle followed. As if he’d been encased in a shell of glass, the constrictions holding him back shattered, and Vance found himself grinning.

  “Pasta instructions,” he growled, cupping Len’s neck and jostling him. “Before I take you over my knee.”

  Len flushed. “Turn the water down,” he blurted. “Add the pasta.”

  Vance did, frowning when the dry noodles stuck half out of the water.

  “Um. Break it first. Forgot.” Len glanced at him guiltily. “Sorry. But you distracted me with the whole spanking thing. Just stir it. It’ll soften and sink in.”

  They stood over the pot as Vance stirred, and the silence was comfortable. To Vance’s eye, Len seemed relaxed, even bound as he still was. He was pleased with his sub, pleased with his own efforts, and he had high hopes this evening was going to lead them to firmer ground, together.

  12

  CAREFUL NOT to wake Vance, Len snuck quietly from their bed hours later. He was thirsty, and he could still taste Vance on his tongue. After they’d eaten, the night had been a long, languid exploration, mostly of Len’s limits. Truth told, before this, he hadn’t known what those limits really were. Turned out, kneeling before Vance, hands once more bound—since he’d needed them free to eat and clean up—and giving his Dom a blow job, were well within his comfort zone. And a good thing too. The sight of Vance’s gorgeous cock, the feel of it, hard and heavy on his tongue, had been grounding, centering in a way nothing else so far had proved to be.

  He liked sex, after all. Or had, until Ace made it into something to fear. Until Len had learned to use it as a weapon to protect himself from his best friend. He missed being able to please another man, and Vance had given that back to him tonight. He hefted his arms and smiled at the weight of the cuffs, still in place around his wrists, even though the chain had been removed when they’d finally fallen into bed for sleep. For once in a very long time, he felt at ease inside his skin.

  He hoped it would last.

  Creeping downstairs to the kitchen, he got himself a glass of water and wandered with it into the living room, and from there, into Vance’s office. The place was dark and quiet. Flicking on a desk lamp, he chased the darkness into the deeper corners of the room. It smelled of years of accumulated papers and old carpet, and he wondered why, when the rest of the house had obviously been remodeled with Vance’s new money, this room appeared to be the same dirt brown and olive green it had probably been since the seventies.

  The desk opposite the windows was heavy oak, plainly designed and probably a bank-auction purchase from the fifties. The chair pushed in underneath matched, and Len sat, leaning back and listening to the old metal springs squeak. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a good-looking chair. He ran his palms over the smooth, golden oak, polished to a dull shine by many years of hands and elbows resting on them.

  He had to admit, the room was comfortable. It was Vance all over. The rest of the house was clean, modern, and tasteful. An excellent showpiece, and before he’d come to live here, Len had seen various portions of it in interviews and on Cribs, the TV show that lorded over the regular Joe viewers the obscene amounts of money megastars had to spend on their million dollar homes. Len remembered thinking how tasteful this house had seemed compared to some of the others on the show. All Vance’s indulgences went to the barns and luxuries he showered on the four-legged members of his family, and the show hadn’t skimped on presentation of the lengths Vance went to for his horses. In fact, the show had been mildly derisive about the ostentatious interiors of the barns against the comparatively plain house Vance lived in.

  Knowing Vance now as he hadn’t when he’d seen the episode, Len knew. The host just had not gotten it. At all.

  He spun the chair a few times, feeling giddy and happy, and when it slowed to a stop, he was facing the corner behind the desk. Nestled there on a stand was a well-used acoustic guitar.

  “A Martin.” Len chuckled as he picked up the instrument. “So country.”

  The first touch of the strings grated, out of tune. Maybe Vance hadn’t played it much lately. He spent a few minutes getting the thing back in tune and began to strum a few bars of a Firefly standard.

  His grunge rock didn’t quite sound as it should on the country instrument, so he switched to the song he’d been working on prior to his life imploding. The twang Vance had given the music, both with the words he’d fit to i
t and the country feel he’d imbued the original music with, sang nicely on the old instrument, and Len smiled.

  “I’ll be damned. It does work.”

  He played on, strumming the chorus and picking out the intricacies of the verses and finally, after months away from the song, discovering the tiny flares and details in the threads of the melody that had eluded him before. He created a bridge that brought back just a taste of the original grunge and smiled as he hammered out the final chorus.

  Finally, he sat back in the chair and stroked a fond hand over the neck of the guitar. “Like riding a bike, maybe,” he mused.

  Stretching his back, he moved from the uncomfortable chair to the leather couch under the window and laid the instrument across his knees again. Maybe he could make something new with this well-loved guitar that actually was a little bit country mixed with his familiar rock and roll.

  He spent hours plucking out chords and stringing together melodies, making shit up and trying to remember the best bits. He wished he could write it down, but the struggle to get what was in his head, what came out his fingers, onto a piece of paper always took the joy out of the process for him. He didn’t need the reminder his brain was short-circuited in so many varied and less-than-wonderful ways. Not when he still rode the high of Vance’s pleasure. Not while he wore the cuffs reminding him of his place in the universe.

  Eventually, the need to sleep made its insidious reappearance, and he rested his head on the back of the couch to close his eyes a moment and think through the complicated melody he’d been playing with. That tricky little tune eased him into sleep, and the next thing he knew, he was folding himself onto the couch, guitar clasped firmly under his arm, head cushioned on the armrest.

  The world went away, and he drifted on a sweet haze of quiet music, complete with the bass hum of Vance’s voice in his mind.

  “LEN!” VANCE’S voice took on a decidedly more urgent note, and Len started awake. The guitar thrummed a deep note to match as Len jerked and barely caught it from slipping off the couch to the floor. He sat up, groggy, and rubbed at his eyes.

  “There you are.” Vance appeared in the doorway, hair flying in all directions, those soft, worn jeans pulled up over his nakedness, but not fastened. “I woke up and you were gone. Your pillow wasn’t even warm. What happened?”

  Len dropped his feet to the floor and cradled the guitar in his lap. He sleepily played with the strings. “Nothin’. Just needed a glass of water. I was awake.” He blinked at the room. A soft, golden glow peeked in around the drawn blinds of the west-facing window, and Len shuddered. “Damn.” He got up and set the guitar back on its stand. “Shit-shoveling time.”

  “You’re late,” Vance agreed, following him to the corner and picking up the guitar the second Len set it down. He plucked the strings and frowned. “You tuned it?”

  “Had to. Was sounding pretty rough, wasn’t it?”

  Vance shrugged and replaced the instrument on its stand. “Probably.” He turned to Len and his frown deepened. “Why did you get out of bed?”

  Len frowned right back. “I told you. I was thirsty.” He held up his empty drinking glass as evidence. “I just wandered in and saw the guitar. I got sidetracked.” He shrugged and a smile quirked his lips. “A Martin, huh? That is so country, dude.”

  “I am country, brat.” Vance stroked the strings again, eliciting a soft wave of sound. “It’s a D-28. Best sound for—”

  “A good twang?” Len punched Vance’s arm and danced out of reach when he automatically swung back.

  “What do you play?”

  Len sobered and wrapped an arm around himself. “Nothing, lately.” His frown tightened into a defensive posture.

  “You played my Martin.” Vance cupped a hand around the back of his neck.

  “Yeah.” Len shuddered, exaggerating the motion and forcing another grin. “And now I have to go shower.”

  “Idiot. What do you play? Normally. What do you write on?”

  “My Gibson, obviously.”

  “Oh, obviously.” Vance cuffed him lightly, and Len smiled up at him, the gesture somehow comforting, especially when Vance rested his hand, warm and strong, behind his head once more. “Where’s your guitar now?” he asked softly.

  “Still in the guest room, I suppose.”

  “Well, you’ll have to clean your crap out of there today. Your friends are comin’ soon, and we’ll need that room and the ones on this floor. I want to get some painting and reno work done first. I’ll need your help with the guest cottage too. Maggie and her daughter and granddaughter are comin’ home this weekend. They’ll be more comfortable in their own space than here in the main house.”

  “Don’t you have people for this shit?” Len grumbled, taking a step closer to him.

  “Of course I do. But this is for Maggie, and I want it done right, so I’m doin’ it myself. They’ll go through and clean it all. We’ll go through and make it perfect.”

  “How gay are you?” Len asked, starting to feel the lack of coffee deep in his bones at the talk of all the work he was apparently expected to do.

  “I don’t know.” Vance gripped him strongly and pulled Len into his personal space. He leaned down and took a kiss that left Len breathless and moaning. “You tell me, boy.”

  Len blinked at him. It was no use. At that proximity, Vance was nothing but a blur and the scent of morning breath and the feel of all-encompassing strength.

  “What was the question?” Len breathed.

  Vance kissed him again, and he let himself melt. Vance’s tongue pushing into his mouth, and the strength of his hand, the weight of the cuffs as Len let his hands fall to his sides at last, all left him feeling taken, though Vance hadn’t touched him other than his lips and that one hand.

  His cock throbbed and filled, and Len shuffled forward, trying to rub himself against Vance. He needed friction. He needed touch. Goddamn, but he needed to get off.

  Vance planted a hand on his chest at the first tentative touch of Len’s cock to his thigh, and broke the kiss to look down at him.

  “What are you doin’?” Vance asked, eyes dark and voice deep and commanding.

  “Getting off,” Len said, hoping like hell that was what he was going to be doing, anyway.

  Vance lifted both eyebrows and cupped his free hand over Len’s erection. “That so?”

  Len wanted so bad to nod, to thrust himself into the hand covering him, but he didn’t. He planted his feet and drew his hands behind his back. Sure, he could dictate to Vance how to cook a pot of pasta. It had been his only claim to power last night; with his hands bound and everything, he’d been at Vance’s mercy. But he could not, now, demand his Dom get him off. That wasn’t his place. He stilled and closed his eyes and let Vance fondle him.

  Strong fingers kneaded his cock, reached down and rolled his balls around in a firm but gentle grip. The friction of his cotton shorts against his skin was excruciating, and Len couldn’t hold back a moan. If it sounded a lot like “Please, yes, Sir,” that was beyond his control.

  Vance slipped his hand into Len’s shorts, pushing them down enough to pull Len free and hold him properly. And there he was, suspended in space, only grounded by Vance’s hand in his hair and Vance’s fingers wrapped around his cock. Len opened his eyes and Vance was there, not just a touch, but a real, live person. His dark-amber gaze was riveted on Len, and his mouth was a stern line.

  “Please, Sir,” Len whispered, taking control of his own desire this time and voicing it consciously.

  Vance took another kiss before he answered, and Len accepted his demanding invasion and slid his own tongue along Vance’s. Morning breath was forgotten in the heady rush of realizing how good it was to be held like this, completely controlled, completely in the hands of someone who wanted his happiness.

  All the tension he’d been unaware of left his limbs. He sagged, reminded of Vance’s hold in his hair, and groaned when the tiny pinpricks of pain asserted themselves into his consc
iousness. Vance gripped more forcefully, and Len couldn’t help a gasp.

  Gooseflesh coursed over his body, and the prickles shifted, rising on a wave to crash through him and leave him harder than ever in Vance’s grip, and sighing with pleasure when the pain in his scalp died away.

  It came back a heartbeat later as Vance thrust his tongue deep and once more tightened his fingers. Len winced. The pain rushed through to every dark part of him and flashed light on the mess he knew he was inside. When it receded once more, a little of the chaos flowed out with it.

  Vance’s hand on his dick barely moved, but those fingers in his hair gripped again, and Len let out a sharp cry of pain that died into a sigh as Vance loosened the hold and kissed him, more gently this time. He was still kissing and licking lightly around Len’s lips when the flash of pain came again, and Len lifted up onto his toes. Vance tightened his grip, both hands, and Len gasped and came in a jolt of electric bliss.

  Vance caught him on the way down, wrapping both arms around his body and holding him close.

  Len was hyperaware that Vance had done little more than hold on to his cock as he’d sent him over the moon. It had all been his fingers in Len’s hair and his demanding kisses, and the utter control over Len’s well-being that had gotten under Len’s skin and ripped that orgasm out of him.

  There had not been a lot of orgasms with Vance. Two or three, maybe, and they had been cold, mechanical releases of tension from his body that had only served to create more tension between them. This one was the bright sunshine of a summer day compared to those dark moments of dubious intimacy, and Vance shook as he held him.

  “Thank you, Sir.” He managed to breathe and even figured out how his legs worked, at least enough to take his own weight. He leaned back to look once more into Vance’s eyes and hoped he’d see pleasure there. Or satisfaction, or at the very least, a modicum of approval.

  Vance kissed his lips, his forehead, and cupped that hand around the back of his neck, soothing his tingling scalp with soft caresses.