Off Stage

by Jaime Samms

  Vance accepted the silent, determined commitment of Len’s friends—his family—to take the younger man’s care out of his hands. He hadn’t done such a bang-up job of things so far.

  When Len finished off the bowl, Alice took it, and she and Beks left the room with hard glances in Vance’s direction. Jethro wrapped an arm over Len’s shoulders, and try as he might, Vance could not help the bristle of nerves, the skin crawling over his back at the familiarity.

  “I want to talk to him.”

  Clive shook his head. “No. You had your chance. You walked out. Leave him alone.”

  “Let him tell me to go, and I will.”

  Len looked up. He was so lost. His eyes were dark, his face sunken and pale, and there was so much longing in him. Vance wanted to go to him, curl around him and keep him safe from all the tension and speculation permeating the house.

  “He can come in,” Len said at last. He followed Vance’s progress across the floor. “But don’t touch me.”

  Vance nodded. “Fair enough.” He stopped where he had stood before, in the center of the rug, and looked down on his lover. “I’m sorry, Len.”

  Len just stared at him.

  “For walkin’ out today. For not lettin’ you go at your own pace with tellin’ me about therapy. For leavin’ you alone and makin’ Kilmer do all the hard work for us. For sleepin’ on the couch. All that stops now. You belong to me, an’ I’m goin’ to take care of you.”

  Len sighed and lowered his eyes. “You don’t want me any more than Ace did.”

  “Not true.” Vance ached to move, to touch, to make the younger man look up at him, but he remained where he was, respecting Len’s boundaries. “I was afraid you’d say no. I’m still afraid you might find you have to. But I was takin’ your choice to say yes when I didn’t ask. It wasn’t any better than what Ace was doin’. It was vile, and I hope you can forgive me.”

  Len merely shrugged and remained silent for a long time. When he spoke, it was to ask, “What do you want to ask you think I’ll say no to?”

  Never before had Vance felt the ripping fear of posing this. Never had a sub been so volatile, so uncertain. He’d never questioned his right to rule the men who knelt to him. Not until Len.

  “Submit to me,” he said finally, leaping, trusting the instincts that for months had been burning in him to claim and keep, ever since he’d met Len.

  Len’s lashes flickered. His head jerked side to side, as though he was checking to see what his friends thought of all of it, but he didn’t quite look at either Jethro or Clive. He twisted his hands in his lap and ghosted his fingers over the ragged scar. That mark represented so much pain for him. So much disregard and callousness toward him from the people who were supposed to love and shelter him. His whole world and everything he defined as wrong within it came down to the sliced skin from his father’s carelessness and the torn flesh around it for every slight, every abandonment, every uncertainty he’d faced since.

  “Let me have you,” Vance said softly. “Care for you, keep you safe.”

  “It’s all in my head.” Len closed fingers around the scar. His nails bit, and the skin whitened under the pressure. “You said you weren’t qualified to protect me from what’s in my head.”

  “I’m not. You’ll still go see Dr. Stanton. You’ll still work through whatever you have to with her. But you’ll answer my questions when I ask. You’ll do as you’re told. And you’ll control your temper.”

  “And when I don’t, you get to take off and let me get over it?”

  “You will. And no, I don’t and I won’t.”

  “You say that, but how do I know it’s true? How do I trust you?”

  That was always going to be the sticking point between them. Vance had a lot of work to do to make up for how he’d dropped the ball so far, and he knew it. “You can’t know,” he agreed. “You can’t. But trust ain’t about knowin’. It’s about hopin’ and believin’ and givin’ each other room to make mistakes.”

  “I can’t be left again,” Len whispered.

  Clive wrapped an arm around him. “That isn’t going to happen.” He offered Vance a look somewhere between desperation and fury. “It won’t.”

  Vance breathed and nodded, agreeing. Clive was staking his own claim, and Vance knew it. This was a warning, a promise that if he screwed up again, Len was gone. Len was protected, and nothing Vance would be able to do, if Clive took him, would ever get him back.

  “I promise,” he said, locking gazes with the drummer. “I’ll look after him this time. Properly.”

  “Up to him.” Clive released him, and Len flashed a grateful smile.

  “Love you, Lenny. You belong to us, yeah?”

  Finally, blessedly, something other than fear and pain shone from Len’s eyes as he nodded. “Yeah, Clive. We’re family.”

  “Good. You okay if we go in the other room? I think you two need to talk.”

  “You can stay,” Len told him. “You should stay.” He looked at Vance. “I want to play on the new album.”

  Vance nodded.

  “I want my music back.”

  Vance let out a breath of relief that climbed from his toes and released bands of tension he hadn’t recognized he was feeling. He closed his eyes and breathed out a yes that probably no one heard. “Of course. Thank God for that.” He smiled, because he could. Because the storm was passing, because he could see Len saying yes to him. He could also see him saying thanks but no thanks, and it would hurt, but he could live with it, knowing Len had a home and family to look after him if he wouldn’t let Vance do it. Knowing Clive understood what the words you belong to us actually meant to Len gave Vance the peace of mind he needed to accept the no if it came.

  “You get yours back too,” Len said softly, and Vance started when a hand caressed his cheek. “You’re dying inside without it. The light’s going out, and I won’t let that be my fault.”

  Vance opened his eyes to look down at his lover, now standing toe-to-toe with him. “It isn’t. It never was. I lost my own way, but that’s about me.”

  “So tell me what you need me to do to help you get it back.”

  Vance swallowed the lump of elated hope that clogged his throat and his thoughts. “Are you sure?”

  Len bit his lip. He knelt and looked up at Vance. “Tell me.”

  “Put the cuff back on,” Vance said, toeing the discarded leather over to nudge against Len’s knee.

  Len picked it up and held it for Vance to take. “Okay.”

  “You put it on,” Vance said, not moving to take it. “You took it off, you put it back on. Let me see you accept that you shouldn’t have removed it in the first place.”

  Len stared at him. “I thought I was leaving you.”

  It was going to be a roller-coaster ride of manipulation if he didn’t nip this in the bud.

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “And you won’t.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Clive intervened. “You can’t make him stay if he doesn’t want to. Even if he agrees now, he might change his mind.”

  “And I won’t have him manipulate me with a will-he-stay-or-will-he-go seesaw forever either,” Vance said, forcing the nerves from his voice and making it strong, commanding. “So he stays until the record is finished. Then we can talk about him leavin’ if he’s going to, or if he thinks he wants to. But between now and then, he’s mine, and he does what I say.” He lifted his gaze from Len to Clive. “You can have your wife contract it if you like. Nothin’ more than he stays until the album is complete, and then you can come get him. If he wants to go with you, he can. If he doesn’t, he can stay. I won’t even be here for the exchange, if you think I’m goin’ to somehow influence his decision. And you’ll see him regularly if he’s working on the album. You can make sure he’s doin’ okay. You can look out for him. I’m not tryin’ to control his life. I’m only givin’ him what makes him happy and stable. It’ll be hard, and he’ll hate it sometimes,
but eventually, we’ll find the way that works for both of us. But only if he’s in it for real. For keeps. At least for the next year. He has to be as committed as I am, or it won’t work.”

  “Clive.” Len shifted his focus to his friend. “It’s okay.” He draped the cuff over his wrist and held it up. “Help me with this.”

  Clive raised his hands and covered the leather, but didn’t touch the buckles. “Are you sure about this?”

  Len nodded. “I wanted it from the start. I was just… if he knew everything, I thought there was no way he’d give me what I want. But he’s promising he will.”

  “What is it you want?”

  Len blushed deeply, and the sight of his discomfort roused Vance. He shifted his feet and bit his tongue to keep himself from intervening. This was Len’s choice, to tell his friends what he was and what he wanted. If he wanted to come out, it would drag Vance out too, but he had to admit, it was pretty clear that ship had long ago left harbor.

  “I want him to dominate me, Clive.” Len blinked, and the red infused his cheeks, acutely bright, and he lowered his eyes. “I like it, and I want it. I would have given it to Ace. I would have offered it, but he never gave me that option. So I hated what he did, but this isn’t the same. You have to believe me. It’s what I’ve always liked.”

  “Are we talking about bondage or making you his housewife, here?”

  It seemed impossible Len’s face could get any redder, but Vance had to give him credit, because he met Clive’s incredulous stare and smiled, almost sweetly. “Both. Maybe. Whatever Vance wants. That’s the point. I become his, and he does—”

  “No.” Clive pulled back from the shackle. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Len bit his lower lip and shook his head. “It was with Ace. He would have killed me eventually. I knew that then, and I still know it. I wanted this so bad, I didn’t care. Or I thought I didn’t. But I know Vance is safe. He’ll keep me safe. I want this. Please.” He turned pleading eyes around the room to his staring friends, even Alice and Beks, who had returned at some point to stand in the doorway. “Help me do this.” He looked back to Clive, arm still raised. “Clive, please. I need you to understand.”

  Clive looked at him, at the cuff, and back to him. “Really?”

  Len nodded. “Really, really.”

  Clive smiled, snorted out a nervous laugh. “Okay, donkey.” He gripped the cuff, fumbled with the buckles, and got it fastened into place. “There. Happy?”

  Len shivered. “I will be.” He turned from Clive to Vance. “Yes. That’s what you need to hear, right?”

  Finally feeling like he had the right to touch, Vance ran his fingers down the side of Len’s face. “It’s what you needed the chance to say, darlin’.”

  Len leaned his face into Vance’s palm and closed his eyes. “Can you make all these people go away?”

  “As you wish.” Vance spared a brief glance for Clive, who nodded and waved the others out to the kitchen. At the door, he stopped and turned around.

  “I’m going to keep him safe, Vance. I let him down when I cut him off. That won’t happen again.”

  Vance let out a breath of relief. “Thank you.”

  Obviously not the answer Clive expected, because he blinked. “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Go away, Clive,” Len said, not opening his eyes. “Go sleep at a hotel and come back tomorrow. I’ll show you the biggest horse that ever lived. But right now, go away.”

  “Gone,” Clive sighed. “We’re gone. See you tomorrow.”

  They remained as they were until the voices faded and the door closed. Maggie called that she would clean up in the morning and she left too.

  “So you didn’t need us after all.” Jacko’s deep voice crawled out of the dimly lit front entrance.

  Vance turned, and Len, to his credit, lowered his gaze and remained on his knees. “Yeah, I did,” Vance said. “I do. Thank you.”

  “You know this ain’t the end, right?” Kilmer said. He was standing in deeper shadows behind Jacko. “This is only the very beginnin’, and it ain’t always easy.”

  “I know.” Vance offered him a smile, but Kilmer wasn’t taking it. He was miserable, and it showed. He’d defied his Dom for Vance’s sake, but it had been a choice he shouldn’t have had to make, a punishment he shouldn’t have to face just because he’d stood up for what he thought was right.

  “Don’t take this out on him,” Vance said, turning from Len to face Jacko. “Take it out on me if you have to, but don’t punish him for helpin’ me. It ain’t fair.”

  Jacko shook his head. “Worry about your own boy. I’ll take care of mine.”

  Kilmer made a sound and dropped his head so Vance couldn’t see his face.

  “Kil?”

  “It’s fine,” Kilmer assured him. “It ain’t what you think.”

  “It had better not be. I’ll see you here on time tomorrow?”

  Kilmer nodded. “Sure thing, boss.”

  “Okay, then.”

  He was reluctant to let Kilmer go with Jacko apparently so angry with him, but he didn’t have the right to intervene. If there was any indication Jacko took his anger too far, Vance would step in. He didn’t really think Kilmer was in physical danger, but he knew Jacko’s very old-fashioned sense of dominance didn’t allow for what Kilmer had done tonight, and he wasn’t sure how well the relationship would weather the transgression.

  He sighed, and closed and locked the door behind them.

  “Come to bed,” he told Len, who got stiffly to his feet and followed him upstairs.

  “They aren’t okay,” Len observed.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “It’s our fault.”

  Vance sighed again. “No, I don’t think so,” he repeated. “I think they’ve been in trouble for a while.”

  “Kilmer can come here, can’t he?” Len asked. “If he has to?”

  They were in their room now, and Vance turned to look at him. “You’d be okay with that?”

  Len shrugged. “He’s family too. And I’m yours. If you wanted him too, that wouldn’t be something I had a say in.”

  “Would it bother you?”

  Len looked him in the eye and nodded. “It would kill me.”

  Vance smiled. “It would never happen, but I appreciate you bein’ honest. It’s the one thing Kil never says to Jacko, and he should. He has a right to say it, but he thinks he doesn’t.”

  “Saying it won’t make Jacko stop fucking other people.”

  Vance sighed. “No. Probably not. But there’s a rift there, and I don’t like it.” He turned Len to face him and cupped his cheek. “Don’t you worry none, darlin’. I won’t ever do that to you, I promise. Remember I have that old-fashioned country-vibe thing goin’ on. I’m pretty much a one-man sort of man.”

  Len nodded, but it was clear there was something else bothering him. His gaze shifted to the bed, and he darted his tongue out over his lips. He was unhappy. Vance could see the mannerisms, ones he’d noted before, but suddenly they mattered so much more. There was no thought, no feeling Len could keep from his expressive features, and right now, he was holding back something he desperately wanted—needed—to voice.

  “Speak,” Vance commanded. “What are you thinking?”

  “What if it turns out I can’t be… what you need? What then? If he’s here and single, and it turns out I’m not—”

  “I told you, I don’t share. If you can’t be what I need, we can cross that bridge when and if we have to. Right now, it’s time for you to get cleaned up. Take your clothes off, and you can remove the cuffs to take a shower. Leave them on your pillow.”

  Len’s lips quivered between pursing tight against whatever he was feeling and a smile. “Yes, Sir,” he managed at last, and he began a slow, unsteady, but methodical strip.

  HE COULDN’T stop trembling. His quivering hands made him glad he’d chosen a T-shirt that morning. No tiny buttons made it easy to remove, and Vance helped
when a loose thread around the end of one long sleeve got caught in the buckles of his cuffs. Belt and jeans followed the shirt to the floor. Socks next, and finally, more shakily than ever, underwear.

  He wasn’t hard or aroused. He was naked. Vulnerable. Skinny and pale and freckled and unable to meet his Dom’s eyes.

  “Len.” Vance’s voice was like so much else about him. Velvet over steel.

  “I’m cold,” Len murmured. It wasn’t exactly a lie. The room was warm. The heat of the day and the late afternoon sun spilling into it didn’t allow for coolness. Not even the fan in the corner blowing a light wafting of that sun-warmed air over his skin could be said to cool the room. But he was cold.

  It had started so deep inside, he’d years ago gotten used to it. A thin tendril of that familiar, sticky emotion wended from the cold abyss and curled around his innards, re-forming the ball, slowly, inexorably, as it always did, no matter how violently he ever managed to purge it.

  Vance brushed a hair from where it was stuck in the sweat of his temple. The touch fanned warmth over his skin, into him, and the free-floating tentacle of fear hesitated.

  Len snapped his eyes to Vance’s, aware that suddenly, here, in this room and with this man, he had some control over the fear. He grasped the thread inside and yanked it hard, meaning to rid himself of it once and for all.

  “Better,” Vance said calmly. “Give me a hand.”

  Len lifted one arm, grateful for the weight of the cuff reminding him who he was. In the moment of looking into Vance’s eyes, he’d lost himself for just an instant. He’d fallen, tripped by the depth of Vance’s gaze, and he knew if he wasn’t careful, he could fall in there and never figure out which way was up again. He’d always had the fear to hang on to, to orient himself. If he gave it up now, he’d have to find another way to keep his feet under him and not drop off the cliff into nothingness.

  Vance had the cuff loose and was peeling it away from his skin before he fought back from that edge and managed to make himself aware of the room and the heat and the physical difference of one bare wrist and one cuffed.

  A tiny, pathetic sound twisted out of his throat.