by Jaime Samms
Vance gripped the knot between Len’s wrists and held on while Len slowly sank back onto the shirt beneath him.
“I know you ain’t hard no more, and you probably won’t get off on this, but it won’t be anythin’ you don’t like when I touch you now, you understand? It ain’t about sex here. It’s about you bein’ comfortable and safe.”
Len stared up at him, eyes fixed on Vance’s face.
“It’s about this bein’ nothin’ like what you knew before. A new start. Different from Ace. Different from you an’ me before tonight.”
Len nodded finally and let his arms relax until his bound hands rested across his front. He lay still and silent as Vance gazed down on him.
“One more step, darlin’.”
“What’s that?”
Vance stripped off his T-shirt and laid it over Len’s eyes. “Lift.”
Hesitating only a heartbeat, Len did lift his head and Vance quickly tied the shirt, leaving just the impression of the fading light for Len to gauge the passage of time or Vance’s position should his bulk block the light.
He was a little surprised when Vance gripped his arms and lifted them over his head to rest on the ground.
“Okay?” Vance asked.
“So far.” Len wasn’t sure “okay” would last, but he was willing to try.
“Good. Now concentrate, yeah?” He laid a big hand on Len’s stomach, and it took Len a few breaths to let go of the tension that produced.
“Good,” Vance crooned. “Now just feel, and remember, all you have to do is say Firefly, and I stop. Keep that word in your mind.” He proceeded to caress Len, calloused fingers traveling his body, and he was true to his word. It wasn’t sex. It was touch, pure and simple. It was Vance’s hands on his skin, chaste, no matter what part of him they caressed. When they glided over his cock, it still wasn’t sexual. It was the simplicity of hands and skin and sensation. Of trust. Of Vance exploring him, moving back into his personal space even after the threat of getting hurt once already.
That touch heated Len, warmed his skin despite the cooling breeze, and he closed his eyes behind the blindfold, giving up on the strain to see the shades of light and dark as Vance moved over him, the better to feel every nuance of skin sliding on skin. Every part of him was contacted, caressed, and yes, if he was honest, loved, in a protected and untainted way he would never have thought possible for such an intimate encounter.
For a little while, his world was the darkness behind his eyelids, the soft abrasion of cotton around his wrists, and the overwhelming impression of calm communicated through Vance’s hands. His skin tingled where they had been and throbbed in anticipation of where they might go. The night sounds closed in around them in the silence of communication that needed no other voice.
When Vance manipulated his body, Len moved where indicated. He allowed every intimate brush of tenderness over his flesh Vance wanted because his hands were Len’s only connection to the world outside his head.
And inside his head, the tumult began to wane. The ever-present awareness of the sticky tendrils of fear and unease that always curled into a ball around his heart slowly gave way. The fear didn’t exactly leave him, but its control over everything else loosened. There was no tearing, rending pain as he let it go. It just receded, back into its own dark corner, and he didn’t feel the need to tie it down there or wall it off. It crouched, it curled in on itself, and he simply turned his back on it.
For now he could let it go. Let it be. And he could focus on what it had so often covered up in his own soul. There were scars there. There would always be, but Vance touched those too, and loved them in the same way he did Len’s body, and it wasn’t necessary for there to be a cataclysmic orgasm or catastrophic failure for the truth to settle and the connection between them to solidify.
“Vance?” Len whispered.
“I’m here.”
Len smiled, and behind the blindfold, his eyes stung hard. He squirmed and sniffled, and Vance’s hot breath covered his face, lips covered his mouth, and the kiss Vance offered was both commanding and comforting.
When Vance tugged the blindfold free and loosened the knots holding Len’s hands, there could not have been a plainer invitation for Len to wrap himself around his lover, and no amount of discomfort where his delicate nakedness came into contact with Vance’s leather and denim was unwelcome.
For the first time since he’d moved into the ranch house, invaded the life of this man, Len felt his place established. He belonged to Vance Ashcroft. Nothing could change that. Nothing else really mattered.
21
THE HORSE and the party were wonderful gifts. Len treasured them both, the animal for the simple pleasure of having another being to care for, to love, to protect and be responsible for, and the party for the reconnection it gave him to his family and his life.
The ride, though, the tryst in the secluded clearing was the gift that, though unspoken, was the most precious for reasons Len would never be able to explain. It sustained him when doubt over his decision to reenter his life, the music industry, and the band surfaced.
Unsure if he was ready for the step he’d insisted on taking, Len found he was the one wandering from their bed in the dead of night. He retrieved the guitar Jacko had given him, even opened the case on the couch in Vance’s office, but when he looked over the shimmering gold surface, he saw only Kilmer’s sad features in the darkened doorway from that afternoon of the party a week before, and he couldn’t bring himself to pick it up. He turned, once more, to Vance’s country Martin on its stand in the corner.
He’d only been fiddling with a few notes, a few stray melodies, for a matter of minutes when he heard footsteps on the stairs and Vance calling him.
“I’m in the office,” Len replied, preparing to set the guitar aside.
“No.” Vance appeared in the doorway, two glasses of water in hand. “Don’t stop.” He looked over at the open electric guitar case. “Is that Jacko’s?”
Len nodded. “Yeah. He gave it to me. I thought he was this great guy, you know? I thought—”
“He is a great guy, Len. He is. But he’s human, and he went a long, long time never finding the guy who could hold his own against him.”
“That why he cheats on Kilmer?”
“He doesn’t. It isn’t cheating if Kilmer knows and never asks him to stop.”
“Why doesn’t he?” Their friend had not been the same since that party. He’d been quiet, and his bubbling good humor had gone missing. Len worried, and by the look on Vance’s face, it was easy to see that he worried too.
Vance set his water on the edge of the desk and picked up the electric guitar, nudging the case over enough so he could sit down. “Remember what you said to me that day? If you couldn’t give me what I wanted, you wouldn’t say no to me turning to Kilmer?”
Len eyed his lover. “That is so not the same thing as saying yes.”
“You’re right, it isn’t. Jacko has a hard time with the subtleties sometimes.”
“Then maybe Kilmer should try not being subtle.” He plunked out some angry notes, and Vance lifted an eyebrow at him. It didn’t stop the grunge edge or the sharp notes that followed.
“It isn’t Kilmer’s way to make ultimatums, Len. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“Then he deserves a Dom who understands him better.”
“Is that why you came down here? To stew over Kilmer?” Vance asked, placing a hand over the wildly vibrating guitar strings and handing Len his water.
“No.” Len took a long drink, hoping it would give him time to order his thoughts.
Vance waited, outwardly mostly patient. The tell was the way his hands stroked, one up and down the guitar neck and one over the hump of the body, like lover’s hands, only agitated and tense and not making any music.
“Play something,” Len said softly.
“Don’t change the subject.” Vance made as if to set the guitar back in its case, but Len reached over and held it in
place on his lap.
“I’m not. Play something.”
“Not in the mood.”
Len licked his suddenly dry lips, swallowed, and said it again. “Play something.”
“Stop it, Len.”
“Just a few notes. Let your hands do it. Just play.”
“I don’t even play this thing.”
“A guitar is a guitar. Play.”
“Not goin’ to bargain with you, darlin’. You’ll tell me what’s on your mind because I say so.”
Shaking his head, Len reached and moved Vance’s hand around the guitar neck so he could reach the strings with his fingertips. “No bargaining. You play, I’ll talk.”
“Why do you want me to play so bad?”
“Because you want it.”
“I told you, I ain’t in the mood.”
An impish smile flitted over Len’s face before he managed to banish it. “Don’t say ain’t. Barbarian. Play.”
“Brat.”
“Mule.”
“I ain’t stubborn!” Vance glared at him, but good humor danced in his eyes, and the quiet strum of unplugged electric sounded through the stillness.
“Good to know,” Len said softly. “Keep playing.”
Vance did, and Len timed his little speech to fit between the sporadic chords and arpeggios.
“I couldn’t sleep. It happens. My brain wheels, this ball and chain of… I’m a mess, and there’s no disconnect.”
“You sound like you’re writin’ lyrics, darlin’.”
Len shrugged, ignoring the thought, because he had to find some way to give Vance the answers he’d asked for. He’d promised to listen. It was Len’s responsibility to give him something to listen to.
“My heart and head get mixed up. No control, no reprieve. Just constant dancing with the void. The devil holds my hand.”
Vance chuckled. “Now that’s country.”
“Shut up.”
Instead, Vance riffed off a long string of violent chords, as though the muted guitar couldn’t satisfy his lust for anger and release.
Len shivered. “Exactly.”
“You scared?” Vance asked as the music quieted again.
Len nodded.
“Of?”
“Damian.”
The guitar went still. “Why? Trevor ever hurt you?” Concern laced the words, and Vance set the guitar down, leaning so his ass was mostly off the couch, and he was practically on his knees in front of Len, reaching for and clasping his hand.
“I said play,” Len whispered.
“Did he?” Vance asked, his tone brooking no argument or distraction.
“No.” Wagging his head, Len squeezed Vance’s fingers and smiled at him. “Not like you’re thinking. He never would. He was always sweet. Always….” He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “Always on the receiving end of my bullshit. My fists. He never complained. Obviously. If he had, the others would have known a long time ago. He tried to hold me together. I was too much for him. He was too much for me.”
Vance nodded and slid back onto the couch, pulling Len with him.
Unresisting, Len slipped into his lap and curled down tight so he could mash his head into the crook of Vance’s neck. “But I can’t see him.” Len whispered the confession. “I can’t face him.”
The first date with the recording studio was approaching a lot faster than Len had anticipated, and he found himself wishing he could stay in the barn with Kilmer, shovel horse manure, ride his new gigantic, sweet-tempered beast, and lie next to Vance at night and not think about the band, the music, or any of the things that would come if he played on the new album. Press conferences, photo shoots, interviews, maybe even touring, if they invited him back. It was so much. So many decisions, what to tell people about the split and his return, about his life away from the rest of Firefly. What to keep private.
Once he left their safe little nest, Vance had the freedom to leave too, and that utterly terrified him. Vance had his own neglected career to think about, and Len knew he was getting antsy for the chance to get back on the road. What happened to them when they were touring, possibly in completely opposite ends of the globe? Who held Len together if Vance was worlds away?
“You have to face him someday.”
“Not ready. I can’t give him anything, and he’ll want to know why. I don’t know. I can’t give him a reason. An apology isn’t enough. I’m not ready.”
“You can’t avoid him forever.”
“I need to understand it first. Do I talk to Stan about this? About scheduling it so I don’t have to see him?”
“No. Stan’s not the one to do that. Damian’s his, and that gives him enough to worry about in all of this.”
“Have you been talking to him?”
The hesitation before Vance replied was answer enough.
“What did he say?”
“Just that he’s worried about this too.” He let out a sigh. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“But?”
“He’s worried Trevor won’t take seeing you any better than you seem able to face it.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll work around his schedule. Who do I talk to?”
“Clive and the studio manager can work it out. Are you sure this is what you want? Maybe it’s best to clear things up sooner rather than later.”
“I can’t clear anything up until I understand it, Vance. I can’t give him an answer until I have one.”
“And what if he never asks why? What if he just accepts without questioning?”
Wouldn’t that be something, Len thought. Knowing Trevor, that was exactly what would happen, but it wasn’t good enough, and he said so. “Then I will figure it out and tell him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to know.”
“Maybe he doesn’t. But we can’t be friends with things the way they are now. And we can’t go back. If I tell him and he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear, then he’ll walk away, and Firefly will be his and I’ll have no place there.” He paused because the knife-sharp hurt of that scored deep and loosened the newly growing ball of sick inside. “If he walks away then, it’s with complete understanding of who I am, and that’s when it means we’re done. Until then, at least there’s the possibility we can make it through this.”
“And you’re sure putting it off isn’t just prolonging the hope that there’s something to salvage?”
A huge sigh crawled out of Len, taking a bit of the sliced-away emotion with it. Because that was a fair and true question to ask. “I’m not sure of that at all. Maybe that’s part of what I have to figure out. Maybe I don’t want to face him because I know how bad I hurt him. I know what kind of damage I did. It’s been done to me. I maybe just don’t want to live up to that.”
“You will.”
The words were both an endorsement of Len’s strength and honesty, and an unequivocal command from his Dom. Vance had no doubt he could live up to his responsibility for hurting his best friend, and no doubt that he would, one way or another. Len wished he could be as sure.
THE STUDIO was a two-hour drive from the ranch when traffic was on their side. If the scheduling was a nightmare, Clive never complained. He made sure Len had time to make the drive and time to work. He was always there, and always supportive. Len couldn’t have asked for more than that. The recording went smoothly, and they asked him to play lead on a few songs, which surprised him.
“What if I don’t come back on tour?” he asked when Clive mentioned it. “You want me to be that much a part of the album if I can’t support my work on the road? Will the fans accept that?”
“You are a part of Firefly, Lenny. You’re part of our foundation. Chris can play the songs. But it was his idea for you to take a few of the leads. Those are songs you wrote, after all, and ones you have the edge to play. We can find a temp to play backup on tour if we have to.”
Len nodded, strumming absently as he did. “I’ll do it, but—”
“But
nothing. Play the parts and just accept we aren’t letting you go as easily as you seem to think we can.”
“You know this all depends on him,” Len reminded their drummer.
“I know you think that. But he’s one member.”
“Firefly wouldn’t exist if not for Trev.”
“And Jet, and me and Beks, and especially you. He only ever worked up the nerve to get onstage in the first place for you. If you hadn’t shown him he could do it back then, Chris would never be able to convince him he still can now. You own as much of Firefly as any of us, and yeah, we were pissed at you—”
“You should have been.”
“I’m still talking,” Clive admonished gently. “We were. And maybe we had a right to be, but just because you made mistakes doesn’t make you a bad person. And the fact you know you screwed up and are trying to make it right goes a long way. For Trev too. Don’t think that just because you haven’t talked to him in a long time, he isn’t working his way through all this too. He is. He’s stronger, Lenny. He’s getting better, and one of these days, you’ll both be able to look one another in the eye again and know you haven’t lost anything important.”
“You make it sound like that’s already a done deal. Like we’ll just pick up where we left off.”
Clive shook his head as he wandered to the door between the sound booth and the mixer’s booth. “No. I don’t think you will. For one thing, you aren’t the same guy you were when you left. If you don’t see that in yourself, you’re not looking hard enough. You’re stronger, Lenny. And you can be stronger for him if he needs it because you have Vance to back you up, and he has Stan. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have that unshakable faith. Alice has had my back since the day I met her, and it makes a difference.”
Len nodded and dropped his gaze to his blurring guitar strings. Clive was right. Maybe he was different. And if he was stronger because he had Vance to back him up, maybe facing Trevor—or Damian—whomever his friend decided he needed to be when it finally happened, wouldn’t be as impossible as it felt right now.