Loverman

by B. D. Roca

  That beautifully cut, sexy mouth tightened. “Early on, perhaps. But people can be idiots.”

  Typical Charles. Just occasionally the autocrat slipped through. Kemp burst out laughing, but his fingers still went to the knot at his hip and he loosened the towel, letting it slip to the floor. Charles’ suddenly fierce blue gaze slid over his damp, naked body as Kemp crawled over the mattress, settling back against the brass bars of the bedhead and winding his arms up around them before gripping the cool metal bars with his fingers.

  Chin lifting, he watched Charles’ face flush. Mmm, he did most certainly know his lover’s little kinks. Deliberately, he spread his legs wide, knees lifting and heels catching in the cotton cover as he opened himself up to Charles’ narrowed gaze, cock, balls, hole, all of it, and the colour deepened under that golden skin, a flush spreading bloodily up Charles’ long, muscular throat.

  Charles shifted on the bed as if those chinos had grown too tight, and Kemp felt his smile grow evil.

  “I want photographic evidence, Charles. However you want me, whichever way you want me,” he drawled, incapable of keeping the rough, hot edge out of his voice. “One rule only—these images are only for us. You and me. No gallery, no show. Ever. So go as dark and filthy as you want. When I posed for you at the video shoot that day, we both knew those images would probably be public, and sure as fuck, they were. But these, for us alone… no limits. Just go for it.”

  “Dear god—” It was a hoarse whisper.

  “You won’t get many offers like this. And I trust you. I know you’ll keep the images private.”

  The powerful line of Charles’ throat moved as he swallowed. “Yes. I would.”

  Kemp licked his suddenly dry lips. Fucking hell, this was turning him on so bloody hard—way harder than some crazy spur-of-the-moment suggestion should. His cock was already hard and leaking, and he lowered a hand to slowly pump its length.

  Charles’ white teeth bit into the lush curve of his lower lip. His eyes half closed as if the sight alone drugged him.

  “Of course you will, Charles,” Kemp corrected. “I know you’ll keep the images private. The images you’re gonna start shooting right now. So come on. Don’t disappoint me. I’m the big-cocked rocker, remember? So I want some fucking amazing images, and Charles… I will do anything, and I mean anything, to help you get your shot.”

  Charles put the camera to one side, panting as Kemp slid to his knees on the rug at his feet, staring up at him in challenge. Hours back, it seemed, Charles had changed the lighting in the room, tilting two of the lamps so that the illumination became richly dramatic, gilding lamplight and deep shadow. Under it Kemp’s whipcord lean body was the stuff of his dreams, pale skin silken and taut over the drum of his ribs, his narrow hips, his erection heavy, thick and deliciously obscene as it stretched up over his flat belly. Charles did not want to contemplate just how he himself looked. Hungry. Desperate. Needy, so very, very needy— He ran his fingers over Kemp’s jaw and felt a rush of power as Kemp’s wide, sexy lips parted.

  Very deliberately, Kemp reached up and caught hold of Charles’ wrist. His white teeth nipped at the fingertips of Charles’ free hand while Charles’ other still held the lightest of the cameras he owned, somehow steadied enough to take the close shot: Charles’ fingers between Kemp’s lips, another shot, angled down, Kemp’s fist wrapped around that rigid erection, the deeply flushed head slick.

  Charles had lost count of the number of images he’d shot so far, all of them stunning in their stark eroticism and base honesty. To one side of the space, a massive, slightly battered gilded mirror had not been hung but rather placed on the polished wooden floor and propped back against the brick wall by some creatively minded previous tenant. It reflected Kemp kneeling, but also, it captured any action happening on the big brass bed.

  Earlier Charles had permitted Kemp to strip him naked and push him over the mattress, spread the cheeks of his arse and rim him. Charles had somehow captured Kemp’s intent reflected image in the mirror alone, knowing exactly how that battered, gilded frame had almost cropped him out of the image, granting Charles the anonymity that he still needed, hypocrite that he was, no matter how insanely exhibitionistic Kemp was currently intent on being.

  He’d almost come then, torn between snapping the moment and the insane pleasure of Kemp’s tongue in his arse, Kemp’s thumbs holding his body open for his plunder.

  “Chaz,” Kemp had growled against his spine. “Turn around. Give me your cock, wanna suck you off, it’s been so long, fuck, come on, come on—”

  Charles had wrenched away. It didn’t matter that yes, it had been an eternity since he’d had Kemp’s mouth on him. Felt the velvet lash of his tongue. The hot suction of his lips. Savoured the movements of Kemp’s throat as he’d swallowed his come down. Felt the rush of that particular power.

  He hadn’t been ready for that. Not yet.

  He didn’t want to come. Not yet.

  And Kemp knew it and edged and pushed and played with the boundaries of exactly what Charles would permit when he knew, in truth, that Charles would permit him anything.

  Now, Kemp looked up at him in pure provocation while his knees spread further apart on the geometric-patterned rug beneath him, and he arched open for the camera. Charles’ rigid cock throbbed, and somehow he took another shot: Kemp’s face averted now, profile unexpectedly stark and pure, chest heaving as he pumped his cock and palmed his balls with his other hand.

  Once he was no longer touching Kemp, Charles found his every honed instinct returning. He turned the camera to the mirror, shot Kemp and his mirrored duplicate, returned the camera to the flesh-and-blood man before him, and slid down to his own knees to get up close and tight.

  Perfect angle, Kemp’s thighs wide, tight shot of his fist, his beautiful gleaming cock, the angry head above his shuttling fist. Shadows of Kemp’s balls. Shot of Kemp’s eyes shut tight, sharp profile, wide lips open as he panted, on the verge of orgasm.

  Incredibly, Kemp abruptly halted, gasping, and twisted around, fumbled with a wooden box that had been kicked under the bed. Charles watched him with a dry mouth, knowing.

  Kemp paused, hand on the lid of the box, and gave him a savage grin. “Still entertained? Still finding some interesting angles?”

  Charles wiped the back of the hand holding the camera across his face. He swallowed. “You know what this is doing to me.”

  Grey eyes dropped to his aching, rigid cock. “I’d be sad if it weren’t.” Kemp took out the glass dildo Charles had last seen on Skype, together with a bottle of lube, and dropped them to the discarded towel before sliding fully to the carpet. He arched his back, spread his legs, and fingered his hole as he pinched one of his small brown nipples. His gaze fixed on Charles.

  “Well?” he drawled.

  Charles slicked his lips with his tongue. “Don’t stop,” he whispered. “Please.”

  Kemp gave a rough chuckle. No wonder. Charles could still scarcely believe he was doing this in front of his camera. Even as he watched, somehow automatically pointing the camera, another shot taken, Kemp worked a slick finger inside himself, another, the room silent but for Charles’ rough breathing and Kemp’s groans and grunts, before Kemp pressed the dildo, glossy with lube, against his hole. It resisted for a moment and then slowly, tormentingly, Kemp’s thighs wide and the view offered up to Charles perfect, the dildo slid inside. It was the most erotic thing Charles had ever seen.

  Closer shot, Kemp’s fingers sliding around his stretched hole, taut around the glass. Kemp’s cock, wet with the precum welling from the slit, became impossibly harder, Kemp’s elegant, musician’s hand dragging up its length as his pale eyes focused, knowing and slitted on Charles’ face. “Like it? Want more?”

  Swallowing, ferocious in his concentration, Charles nodded, once.

  Bared flash of Kemp’s teeth in a savage grin. “Sure. Course you do. You’re my sexy voyeur, the classy dirty-minded fuck of my dreams. Turns me the fuck on.” Tho
se white teeth bit into his lower lip, and his fist tightened as he slowly withdrew the dildo almost all the way out and then thrust it back in. From his hiss and the arch of his spine, he’d pegged his prostate. Panting, Kemp turned his head to Charles. “Get down on the rug with me, babe.” He added in a tone of utter command, “Set that fucking camera up and get it focused on us.”

  Charles had never done anything like this. Not fully and openly shot himself in a position that anyone could regard as in any way compromising. Never been about to… hell, about to do whatever Kemp was planning. Not that Kemp would force him to continue. If he said no, Kemp would easily accept it. The kind of power games they played had never hinged on a lack of consent, but it was one thing to have already taken dozens of shots of Kemp tonight, some obscene, some erotic, all purely beautiful. It was totally another to face the camera naked with him.

  Without a doubt it would capture his own raw reactions to this man he was so shamefully in love with, had been in love with, he knew, since those lost days when they’d been thrown together in that boarding school after his father’s death and Kemp had been his only solace. Maybe from even before that.

  But he was in control of this, at least the privacy of it, only he would have to see the result and… well, Kemp was right. The idea of capturing this intimate, fragile, and beautiful moment, the two of them bound together in these silken minutes, was something that he just had to do.

  “You like my… voyeuristic side,” Charles said, somehow cool even with a flush of blood mantling his throat and cheeks because somehow, he had to wrench back some control. Some shred of dignity.

  “I love your voyeuristic side,” Kemp corrected. Those pale eyes were briefly serious, filled with an understanding and blunt honesty that soothed every broken edge in Charles’ soul even as his mouth twisted with the smallest of smiles. “It’s the perfect complement to me and my fucking endless, shameless, total exhibitionism.”

  Despite himself, Charles laughed. “You do know yourself well.”

  “Too well. And it’s been too long, so bloody long, Charles, since I’ve been in that gorgeous arse. Had you unleash yourself. Now get down here on the rug with me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Despite what Kemp knew to be Charles’ misgivings, his lover had fitted in to the sensual, creative atmosphere of the house in a way that had warmed some part of what Kemp preferred to think of as his stony cold heart. Charles ghosted in and out of the front room they’d set up as a studio, took stealth shots of the guys, their process—pure reportage, nothing like the achingly beautiful, incredibly filthy images he’d snapped their reunion night—and late Saturday afternoon, Kemp had wandered out to find him chilling out in the garden with Viva and Red. Red had found the stash of garden equipment and enlisted anyone he could in working on the, in his professional opinion, neglected vegetable garden.

  It seemed Charles was relaxed about getting his hands dirty with manual labour. Murphy’s girlfriend, Belle, had curled up on a rug on the grass, watching on. Earlier, she’d ring-led a joint expedition to a string of local vineyards, leaving them all to drink the wine they’d sampled and bought. Belle was a little drunk and a lot giggly when her man wandered out and joined in the little weeding fest.

  Mucking in, Viva had even smiled occasionally. Shocking. Kemp had loved the sight of it.

  Charles was still workaholic Charles, sure—he’d been editing images on the shiny new Mac he’d brought up with him—but he was finding time to go sightseeing, mix with the others, and Kemp could see they were unwinding around him in a way they’d never had a chance to before.

  Was it too much to hope that this place was working some kind of a miracle? Bloody hell, it had been a long enough road, and Three Cats was kind of special.

  Not that there was much slacking between any of them. The songs were progressing, and both Red and Viva were working on their own laptops and projects in between vineyard tours and Red’s vegetable garden thank you renovation to their absent host.

  Sunday midmorning, Kemp wandered out of the converted brick stables that had become home, Charles asleep, tangled in the soft, indigo cotton sheets, the quilt slipping off the bed. They’d woken up way earlier and fucked with a languor that they’d only found after exhausting each other’s bodies the day before.

  He wasn’t the only one awake. Off in the distance, Moon barked. Kemp walked on further. It was pleasant out here, vines scrolling forever in the distance. Eventually he sat down on an old garden bench under a fruit tree.

  Switched back on from silent, his phone buzzed with last night’s notifications.

  As usual, a shit-ton of phone and text messages. He was about to ignore them when one in the list caught his eye.

  Maxine. Mum. Time stamped two in the morning.

  He hit Play. “Think you’ve got something special with him, Kemp?” his mother spat. She sounded drunk. He recognised it: 2:00 a.m. drunk, Viva and he used to call it. Her safe time, when she could let her guard down and get truly sloppy. “He’s just like his father,” she slurred. “You’re just something Charles bought. His latest fucking acquisition. Do you understand?” She burst into harsh, ugly laughter. A pause, the rattle of glass against glass, and Maxine hissing, “Now we’re just the same, Kemp. You’re just like me. Bought and paid for by a Durant. Do you understand? He bought you. He bought you. And darling, I sold you. Just ask him why he’s paying me all this money. Just ask. Ask that devious, two-faced little weasel, that fucking sick, depraved daddy’s boy— Just ask.”

  Kemp stared at the screen when the rant was over. Played it again, although he didn’t know why.

  He’d gotten it the first time.

  Early morning had always his mother’s worst time, when her self-control slipped and the alcohol or the pills or the powders she loved sang out to her and took over and every shred of bitterness and anger clawed out.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  He didn’t think he’d ever heard that level of foul-mouthed toxic hatred from his mother for anyone. Ever. She was just too self-involved. Indifference was more her thing.

  What had Charles done to get her like this?

  Charles and he—Charles had given him some smooth legal line about Maxine’s disappearance. The subject had been sidelined, and in honesty, Kemp had let it slip because he hadn’t really wanted the answers. Not when it might mean cutting the guy out of his life. No, Maxine had turned up at his Balmain place, then gone. No explanation, just Charles telling him she was out of the picture. Kemp had once wanted answers. He’d texted Charles a simple question. How had he done it?

  And Charles had answered, and from what Maxine had just said, he’d given Kemp the plain ugly truth.

  I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  Because one thing his mother could never resist was money, and the more of it, the better. Charles had all the money in the world. But what in the fuck was she selling that billionaire’s son Charles needed to buy, if not Kemp himself? But Charles wouldn’t just buy into Kemp’s life. Christ, Charles wouldn’t do that.

  Charles knew he wasn’t for sale. Didn’t he? Didn’t he?

  And if it was just money, all the money, the one thing his mother loved, then why had she exploded like that?

  “Hey, I said good morning. What’s wrong? You seem a little distracted.”

  Kemp glanced up from his seat at the kitchen table in the main house, scrubbed a hand over his face, and took in the fact that he no longer had the place to himself. Golden in the sunshine streaming in through the window, Charles was pouring himself a glass of water from the tap. Kemp forced a smile. Three Cats was not the time or the place to start a confrontation and demand explanations. That could get loud and very fucking ugly.

  The house was about to start buzzing with half a dozen other people.

  He had to cut Charles some slack. He had to give himself time to process. It was that or demand they leave and go back to Sydney right now and have it out there, and that was
just not happening.

  So Kemp tried not to wince. “Beautiful morning out there. Just blue we’re leaving tomorrow.”

  Glass raised, at Kemp’s comment Charles gave him the kind of shy yet indecent smile that belied that utter possessiveness of the blow job he’d given Kemp that morning. The utterly fucking hot way he’d owned Kemp’s cock and Kemp’s responses. The way he’d ridden Kemp and left them both covered in spunk and sweat, torn between laughter and lazy, wrung-out kisses in the aftermath.

  But that had been before that toxic voicemail, and Kemp hadn’t gotten his mother’s poison out of his thoughts yet. He rose from the table as Charles came over, trying not to flinch as Charles brushed a kiss against his mouth.

  He muttered, “Gotta get back in the studio. Last proper day and all that.”

  And before Charles could question him, he’d gotten the bloody hell out of the room.

  Hours later, after a massive waste of the morning, Charles gave up on double-checking his scheduling as any form of distraction, decided that a drive would be a better idea, and left his work laptop behind in the guest studio. Unfortunately, Viva was curled up on a couch in the living room, spiral-bound notepad on her knees as Charles made his way through the main house.

  “Hey,” she bit out. “What’s the rush?”

  Dear god. What was it with this day?

  He glanced at Viva warily. “I was just heading out. Thought I’d see a little more of the local sights.”

  Her sleek black brows quirked. She was already slipping the notepad and pen into a backpack, putting it carefully to one side. “I’ll come with you.”

  He blinked. “Excuse me?”

  For some reason his disbelief seemed to amuse her more than anything else he’d ever said in their long acquaintance. Wonderful. Grinning, she gathered her phone from a side table and said with a sickly sweetness, “We can chat. That’s why Kemp set up this weekend, wasn’t it? For us to get to know each other?”