Chapter 2
(Draven)
Something felt off. Traffic was light and the view of the desert on the drive was one of red haze and a ragged landscape dotted with tall cacti and scrubby brushes that looked like they’d hurt if you fell in one. Johnny had done a killer job on the playlist, blending classic rock with 90s grunge and the hits of several of our contemporaries, yet there was a tension in the way he carried himself that was nothing like the Johnny Amaral I’d come to fantasize over every time I saw him up on stage. Okay, so to be fair, I fantasized about him off it, too, especially kicked back in an easy chair barefoot in boy shorts and nothing else, a devil may care grin on his face whenever he caught me looking at him.
Only when he’d looked at me tonight, I hadn’t seen the promise of wicked things in his gaze, instead there had been a hint of fear and that wasn’t a good look on him. I’d only ever seen it when he’d been discussing his impending court case, a topic he’d only broached when we’d been setting up the dates for the tour. It wasn’t ideal, but Jagger had volunteered to cover for him if the need arose, which we all hoped it wouldn’t. The closer we crept toward the trial day the harder it was to accept that the other person who’d been on the road that night still hadn’t come forward to tell the authorities what they’d seen.
Johnny claimed he hadn’t caused that wreck, that he’d just gotten caught up in the middle of it when he’d veered to avoid being struck by another vehicle. Unfortunately, the concussion he’d gotten when he’d cracked his head on the steering wheel meant that his memories of the accident were hazy. With a lack of additional evidence and mounting pressure from an irate community intent on not seeing another celebrity get away with murder, they’d charged Johnny with vehicular manslaughter. If convicted, he was facing serious jail time, something I tried not to think about because anytime I did, my chest ached and my eyes started stinging with unshed tears.
We hadn’t even figured out what we were to one another yet and already there was a sort of finality hanging over our heads, making everything feel frantic. There was an urgency prickling along my skin as we pulled up to a stoplight and I glided my hand up his thigh. I caressed his abs at the next light and listened to the GPS interrupt the song and tell him to take a left at the next stop sign. For a moment, he covered my hand with his, the press of leather over the hands I’d shoved inside his jacket served as a reminder that I needed to pick up gloves before we met up with the rest of the band. Nights in the desert got a little chilly this time of year. Nothing like the cold of Maine, but still enough that I’d kept my hands pressed against his t-shirt since we left the rest stop two hours back.
The moment he pulled into the parking lot and turned off the bike, I pressed a kiss to his neck and slipped my hands out from beneath his jacket, but only after I’d glided them up his chest and lightly stroked his peck just to feel his breath hitch and his body melt beneath his hands. When he tipped his head back, I nipped the juncture where his neck met his shoulder, licking the spot to ease the sting when I felt him shudder.
“Just bury me here and be done with it,” he growled.
“In the parking lot?” I rumbled, hating how low my voice was, despite not having used it for hours. “I doubt you want people parking on your grave for all eternity.”
“Wasn’t a parking lot a hundred years ago,” he replied. “Doubt it will still be one in a hundred more.”
“Well, I doubt it will be a cemetery, so bring your ass on!” I said with all the force and inflection I could muster.
He shuddered at that and seemed to pull himself together, straightened his spine and leaned away so I could get off the bike and unstrap our things. After we’d slung our bags over opposite shoulders, I thought he’d reach for my hand, and for a moment, it looked like he was going to, then he ducked his head a little and headed for the door, leaving me to follow, wondering what I’d done to dampen his enthusiasm for the trip.
Maybe I should have arranged for Jagger, Robbie and Kayden to join us, but Jagger had his heart set on spending time in Portland before our tour kicked off there. Since it was his first trip to the west coast his men had been eager to show him a few spots that weren’t in the tourism guide. I’d made them swear not to wind up splashed all over the dirt sheets until after I’d had a few days to enjoy some downtime with Johnny, but after the way our social media threads had blown up with images of Jagger performing at Rocktoberfest with our band as well as Johnny’s, there was no way he could expect to wander around unrecognized. I just hoped he was up to handling the sometimes intense invasions of privacy that took place on the road.
Maybe it was time to hire full-time bodyguards, something I’d thought about doing when bringing in Damage Control Inc. to watch our backs at Rocktoberfest, but they’d caught our ex-roadie so fast that we’d parted ways after the end of the event. Still, I had their contact information and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that it might not be a bad idea to hire a small crew of guards to travel with us. If I could keep what happened to me, or worse, from happening to one of them, then I owed it to them to do everything in my power keep them safe.
Mind made up, I shot Sully a text the moment I reached our room, while Johnny lingered at the vending machine, joining me moments later with several energy waters and an assortment of candy that he carefully arranged in the fridge.
Too carefully.
Everything he’d done since we’d entered the building had been about avoiding eye contract, from the way he’d stepped back and pulled his hat low the moment we’d reached the check-in desk, to the position he’d taken up a half-step behind me, eyes on the floor every time I’d glanced and smiled at him.
Pulling my speech to text device from my pocket, I started typing and immediately erased the assumption I’d been about to make. It wouldn’t have been fair to kickstart the conversation by suggesting we hit the nightclub downstairs and get a few drinks in us while we looked for someone we could share. We barely had a relationship, hell, that’s what we were there to figure out. While the trip might have been my idea, Johnny had lit up like an overly excited firefly and rattled off over a dozen things for us to do before I’d even had the hotel booked. He’d only balked when it was time to leave the others. I guessed that was fair. We’d interacted plenty over the almost decade we’d known one another, but now that I truly thought about it, this was the first time we’d deliberately gone out and done anything alone.
I knew why that was. I just wondered if he’d ever picked up on it.
Maybe I should start with a question and ask what was going on in his head. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. Maybe he’d heard something about his upcoming trial and hadn’t been able to shake whatever thoughts it had ignited yet. I started to ask that directly, but he’d already been hesitant to discuss any of the details with me beyond what was already public knowledge, so I erased the letters, not wanting him to feel like I was pushing for information he wasn’t ready to give. I’d just started to ask if he was hungry, figuring that might be a safe place to start, when he stripped off his t-shirt, folded it, and placed it neatly on the edge of the dresser. When his jeans followed, I tossed my phone in my bag and ran my fingers up his back, digging them in a bit as I rubbed them.
“Take a shower with me?” he murmured as he pressed into my touch .
Since that was better than him tensing, or pulling away, I rolled with it, eager to see him relaxed and laughing the way he’d been last night, cracking up around the bonfire with Jagger as we swapped stories of the things we’d encountered while exploring Rocktoberfest.
Growling, I wrapped my arms around him, hugging while I nuzzled the pulse point beneath his ear. “Gladly.”
I hated turning him loose, but if it got us to a state of naked, wet and completely at ease, then I was willing to mourn the brief loss of contact in order to strip down while he got the water ready. Stepping beneath the spray with him, the last thing I expected was for him to turn in my arms, bury his face against my shoulder, and cling, not in some mad, passionate embrace, but in a desperate, clingy one.
“What are we doing?” he moaned, his voice barely resonating over the warm cascade.
I knew my voice would be lost if I tried to say anything, so I just held him and hoped he’d say more. Instead, he yanked my head down, slammed our lips together, and kissed me until my fingers were tangled in his hair and we were both hard as hell, our slick bodies rubbing together. I loved the way we fit. His head barely reached my shoulder and every inch of him was trim, taut muscle from the hours he spent practicing and performing.
When he slid to his knees, I lost all ability to think, especially when his lips closed around my cock while his fingertips dug into my ass so hard my cheeks would be stinging from the imprint of his nails in the morning. As I sank into every sensation, my last rational thought was that he’d sure found an answer to his question that I could get behind, though in the back of my head there was this nagging thought that the act we were engaged in now wasn’t what he’d meant. Was easier to let my knees turn to jelly than think about it.
My back hit the wall, but Johnny still had such a tight hold on me that there was no risk of falling, then he hummed and the light spots behind my eyelids started swirling to the tune of… Holy shit, he was humming “Desperate Glory,” one of the first songs I’d written as frontman of Damaged Saints. Every vibration rocked my world a little more, until the light spots did more than dance, they erupted into a firework show of flashing, beautiful gold, while I emptied my balls down his throat, each press of his tongue and sucking swallow only serving to enhance my pleasure more. I could scarcely move, let alone catch my breath when he finally stood and took a tiny step back from me. I needed to see him. My lips trembled as the wall of the shower stall held me up while I struggled to crack my eyes open.
The wavery, water-streaked angel that stood in front of me had smoldering eyes and a wicked smirk as he licked his lips. I’d licked my cum off the body of more than one bedpartner, always of the curvy, female variety. Now I wondered what I tasted like on his lips and eagerly waited to see if he’d share, only he just grinned, cocked his head and reached for the soap. That’s when I realized that he wasn’t hard anymore, either. He must have taken care of himself while he was pleasuring me, which didn’t exactly sit right, nor was the way he started washing me while my head was still reeling from what he’d done.
This might be my first relationship with a man, but I doubted the experience was as much fun for him as it had been for me when I’d barely gotten to do more than crush his hair in my fists and caress his cheek as he sucked me dry. When he came at me with the sponge I reached to take it away, only to be stunned a second time, when he spun me with little effort, placed one hand against my back, and pinned me to the wall for a second time as he slowly ran the washcloth over my back. As amazing as it felt, I couldn’t help but wonder how out of my element I was and what the hell it was gonna take to flip the script.