Chapter 3 #4
He snaked his hand back into the shadows of the car and gripped DJ’s buttock. The kid’s ass was tight as Tal’s drums, but Roy knew how to make it hurt. One brutal, bruising squeeze, and his grasp was back on DJ’s elbow.
“Behave,” he said shortly.
DJ’s expression flipped from shock to pain to lust and back to shock, an intriguing loop. When it turned into an uncertain smile, it was far more potent than an arrogant retort. Kid thought he might have actually gotten into trouble and wanted to be sure Roy wasn’t really pissed.
Roy helped him straighten to his feet. With two of his team in front, two more ready to fall in behind them, and Roy on his right, he had DJ in hand.
“Let’s go,” he said brusquely.
DJ took care of his fans first. The afterparty winners waiting in a private room were a half dozen teens and two twenty-somethings, all excited but well behaved under the watchful presence of Henry’s team.
They accepted the signed T-shirts and caps with delight.
The girls wanted hugs and some of the boys, too.
Roy knew DJ had to be feeling every embrace through his shoulder and the connecting muscle layers, but his smile never faltered and he didn’t flinch.
Just as Moss had anticipated, DJ gave them thirty-five minutes, not fifteen, and learned their life stories before he allowed himself to be shepherded away.
He joined the main party and spoke to reporters, executives and local influencers.
He was relaxed, articulate and enthusiastic about their music, but reserved about the band’s personal lives, including his own, providing mysterious appeal.
Though they were here to see all of Survival, DJ was the band member who delivered the sound bites they craved.
They flocked to him first, then tracked down the others for filler and color.
Before they reached the second hour, Roy could tell DJ was getting more uncomfortable.
Because of the demands of his guitar playing, he had a bedtime prescription for muscle relaxers, which he didn’t seem to use regularly, but Roy saw him slip one.
He refused offers of alcohol, though it was pressed on him frequently.
Sometimes, wearying of the polite refusal, he’d take it, and discreetly transfer the bottle or glass to a waitstaff tray.
Roy went to find Moss. “It’s time to get him out of here.”
Moss turned away from the tattooed and pierced YouTube influencers he was schmoozing and glanced toward DJ. “Yeah, he’s good to go. But good luck convincing him. He won’t leave until he’s given everyone who expected personal time with him their money’s worth.”
“Tonight less is more.”
Moss shot him a sharp-eyed look. “Didn’t know nursemaiding was in your bailiwick.”
Roy didn’t take the bait. “How well do you think he’ll play without giving that arm a rest?”
“You saw him do it tonight. After you popped it back in. They feel no pain up there.”
“He’ll feel it tomorrow.”
When Moss waved him off, accepting, Roy returned to DJ.
He was talking shop with the guitarist from Blue Mod, who was fingering an invisible guitar to show DJ a technique.
DJ watched intently while perched on a stool at the wet bar.
His own fingers were moving on his knee, keeping pace with the guitarist.
The awed and fascinated attitude of the partygoers watching fairly shouted, “I can’t believe I’m getting to stand this close.”
In one of his interviews, DJ had said he embraced the moments where he could remember he was in it for the music. Otherwise you’re just another burned out asshole, whining about how hard your life is, which is when someone should stick a gun to your head and put the rest of us out of your misery.
As Roy spoke into DJ’s ear, he gave the other guitarist a cordial nod. “Moss said you’ve covered your bases. How about I call the limo to get you back to your hotel?”
DJ’s grateful nod confirmed he was running on fumes.
He brought the conversation to a close, telling the guitarist they’d hook up and jam sometime.
As he rose, he hitched up his black jeans one-handed.
Backstage, a roadie had helped him slide on a loose shirt and button a couple buttons over his bare upper body, then don a long black coat over that.
It was one of those rock style creations with zippers and laces decorating the sleeves and lapels, but the fleece interior would be providing warmth to the abused shoulder.
The black platinum ichthys shifted against his bare chest as he moved.
A few more handshakes and parting comments and then they were clear of the rooftop club.
Roy used the freight elevator for a nonstop route to the parking deck.
When the doors opened, his team were there to meet it.
They escorted DJ out through a side entrance of the building.
Roy chose to ride in the lead vehicle, one of his people handling the limo. It would be sent back to the club for the rest of the band.
Once they arrived at DJ’s hotel room, Roy nodded to the men posted on the door and took DJ inside. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few functional words since they’d left the afterparty, and as he turned and faced DJ, Roy still didn’t say anything. He waited.
DJ’s cheeks tinged an intriguing rose color. “Thanks for putting the shoulder back in. Sorry for the kiss thing. Instant pain relief screws with my impulse control.” When Roy stayed silent, DJ rubbed his left buttock. “You got your revenge, though. I’m going to have a mark.”
The kid trying to behave told Roy he was too tired to do otherwise.
Proving it, when DJ started toward his bedroom, he stopped and looked back.
He did it by turning toward him, rather than using his neck.
“Know it’s not your job, but can you help me out of my shirt and coat? Or does that sound like a come on?”
With DJ, those eyes, the voice, the long, supple body, everything sounded like a come on, and he was tricky. But Roy thought he was being sincere.
“Let me tell Weller I’ll be a few minutes.”
When he returned, DJ was sitting on the bed. He watched Roy with liquid brown eyes touched with maple gold. The curve of his soft, wide mouth drew attention to his prominent cheekbones.
“You’re so very careful and thorough, Mr. Bloodwell. Makes a girl feel so safe.”
“Shut up, you little dickhead.”
“Nothing little about me.” DJ pressed a flat palm to the top of his curly hair, then shot a significant look downward. Roy rolled his eyes.
“Stand up.”
Roy moved behind him and removed the coat. As the shoulder had to shift with the movement, Roy felt his tension. “You should have cut things short tonight.”
“The music and the fans are bliss. The business end of it is the piper you pay for them. I don’t ever short the piper. Look what happened to the people of Hamlin.”
Roy set the coat aside, then eased the shirt off, heated skin and muscle under his fingers.
DJ expelled a breath, either from the relief of it being done, or in reaction to Roy’s touch. Roy tugged on the chain of the ichthys. “You want this off?”
“No. I don’t take it off that often. Did my extensive dossier tell you who gave it to me?”
“No.”
“My foster mom. She told me it means faith and family, the kind of love that wiggles its way into the tightest cracks. Did you like the show?”
“My job isn’t to watch the show.”
“Moss gave you the tape of the first one. You’ve watched it for your post-game review, right?”
“I’m seasons behind on the shows I actually like to watch.”
“Golden Girls and NCIS? Did you learn your intense stare from Gibbs?”
Roy draped the coat and shirt over a chair and turned to face him. Time to make a decision, and in this moment, standing in DJ’s bedroom, the theory that they could pursue Dom and sub play in a totally-separate-from-the-job way felt like bullshit.
D/s wasn’t a teaching exercise for Roy. And even his club sessions on the road, while often one-time things, mattered. He connected to the other person. Maybe not soul deep, but it wasn’t a casual fuck.
So doing it with someone he was going to see daily, whose life was in his hands? It wouldn’t work. So that was that.
Roy came to stand in front of him, an appropriate arm’s length.
“DJ, I’m not your friend. I’m not here to stroke your ego or any other part of you.
You joked about the Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston thing, but it’s a real issue.
It’s easy to think that this kind of intimacy, me watching your ass, is about me wanting your ass.
It’s not. And you don’t want mine. I’m as far from your world—and as uninterested in it—as you can possibly imagine. ”
DJ studied Roy, looking for something. Something he found, because the tight set of his mouth eased.
“With your portfolio, you could have picked anything. Corporate protection, consulting. Military contract work. Probably the only kind of detail more chaotic and unpredictable than watching the ass of a rockstar.”
His expression tightened, and he stepped close enough to poke a finger against Roy’s chest. “You were a wannabe headbanger in your garage with a second hand set of drums or a guitar. You loved the music, loved getting deeper into it than just playing tunes in your bedroom or souped-up junk car. I’ll bet you have a hell of an album collection, and when you need to center yourself, you grab a beer, put in your vintage copy of AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock and Zen out. ”
The finger curled between the buttons of Roy’s dress shirt, taking a stroke against the white T-shirt beneath. Roy glanced down and lifted his gaze. Slow. “Dory, who the hell do you think you’re playing with?”