Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Roy’s rejection burned. And hurt. Yeah, okay, DJ had pushed it well past when Roy had flatly told him to leave it alone, but DJ couldn’t stop thinking about him.
No matter his stage persona—or how he’d been acting around Roy—DJ didn’t have trouble with his impulse control.
Not usually. But he followed his gut. It was how he and Survival had gotten here.
Knowing how they wanted their music to sound and be offered to fans, even when Moss told them it would be a hard sell, to refuse to relinquish control over their music and get a good record contract.
They chose a mini-mart run by a fan, and set up fast on the flat roof with their most portable amps and a minimalist drum kit. As they churned out a short setlist of their best songs, the handful of curious pedestrians grew to several hundred dancing and cheering people.
When the police arrived and told them they couldn’t do that, no permits, inhibiting traffic, et cetera, they’d broken everything down and returned to the bus while waving at the enthusiastic crowd.
Being young and stupid occasionally paid off, because that video went viral on social media, giving the sales of their platinum album an additional boost. Which somewhat mellowed Moss’s stern lecture to all of them.
What DJ most remembered about that day was the police sergeant who followed them onto the bus and sheepishly asked for an autograph for his daughter. He was divorced and saw her every other weekend.
“She’ll be over the moon, DJ,” he’d said, the impassive cop look taken away by a heart wrenching need to give her something that would tell her how much he loved her, even if he couldn’t be under the same roof. “She had me take her to buy your album the first day it came out.”
After he gave the officer the shirt they all signed, plus backstage tickets to the next concert, DJ hoped that girl knew how hard her dad was trying to love her.
It wasn’t easy, and it got fucked up more often than not.
People didn’t fit together like puzzle pieces.
More like jagged glass from different broken vessels.
He wondered how hard he’d have to grind against Roy’s edges for a fit.
Since that night, Roy had been going out of his way to keep their face-to-face interactions to a minimum. Even at the Miami concert, twenty thousand people strong, and the crazy stream of afterparties.
He had just met Roy. And DJ wasn’t an idiot. He knew the mesmerizing and brain-numbing side effect of attraction and sexual desire. Coupled to the Dom/sub thing, that lack of judgment tripled. But for right now…
Damn it, why hadn’t Roy just said yes?
Because it was his right to say no. He’d made that clear, that day in the dressing room. When a Dom tells you no, it means really fucking no.
DJ’s stomach had flipped like a pancake thrilled that it was about to be eaten. He winced. That definitely wasn’t going into a song.
Fine, DJ wasn’t going to chase him. At least not tonight. He had other plans. His personal interests aside, he had a new song in his head, and that song was telling him where he needed to go this evening.
After Roy had left his suite to take up a post outside, DJ had showered and prepared for bed.
Though he didn’t need any other part of his body throbbing, he’d surfed some BDSM stuff.
Maybe he could stroke his cock to a slow climax that didn’t jar his shoulder.
With some ibuprofen on board, and some stretches, it should be fine by tomorrow anyway.
When Adam Lambert had showed up under his search, he’d clicked on the link to his AMA performance of “For Your Entertainment.”
DJ remembered it, but the overt BDSM tones to the choreography, and how Adam sang the song, started DJ’s creative wheels turning in a way they hadn’t then. As a verse and a possible drum solo introduced itself, he put the ideas down in his bedside notebook.
He knew the signs of a song meant to be written, so while that was all he got that night, the rest would be waiting for him when he walked through other doors.
Maybe the doors he intended to go through tonight.
The Zone was a Miami kink club with a stellar reputation. The price tag and absurd level of vetting for a simple guest visit reinforced it. Unfortunately, that vetting required more advance notice than he had.
He’d asked Moss, their miracle worker, if he could get around it. “I have a new song idea,” he told him, and showed him the AMA video. “I want to get some more inspiration.”
“That performance caused controversy. Which added to the astronomical sales of the single.”
“It’s my goal in life for you to have a private island and a harem of a hundred adoring women.”
Moss grinned. “Let me see what I can do.”
No surprise, he’d been able to swing a guest pass for the night, but DJ was required to have a face-to-face with the primary owner.
So here he was, in the limo making its way through congested Miami traffic. Because of the thunderous crowd at the show, his eardrums were still numb, so G put a hand on his knee to draw his attention back to their current conversation, aka the friendly war of wills.
“I’m not letting you go in by yourself.”
“I want some time on my own.” He tried not to sound irritated. “You spoke to the owner yourself. The membership and staff are extensively vetted. And with this,” he gestured to the mask he’d brought, “no one is going to know me.”
He had no intention of playing. That session he’d only briefly mentioned to Roy had ruined the fantasy of a kink encounter with a stranger. Just the idea of it made him anxious. But he’d watch other Doms doing wondrous things, and think of Roy doing those things to him.
“The owner said some of their other members have security details. And yet they’re able to leave them outside. That’s how safe it is here.”
“They don’t work for Roy Bloodwell. I let you out of my sight, and he chews my very attractive ass into baby food. I will stay at a distance, but you’ll be in my view at all times. That’s the best I can do.”
DJ sighed. Since traffic was still crawling, he decided to learn more about his stiff-necked bodyguard. “You work for Roy long?”
“Off and on. We’ve known each other for some time. When we got out of the service and he opened a private firm, I was one of his first contract employees.”
Sitting across from him, watching the passing surroundings, G adjusted her legs, clad in black slacks.
Her scoop-necked white shirt clung to her breasts, the black jacket with nipped waist shadowing the rest of her.
Her short dark hair and two diamond studs in her ear gleamed from passing streetlights.
“He’s the best, DJ. Never misses anything, never loses focus. ”
“Yeah. I got that.” Damn it.
She also wasn’t giving him much he couldn’t have picked up from Roy’s official resume. She wasn’t going to let him pump her for information.
“All right,” he said. “But can you try not to look like a bodyguard? I don’t want to draw attention.”
“I’ve been in places like this, DJ. People are in their own world, and they value their privacy as much as you do. Plus the Zone has the amusement park ride thing.”
“Meaning?”
Her faint smile gave her petite features a more gamine look.
“You know the cardboard cutouts of a cute animal with a bubble over his head that says, ‘You must be this tall to ride this ride?’” She put her hand out at shoulder height, flat palm facing downward, elbow bent.
“For a place like this, it’s ‘you must have a stack of money this high to come inside.’”
“Could you afford it?” he asked.
“Possibly but only because Roy pays me well above the industry average. Enough to keep a doe-eyed musician from bribing me to stay outside.”
DJ snorted. “What if I write a song for you? Something country, with twang and steel guitars? I’ll wear a cowboy hat and boots. Nothing else between.”
She chuckled. “No dice, pretty boy. My point is, you being a celebrity won’t mean as much in there as it would other places. Yes, the mask is still a good idea, but you should be able to relax.”
Because of DJ’s enhanced security risk, they entered through a rear door to the building. The owner was there to meet them.
Tyler Winterman exuded protective uber-Dom as palpably as Roy did, enough to get DJ tongue-tied under Tyler’s assessing amber-eyed gaze.
His dark hair was streaked with silver, and he had firm lips, a total alpha chin and handshake grip.
He wore his tailored slacks and dress shirt as authoritatively as a CEO who wouldn’t know how to look not-in-charge, even stripped to his skin. Which was a mouthwatering thought.
His gaze slid over the disguise DJ had donned before emerging from the limo.
The Japanese kitsune mask was carved of wood, even the curling white tufts above the jaw and whiskers around the nose opening.
It allowed him to draw in as deep a breath as he needed, which DJ had a feeling would become vital.
Just being inside the club had his heart rate increasing.
The muffled sounds behind the closed door at the end of the carpeted hall suggested the sensory input that awaited him.
Erotic photographs framed and mounted along the walls, illuminated by crystal teardrop chandeliers, made it a certainty.
The walls were painted deep red, the chair railing in silver, like the photo frames.
“My wife is a fan, Mr. Smith,” Tyler said, using the alias they’d agreed upon, no matter that they stood alone in the hallway. “Your music speaks to her.”
The gravity of the statement told DJ that Tyler’s wife had been through bad shit. Pain and loss.
In this environment, Tyler’s Dom-ness was strong enough that DJ had a strange urge to acknowledge it. He did so in the best way he knew how, even if it didn’t have the ‘capital letter’ feel it had when he said it to Roy.
“Thank you, sir. Please tell her we hope it helps. Creating it sure helped us.”