Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Roy was a bully and an asshole. That was what DJ decided. Roy had left DJ in G’s company before heading out, as unperturbed as a frozen steak. G watched him go with an unreadable expression before turning to DJ. “Where to next?” she asked.
“Back to the hotel,” he said, and found the nearest exit. He couldn’t bear to see anyone else indulging in what he wanted to do so much with Roy.
The ache was in his heart and soul, the confusion in his mind. Whereas his body was one big achy, throbby mass of hormones needing relief. Once G saw him safely into his hotel suite, DJ headed to his shower to handle the one thing he could control.
Except he got there, and he couldn’t. He kept thinking of what Roy had said he wanted from his sub.
He bet Roy knew his dilemma, and was having a good belly laugh over it. No. Maybe not. For one thing, if Roy indulged in a belly laugh, the universe might come unraveled from the shock.
He wanted to yank Roy’s chain, be an ass. Taunt him when he came on shift. He'd write a song about it. It wouldn’t be fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. It would be fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. He’d do a retro throwback, side A and B of a 1980s vinyl 45.
But if he behaved that way, it would point right back to why a bodyguard shouldn’t get involved with a client. DJ couldn’t handle having a Dom be this close without acting on it.
He thought about what Roy had said about that money clip, his testicles twinging in response. Was Roy into pain on a normal day, or was he organic, just following where the dynamic between him and his sub led?
How many subs had he had? As a regular, ongoing relationship, not just hook ups? DJ knew he couldn’t be jealous, not with how many orifices and hands had taken his cock in his stupid early days.
The better question was how many submissives had given Roy everything he really wanted?
The next day, the shrieking fans outside the rehearsal space they’d booked, waiting for a chance glimpse of band members, made his nerves jangle.
When he got to the live room, Pete was going on and on about some girl he’d hooked up with after the show.
DJ snapped at him, then apologized and retreated to an isolation booth to work on vocals and guitar riffs he was working through in his head.
He brought an older guitar with him. Steve called it his emotional support guitar, since DJ didn’t let anyone touch it, even Shaun, who routinely re-strung his guitars.
Given how the day was going, it shouldn’t have surprised him at all when, during his aggressive warm up, his damn B string snapped.
It struck the outside of his right hand, cutting the shit out of it.
Fucking hell. There must have been a sharp edge on the bridge that had worn out the string.
DJ wrapped his other hand over the cut to put pressure on it.
At least it wasn’t where it would affect his playing.
He could play through pain, but particularly intricate sequences didn’t care about his determination.
They needed the right touch, speed and dexterity.
Eddie Van Halen had said a guitar was like a woman that way. But probably men, too. He thought of how Roy had looked at him when DJ slid a finger inside his shirt, between those two buttons, and felt the give of chest hair beneath the soft T-shirt, plus the resistance of solid flesh.
And when he’d knelt between his legs at the club and thought of taking Roy in his mouth…
The pressure of his fingers on the strings was sending odd tones through the amp. Stop this shit. He needed to get his head on straight.
“Hey.”
He’d apparently been stewing in his own head long enough for Warren’s shift to be up.
Opening his eyes, he found Roy standing in front of him, wearing his dark suit, silk tie and perfectly ironed dress shirt.
The way he was standing revealed the hint of his gun’s shoulder harness.
The whole look was sexy, in charge. Intimidating and authoritative.
Even with him holding a band-aid and a wet wipe.
“Do you carry a first-aid kit somewhere in that jacket?”
“Never know when a client might get a boo-boo.”
DJ showed his teeth and reached for the band-aid. Roy shifted to hold it out of reach.
“You’re a piece of work,” DJ muttered.
“You’re acting like a child whose toy was taken away from him. Did you not let yourself play with your toy, Dory?”
DJ saw patience, and a message he was too pissed off to decipher right away. Then he studied Roy like a feral cat examining a bowl of food inside a trap.
“You were testing me? Screwing with me?”
“No,” Roy said. “I thought about the things you said. You’ve had the same amount of time to think it through. Did you change your mind about what you wanted?
The gray eyes were calm, but behind them were less calm things.
After half a second, DJ had a response. With an exaggerated flourish, he presented his middle finger, then lowered it to present the injured side of his hand.
Roy gave him a stern look before tearing open the wet wipe.
He laid the band-aid on DJ’s knee while he cleaned the cut, his grip steady around DJ’s wrist, his focus on the task.
DJ could do nothing but watch him until he wrapped the band-aid around the cut.
“How’d you pop a string?”
“Asked too much of it.”
Roy smoothed the band-aid and sat down on a stool facing him. As he braced himself with his polished shoes, his thigh muscles flexed under the hold of the slacks. DJ wondered if his besotted fans studied him as closely as he seemed unable to stop himself from doing with Roy.
“You’re still going to the movie studio meet after this?” Roy asked.
“Yeah. Then I’ll come back here to jam with the guys, until it’s time to do dinner with that international concert promoter who’s wanting to discuss our next world tour.”
“Followed by the rollout on the tour bus,” Roy noted. “The rest of the equipment left yesterday with the roadies to do the load in at the next venue. Eleven trucks’ worth. How do you make any money on your concerts?”
“Concerts are about promoting the music sales, man. When we do a great show, we got fans for life who talk about us to everyone they meet.” DJ smiled. “But Moss makes sure we break even so we’re never in debt to the label.”
DJ moved his foot a few inches, so it was against the inside of Roy’s braced one. The cuff of his jeans brushed the hem of his slacks. Roy’s glance went to the contact before he rose, a slight smile on his lips.
DJ had no idea what it meant, what it changed. But he did feel better. Especially when he looked down and saw Roy had left a pack of trail mix on the stool for him. With M&Ms in the mix to cut the salt.
“If you have a fatal blood sugar crash, it brings down my Yelp rating,” his bodyguard mentioned as he exited the booth.
Yep. Definitely better.
Later, as they headed for the meet with the movie studio, Moss discussing whatever Moss always needed to talk to DJ about, DJ was listening, but he was also hyper-cognizant of Roy.
His bodyguard was sitting in the front seat, scoping out the road and checking in with the forward and rear escort vehicles.
If he’d been sitting next to DJ, he could have inhaled his aftershave and been thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder.
Roy would say he was impeding his situational awareness. DJ smiled at the thought.
Once they arrived at the movie studio, DJ met with the music director and his people.
He’d been offered six figures for a single vocal piece in a movie, and Steve, Tal and Pete were cool with it.
The movie wasn’t doing a soundtrack release, so Moss had worked a deal where it could be included on their next album, which they’d complete in the studio as soon as they finished this tour run.
Since DJ had brought his acoustic guitar and a music pad with him, they could get right into it.
The film director provided DJ input, answering his questions about how she was going to film the scene and what emotional output she wanted from it.
Though she looked like a padded soccer mom, she knew her business and loved filmmaking.
DJ always connected to someone who treated their art as their priority.
In return, she appreciated DJ’s serious approach to what she wanted to happen.
Her answers gave him a few new ideas, so he felt sure he could meet her deadline.
They adjourned to the conference room to hammer out paperwork issues and recording schedules.
The movie studio was willing to rent a recording space near the Denver tour stop so DJ could keep to his schedule and they could keep theirs.
Roy stood outside the room, visible through the glass wall.
Expressionless and yet forbidding-looking, he tracked everything and everyone, inside the room and out.
It gave DJ an idea. He leaned over to the lawyer next to him, a thirty-something with a toned body, intelligent green eyes and well-cut blond hair that smelled like cucumber and vanilla. “Hey, Clark. Just for fun. Hold up your pen like it’s a knife and pretend like you’re going to stab me with it.”
Clark shot DJ a dubious look before glancing at Roy through the glass. “Do I look like I want to be body slammed? This is a three-thousand-dollar suit.”
DJ chuckled and caught Clark’s hand, fast enough he couldn’t pull away before DJ made him mimic a stabbing motion toward him.
Roy shot him a “really?” kind of look, as DJ tossed him a grin and released the lawyer.
He had to torment Roy a little, to make up for the emotional wrestling that had kept DJ up most of the night.
Clark held up both hands, so Roy knew he was blameless. Like he needed to be told. Moss rolled his eyes, took the pen from Clark and handed it to DJ. “Please sign on the dotted line before you annoy my ulcers.”
“Your ulcers are your only friends, Moss. I wouldn’t want to drive a wedge between you.”