Chapter 24 #3
When DJ laughed and Roy smiled, it broke the spell on the small audience. DJ heard applause and whoops. The song had kicked ass the way they had hoped, partly explaining the celebration. But for those like Sy, who understood the significance of what Roy had just done, it meant something deeper.
Confirming it, DJ heard a congratulatory drum roll and tossed a smile Sy’s way, but his attention didn’t leave Roy.
“I figured you were just being stubborn and self-sacrificing,” DJ said. “Telling yourself I was too good for you.”
Roy’s distracting lips pursed. “Hell, no. I was telling myself there was no reason to settle for one of those dime-a-dozen world famous rockstars, especially those who have the smile of an angel, a sexy ass and a heart…”
Roy stopped himself. Unsettling DJ to the core, he gripped DJ’s nape in hard, almost desperate fingers, his eyes revealing a shocking depth of emotion. “A heart that I want to be mine so much that nothing else matters.”
Moss had thought the audience might be put off by DJ’s message that it was okay for the rockstar god to be the submissive. That they’d rather see him as powerful and in control, being the top.
DJ’s heart had a different response for that. I'm showing them the power in surrender. Giving yourself up to love, to risk our deepest, darkest selves.
He let out a shuddering breath and, regardless of their audience, kissed Roy with all that feeling in him.
A few moments later, just to make sure that Roy knew they were on even footing, he grabbed two handfuls of his perfect ass.
He was of course shoved away, Roy giving him a hell-to-pay look for doing that without permission, and where the people milling around backstage could see the move.
“I will file a sexual harassment claim,” Roy told him. “I’ll do interviews on ETV.”
DJ chuckled, but then he summoned enough brain cells to notice what his bodyguard was wearing. Jeans, yes, which were totally sexy on him, but the shirt…
“You asked,” Roy said.
The black T-shirt defined his chest and shoulders in as mouthwatering a way as the jeans did his lower torso, but DJ’s attention went to what was on the shirt. A royal crest showing two lions and a dragon, spouting flame over a crown. “Queen. That’s the band you’d leave my ass unprotected for?”
“I said they would come the closest to making me consider it.”
“Okay. Harsh but fair. Queen is legendary.”
Roy’s lips curved, but then he sobered. “We need to talk.”
The hooding of his expression brought a sudden spurt of uneasiness, but DJ nodded. Turning, he lifted his hand in general thanks to everyone and raised his voice to be heard.
“We’ll be back in about fifteen to go through the rest of the show,” he said.
“I’m betting thirty,” Sy called out.
“An hour, if Roy knows what he’s doing.” That came from a woman in a sexy black dress. She sat in the scattering of folding chairs set up in front of the stage for roadies or other crew members taking a break.
She had scary-as-fuck Domme written all over her, even more so than G. The man beside her looked like a cop. The way she leaned against him said he was hers.
More bets on time were thrown out, until Roy’s gaze swept the area like a saber with the power to take off heads. That quieted them down. At least until they were out of sight.
Though Roy stayed close at his side, his hand lightly brushing DJ’s back, he didn’t say anything further until they reached DJ’s dressing room. Then Roy closed the door behind him and leaned against it.
DJ moved to his chair in front of the mirror out of habit, but put his hand on the back and turned to face Roy. He steeled himself for what was coming. Roy was a private guy. He wouldn’t put things out there like DJ did. Or tell DJ to fuck off in front of an audience.
But he hadn’t had to come up that ramp, either. Or say what he’d said, rocking DJ’s world. Which left DJ not knowing what this was about. Or where Roy’s head was. He only knew where he wanted it to be.
Would he beg? He just might.
“You remember what you told me last time we were together, about the international tour, and your security chief leaving?”
Roy asked the question in full stern Dom mode. He straightened and crossed his arms, feet planted.
It aroused DJ, but the gravity he saw in his Master’s eyes made him more nervous.
He was getting ready to deliver a truth DJ didn’t want to hear.
In a flood of panic, DJ was tempted to respond with attitude and belligerence, protect himself.
But if he did that, it might all go downhill. So he could choose another option.
Just be an adult and take the pain.
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember. I also remember rescinding it unless certain conditions were on the table.”
Roy could tell DJ was struggling against a tidal wave of emotions. He was ready for a fight, but it wasn’t what he wanted.
Seeing DJ perform that song, bring it all to life, everything Roy wanted to be to him, knowing DJ wanted all of that…well, that was a hell of a thing.
He considered all clients “his,” when he was working to protect them.
But over the past few months, while Roy had done whatever was required of him in either role, Master or bodyguard, he knew he’d begun to consider DJ his, on every level.
Gilda had called him on it, and now, the performance proved DJ had responded to that claim.
And was ready to commit to it.
But the insights Marjorie had shared with Roy, and what he saw in the kid, had to be addressed. You didn’t buy a house sitting on a shaky foundation. Roy wanted to strengthen that foundation, for both of them.
“When you made that offer, did you think you needed to prove it would be worth my time to stay with you, Dory? Did you think that the offer of yourself, your heart, falls short?”
The pain that went through DJ’s eyes was an old wound. Those were the ones that could get infected long after a person thought they’d healed. Especially when the stakes were high, and the heart and soul were at a turning point.
It was remarkable and heartbreaking to see his sub at a loss for words. Roy had aimed the words at that wound, and broken it open.
He gave the kid credit, though. That special heart, when you reached inside of it, only gave honesty.
“I…I guess…yeah. Up until Marjorie, I was reminded a hundred different ways that anything I wanted could be taken away. The plane brought that all back. I was scared, Roy. Scared I’d tell you how I felt, and you’d take it away. That’s why I backed off at the hospital and was a chickenshit.”
“We were in the same coop. When I came to your house, I couldn’t imagine you’d want some forty-year-old overprotective stick in the mud.”
“Crap, I didn’t think about that. You’re right. Get your wrinkled old ass out of here.”
Roy closed the distance between them and brought DJ to him, one hand around his nape, the other on the back of his skull. He put them cheek to cheek, their bodies against each other, so DJ could feel his heartbeat, the thud of it. Humor disappeared as DJ held him back, hands at his waist.
“You’re the prize, kid. I’m lucky that you want me, but you better be aware, if I want you back, you’re stuck with me. I don’t give up what’s mine. Ever.”
“If you want me back…”
DJ’s breath got short, heart pounding harder.
Not knowing mattered to him, and while the tension in his body said he wanted to shield himself from the blow, he wouldn’t step back.
It made Roy want him more. Love him more.
But then DJ put his hand up over the Be Kind bracelet Roy had worn with the T-shirt.
The hand DJ used bore the bracelet Gilda had given him.
“I think you kept this and wear it because it’s a tether between hope and your soul,” DJ muttered.
“If you put me on that kind of leash, Roy, I won't ever let you lose your soul.
I'll sit my ass down and camp there and hold your heart so tight no one will ever get it away from me. Not even you. I'm stubborn that way.”
Yes, he was. “That’s it. Clock’s run out,” Roy said roughly. “You are stuck with me.”
Roy shoved him against the wall. The look in the kid’s eyes was worth savoring, but Roy couldn’t linger on it the way he wanted, because the call of that mouth was too much.
He crushed it under his own, the softness giving way, tongue teasing his as DJ clung to him. Roy held him there to take his fill.
“My bet’s on forty minutes,” Roy said at last.
DJ gave him that sultry look beneath thick lashes. “If I’d put in my bet, I would have said an hour. And won.”
“You think so?” Roy’s unsmiling mouth cruised over his jaw. “Think you can lead me around by my dick?”
“No, Sir,” DJ managed as Roy opened his jeans and his strong hand pushed in to stroke and claim DJ’s cock in a hard grip. “Oh, God…I’ve missed you.”
“You were saying?”
“Can’t lead you…but maybe I can convince you it’s worth the extra twenty minutes.”
Roy’s gaze sparkled and he stepped back, his gaze covering DJ from head to toe. Turning DJ’s chair around, he took a seat on it, emphasizing that the man in charge was allowed to sit wherever he wanted. “I have no doubt, kid. None at all. Come sit on my lap and get to it.”
DJ straddled him, and Roy’s arms banded around him. But before he let him do anything, Roy arched a brow.
“So when you perform it in front of an audience, what happens after you kneel?”
DJ shrugged. “What you’d expect. I draw the Roy-like guy off the steps and hump him on stage.”
He laughed and fended off Roy’s pinching fingers. “No, seriously, it ends with me kneeling, the possibilities all out there. Fog encloses us and we move to next song.”
Roy’s expression became more intent. “Possibilities? I like that.”
The kiss started up again, even hotter and more passionate. Roy’s hands went to his waist, fingers gentle across his abdomen. He bent DJ backwards to put his mouth on those places that Paul had harmed.
The tender gesture turned DJ’s heart to liquid, while he became more aroused at the show of strength, the effortless way Roy held him.
When he brought him back up, Roy’s hold moved to DJ’s buttocks, his thumbs hooking his belt, fingers pressing into his ass through the stretch of the thin jeans.
He moved DJ against his erection while he continued to explore DJ’s chest with his mouth, bite his nipple, lick and suck.
DJ held on, one arm around his back, the other in Roy’s hair.
His Master was letting him touch all he wanted, and he’d take advantage of it.
From the steel bar under his ass, DJ thought who would win the bet was going to be a toss-up.
But DJ liked to cuddle afterward. While Roy might not admit it, he did, too.
DJ would make sure they both won.