Syncopation

by Anna Zabo

  “Stroke yourself, slowly.” Zavier emphasized the last word, and his breath caressed Ray’s neck.

  Ray did as told, wrapping his hand around his dick and giving it several much-needed pulls. He bit his lip and stared at the sheers. Fuck, this wouldn’t take long.

  Zavier clicked his tongue. “I said slowly, Ray.” Fingers dug into his hips. “Listen to me and do what I say—not what you think I mean.” Disapproval dripped from every word.

  Ray’s heart leapt into his throat. Shit. He couldn’t even jerk off right. “Um. I thought that was slow.” He took the strokes down a notch.

  “Slower.”

  And again.

  “Slower, Ray.”

  And again. Fuck! He ran his hand bit by bit up and down his shaft, each inch painfully good. He wanted so much more than this, wanted the quickness and oblivion of orgasm. Not the torture of being aware of every inch of skin, of Zavier’s body, and those hands at his hips.

  “Yes. Like that. Very good.” It might have been Ray’s imagination, but he swore he felt Zavier’s lips brush his neck. Every nerve tingled, and a grunt slipped out.

  A chuckle. “Run your thumb over the head. Slick it with your precome.”

  Oh god, that felt so fucking good. Ray tipped his neck back and sighed. If he let go enough, he could almost imagine it wasn’t his hand around his cock—especially since it wasn’t his mind directing. He tried speeding up.

  A snort and fingers dug into his hip again. “Ray.”

  Right, so even without seeing Ray’s hand, Zavier knew.

  “Play with your balls.”

  That made Ray close his eyes and groan. He had lightning in his veins. This whole thing was too fucking hot. Got even hotter when Zavier made him spit for lube like on some porno and finally—finally—let him pick up the pace. Then it was all listening to that deep voice as Zavier told him what to do. Speed up, slow down, circle the head. Twist. Go fast. Stop. Ease a tight fist down to the root. On and on until Ray couldn’t see or think straight.

  Every hint of praise from Zavier sang up his spine to his head. Every huff of displeasure singed his soul.

  “Fuck.” Ray’s legs trembled and he rocked his hips into his hand, too aware of Zavier’s fingers holding him. “This what you do to someone when you jack them off?” Maybe Zavier was right—he wouldn’t survive.

  This time Zavier’s lips did touch his neck, a press of wet heat, a laugh, and hot words burned against his skin. “No. Most often they’re tied down, with my fingers or my cock in their ass.”

  Oh hell. Now that was an image. Bound and utterly at Zavier’s mercy? Being filled by him? Ray’s rhythm faltered, his balls tightened, and the world threatened to turn to white and flames. “Oh, shit. I’m close.”

  Teeth scraped his neck. “Don’t come.”

  Fuck, fuck. His veins were on fire. “What?”

  “Don’t come until I say, Ray.” A huff of hot air. “But don’t stop, either. Same pace as before.”

  No way in hell. Not when he was this close. Spots dotted his vision and his body burned for release. “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” He couldn’t tell if Zavier pulled him back or stepped forward, only that he met Zavier’s chest. The hard length of a jeans-covered dick rocked against Ray’s ass.

  He gasped at the contact. Proof positive that Zavier wanted him. Actually wanted him.

  Zavier spoke so low, so sexy. “Jack yourself like before, like I taught you. But don’t come.”

  This was going to kill him, but he couldn’t stop listening to Zavier. Couldn’t stop obeying him. Struggled not to break and shatter against him.

  Whispered words followed. Hot and heady. “Faster. Yes. Like that. Now twist. Press the head.”

  He was dying. So strung out. Each stroke an agony of delight.

  “Imagine your thumb is a tongue. Rock your hips like that.”

  So close to the edge, so aware of Zavier, his heat, his length. But he couldn’t—

  “Slow down. Roll your balls.”

  Like being burned and frozen at the same time. Too much.

  “Yes, Ray. That’s perfect.”

  He gasped and moaned at the pleasure in Zavier’s voice, and didn’t know how he was still standing. Everything had gone white. His body shook with the need for release. He wasn’t close—he was so far beyond that he barely hung on to sanity by the slimmest of margins. “Please. Please please please.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” Zavier murmured. “Come for me, Ray.”

  He didn’t know if he cried out, because the pleasure was so intense it robbed his sight and hearing and took him out of the world. He tumbled and tumbled, hot semen coating his hand and Zavier’s teeth scraping against the back of his neck. He fell until there wasn’t anything in his head but a haze and silence and blessed relief.

  All that remained was him and the man who held him up. Zavier Demos.

  Oh fuck.

  He must have grunted or something because Zavier half carried, half dragged him to the bed and helped him sit on the edge. “Shhh,” he murmured. “You’re fine.”

  Ray wanted to bury his face in his hands, but one was covered in jizz. He stared at the drying spunk, as his body shivered against the intensity of his orgasm. He was not fine. Not by a long shot. His gaze drifted to Zavier’s shoes, a beat-up pair of black Chucks—so incongruous with everything else about Zavier. They should be fine and leather and—

  The rest of the night came crashing back in. Carl’s reprimand after the concert. They still weren’t playing good enough. The press was cooling to them. Then the guy showing up with the promise of one night free of thought. Zavier’s fury, his snide remarks, and the utter shame of putting the band on the line.

  “Ah hell, Ray.” Zavier spoke again, but so soft and gentle it didn’t seem like him at all. The shoes vanished from view and there was the sound of a door opening and closing. Soon, a soft, warm, white garment was being draped over his shoulders and back. “Here.”

  Ray pulled the fabric tighter around him with the hand he hadn’t come all over.

  And what if that guy had slipped him something? Ray’s head swam. You’re such a fuckup, Ray. Carl’s words. No wonder Kevin drank his days away. An echo of the words Zavier had said, too.

  He deserved the scorn. No wonder Zavier had pulled away from him.

  Zavier was back, and this time kneeling at Ray’s feet, with a towel. “Give me your hand.”

  Instinctively, he knew which one. Zavier had wet one end of the hand towel, enough to clean the spunk off. He did so carefully and nearly reverently, as if Ray wasn’t some kind of monster. He dried Ray’s fingers the same way.

  Zavier rose slowly, and vanished once more. When he returned, he had a glass of water. “Drink.”

  Ray took the glass and sipped. Cool—not cold—and clean. He blinked a few times and focused on the carpet. Zavier finally stopped moving and took a seat on a chair across from him.

  “I’m sorry,” Ray whispered. “You must think I’m the biggest fucking loser ever.”

  Silence for a time, then the creak of Zavier shifting on leather, or vinyl, or whatever the hotel furniture was covered in. “Ray, please look at me.”

  The request flowed through Ray and he obeyed. No thought, only action.

  Zavier had crossed his legs and lounged in the chair, looked much the way he normally did, cool and collected. “I don’t think you’re a loser.”

  Shame and elation wormed through Ray, clashing and conflicting. He shivered and pulled the robe tighter around his shoulders. Zavier was wrong—except that he was Zavier, so he couldn’t be wrong.

  “I nearly fucked a drug dealer.” His stomach churned. “I don’t know what might have happened.”

  Zavier cocked his head. “Why’d you ask him up?”

  Ray stared at Zavier. “
I didn’t. He showed up at my door. I’d never seen him before.”

  Zavier’s brow knitted and he got a faraway look. Then his gaze locked back on Ray. “And you let him in?”

  Yeah, that had been careless and thoughtless, but the guy had been all dark and pouty and full of praise and—in retrospect—he’d looked like a slightly younger version of the man who sat before him. Plus, it had been months since Ray’d gotten laid.

  He put the glass to his lips and swallowed a mouthful before speaking. He’d been desperate. “He knocked on the door, and I thought it was Dom or Mish checking in on me. But it was that guy, and he asked if I wanted a blowjob...”

  A grunt from Zavier. He rubbed his chin. “And you did.”

  “Yeah. I did.” Shame wrapped him tighter than the robe, but the heat that came with it wasn’t comfortable. “Look, I don’t do drugs ’cause even over-the-counter stuff fucks me up. If I’d known, I’d have sent him away.” He shook his head. “I wish—” Wished the encounter he’d just had with Zavier—the one he’d wanted and needed for two and a half months, the one that had been hotter than fuck and mind-blowing—hadn’t come on the heels of that.

  “Wish what?” Zavier’s voice held a kindness Ray didn’t understand.

  He drank more of the water, mostly to stall for time. “What we did—I wish it hadn’t been now. I mean—with all that—” He waved at the door.

  Zavier uncrossed his legs and sighed. “That’s my fault.”

  “I liked it. If that helps.”

  A grin. “Oh, I know you liked it, Ray.”

  A shiver up his back, and a dull ache of need followed. But he was too spent and tired for it to go anywhere. “Did you? Like it?”

  A deep chuckle. “Ray...”

  God, he loved the way Zavier said his name. He swallowed the last of his water. Yeah, not the brightest question, given how hard Zavier had been. “In high school...”

  “This isn’t high school.” Zavier shifted in his chair. “This is far from high school.”

  “You didn’t want me then.”

  “Untrue.”

  That one word rocked Ray to the core. He stared at Zavier. He’d always assumed that rejecting the band had also included rejecting him.

  “You were lovely back then and you’re fucking amazing now. But you were barely, barely sixteen, Ray. I was gonna turn nineteen that summer, and it just didn’t seem right.”

  Ray eyed the hotel room door. “More sense than me.”

  “Not really. I was a prick and full of myself.”

  He couldn’t help it. “And you’re not now?”

  Zavier’s eyebrows rose and he snorted softly. “Oh, Ray, you’re something else.”

  Heat straight to his cheeks, especially when Zavier’s look roamed all over Ray’s body, lingering here and there. Despite how he was sitting, Zavier couldn’t quite hide his erection.

  Ray licked his lips. “Like what you see?”

  “Yes.” Zavier met his stare and held it until Ray couldn’t help squirming under the burning intensity. No question whatsoever that Zavier spoke the truth. “But I have particular tastes.”

  “In men?”

  “In sex. Dominance. Submission.” Zavier shrugged. “It’s not everyone’s thing.”

  “You mean... You’re talking about BDSM.” Just the acronym ignited another spark in Ray’s tired and spent body.

  Zavier nodded, his smile slight, but so damn sensuous. “That’s exactly what I mean. Ever done anything like that before now?”

  Cuffs and whips and chains? “Nope. Read about it.” He eyed Zavier. “I’m going to guess you’re not a submissive.”

  Zavier chuckled and it was dark. “No, I’m not.”

  “I’m not, either.” Came out suddenly and felt too much like a bald-faced lie. More heat to his face.

  Zavier’s grin fell away. “No, you’re not. You don’t have enough self-control.”

  Like a slap to the face, but as soon as Ray’s anger rose, it snuffed out like a candle with no air. He stared at the hotel room door, the one that groupie had come through.

  Yeah, Zavier was right. His self-control was nonexistent, especially as of late. Hell, Zavier had borne the brunt of that. Still, he didn’t know what control had to do with submission. “But—”

  Zavier held a finger up, and every bit of Ray shivered.

  “Submission is an exchange of power. It’s a gift. You have to be in control of yourself to release that to someone else.”

  Ray’s heart thumped against his ribs. “Then what was...” He gestured to the spot where they’d stood, where his semen was drying on the carpeting, where Zavier had told him to come. “What was that?”

  A little crack appeared in Zavier’s perfection and poise. “Maybe a taste of that type of exchange—for both of us.”

  What would it take to get Zavier to fuck him? Hell, what would it be like to kneel and suck him off? Why was he even thinking about that? He couldn’t stand the guy!

  Except that was another lie. Might’ve been true the day Zavier had walked into the audition, but it certainly wasn’t now. Even when he’d flipped Zavier off, the anger had been superficial, born of hurt and rejection and—whatever it was that flowed between the two of them.

  Not only had Zavier saved his ass tonight, he’d listened and cared all the weeks before. Provided solutions when the band had run up against issues. Even gone hunting for information about Carl. He wasn’t the arrogant bastard Ray had assumed he was when he’d walked into that audition months ago. “Could we—do this again?” In a different place. At a different time.

  “No.” A soft word, but final. “You’re not in the right space. At all.” Zavier deflated into pensiveness. “This was ill-advised of me in the first place.”

  Who actually talked like that? “Well, it did clear my head.”

  A huff of laughter. “Then something good came out of the night, at least.”

  Time stretched a bit, and Ray got the distinct impression Zavier was examining him—for what, he didn’t know. “What if—” He took a deep breath. “What if I found self-control?”

  Zavier nodded. It was slight, and maybe unconscious, but there it was.

  Ray’s body flamed.

  “I guess we’ll see,” Zavier murmured. He rose and headed to the door. “Get some sleep, Ray.”

  “Zav.” Another word that came out unbidden.

  Zavier stopped, his hand on the door handle.

  “Thank you.” Tight words. For interrupting Ray. For saving the band. For making him come. God, that orgasm. Even the memory curled his toes.

  For a moment, under the glow of the light in the room’s entryway, those blue eyes looked back at him. No smile, but no frown, either. “You’re welcome.”

  Then Zavier was gone and Ray was alone with nothing but the ashen taste of humility and fear in his mouth.

  Yeah. He was out of control. Maybe not like the tabloids thought, but yeah. It was a problem with only one solution: stop being a fuckup. Stop letting Carl get to him. Stop pushing away the very people who kept him sane.

  Easier said than done. Ray rose and started getting ready for bed.

  * * *

  Both Mish and Dom were waiting for Zavier in the hallway. Hell. Too much time had passed since he’d chased the groupie off, time he’d spent playing with Ray and tangling himself into knots.

  Who knew what they thought of that delay.

  He needed to process what had happened, pick apart the whole thing and figure out what the fuck had been going through his head when he’d decided to play out that little scene. It was reckless and foolish. Yes, there was the sharp thrill of being obeyed and the deep satisfaction of meting out punishment, something he’d missed so much. Only Ray wasn’t his sub. Ray would not be his sub. That path was utter madness.

  Dom cough
ed. “Is he okay?”

  “I saw the guy come out with a bag of drugs. What the hell was Ray thinking?” Mish’s thoughts were closer to his own.

  “He’s suitably horrified, chastised, and he wasn’t thinking at all.” Exhaustion was quickly catching up with Zavier. He leaned as casually as he could against the wall and let it hold him up.

  “Ray didn’t...do anything foolish or get hurt or anything...right?” Dom’s face colored, then paled.

  For someone in a rock band with albums that had parental advisory warnings on them, Dom could act so...sheltered at times. “No. I got in there before anything happened, Ray didn’t know about the drugs, and the guy was of age anyway.”

  Both of them relaxed. Good.

  “Turned out the guy was twenty-one.”

  Mish grunted. “He didn’t look that old.”

  “Yeah. I felt pretty rash about rushing in there, until the drugs fell out of the shit’s pocket.” He pushed off the wall. “I don’t think Ray’ll be letting anyone in his room again.” Would likely turn away anyone not associated with the band.

  “He takes too much on his shoulders.” Dom’s quiet voice.

  Zavier turned and studied Dom, the words Ray had thrown at him coming back. Dom would do you in a heartbeat. There was history between Dom and Ray he didn’t know, but he was certain Ray was wrong about Dom. If Zavier propositioned, Dom would say no, in that same heartbeat. “What do you mean?”

  “All the criticism, the journalists, the press. All Carl’s yelling and Kevin’s troubles. He takes it on, blames himself, and then—” Dom gestured at the door. “Goes off the deep end.”

  “Not the first time he’s done this?” God, he didn’t want to be staking out Ray’s door every night to keep the groupies away. How the fuck had that guy known where to go? Shit. They didn’t have bodyguards.

  “Not this,” Dom said. “Last tour, he’d find a member of the crew to screw and everything would be fine.”

  “Carl hired a new crew,” Mish said.

  Always back to that asshole. Zavier pushed a hand through his hair. “Ray was talking to us, on the bus. He had an outlet, at least for a while.” Before the journalist had rattled him. Before he’d flipped Zavier off. Back when they’d shared a couch and leg room.