Blaze

by Christa Tomlinson

  “You need any help?”

  Danny sighed and raised his head. A plastic charm package stuck to his cheek. “Not yet. I’m still at the trying to figure out what I want to do stage.” St. Louis Geek Fest was coming up in a few months. He’d booked a table in the con’s artist alley and he needed to decide on the merchandise he wanted to take.

  “Understandable,” Scott said sympathetically. “Getting started is always the hardest part when it comes to con prep.”

  Danny peeled the package off his face and sat up straight in his chair. “You got that right. How was the convention?” Scott was a popular cosplay model, and he’d been hired to work a video game company’s booth at a gaming event, costumed as the main character from their new release.

  “It was mostly all right. Some jerk didn’t understand cosplay doesn’t equal touchies and groped my butt. So, I kneed him right in the balls. He tried to complain to security but the joke was on him because they escorted him off the premises as soon as I told them what he’d done to me first.”

  “Nice.” Danny held up a hand and Scott came into the room so they could high-five each other.

  “Also, a photographer approached me to do a cosplay calendar. I’m interested, but it’s for lewds so I’m going to be extra careful vetting her,” Scott said as he lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the floor. “So, what have you been up to? I saw your tweet the other day. Were you really rescued by Blaze?”

  All of Danny’s excitement came rushing back at the reminder of his encounter with the superhero. “Yes. I was walking along, minding my own business when three members of the L Street Posse came at me.”

  “Yikes. Were you terrified?”

  “Pants pissing,” Danny answered with a laugh. “I gave them my bag without a fuss but that wasn’t the only thing those creeps wanted.”

  Scott’s blue eyes went wide as he grasped Danny’s meaning. “No.”

  “Yeah. But thankfully Blaze showed up and saved my ass. He took one of them out without me even seeing him. Then he beat the snot out of the other two.”

  “Wow, that’s awesome. I mean not awesome that you were mugged but that you got to see Blaze up close.”

  “It was. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. And with all that electricity crackling around him, and those muscles...” Danny scrunched up his shoulders to cover the sensual shiver that ran through him at the memory.

  Scott laughed. “Only you would get horny in the middle of being rescued from a mugging.”

  “Ha! I doubt I’m the only one who’s wanted to swoon at Blaze’s feet.”

  “You have a crush!”

  Danny tried and failed to fight back the embarrassed blush heating his face. “I don’t! I don’t even know him. And I’m pretty sure I’ll never see him again. It was exciting for me but probably no more than a blip in the everyday routine of superheroing for him.”

  “That’s probably true. What were you doing down there so late at night?”

  “I was uh...” For a split second, Danny considered making something up. Then he squared his shoulders and came clean. “I was headed to that BDSM club — The Stocks.”

  Scott tilted his head in question. “Are you embarrassed to tell me that?”

  “I don’t know.” Danny scrubbed a hand over his hair as he thought about it. “Yeah, I guess? People can be weird about BDSM. Especially when it comes to Black people enjoying it.”

  “C’mon, man. We’ve been friends since the 7th grade. You came out to me before anyone else. And you had my back when I started to transition. We were each other’s first kiss.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Danny said as he pretended to gag. “You were a terrible kisser.”

  Scott laughed again and unfolded his long legs to kick Danny’s chair. “So were you, loser. My point is, you can tell me anything and I’ll have your back. You know that. Embrace what makes you feel good without shame.”

  “Thanks, man. I appreciate that.”

  “Are you going to try and go again?”

  “I already have just not to that same club. Blaze sent me a year-long membership to Club Decadence. I tried it out and that place is amazing. It has this slick black and crystal aesthetic with leather and velvet everywhere but it’s not cheesy at all.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, it’s gorge-”

  “No.” Scott waved his hands back and forth to cut Danny off. “Forget the club decor. Blaze gave you a membership to a D/s club?”

  Danny rolled his eyes at his friend. “He didn’t give it to me personally. He contacted the club and asked them to sponsor me, and they had the invitation sent over.”

  Scott continued watching him with his eyebrows about to jump past his strawberry blond hairline, so Danny rushed on to stop the conclusion his friend was probably about to come to.

  “He only did it because I mentioned that I couldn’t afford it on my own after he suggested I go there because it was safer. You’ve heard the rumors about him helping former criminals get on the right track. This is the same thing.”

  “Uh. Not really. Sounds to me like maybe you made an impression on him too.”

  “Please,” Danny said with a self-deprecating snort. “A too stupid to live guy who walks the streets with his pepper spray in his bag instead of in his hand where he can actually use it if necessary? Probably not.”

  “You never know. Heroes can be attracted to someone as easily as us regular people.” Scott pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to make myself something to eat. You want anything?”

  “No, I’m fine but thanks.”

  “All right. Let me know if Blaze sends you any more gifts.”

  “It wasn’t a gift!” Danny picked up a pencil to throw it as his friend but Scott was already out the door.

  After the other man left, Danny grabbed his phone and brought up the tweet with the artwork he’d drawn of Blaze. It was at two thousand retweets, nearly four thousand likes and counting. He touched a finger to the screen, tracing over his depiction of Blaze.

  Scott was way off base. It wasn’t possible that someone like that — big and strong and an actual hero — had spared more than a passing thought on average, every day Danny. More than likely, Blaze dated one of the other superheroes, and they had extremely enthusiastic and athletic sex. The kind that broke beds and left cracks in the walls. Their orgasms probably had the power to level a city block, while he at twenty-five, had just now worked up the nerve to explore something new in his sex life.

  Danny was suddenly embarrassed that he’d given himself such an adoring expression. He should have drawn himself looking tough and cheering Blaze on, not like a swooning damsel in distress. Danny shrugged and dropped the phone back onto the table. It was too late to worry about it now. His swooning face was out there and all that mattered was whether or not Blaze would see it.

  ***

  Jordan squatted in front of a 1966 GMC Shortbed pickup, updating the paint from a rusty orange to a bright, candy apple red. Saturday was their busiest day. The garage was packed and noisy with all staff on deck: painting cars, fitting custom rims, installing hydraulic systems, and anything else a car aficionado could think of to outfit their ride. Customers roamed the areas open to them, looking over the finished models on display to get ideas for their own cars.

  His spot was popular and had twice been featured on one of those trick out my truck type shows. He hadn’t appeared on camera of course. His shop manager Nina had happily stood in for him, crowing that she was gonna get so many chicks as a result of her new fame.

  For the most part, Jordan tuned out all the chaos. After years in the noise, he was able to ignore it and take care of business unless he was directly needed. When a pair of coverall clad legs appeared in his peripheral vision, he continued working. When they stayed there without moving, Jordan finally stopped the spray gun and looked up. Nina stood there with a gleeful grin on her face.

  “Have you gone on Twitter lately?”

  Jordan
looked at her over the top of his respirator mask like she’d lost her mind. She was well aware that he left all of the social media handling to the two shop assistants. “You know I haven’t.”

  “There’s something floating around on there you might want to see.”

  “What is it? I hope it’s not that guy complaining about the color of his car. I tried to tell him that green he wanted was gonna look like baby shit -.”

  Nina cut him off. “It’s not shop related.” She held out her phone, her grin even more excited.

  Jordan took off his mask and looked at the phone. On the screen was a fantastic piece of art of him fighting off the L Street Red Vests from the other night. He recognized both the scene and the person in the picture even before he read the caption. Thank you, Blaze for everything you did for me. Daniel. The cute submissive he’d saved. Jordan glanced at the account handle. @Danny_art. So. Daniel went by Danny and he was an artist. Apparently a fairly popular one with over fifteen thousand followers.

  “Nice,” he said as he handed the phone back to Nina.

  “That’s all? Nice?”

  Jordan checked to be sure there was no one within earshot before he answered. “What do you want me to do, log on and thank him? Not all of us have fan accounts.”

  Nina shrugged. “It’s not like we get paid to do what we do. Might as well accept a little adulation when it comes our way.”

  “I don’t do it for the money or the thanks.”

  Nina sighed with loud exaggeration. “Of course, you don’t. Anyway, I’m texting the picture to you so you can have it.” She tapped a few buttons on the screen. “There. Sent.”

  “Thank you,” he said before he pulled the mask back into place and squatted down again.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Nina went back to installing white rims on a ghost white Impala, leaving Jordan there to finish painting. Or at least, he tried to finish. He kept thinking of that artwork. Of Danny. It was sweet of him to draw such detailed work to show his appreciation. Jordan wasn’t surprised to learn that Danny was an artist. He had a hard time picturing someone like him, with his angelic face and soft voice, working somewhere like the Pruitt production plant or stuck in a corporate office and wearing a boring suit. Artist fit him. Now he knew two things about Danny. He was an artist and he was into BDSM.

  Remembering the way Danny had looked when he’d revealed he was going to The Stocks — so fresh and innocent — Jordan was willing to bet he didn’t have much experience in the scene. He’d love to be the one to teach him about the lifestyle. He would gladly spend hours helping Danny discover which kinks he liked. Jordan had a particular favorite and he longed to find the right person to share it with. Danny could be that person.

  One of the hydraulic lifts kicked on, and the loud whine snapped Jordan back to attention. He realized he was sitting there without moving while he daydreamed about a man he didn’t even know. Annoyed at himself, Jordan shook his head and put the paint gear away. He took pride in his custom paint jobs and didn’t want to make a mistake on this while his focus was elsewhere, so it was best to leave it for later. With only an hour to go before the garage closed for the day, he took off his mask and called out to Nina.

  “I’m knocking off early.” She was more than capable of running the place in his absence.

  “All right. See ya, boss,” she called back.

  Jordan took the elevator to the third floor but instead of going to his office for paperwork, he went to his private gym. The room was huge, with only a corner of it dedicated to weight and cardio machines. The rest of the space was dominated by a system of martial arts dummies set into a track that moved them around the room at random. Maybe exerting himself for an hour would get his mind off that adorable little sub.

  He stripped out of his garage coveralls and exchanged his work boots for athletic shoes. After a quick jump rope session to warm up his muscles, he turned on the automated dummy system and went into full on attack mode. He leaped and spun around the room, punching and kicking his mobile yet inanimate foes. Jordan took care to temper his strikes so that he didn’t knock the dummies from their tracks, but he didn’t hold back on the intensity level.

  Forty-five minutes later, Jordan stood in the middle of the room, sweat dripping, muscles pleasantly burning... and his mind still filled with Danny.

  “Fuck it.” Jordan breathed the curse in resignation. He snatched up a towel to wipe his face before grabbing his phone and logging on to Twitter through the shop’s account. Thanks to one of his assistants, he had the Twitter app on his phone. It only took him a few seconds to click through to Danny’s profile.

  It was immediately obvious that Danny was good on a professional level. The banner art alone looked like it belonged on a Big Two Comics website. Jordan started to scroll. As expected, Danny had lots of art on his feed. Most of it featured one of St. Louis’s superheroes as the subject. As Jordan thumbed up, he noticed that other than his thank you art there was only one other picture of him. That made sense, as he made it a point not to be photographed when he went out as Blaze. Danny wouldn’t have much raw material to work with.

  He kept scrolling until he came across a picture that someone else had taken of Danny. He sat at his desk, slightly angled toward the camera, the light from his workstation lamp casting a warm, golden glow around him. There was another of him smiling as he stood next to a tall Caucasian man cosplaying as a gender-bent Red Sonya. The guy was ripped and the skimpy costume left little to the imagination but Jordan only had eyes for Danny. His sweet smile and dark eyes sparkling at the camera grabbed his attention and wouldn’t let go.

  Jordan tightened his grip on the phone. This was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he get Danny out of his head? He shouldn’t be obsessing over him after only meeting him for a few minutes. He must be horny. His days spent working in the shop and nights running around the city fighting crime didn’t exactly leave time for an active social and dating life. Maybe he should hire a sex worker to spend a few hours with. There were a couple of guys he’d hired before that he’d got on well with, some into kink, some not. That might take the edge off.

  He discarded the idea before it could take shape. Physical intimacy with a stranger wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to get to know Danny.

  Jordan balled up his fists and dropped his head back on his shoulders with a defeated groan. Fine. He’d go to Club Decadence and talk to Danny as Jordan Wells. Maybe once he actually interacted with him in a situation that didn’t involve saving the other man’s life, he’d learn Danny wasn’t even that great. The adrenaline from the fight and the guy’s genuine gratitude at being rescued had probably blown this attraction way out of proportion. Seeing him in a mundane environment should snap Jordan out of his infatuation.

  His decision made, Jordan strode from the room, stripping the athletic tape from his hands as he went. Jordan looked at the clock over the door on his way out. He needed to be down at the riverfront later that night for recon, but he had a few hours to spare for a meeting with Danny. Hopefully by the end of it, Danny would finally be out of his head.

  Chapter Four

  T

  hirty minutes had passed since Jordan’s arrival at Club Decadence, but there was no sign of Danny. By now, he was nearly convinced that the little sub either wasn’t going to show up tonight, or would arrive after Jordan had to leave. He clenched his jaw in frustration, determinedly ignoring the disappointment in his chest. Five more minutes. He’d wait five more minutes before he deemed this a failed mission.

  Four minutes and no sign of Danny.

  Three minutes.

  At two minutes, the disappointment in his chest tightened into a lump.

  One minute.

  He was about to call it a night and leave when he spotted Danny across the room. He’d come. Jordan’s disappointment disappeared as if it had never been, replaced with something that felt suspiciously like joy at seeing the other man once more.

  He looked good ton
ight, dressed in a sleeveless, white mesh shirt, tight white jeans with multiple rips on the front to reveal the dark skin of his thighs beneath, and black boots that laced up to just beneath the knee. The lights reflected off his white outfit, making him appear to glow as he stood in a sea of people dressed mostly in black.

  Wasting no time, Jordan went after him. He took a circular approach to where Danny stood at the bar in order to help their meeting appear accidental. He didn’t want to beeline for him as if they were already acquainted, and have Danny make the connection between him and the hero who’d saved him from a mugging. Jordan reached Danny, bumping into him slightly as he pretended he was passing by. “Excuse me. Sorry about that.”

  Danny looked up with a relaxed smile. “It’s okay. It’s crowded in here tonight.”

  “Yes, it is.” Jordan held his hand out. “I’m Jordan.”

  “Danny. Nice to meet you.”

  Danny accepted his handshake. When their palms touched, Jordan swore he felt a spark. Not like the sparks he could produce from within his own body but something warm and intimate shared between them. The dark wings of Danny’s brows drew together in a frown for the briefest second, causing Jordan to wonder if he’d felt the spark too.

  “Is this your first time here?” Jordan asked once they released the handshake.

  Danny laughed. “Am I that obvious?”

  “A little. You look like you’re trying to take in everything all at once.”

  “You’re not too far off. It’s my second time actually. A hostess showed me around last weekend but there’s still so much to see and absorb.”

  “You’re new to the scene.”

  “Yes. I mean, I’ve looked at lots of stuff online and talked to people in chat rooms but it’s different actually being here in person. I almost feel as if I need a BDSM tutor.”