Page 3 of Echoes of a Muted Song

He shuddered at that and seemed to pull himself together, straightened his spine and leaned away so I could get off the bike and unstrap our things. After we’d slung our bags over opposite shoulders, I thought he’d reach for my hand, and for a moment, it looked like he was going to, then he ducked his head a little and headed for the door, leaving me to follow, wondering what I’d done to dampen his enthusiasm for the trip.

Maybe I should have arranged for Jagger, Robbie and Kayden to join us, but Jagger had his heart set on spending time in Portland before our tour kicked off there. Since it was his first trip to the west coast his men had been eager to show him a few spots that weren’t in the tourism guide. I’d made them swear not to wind up splashed all over the dirt sheets until after I’d had a few days to enjoy some downtime with Johnny, but after the way our social media threads had blown up with images of Jagger performing at Rocktoberfest with our band as well as Johnny’s, there was no way he could expect to wander around unrecognized. I just hoped he was up to handling the sometimes intense invasions of privacy that took place on the road.

Maybe it was time to hire full-time bodyguards, something I’d thought about doing when bringing in Damage Control Inc. to watchour backs at Rocktoberfest, but they’d caught our ex-roadie so fast that we’d parted ways after the end of the event. Still, I had their contact information and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that it might not be a bad idea to hire a small crew of guards to travel with us. If I could keep what happened to me, or worse, from happening to one of them, then I owed it to them to do everything in my power keep them safe.

Mind made up, I shot Sully a text the moment I reached our room, while Johnny lingered at the vending machine, joining me moments later with several energy waters and an assortment of candy that he carefully arranged in the fridge.

Too carefully.

Everything he’d done since we’d entered the building had been about avoiding eye contract, from the way he’d stepped back and pulled his hat low the moment we’d reached the check-in desk, to the position he’d taken up a half-step behind me, eyes on the floor every time I’d glanced and smiled at him.

Pulling my speech to text device from my pocket, I started typing and immediately erased the assumption I’d been about to make. It wouldn’t have been fair to kickstart the conversation by suggesting we hit the nightclub downstairs and get a few drinks in us while we looked for someone we could share. We barely had a relationship, hell, that’s what we werethere to figure out. While the trip might have beenmyidea, Johnny had lit up like an overly excited firefly and rattled off over a dozen things for us to do before I’d even had the hotel booked. He’d only balked when it was time to leave the others. I guessed that was fair. We’d interacted plenty over the almost decade we’d known one another, but now that I truly thought about it, this was the first time we’d deliberately gone out and done anything alone.

I knew why that was. I just wondered if he’d ever picked up on it.

Maybe I should start with a question andaskwhat was going on in his head. Maybe it had nothing to do with me. Maybe he’d heard something about his upcoming trial and hadn’t been able to shake whatever thoughts it had ignited yet. I started to ask that directly, but he’d already been hesitant to discuss any of the details with me beyond what was already public knowledge, so I erased the letters, not wanting him to feel like I was pushing for information he wasn’t ready to give. I’d just started to ask if he was hungry, figuringthatmight be a safe place to start, when he stripped off his t-shirt, folded it, and placed it neatly on the edge of the dresser. When his jeans followed, I tossed my phone in my bag and ran my fingers up his back, digging them in a bit as I rubbed them.

“Take a shower with me?” he murmured as he pressed into my touch.

Since that was better than him tensing, or pulling away, I rolled with it, eager to see him relaxed and laughing the way he’d been last night, cracking up around the bonfire with Jagger as we swapped stories of the things we’d encountered while exploring Rocktoberfest.

Growling, I wrapped my arms around him, hugging while I nuzzled the pulse point beneath his ear. “Gladly.”

I hated turning him loose, but if it got us to a state of naked, wet and completely at ease, then I was willing to mourn the brief loss of contact in order to strip down while he got the water ready. Stepping beneath the spray with him, the last thing I expected was for him to turn in my arms, bury his face against my shoulder, and cling, not in some mad, passionate embrace, but in a desperate, clingy one.

“What are we doing?” he moaned, his voice barely resonating over the warm cascade.

I knew my voice would be lost if I tried to say anything, so I just held him and hoped he’d say more. Instead, he yanked my head down, slammed our lips together, and kissed me until my fingers were tangled in his hair and we were both hard as hell, our slick bodies rubbing together. I loved the way we fit. His head barely reached my shoulder and every inch of him was trim, taut muscle from the hours he spent practicing and performing.

When he slid to his knees, I lost all ability tothink, especially when his lips closed around my cock while his fingertips dug into my ass so hard my cheeks would be stinging from the imprint of his nails in the morning. As I sank into every sensation, my last rational thought was that he’d sure found an answer to his question that I could get behind, though in the back of my head there was this nagging thought that the act we were engaged in now wasn’t what he’d meant. Was easier to let my knees turn to jelly than think about it.

My back hit the wall, but Johnny still had such a tight hold on me that there was no risk of falling, then he hummed and the light spots behind my eyelids started swirling to the tune of… Holy shit, he was humming “Desperate Glory,” one of the first songs I’d written as frontman of Damaged Saints. Every vibration rocked my world a little more, until the light spots did more than dance, they erupted into a firework show of flashing, beautiful gold, while I emptied my balls down his throat, each press of his tongue and sucking swallow only serving to enhance my pleasure more. I could scarcely move, let alone catch my breath when he finally stood and took a tiny step back from me. I needed to see him. My lips trembled as the wall of the shower stall held me up while I struggled to crack my eyes open.

The wavery, water-streaked angel that stood in front of me had smoldering eyes and a wickedsmirk as he licked his lips. I’d licked my cum off the body of more than one bedpartner, always of the curvy, female variety. Now I wondered what I tasted like on his lips and eagerly waited to see if he’d share, only he just grinned, cocked his head and reached for the soap. That’s when I realized that he wasn’t hard anymore, either. He must have taken care of himself while he was pleasuring me, which didn’t exactly sit right, nor was the way he started washing me while my head was still reeling from what he’d done.

This might be my first relationship with a man, but I doubted the experience was as much fun for him as it had been for me when I’d barely gotten to do more than crush his hair in my fists and caress his cheek as he sucked me dry. When he came at me with the sponge I reached to take it away, only to be stunned a second time, when he spun me with little effort, placed one hand against my back, and pinned me to the wall for a second time as he slowly ran the washcloth over my back. As amazing as it felt, I couldn’t help but wonder how out of my element I was and what the hell it was gonna take to flip the script.

Chapter 3

(Johnny)

“Ohh man, it says the pool here is open twenty-four hours and they’ve got hot tubs and cabanas!” I declared, waving the brochure as I spun to see Draven eyeing me from the bed he’d sprawled across.

God damn, just seeing him that way, with a towel loosely tied around his hips and his hair a wet, shaggy mess, was enough to make me reconsider leaving the room altogether.

“Dude, we’re not even dry from the shower yet,” he grumbled, patting the bed beside him before picking up his text to speech device and tapping away. “Why don’t we chill and see if we can find a hockey game?”

I loved hockey, but that shower had done nothing to cool off the rush of desire that rode me whenever he was near. The ride out had been a lesson in control and one I’d nearly failed each time he caressed my thigh or leanedin to murmur in my ear. I just wished I could touch him back without being afraid of crossing lines we hadn’t established yet. Hell, we hadn’t really established anything about what we were doing and that’s where I was floundering, ‘cause dammit all, he’d been off limits for so long that I’d learned what buttons to push and what to steer clear of, up to and including just how much casual touch was permittable before he started giving me the stink-eye whenever I got too close.

“I’m too twitchy for hockey right now,” I admitted as I headed for my bag to retrieve my trunks, “I think I’ll swim some laps and then lounge in the hot tub and watch the stars for a little while, maybe untangle the song that’s been tangled up in my head since before Rocktoberfest.”

Okay, so that last part was a fib, sort of. The words could have been a song, but they could just have easily been the ones I couldn’t manage to speak to him out loud, I just wasn’t sure yet. Hell, they could be both and maybe I’d have to sing it to him when I got up the nerve.

What a fucking cosmic joke that was. Daredevil Johnny Amaral, too tongue-tied and twisted up to tell the beautiful man on the bed that I wanted to be more than a friend and way more than a fuck. I wanted to be his everything. I just didn’t believe that could be in the cards for us, so I kept my head down as I pulled on my trunks, tucked the key card for the room into thezip up pocket, and shoved my feet into the beach shoes I’d pulled from my bag with my trunks. The last thing I expected was to come face to face with him when I turned to head for the door.

“Did I do something to piss you off?” Draven asked through his device, his eyes boring into mine like he was searching for something there.

I couldn’t risk him seeing my fear and uncertainty, so I shook my head and tried to smile. “No, I’m just really keyed up. Being on the back of the bike always does that to me.”

---