Page 5 of Echoes of a Muted Song

He growled, a low, rough, guttural sound escaping him as he narrowed his eyes and forced words past his damaged throat again.

“I don’t care if five thousand miles separate us. I’d chase you clear into hell now that I have you.”

I’d chase you clear into hellechoed through my mind as I kissed him again, trying not to think about the impossibility of that promise.

Maybe he could open a portal to Hades, what the hell did I know? But I doubt he had a key to the Bristol County House of Corrections. Unless something drastically changed, that’s where I was headed at the end of this trial, and not love, or rock star status, would be able to save me.

Talk about a sobering reality.

Letting myself have this, have him, might be the worst cosmic joke of all time, but I doubted there was any turning back now.

Not when he’d claimed me as his.

Chapter 4

(Draven)

I could breathe a sigh of relief now that he’d relaxed and opened up to me, but it broke my heart a little to know that I’d been the cause of so much anxiety for him that he’d feared losing my friendship. It was a failure on my part, being so wrapped up in my own worries over not knowing how to please him when I finally got him in my bed, that I’d never considered that he might hold back because of the way I’d constantly pulled back from him over the years. It honestly hadn’t just been my questions about my own sexuality that had led to my restraint, but his open and in your face approach to sex in general.

Our industry had practically been built on the worship of sex, drugs, alcohol and music. Modern day Dionysianism at its finest, only we were all gods in the eyes of the fans, and some of the most fervent ones would worship whateverbody part we offered them. It was easy to lose whatever morals you started out with, especially when you’d been in the industry as long as we’d been in it. Relationships were for people with stationary homes that they saw for more than a handful of days every month, if that, when a tour was in full swing. After so much time spent hopping from city to city and flying all around the world, many of us had adopted aget it where it was offeredmentality, which had left me leery of giving in to my desires. I hadn’t wanted to be a notch on Johnny’s bedpost any more than I wanted him to be a notch on mine. I wanted him to be the last person I ever took to bed my bed and the first person I saw every morning we woke up, though that was going to take some logistical planning.

And maybe expanding my management beyond my own band, if his was open to it. I knew they didn’t have one. If I booked for both of us, there were a wealth of possibilities, from shared venues rotating headliners, to simultaneous shows in the same city. It was something I’d been thinking about heavily during Rocktoberfest, when I’d heard Rebel, Johnny’s guitar player, complain about the shitty mess their ex-manager had left their booking situation in. It was definitely worth talking to them about after our vacation was over. Right now, I was second guessing my decision to derail his trip to the pool. A swim might do us bothsome good, and not just in cooling us off a little so we didn’t hop right into bed.

I wanted to.

Damn did I want to taste him and feel him writhing beneath my hands, but what Johnny had said, about needing to settle his thoughts down, kept ringing through my mind, even while awakening a bunch of protective feelings. He’d expressed a need, and now I felt an urge to make sure it was met. That was no new feeling for me. Wanting to see to every aspect of my partner’s needs and desires had always been an urge of mine, but that wholeno time for a relationshipthing meant I rarely got to indulge in that.

Now there Johnny was, sitting on the edge of the bed in board shorts and a tank top, feet in colorful canvas beach shoes with tiny pride flags all over them, still looking a little lost and emotional.

“You know what, a swim might not be a bad idea at all,” I conveyed through my device, feeling far more confident about using it after how patient he’d been, even when I could tell he’d wanted to bolt.

“Right on!” Johnny replied, face splitting into a grin.

“Perfect, give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready.”

I let the device read the words to him, while I sought out the swim trunks in my bag, trying toremember how far down I’d stuffed them.

It had taken courage for him to stand there in silence with me tapping away. My anxiety had damn near shot through the roof when I’d feared I’d have to chase after himandsomehow get him to listen to what I needed to say. I should have known he wouldn’t, though. Like my bandmates, he’d encouraged me to use my device rather than straining and taxing my voice, insisting that anyone who couldn’t be patient enough to wait wasn’t someone we wanted to be involved with in the first place.

I’d worried about that with the guards we’d brought in, but Sully had never once tried to rush me when I was explaining our itinerary for the day or talked over me and assumed he’d known what I was going to request before I had the chance to say it. I’d already met too many people who thought doing that washelpful, and that they weresaving me the effortof explaining things in detail when many times the situation called for very specific instructions or shit went wrong.

I should have kept them on.

Now I hoped they wouldn’t be too booked to join us on the tour and in a more permanent capacity, as my emails had been blowing up since Rocktoberfest and Damaged Saints was once again in high demand.

Okay, so maybe Johnny wasn’t the only one who’d benefit from something to settle theirthoughts down. I needed to leave my manager hat in my bag until the end of our trip, despite how tempting it was to dive right in and ride the wave of interest their performance had unleashed. I’d proposed this retreat for a reason, and dammit all, I needed to get with the program.

Ahh, there were the damn trunks.

It only took me a few minutes to pull them on and fish out a t-shirt I’d cut the sleeves off of years before. Unlike him, I hadn’t considered beach shoes so sneakers would have to do until I could pick some up or snag a pair of Crocs.

Nah. No Crocs.

Well.

Maybe.

Those charms were a game changer. I’d come across a badass planchette stone charm in a little shop in Massachusetts, and a creepy ass nun charm, too, both of which I’d purchased despite not having a pair of shoes to put them on. If I could find a pair in black, the potential was limitless.

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