Page 78 of Syncopation
Chapter Seventeen
The murmur of conversation over the rumble of the bus woke Ray. He was sore in a way he hadn’t been in so long, and that was damn good. Zavier had fucked him. Spankedandfucked him. Made him cry with pain, pleasure, and understanding, then taken him out of this world.
Wasn’t love—Zavier had been pretty darn clear about that—but it was something strong. Friendship.Caring. Ray trusted Zavier, and Zavier liked him. Behind the weight of that utter truth, all the shit Carl had said slid into the background.
“You should show him.” Dom’s voice.
“I will.” Zavier did one of his bitter chuckle things. “I didn’t realize what the pictures of us onstage looked like to everyone.”
Mish snorted. “Oh, hon. For how observant you are, you have a huge fuckingblind spot, don’t you?”
“You’re not the first to say that.”
The coffee machine gurgled. Oh, thank god. Ray flipped over onto his back and every nerve fired at once. “Ow, fuck!” He clamped a hand over his mouth, but the damage was done. They knew he was awake now.
Mish was laughing. By the time Ray crawled out of his bunk and flopped into his usual spot on the couch—wincing as he did—Domwas blushing, probably because he’d seen Ray too many times the morning after a good round of sex. Plus Zavier had thatsmirk.
“So youdidfuck last night.” Dom looked right at Ray, but reading his expression was impossible, because it looked a little like relief and that couldn’t be right.
Zavier held up the carafe. “Coffee, Ray?”
“Please.” He cleared his throat and met Dom’s gaze.“Yeah. We fucked last night.”
“Took you long enough.” Dom looked longingly at the coffeepot.
What? “Umm...” He stared at Dom.
“Jesus, you guys have wanted into each other’s pants since the audition.” Dom rolled his eyes. “Then you were such shits to each other with the taunting and teasing. It was getting damn annoying.”
Ray didn’t know what to say. Zavier was blatantly not lookinghis way at all as he poured two mugs, though his smile was that fucking know-it-all number he wore sometimes. Ray settled on watching Mish.
She shrugged. “I’m with Dom on this. You guys got it out of your system?”
It was Zavier who answered. “No.” A simple word. He handed Ray coffee and sat next to him with his own. “Not at all.”
Now Dom had that fucking smirk. “Yeah, didn’t thinkit would be that easy for either of you.”
Well—yeah, Ray wasn’t satisfied with only one night with Zav. Didn’t expect it to be just one night, either. Especially not when it came to the whole spanking and ordering part. He wanted more of that—and more of Zavier screwing him into mindless pleasure. But also more of that singular understanding. The way Zav had tucked him in.
Shit. Becausehe hadn’t expected Zavier to take care of him like that. His cheeks heated and he sipped his coffee. “Um, what were you guys talking about before I got up?”
They all moved cagily. Well, not Zavier—he pulled out his tablet, woke it up, and handed it to Ray. “Tell me what you see.”
Shit.Shit. It was a photo of him and Zav, standing outside the concert venue, when he’d been so fucking upsetat Carl. You could see both their faces. His was full of anger and pain, and Zavier was a picture of sex and determination. They looked exactly like two men about to go fuck.
Which they had been.
“We’re...this is right before we came back to the bus.”
Zavier nodded, took a sip of coffee, and scrolled the photo up so the headline appeared.
ENEMIES OR LOVERS?
Oh. Ray scrolledthe photo back and took another look. Yeah, okay. They might have also been about ready to scream at each other. “I—what do we do about it?”
Zavier grunted. “Let me show you a few other things.”
More photos, this time from a couple concerts. All of Ray or Zavier or both. And their expressions when they looked at each other—holy shit. No wonder Dom wasn’t surprised.
