Page 165 of Naughty Dreams
“I’ve changed my mind, Roy. I’m withdrawing the job offer. I don’t want you as my security detail. Not if that’s all I can have.”
“What is it you want?” Frustration rose in Roy, a wall he couldn’t scale. If the kid didn’t step back…
He did, right before Roy would have reached out and touched him. DJ gave him a cordial nod.
“I want my Master back, Roy. You may be older and wiser, but you let me into your heart, and I let you into mine. Maybe you can call that circumstances and nothing that will last, but since the very first time we sat down at a table together, I wanted you, and you wanted me. It was deeper than our dicks, or even the fact I’m a sub and you’re a Dom. Most days you think you’re smarter than me, and you probably are, but I think that’s the problem. Because this isn’t one of those days.”
A hard light came into his brown eyes, a sardonic twist to his mouth. “You’re keeping yourself at arm’s length, telling yourself you’re so much more emotionally mature, that you know better than me. But you know what I think? You’re protecting yourself from getting in too deep with the mercurial rockstar who might wake up tomorrow and decide he doesn’t love you.”
DJ poked Roy in the chest. “When you decide you’re ready to fucking trust me the way I’m willing to trust you… Well, you’re on the list. But the longer you wait, the more likely I am to get pissed. Then you’ll have to figure out how to break in, and I’ll either be as impressed as a princess in a tower, or I’ll set the cops on your trespassing ass.”
DJ pivoted and picked up the towel. He slung it over this shoulder and strode to the sliding glass door, leaving Roy staring after him. He banged it closed.
When Roy finally made his feet move, he followed DJ into the house. He didn’t follow DJ, though. His mind was spinning in too many directions, and he didn’t make decisions when nothing was clear.
However, his exit did take him past the studio, giving him a glimpse of the new guitarist. A good-looking guy, close to DJ’s age. The way he shook DJ’s hand was half I’m-meeting-rock-royalty awe, and half instant sexual attraction to the sensual force that was DJ.
Roy tried not to get his hackles up, but in truth, he wanted to strangle someone. Mostly himself.
The day after Gilda’s surgery, Roy and she were sitting on the back porch swing together. Roy stared out into the yard while she sipped a lemonade and listened to an audiobook.
He felt like he was trapped behind a wall, and it made him wonder if DJ was right. Had Roy created it, and was he the one keeping it between them?
Gilda paused her book, set the tablet aside and turned, tucking her toes under his thigh and crossing her arms.
“So when are you going back to DJ?”
“Job’s done, Mom,” he said.
“I wasn’t asking about your job.”
Immediate flashback to childhood, and the times he’d tried to get away with shit. How did mothers pull that tone out whenever they needed it?
Come to think of it, DJ had a pretty good version of it, with that cool stare and “When will you be back?” combo. He’d make a great mom.
If he told him that, Roy was sure the kid would gut punch him.
With an air of exaggerated patience that said, “you know very well what I’m saying, but I’m going to spell it out for you in crayon” his mother added, “I was asking about your relationship with DJ. Isitdone?”
“Once I move on from a job, the closeness I might have had with a client, professional and personal, peters out. RememberSpeed? ‘Relationships started in intense circumstances never last.’”
“‘So we’ll base it on sex then,’” she rejoined, a sparkle in her unfocused eyes. “You two tried to be quiet, but the chemistry is obviously there.”
“Jesus.” He winced. “Remind me to stay at a hotel next time I bring someone to meet you.”
“He’s the first man you’ve brought home to me since you were a teenager. You’re very clear about boundaries, Royal. If you stepped over them, you had reason to believe DJ is different.”
“Or it proves I can be as dumb as anyone else. It just happens less often.”
Feeling her censorious glance as he took a swig of her lemonade, he set it down and sighed. “Mom, he’s a celebrity, and not just a flash-in-the-pan thing. He’ll be an icon in the music world long after he writes his last hit song. No matter that my work operates inside that world, I’m not part of it. I’m like clothing. We need clothing to meet our day-to-day needs, but no one thinks clothes are the same thing as the body itself.”
He could hear DJ’s response to that, too.Thank God you don’t write songs for a living. That’s terrible.
Shut up. Stop talking to me like you’re right here.
She harrumphed. “When you introduced me to DJ, I knew he was a big celebrity, but what I noticed the most was the chemistry between you. And it wasn’t just about sex. You know that line fromNotting Hill?”
“I will puncture my eardrums to keep you from saying it.”
