Loverman Read online

  He’d had no choice, just as he’d had no choice when Charles pushed back into his life.

  Kemp dragged back, breath raw, and looked down at his willing victim. Eyes almost closed, face flushed, lips swollen. He’d drowned in that kiss, as Kemp nearly had.

  “Everything?” he bit out.

  Charles nodded, eyes dazed, for once not calculating.

  “Not enough time for everything,” Kemp taunted, hell raging in him. What did it matter why Charles was so driven? Kemp was pretty damned driven himself. “There’s never enough time for everything. But I’ll give you something on account.”

  He grabbed a pillow, Charles so well trained he lifted his hips, those gym-toned thigh muscles flexing as Kemp shoved the pillow under his arse. The pillow wasn’t even settled before Charles spread his legs, heels catching in the sheets before he lifted his knees, opening himself fully.

  What a view. Fuck. Those three rings, glinting in the soft light, piercing the fine, delicious stretch of skin between Charles’ balls and his arsehole. And above, the hard, impressive cock, leaking onto his flat belly, the heave of his ribcage, that gorgeous face bloodily flushed in anticipation, profile turned to one upstretched arm as if that could hide his complete surrender to this. His sheer need.

  “Pretty,” Kemp commented.

  Idly, he ran his thumb up over those rings, just stirring them. Just enough to see the full-body shudder that ran through the man. Another time, he’d play with them. Catch them with his tongue, his teeth.

  But for now, he leant forward and idly reached for the bottle on the amp case, squeezing lube onto his fingers. Charles watched as Kemp wrapped his slicked fingers about the length of Charles’ cock and slowly pumped him.

  Didn’t matter that his own dick was raging with the need to plunge it into that body. Didn’t matter that he felt like kneeling over Charles, craved his mouth back on his dick.

  No, he’d wait. He’d take his time.

  He’d learnt a lot of things in his time with Charles.

  Mostly how to stretch out Charles’ pleasure because his own didn’t matter next to that driving need. He’d thought he’d known everything about his own tastes. Turned out that until Charles had come back into his life, he’d been a mere observer.

  Leaning over, he delicately flicked his tongue over one of Charles’ nipples, grazed it with his teeth.

  “Jesus,” Charles hissed. “Oh god, yes—”

  On cue, Kemp suckled hard at the bit of flesh and felt the spurt of precum against his fingers. He smiled against Charles’ skin and bit, hard, at his pec, rewarded by Charles helplessly bucking into his fist.

  “God— Oh god, yes—”

  He bit harder, hard enough to leave a bruise. Charles groaned incoherently, writhing, trying to gain more skin-to-skin contact.

  Coolly, Kemp drew back.

  “You’re really wound up, Charles,” he observed. “And it’s been a long day.”

  Those hazy eyes widened on his. The strong wrists wrenched at their bindings. “You’re not going to stop—”

  Kemp grinned, black hair falling across his face. “No, loverman, I’m not going to stop.”

  Leaning back on his heels, he reached for a square packet, tore it open. So many things he’d learnt over the last eighteen months. One of them how to hold back from coming when every nerve ending screamed for it. He’d had control before. But Charles… Charles had changed him.

  No, Charles had to ache for it first.

  He slicked lube over his straining cock, squirted a little more onto his fingers. In the soft light he gave Charles a mocking grin and traced the pads of his fingers over his exposed hole, slid one finger inside, free hand stroking up, over the ripples of that washboard, toned abdomen, fingers catching at a nipple, squeezing it just hard enough.

  Charles was moving with him, body writhing as Kemp’s fingers fucked his arse, opening him up, Charles’ fingers spreading to catch at the white belt above them. Kemp brushed over his prostate, and Charles gave a deep, low moan.

  He rolled his head on the pillow, damp blond hair drying rapidly.

  “Please,” he muttered. “Just please, now—”

  Kemp had been waiting for just those words. Gripping his cock, he positioned himself at Charles’ entrance and slowly pushed. Charles grunted, eyes flying wide open on Kemp’s flushed faced.

  “Kiss me again,” he muttered.

  In answer Kemp watched him, thrust harder, sliding into his tight heat. Pleasure, agony, lust. It was all there in Charles’ gaze.

  He kissed him. He could never deny Charles anything. And then, as Charles watched him hungrily, he truly began to fuck him, a pale hand closing over Charles’ throat.

  And Charles loved it. Couldn’t hide that. His cock had never looked more engorged. Veins stood out on it in stark relief.

  The smooth golden skin of his body, its lines, all muscular elegance. The meaty flesh of his erection, raw brutal need.

  Kemp shifted his angle so that he hit, exactly, the man’s prostate, and he heard Charles’ grunt of pleasure at each thrust, over, over, and over again. Finally, he was begging, pushing his throat up against the loose constriction of Kemp’s hand. For the briefest moment, Kemp’s fingers tightened, and then he freed Charles’ throat.

  “Don’t stop,” Charles begged. “Kemp, please, now. Touch me, fuck, touch my cock, I need you to—”

  In the midst of raging lust, hunger, need, ice lay across Kemp’s heart.

  Oblivion. Every time they fucked, Charles sought it.

  He leant over, brushed his wide, curling mouth against Charles’ open, panting, lush one.

  “I’ll give you just what you need, babe,” he drawled, gravel in the words. He drew back, began to fuck him hard, with a relentless snap to his hips.

  Charles’ eyes rolled back, closed. Kemp hit his prostate with every thrust, and suddenly the man below him arched, wrenching at the bonds at his wrists, spine bowing, a scream strangled in his throat, his release pumping in surge after surge until finally he fell back against the sheets. Wrenched apart and flying on that high, Charles was dragging air into starved lungs.

  Kemp watched him ride that high.

  He loved watching Charles come, Kemp realised, in the instant before his own body took over and drove him hard to his own release. He loved watching that cool control shattered, the man totally given over to pleasure, falling apart, calculation, all control gone.

  And then Charles opened his eyes, lost, drowned, but still caught his legs about Kemp’s hips and threw his head back as Kemp drove into him, finally, cry caught in his throat, coming and coming and falling over him, panting, weight scarcely supported by his elbows as his head fell down against Charles’ neck.

  He was bathed in heat. Slick with sweat, ribs, belly, slick with Charles’ spunk, as Charles was.

  All he could hear was the rough sound of their breathing in the hot, otherwise silent room.

  “You were right,” Charles said finally, the distance in that educated voice utterly gone. “I have missed that.”

  Kemp burst out laughing, the sound muffled against Charles’ shoulder, and peeled himself away, withdrawing from him and removed the condom to tie it off and drop it to the floor.

  He was exhausted. Bone-deep. Fucking had done for him what a hot shower and a long, relentless day had not: drained him totally.

  He shifted while he still could, reached for the belt binding Charles’ wrists, untied it with an effort. The towelling had tightened as he’d strained against it. The flushed marks were erotic bracelets about his flesh.

  For a moment Kemp wanted to press his lips against those marks. Kiss them. Soothe them.

  It was insanity.

  That wasn’t what they were about. That wasn’t what the two of them, here, in this bed, meant.

  It was so much more pragmatic. Tenderness had nothing to do with it.

  Saying nothing, he lay back down, turned his back on the man before he could let any more of that
insanity in, and closed his eyes.

  Seconds later, he was asleep.

  Now Kemp swore viciously under his breath and threw the sheet aside, rolled out of the bed. For a moment his muscles protested, but it had nothing to do with the workout he’d put Charles and himself through earlier, and everything to do with the one he’d gone through on that set.

  He wondered how long he’d slept for. Since he never wore a watch, and his phone wasn’t in here, he had no way of checking.

  His body ached, a headache still hammering, faint now, at his skull. Well, tomorrow, or rather, today, he’d get back into the pool. Swimming would help. It always did. That, fucking, and being onstage were his cure-alls. Basic but effective. Stretching against the deep ache in his muscles, he went into the tiny en suite bathroom and sluiced his face with water before padding, naked, out onto the landing. Looking down into the massive living space, he saw nothing more in the darkness than the jewel-glow of the large iMac screen on the desk by one wall, and Charles sitting in front of it.

  Something wrenched at him, and he didn’t know what the hell it was.

  Then he recognised it.

  Sadness. Jesus, that was insanity. And yet something about the stillness of the man, of how solitary he looked, reminded Kemp of ancient history. Of first meeting Charles at that Palm Beach mansion.

  Charles had a crowd of followers and an air of total entitlement.

  That hateful damned place had fitted him perfectly. Luxurious, elite, polished. Then why, within months, had Kemp thought him one of the loneliest kids he’d ever known?

  Charles glanced across, up at him, and in the dim it was impossible to read his face.

  “I woke up, so I came down here to look at the day’s shots. They’re looking good.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Kemp went back into the bedroom, found a pair of jeans, and dragged them on before heading downstairs. Alone, or in the old days, with pickups, he’d walk around in the raw. But with Charles…

  It wasn’t modesty. He didn’t have any such thing. But clothing was armour. And as he crossed over to the iMac, he knew Charles hit every vulnerable chink he had. He was giving away too much just by sharing space with him.

  Charles ran a hand up Kemp’s thigh as he stood beside him, staring at the screen. His long fingers hooked through the belt loops hanging low and tight about Kemp’s hips.

  Charles missed nothing. He had to know there was one hell of a bulge now straining against Kemp’s zipper, but for once said nothing, instead touching the screen with his fingertips. Blown up hugely was a shot of Kemp in those ropes, pulleys holding him suspended, a bandmate, Stark, joking around, putting him into a headlock.

  In the final cut, he’d be spinning slowly in midair. He was already itching to see a rough cut of the video.

  “You check out those shots we took separately?” Kemp asked.

  Charles shot him an odd look. “Yes.” A sudden dance of his long fingers on the keyboard, and the iMac screen flashed.

  The shot of Stark and Kemp from the shoot had been replaced by a later one of Kemp alone. Very naked, stare dirty and direct. The image was more perversely baroque, more starkly erotic than anything Kemp had imagined.

  Was this how Charles truly saw him? Fucking hell.

  That Charles had taken the simple combination of Kemp’s bared skin, that dusty golden light, those props, and turned it into this. Jesus.

  The breath caught in his throat. This was so far beyond the skilful professional image he’d just viewed. His own dirty, knowing stare met him from the screen. Kemp’s heart began to hammer, hard, against the cage of his ribs. It was visceral. A reaction that had hit him only a handful of times in his life. He was dizzied, his senses spinning from it.

  Charles clicked through to the next shot, the next.

  Eventually Kemp said, bluntly, “You’ve got an incredible talent. These are… they blow my fucking mind, Chaz.”

  He sensed the quick disbelieving flick of Charles’ eyes to his face, but he couldn’t look away from the screen. It was incredible. Charles had unleashed a singular, unique viewpoint—one of a true artist. Somehow Kemp drew his skin back over his nerve endings. Cut a glance to Charles.

  “What exactly are you planning to do with these shots?”

  A taut silence had fallen. Finally, “I want to put them out into the world. Make them public. Would you object?”

  Would he? Kemp looked and carefully asked himself that question. If the other images were anything like these, they were incendiary. They would also be just too damned brilliant to hide away. It would be a crime. After a moment, he lifted one bare shoulder in a shrug. He was suddenly wickedly amused. “None whatsoever. Go for it.” He paused, hesitant and unused to hesitation. “It’ll be your funeral, not mine.”

  Charles gave one small dismissive nod at that. He flicked back to the commissioned shots from the video shoot and said coolly, “I got some great images. Your sister—” he began and then stopped abruptly.

  Kemp scowled. His mood swerved. “My sister?”

  The air hummed between them. Bad subject. The wrong subject.

  Charles said tightly, “She’s very talented. The video is going to be a groundbreaker once it’s released.”

  “Yes.”

  Kemp felt the ice growing in him then. Back in the day, Charles had been an elitist shit. A truly vicious bastard to Viva.

  It hadn’t mattered that their mother was Richard Durant’s wife. Charles hadn’t hidden his disdain. Fuck no, he’d declared it. If Viva had been weaker, he’d have driven her out.

  He stared past Charles’ profile to the screen and a shot of Stark’s face. The guy was extreme. Yet put him behind a drum kit, and he’d give Bonham a run for his money. No wonder they were all willing to put up with his crap.

  Kemp had been putting up with a lot of crap lately. And he’d let himself forget, last night, just how much shit he’d dealt with from the man whose fingers were now caught absently in the waistband of his jeans. That shoot had been warfare.

  “You’d be wise not to mention Viva to me,” he said flatly.

  Blue eyes cut to his face.

  “I think I was a little too nice, earlier,” Kemp said, without expression.

  “Nice?” Charles arched a brow. “It was a lot of things, but nice? Anyway, you enjoyed it. Don’t say you didn’t.”

  “I enjoy a lot of things,” Kemp remarked. “Especially watching how far I can push you. I don’t think I’ve ever pushed you far enough, Charles.”

  That cool face didn’t alter, but something changed behind his eyes. It wasn’t fear.

  Kemp’s hand came out, strong, roughened fingers wrapping about the column of Charles’ throat. Charles had naturally golden skin, thanks to a long-dead Danish mother. Kemp’s fingers were much paler, like the rest of him, pale against Charles’ throat.

  He felt him swallow beneath the pressure he exerted. Just enough pressure, just right.

  Exactly as Charles had shown him wordlessly, that first night, he liked.

  “First things first. Don’t ever talk about Viva to me. Don’t even mention her name. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I thought we’d established that right at the beginning. Back when we hooked up again.”

  Charles stared back at him blandly. “Your sister is of no interest to me. You know that. I won’t mention her again.”

  “No. No, you keep her out of this. Or this… this thing we’ve got going is over. That’s the one certainty.”

  Chapter Four

  Charles knew that if slipping up meant this, again and again, over and over, he’d never stop. The attention. The laser focus that Kemp usually lavished on his music, an audience, pouring everything into it, poured onto him…

  All that ferocious concentration honed on him, not some microphone in a recording studio, not some performance for the cameras, not Kemp’s assured seduction of an entire audience, not even the two of them, in the midst of a fuck, b
ut him.

  So yes, he knew exactly what he was doing when he said, “I won’t mention it again, but Viva needs to work on her people skills. She antagonised some of the crew with her demands.” True enough. But then she’d also worked harder than any crew member. “She got a lot out of them. She’d get even more if she pulled back a little.”

  As he’d expected, the grey of Kemp’s eyes became arctic. “Really? Do you think my sister will take advice on how to treat people from a Durant?”

  Faced with that contempt, Kemp’s earlier reaction to those private shots felt hallucinatory.

  The switch from that to this was drenching ice water.

  Charles’ shrug was indifferent. “It was simply an observation.” He clicked a button, sending the video shoot’s images to the back. Kemp’s dirty-eyed stare and the pale, naked stretch of his body met him from the screen. “In any case, I have other more pressing concerns, and the story’s deadline is way off.”

  “Heaven forbid we let a discussion fuck up that schedule of yours.” The drawl was acidic.

  Kemp’s deceptively slender but powerful frame was vibrating with tension. It was a tension Charles knew he had caused. That was fine. It was indifference that appalled him, and as for dismissal…

  He turned in the chair and permitted himself a hand up over the rough denim covering Kemp’s hip, up, over the smooth skin of his ribs. The muscle flexed hard under his touch.

  “I pushed Viva and I shouldn’t have, but… work means everything to me,” he said, because saying more—saying the full truth—was an impossibility. “I can’t fail. Although it would make a lot of people happy if I did.”

  Kemp stared at him for a long, long moment, grey eyes unreadable.

  Kemp knew the Durant name and wealth hung over Charles like a stone. The excellence of Charles’ work was his only weapon, his calling card, and only answer.

  Finally, Kemp nodded and almost reluctantly covered Charles’ hand with his rougher one and pressed it against his bared, muscular abdomen. Charles had the strangest sensation of vibrant warmth, of iron strength, being deliberately pushed into him, buzzing through skin, honeyed and healing through every vein and nerve ending.