Beyond the Footlights Read online

  Jacko’s fingers in his hair gripped hard, pulled Kilmer to him, and hot seed poured into his mouth. Kilmer was beyond the basic mechanics of swallowing as Rocky pounded into him from behind. Come drooled from his mouth, his body shook and rocked under Rocky, but Jacko held him steady.

  The only things that kept his fingers firmly curled around the tiny scrap of metal were Jacko’s hand in his hair and the harsh sound of his Master finding his release. The knowledge he was finally back where he’d wanted to be for so many weeks now.

  Rocky took longer. Of course he did, because he’d already come once, and so this time he had to work for it. Kilmer tilted his pelvis, eager now for the blinding too much of that stimulation again. If he couldn’t think, he couldn’t regret.

  Once more Jacko curved fingers under his jaw, lifted his head, slipped that hand lower to wrap around his throat, and Kilmer couldn’t help but look at him. He couldn’t help but plead. Even if he no longer had cock down his throat, though, he would not speak. Permission hadn’t been given, and besides, he didn’t want to be that transparent in front of someone he didn’t know.

  Jacko smiled encouragingly at him, tightened his fingers just enough to make every breath precious as it slid past that grip.

  Kilmer swallowed to feel the tension of Jacko’s palm against his throat. To feel the promise of his life in his Master’s hands. Because that was how it had always been between them.

  “You want to come?” Jacko asked.

  Not so much as he wanted to be allowed to stay. Kilmer swallowed again, unable to answer. Unable to ask for what he needed because that was not how it worked between them.

  “Rocky,” Jacko said.

  Hands touched him. Not Jacko’s. Not on his dick. Jacko never touched him there. That also was not how they worked. But the hands were nice. Strong and forceful, and rough, and they pulled at him until yes, he did want to come. Very badly. Between the ass pounding and the tugging on his prick, he could close his eyes and ride the high. He could hang suspended from the tiny comfort of his Dom’s hands on his hair and neck, and take the fucking until it was enough to make him want release.

  The cock ring made sure he didn’t get what he wanted. He didn’t ask. Not how they worked.

  Behind him Rocky’s rhythm faltered. The pounding hammered harder, faster, less steadily, and Rocky growled.

  “Not in him!” Jacko spat, and Rocky snarled but did as he was told and yanked himself out of Kilmer, leaving him empty.

  He felt the splash of heat over his back and ass. It drooled down his crack and over his hole, already cooling as it tracked through the sweat. Only Jacko ever had the privilege of coming inside Kilmer. Preserving that now almost made up for the rest, and Kilmer wished he had a way to show he appreciated that.

  His own cock ached and throbbed with each spurt of jizz over his body.

  “Now,” Jacko crooned.

  Rocky’s hard fingers fumbled at Kilmer’s cock, found the ring’s snaps, and popped them open. Kilmer didn’t stand a chance of holding back. As soon as the pressure released and Rocky stroked him once, hard and fast—too much—he came.

  His body shook with the effort of getting it all out. His throat under Jacko’s hand grew raw from his harsh breathing and the tightness of holding back every sob that threatened to accompany each jet of orgasm.

  He dropped his head the instant Jacko let go of his hair, the task of holding it up too much. He wanted to drop his entire body to the floor, but there was no guarantee they were done with him. He remained up on hands and knees through force of will.

  Jacko petted him, caressing the back of his head as Kilmer swayed. Sweat and come cooled on his skin. He felt the bone-deep shiver of coming down.

  “Clean him up,” Jacko said quietly.

  Crushing. Too. Much. Kilmer was halfway to crumpling when Rocky caught him and powered him to his feet. The man saved him that humiliation at least. He hadn’t collapsed at Jacko’s feet. Small miracles. He looked down at him as Rocky propped him against his muscled, sweaty side and pressed his rumpled jeans into his hand.

  “Okay?” Jacko asked.

  Kilmer studied him. He looked for the familiar encouragement and pleasure in his eyes, the lines of satisfaction in his face. He saw the same devoid features he’d been searching for weeks—no, months now. He lifted the hand holding the bell and opened his fingers. The tiny gold jewellike thing sat there on its side, glimmering in the lamplight. He looked back to Jacko.

  Okay? No.

  He tipped his hand and watched the bell drop to the floor, tinkling a tiny mournful sound as it fell and landed on the carpet at Jacko’s feet.

  Not okay.

  Jacko’s eyes narrowed.

  Beside Kilmer, Rocky shifted uncertainly. He had his instructions. Move away, which he did, though he didn’t go far and he kept a hand on Kilmer’s hip. He was clearly worried that if he moved too fast, Kilmer would topple. He might be right about that, and Kilmer was grateful for that bit of support.

  He braced himself on the arm Rocky offered and found his balance. When he was ready, he let go of the stranger and stood on his own.

  “You need care,” Jacko said, voice patient and firm.

  “I can take care of myself,” Kilmer told him and turned slowly because he was not going to lose his balance on his watery legs. He was not going to stumble in this unfamiliar landscape of independence. He would not falter. Not in this. He was going to make “not okay” better. He was going to do that himself, because Jacko did not want what was okay for him.

  He made it to the door and out into the hallway. He actually found the bathroom under his own steam and got the door closed. He figured out the intricacy of the minuscule lock on the doorknob and turned it. He listened to the click and let out his breath.

  Now he was okay. He slid down the door to the floor and leaned back. The wood was chill against his overheated skin. The air in the bathroom was cool. He shivered, and for a few minutes, breathing in and breathing out were enough things to do all at once.

  Finally he peered through the haze of too much and realized he still had his jeans clutched in one hand. He fumbled his feet into the legs and, after a false start, pushed off the floor and pulled them up. He got them over his flaccid cock and his sweaty, clammy ass and did the buttons up. Dressed. It was a start. He unlocked the door and went out to the hallway.

  “Kilmer?” Jacko’s voice was as commanding as it always was. He ignored it and headed for the kitchen. The dog lifted its head, thumped its tail once, but didn’t move. Kilmer’s keys were where he’d left them on the table by the door. Wallet. Phone. Boots in hand. He made it outside to his car and pressed the right button on the fob to make it beep-beep and flash its lights at him. He climbed inside, closed that door, and locked it as Jacko finally reached him, mincing the last few steps across the gravel of the drive.

  He saw Jacko’s lips move, knew that was his name, but it wasn’t what he needed to hear. He started the car, put it in reverse, and backed out of the drive. Jacko was still standing on the rocks in his baggy jeans, hairy stomach and chest on display, as Kilmer got the car headed the right way down the road. He turned from the sight and flipped on his headlights, pointed the car in the direction of the twenty-minute drive back to Vance and Len’s ranch, and hit the gas.

  1

  KILMER CAME back to “present and accounted for” as the front door of Vance’s spacious farmhouse flew open. Kilmer was standing on the porch with little idea how he’d gotten there. Light bright enough to make him wince flared into his face. He lifted a hand to cover his eyes, and grimaced.

  “Kil?” Vance’s deep voice rumbled through his gut. So familiar because it had once been his touchstone. But Vance sounded so different from Jacko. Had he really not noticed the cool tones in Jacko’s commands that he had learned to heed over the past four years? How had he never noticed the difference? Vance was so… so—not his anymore.

  “What are you doin’ here?” Vance grabbed his arm
and pulled him inside. “Where are your shoes?”

  “I—” Kilmer glanced down at his bare feet. Maybe they were still in the car. He couldn’t remember.

  “Jacko’s been callin’ every five minutes. What happened?”

  “Vance?” Len’s voice this time, from where he stood on the stairs. “He’s on the phone again. What do I tell him?”

  “He’s here. He’s safe. Tell him to fuck the hell off.”

  “Um.” Len’s light steps pattered down a few more stairs. He held the phone out to Kilmer. “You want to talk to him?”

  Kilmer took the phone and hit the End button. He handed the receiver to Vance.

  “Okay, then,” Len said, voice small but comforting. “Come upstairs.”

  They led him, Len in front, and Vance behind like he was afraid Kilmer would fall back down the stairs if he wasn’t there to catch him.

  Kilmer felt unsteady and vacant. He wasn’t so sure Vance was wrong to stay where he could catch Kilmer if he stumbled. They made it all the way up, though, and Kilmer continued to follow Len as he led him into their bedroom.

  Another bedroom? Now?

  Kilmer faltered just inside the doorway.

  “Okay.” Vance laid a hand at the small of his back and Kilmer flinched away, because he was covered in a stranger’s mess and even through the cotton shirt, Vance shouldn’t touch that. “Come on.” Vance powered him forward with that touch anyway, either not noticing or ignoring it all. “Sit.”

  Kilmer was guided to the bed and he collapsed onto the edge of the mattress.

  “Spill,” Vance demanded.

  Kilmer shook his head. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t…. He looked up into Vance’s face and saw concern. Worry. No little amount of anger. He turned away from the storm of emotion.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Kilmer said dully. “I knew what I was doin’. I just….”

  “What were you doin’?” Vance asked.

  Kilmer hefted his gaze up to meet Vance’s. “Endin’ it. In the worst way possible. I—” He’d taken Jacko’s trust and twisted it into barbed wire and insult. He’d hammered the last nail into the coffin of their relationship and let the tiny little bell toll the last gasp of it at Jacko’s feet.

  “From the beginnin’,” Vance said, a hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. “Take your time, but tell me everythin’.”

  And because in that moment he needed so very badly to have a rule, a lead, one small thing to believe could be real, he took it for a command and he told.

  By the end he was sandwiched between them, Len on one side, arm wrapped snuggly around his waist, Vance on the other, hand still at the back of his neck, kneading gently. Both of them had their other hands on him, one on each of his forearms.

  “So I left.” Kilmer looked at Vance. “I… don’t actually remember that part. Gettin’ in the car and leavin’.” Though he did have that vision of Jacko on the lawn, barefoot, bare-chested, the looming image of Rocky, broad and strong and waiting in the light of the front door.

  “And drivin’?” Vance asked.

  Kilmer shook his head. He’d driven the path between his bungalow and the Texas Ex ranch so many times he could do it in his sleep. This time, apparently, he had. It chilled him to realize he had no memory of the drive. Had he turned his headlights on? Had he taken that last turn, the hairpin around the foot of the moraine, wide? How close had he come to the guardrails along the ravine and up over the steep rise? He shuddered. So many ways to die on that stretch of country road.

  “Okay,” Vance said, like he had a million times over the past hour as Kilmer haltingly told his story. “You need to shower. You want help?”

  Help? Who was going to help him? He shook his head. “I can manage.” He met Vance’s eyes. “I’m okay. I know where everythin’ is. I’ll take the room up here, though. That okay?” Because he didn’t want to sleep in his usual accommodations in the room off the kitchen. It was plain and decent, but it was the help’s space. Barren, just like the spare room at… home.

  “You’ll shower here,” Vance decided, pointing to the en suite. “Len, can you find him somethin’ to put on?”

  “Sure.” Len jumped up and hurried to the dresser. He found a T-shirt and sweats that had to be Vance’s because there was no way Len’s tiny frame would hold on to the clothes.

  The phone rang and Vance picked up. He didn’t even say hello. “He made it here alive. Don’t call again.” He hung up.

  Kilmer could have kissed him for that. And he could have crumpled to the floor to cry. He stood very still so he didn’t actually do either.

  Len stepped forward and offered the clothing.

  Kilmer accepted them and meekly headed into the bathroom. He really should just go across the hall. But both his friends seemed willing to keep him close, and maybe, for just tonight, that was okay. It was what he wanted.

  To be okay.

  He shucked his jeans, showered, and dried off. His own clothes had been magicked away, so he donned the clean clothes, then peered back out to the bedroom. Vance was sitting up in bed. Len was curled on his side, back to the bathroom, knees up tight, possibly asleep.

  “I appreciate this,” Kilmer said, keeping his vice low. “Still want to sleep up here, though.” To Vance he could admit the weakness. Tonight he could be weak. Just this once because Vance knew him.

  “Come here.” Vance peeled back the covers and patted the mattress between him and Len.

  “No, Van—”

  “Lie down,” Len said sleepily. “Get some rest.”

  Kilmer’s throat closed, tight and aching. He nodded and climbed up from the foot of the bed, to lie on his back between them. Almost immediately Len rolled over and slung an arm across his chest.

  “Night,” Len whispered.

  Kilmer glanced at Vance, who shrugged, clicked out the bedside lamp, and shimmied down on Kilmer’s other side.

  “You need care,” Vance said matter-of-factly. “Go to sleep.” He planted a kiss on Kilmer’s hair and laced his fingers with Len’s.

  They weren’t touching, but Kilmer could feel Vance’s weight and presence, even his heat. Despite the sting behind his eyes, he managed to settle. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a hell of a lot closer to okay here, in the oddness of his friends’ bed, than it had been in the familiarity of his own Dom’s hands.

  He didn’t think he would ever sleep, and then he was waking up to sunshine and the smell of coffee.

  2

  KILMER ROLLED onto his back and scrubbed a hand over his face. He was the only one still in bed. The sun was high enough to stream through the window, telling him it was well past his usual wake-up time. The door to the suite’s bathroom was closed, but he heard the shower running. Good. That gave him space to sneak out of the room and hopefully out the back door and into the barn, where he could find some work clothes, get a shovel, and pretend last night had not happened.

  Except for the chasm of empty in his gut where all his trust in Jacko had been. Or… had Kilmer been the one to destroy that? He poked about in the shards of his broken relationship but found no real clues as to who had landed the final shattering hammerblow.

  Quietly he got up, gathered up T-shirt and jeans from a pile of clean clothes tossed on the foot of the bed. No sign of his boots. He must have left those in the car. He pulled on the jeans, still warm from the dryer, and headed for the stairs, shirt in hand.

  The jeans, he realized, weren’t his. They were too long and slipped down his hips, so they had to be Vance’s, but it didn’t matter. They’d cover his ass for the short jog from house to barn, where likely a pair of his own hung in the tack room. He’d return these later.

  Halfway to the landing, he heard the clattering of dishes in the kitchen and Len’s sweet tenor humming away.

  Shit. No escape through the back, then. Len would see him and Kilmer would have to talk. He scrambled down the last few steps and tried a dash for the front door instead. He could hightail
it around the house to freedom.

  A heavy thudding sounded just as he touched the handle, shaking the door with the weight of it. He knew—he just knew it was Jacko. Thankfully the curtain hid him from view.

  Spinning, he dodged into the office and closed the door most of the way behind him. Footsteps from the kitchen heralded Len’s approach. The front door opened, and he faintly heard a greeting in a low rumbling voice that shook his already unsteady guts into gelatinous goo.

  He rested his head on the office doorframe and tried to breathe through the sticky mess.

  “What are you doing here?” Len asked coldly.

  “Where is he?” Jacko’s bass voice filled the entire front room.

  “Sleeping.”

  “I need to see him.”

  “You fucked up.” Len’s voice was flat, dead of emotion, like a concrete barrier between Jacko and anything the fiery little redhead cared about.

  “Not your business, boy,” Jacko rumbled.

  Len made a furious noise. The sound of footsteps hurrying down the stairs followed. Kilmer peered out the crack between the office door and its frame as Vance passed, headed for the front door. His friend was dressed in a pair of faded jeans too tight for the button to fasten. His chest still glistened with water.

  “Watch how you address my partner,” Vance growled. He placed a hand on Len’s shoulder and stood at his back, a head and more taller than his lover but not towering over him. Just there.

  “Always been your problem, Vance,” Jacko said. “You give them too much leeway. You ruined Kilmer. Look at him now. Can’t get the boy to behave no matter what I do.”

  “Jacko,” Vance said in warning.

  There was a long silence. Feet shuffled, and finally Jacko spoke. “I handled him badly.”

  “You think?” Len responded with venom and Vance’s fingers on his shoulder tightened. “I mean,” Len said, subduing his tone though the anger in his expression remained, “maybe instead of handling him, you should have listened to him.”