A red tainted Silence (79 page)

I guess I really was tired -- all I could do was nod. I headed for our bedroom, nodding at Jeff, who’d made himself comfortable on one of the couches with Barkley, scratching his ears. My dog barely looked up at me. Traitor.

I left the door open. Didn’t think anyone would peek in, and even if Jeff did, he’d seen me naked anyway, so no big deal. Heck, Jenn had seen me naked, too, as had Jon and Amanda and Marisa and ... I chuckled at myself at that. My lack of modesty was legendary.

Almost everyone in the band had seen me naked.

I thought of the pictures, and the video. Half the Durango police force had as well.

Fuck.

I stripped off my clothes, put them in the hamper, and started the tub. I grabbed the remote, turned off all the lights, and opened the curtains. I wanted to see the mountains that rose up at the end of our land.

Evening had settled her gentle cloak over us soon after we’d reached home, and I was glad. Evening meant the end of another day, and sleep, and soon it would be morning once more, and I could be with Brandon again.

I hated this forced separation. I resented being told what to do, truth be known. I didn’t show it, but it was there, deep inside me, the festering frustration that I was still horribly out of control of this situation Brandon and I were faced with. And if you know me, if there’s anything I hate, it is being out of control. I’d had way too much of that lately, and it kinda pissed me off.

I wanted this over with. I wanted Brandon well. I wanted him home, in my arms, in my bed. I wanted inside him. I wanted to feel his skin slick with sweat. I wanted to breathe in his scent and mingle it with my own and the sweet smell of sex. I wanted to kiss him, love him, assure him that never, ever would anyone hurt him again.

I just ... I just wanted to hold him. Above all, I wanted to hold him and have him open his eyes and have them be bright and carefree again, not clouded with fear. With worry.

Clouded by a shadowed past that refused to let the sunlight into his mind and heart again.

When did you last truly see the sun, Brandon? When was the last time you were truly happy?

Have you ever been? Really?

I winced as I got into the tub, only now that I was alone acknowledging how sore I was. I held my hand against my scar, eyes closed, willing the sharp triggers of pain that insisted on keeping me company throughout the day to please, please, go away.

They wouldn’t though, likely not ever, according to my doc. How I was going to cope in the months to come with this ... this disability, I didn’t know. How I’d keep up with the demanding schedule some nameless, faceless record label execs had come up with, I didn’t know.

Somehow I would, though. As long as Brandon was there to help me.

A Red-Tainted Silence

469

I turned the bubble jets up to full steam. That way no chance of scaring Lee with my little submarine. I sat back, getting myself comfortable, and looked out the window, at the mountains, and forced myself to think about the last thing I wanted to, but really needed to, if I was going to figure all the angles of this thing out.

My captor.

It was such a puzzle, really. Who he was.

I’d been kept carefully in the dark as to his identity, blindfolded like I was, though I’d believed for so long it was Percy that I guess I’d pushed his persona onto my tormentor. Now that I knew it wasn’t him, that it was someone else altogether and Percy had nothing to do with my kidnapping, I tried to think about other clues. Let my mind drift back where I hadn’t dared to let it drift, except when I told Brandon what had happened during all those weeks.

But as he’d guessed, and written, I hadn’t told him everything. No way I could’ve.

What I did tell him -- had to tell him -- was bad enough.

Oh, God, it was so bad.

I let my mind drift back to those first days, after Brandon found me. After he killed my tormentor, forever erasing any chance we had that the bastard could’ve told us who was behind this madness. I’m not angry about it, though. Brandon didn’t think about that when he killed the bastard.

After all, all he’d thought about was saving me ...

“Hey, you, you awake?” Brandon had said, sitting next to me in the chair, his hurt leg propped up, his back leaning against the pillows.

I’d turned my head, carefully. Oh, God, I hurt so bad. “Yeah, can’t sleep,” I’d said, my voice so hoarse, so hurting, I couldn’t keep the tears from my eyes. I closed them, a soft sob escaping. I hurt so bad!

“Nick, Nick,” Brandon softly admonished me.

I heard him get up. I didn’t want him to have to do that. He was hurt, too, had stitches in his back and his leg was broken.

But when he sat carefully on the bed beside me, propping his leg up on the chair, and took my hand, I was grateful. So fucking grateful.

He smiled down at me, his fingers brushing away my tears. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, Brandon. I’m such a whiner, I know.” His eyes widened at that. “Whiner? I don’t think so. For a guy who went through what you did, and just had major surgery and a gazillion staples put into him, even if you were whining, I’d say you were entitled. Don’t you?”

“You don’t. Whine, I mean. Or cry.”

470

Carolyn Gray

He shook his head sadly at that, his eyes glittering as he studied my hand clasped in his.

“You have no idea, babe. I cry where you can’t see me.”

“Oh.”

His fingers entwined with mine. I sighed, shifted, winced as I felt the tug of the catheter on my dick. Fucking dick monster. I covered my dick with my other hand and whimpered.

“Leave it alone, Nick.”

“I want it out!”

“I know. But you’re too weak yet. It has to stay.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I hate this.”

“I know. I know. Let it go.”

Reluctantly I removed my hand, shifted to try to get more comfortable, but it was impossible, really. I know it sounds crazy maybe, but of everything I’d endured, the catheter was the worst. The humiliation of it. My poor dick.

“I’m so scared, Brandon, and I don’t understand why. Why am I scared now? I wasn’t scared before, not really. I knew you’d find me and you did, but I feel more scared now than I did then.”

But he shushed me again. “You don’t have to talk about that now.”

“I want to. I need to.”

“All right, then.” He squeezed my hand. It felt so good, holding his hand. Something so simple, but so powerful. Just to feel him touching me again with his warmth, of his own volition, meant everything to me. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Everything,” I whispered. “I want to tell you everything, except I don’t remember everything.”

“The doc told you not to push it. You’ll remember in time.” I nodded. “I know. I know. But I have to tell you what I can. Right now, before I forget.” I squeezed his hand tight as I could, and that wasn’t very tight at all. I was so weak.

And then, I told him, and he listened without saying a word until I couldn’t talk anymore.

Brandon, my beautiful, amazing Brandon, I’d wanted so bad right then to be able to do more than hold his hand. I’d wanted to hug him, kiss him, make love to him again, but with my body screaming with pain, my dick busy with other interests so that I didn’t even dare to think about sex -- oh, my God, can you imagine having a catheter in your dick and getting hard? Shit. No way. Anyway, I’d had to be content with holding his hand. That’s all I could do.

But I’d wanted him to kiss me. So bad, I’d wanted him to kiss me, but I hadn’t dared ask him to. I didn’t want to push him. Not yet anyway.

A Red-Tainted Silence

471

The Brandon who’d rescued me was a man I didn’t know, I’d realized that first day of consciousness in the hospital room. Or maybe the man who had rescued me was just showing me another hidden facet of the mysterious, multilayered man I’d fallen in love with, when we were just boys, so young, so naïve, so innocent and untried.

Over the weeks of my captivity, he’d gotten tougher, harder, more forceful, commanding. He’d forced himself to be that which he’d always hated before -- a public figure, pushing himself, my cause, the fight to find me. He was terrified the cops would toss my case aside, and say, Oh, well, lots of people get kidnapped. You’ll just have to wait and see what happens. There’s nothing else to be done, sorry.

But they never did. I don’t think they dared, not with Brandon pushing like he did.

I smiled to myself, remembering how he’d looked when he’d saved me and taken me out of the dog crate, yanked that awful blindfold off me and pulled me into his arms, not caring a fig that I was filthy, soiled, caring only that he’d found me.

Stunning. Purely stunning. He’d shaven off his beard and chopped his hair military-short. He’d looked like Arnold himself, anger stilling his face -- except for his eyes.

I’ll never forget his eyes.

But once I was safe, and it was just him and me in the hospital room and the threat of my dying anyway, despite everything, had passed, and I was able to show him the best way I could how much I loved him, he all but shut out the outside world, focusing on me, as if he could force me by sheer will to be better.

I think, at first anyway, that he thought he would get me better, and then he would run off again, hide again, but I’d put a stop to that as soon as I’d realized which direction that brain of his was going.

As if I’d ever let him get away again. No way.

“Hey, you decent? Decent enough anyway?”

My thoughts scattered like snowflakes in a gust of wind. I turned my gaze from my inner thoughts and the mountains outside my window and looked up to see Lee’s silhouette framed by the bedroom door.

“Yeah, come on in.”

“Sure I’m not interrupting? You were awfully quiet there. You’re not falling asleep, are you? If so, we’d better get you into bed.”

“No, come on in. Have a seat,” I said, waving to the chair over which I’d draped my towel. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?” he said as he joined me.

“About the past. About ... about when we were first in the hospital, and I told Brandon what happened when I was captured. I keep thinking about it, thinking there might be something there I missed.”

472

Carolyn Gray

“Oh. Want to talk about it now?’’

I blinked, realizing then I did want to. Lee’s always been a patient man, a good listener.

I love him for that. So I settled back against the tub, enjoying the hot water bubbling over my skin, and looked out at the mountains again. I knew that Lee knew me well enough to know I was gathering my thoughts, that he’d just have to wait a bit and I’d start talking.

I let my thoughts drift again, but this time as was my curse, they took me back to that day, that beautiful, awful day that had started out so incredible, and ended up to be such hell.

“I woke up early that morning, after making Brandon mine again in his beach house. I remember stretching on the couch, loving the feel of it against my bare skin, yawning like a satisfied cat full of cream. And I was full, filled with Brandon’s love,” I said to Lee.

He grinned at that. “I can imagine what else you were full of.” I splashed water at him. “He was the full one. I’m the top in this relationship.” My frowned faded. “At least, I was. Now, I’m not so sure.” Lee sighed. “You’ll have to start over, you know. Take it slow. This is going to be really hard for him. You’ll probably have to change a lot of things.”

“I don’t mind starting over. Fuck, I’ll be a total bottom for him, if that’s what he wants.

I don’t care. I just want him to love me again. Let me make love to him again.”

“He will.”

I eyed Lee. “No one can promise that, you know. They say --”

“Forget what they say.” He sat on the edge of his chair, elbows on knees, and eyed me with about as serious of an expression on his face as I’d ever seen. “He will be all right. He will get well. He will. He does love you, Nicholas. It may take time, but you guys have the time you need. Fuck everyone else, take whatever time is necessary. Screw the record company. The fans will understand. So will the band.”

“But it’s their livelihood, too, Lee. Your life, too. I can’t just walk away from you guys.

Especially you. You’ve always been a part of this.”

“I know, and I fully intend to keep being a part of it, as long as it’s good for the both of you. I’m not worried about me. Right now, Brandon needs you.” He paused. “And while I’m at it, fuck the label. There’s other record companies. Hell, you and Brandon could even start your own fucking record company. Screw ’em!”

I smiled at that. Lee’s distaste for our record label was well known. Hell, so was mine, but I tried to keep it under wraps. Although, it was definitely tempting to piss them off so much they dropped me. The freedom of it ... But the advance sales on the new album were ridiculously awesome. The label was actually being rather nice to me. Now, when I could care less.

Ah, life and its ironies.

A Red-Tainted Silence

473

I stretched out in the tub, letting myself float. The bubbles felt great caressing my skin.

Especially my scar. And my dick. I submerged myself a little as the up periscope threatened to breach the surface, then let it just because it felt so damn good.

I giggled, eyeing Lee. He just shook his head. Really, nothing fazes the man. Dammit.

“You are such a child,” he said.

I stuck my tongue out at him. “You’re younger than me.”

“Technically perhaps. Go on with what you were telling me.” He got out of the chair then, making me laugh as he pulled off his boots and socks and his jeans (not his boxers, though) and stuck his feet in the water. “Fuck, that feels good. Maybe I should get in with you after all.” But he didn’t move to, so I just smiled. I would’ve let him if he’d wanted to, but he was just teasing me.

Now, if it’d been Jon keeping me company, he would’ve been right in there with me.

But he, Amanda, and Adam were taking in a movie. Tempting to join them, but I really didn’t want to be around Adam when I didn’t have to.

I closed my eyes, let my mind drift back to the last night I’d been with Brandon before I was kidnapped, and let the words roll out of my mind to my willing listener. So much to tell, so much I was afraid I’d already forgotten, my own mind protecting me from the true horrors I’d experienced, just as Brandon’s had tried to protect him.