Blue Boy 1: Bullet (3 page)

Maybe it was time he did.

Chapter Three

Levi rummaged under his bed, searching for the box of goodies Jon had given him when he’d signed his first contract at the studio. He had an exclusive, all-access membership to the studio’s Web site. All the models did, but he’d be damned if he could remember the password. He hadn’t had the urge to use it before. Why would he? He lived the life of most men’s fantasies. Why would he need to watch it on the screen of his laptop?

It took a while, but eventually, he unearthed the box buried behind an old suitcase and a stack of CDs. The box contained a bumper strip of condoms, various lubricants, and a selection of sex toys that made even his porn-hardened eyes water. He’d never used the toys, and it had been a
long-assed
time since he’d touched the rest of it.

He retrieved the business card with his log-in information and took his laptop back to the couch. He brought up Blue Boy’s Web site, logged in, and was greeted by an image of his own completely nude body. Fascinated, he stared at his naked form. The image was a few years old, back when he had shorter hair and kept his face clean shaven, but the rest of him was much the same—long and strong and covered with a buzz of dark body hair. His dick hadn’t changed much either.

Though he was alone, he felt an alien flush of embarrassment creep over him. It had been a while since he’d last felt so self-conscious. He wore the cocky grin like a second skin, but somehow it didn’t seem real—like the face staring back at him wasn’t his own.

Shit, is that really me?

Levi shook himself. It felt odd to be staring at his image, too odd. He turned his attention to the task at hand, bringing up the search option and tapping in Sonny’s name. His Internet connection was slow. He got up to fetch another beer while he waited for the page to load.

A few minutes later, he came back to find the laptop screen lit up with Sonny Valentine. He set his beer down on the coffee table, picked up the laptop, and leaned closer, taking in the lithe, beautiful body that filled the screen. Sonny slouched against a pure white wall, his skin smooth, fair, and inscribed with a web of intricate tattoos. The ink was delicate and eclectic, somehow more subtle and refined than any he’d seen on others. He didn’t usually care for tattoos, but on Sonny…

Stop it.

Chewing hard on his bottom lip, he let his gaze travel up Sonny’s torso to his face, taking in his sharp, masculine jawline, high cheekbones, and mischievous smirk. Tousled dark blond hair and sparking hazel eyes completed the picture, set off by the diamond studs he wore in each ear.

Levi swallowed. The Blue Boy logo scrolled across the top of the page. He watched it go round in a loop a few times, drumming his fingers on his thigh, procrastinating. The image of Sonny was cut off just above his hips, hiding the lower half of his body. Levi took a long, slow pull of his beer. Did he really want to see Sonny’s dick? If Jon had his way, he’d be seeing it soon enough, but he felt kind of strange. Like he wasn’t sure he could face it.

Weird.

He tore his eyes away from Sonny’s sculpted chest and scanned the scant, obligatory bio information, but it didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. He glanced down the list of movies, and down, and down, and down. His eyes widened. It seemed while he’d been busy
brutalizing
his way through Blue Boy’s extensive list of bottoms, Sonny had been moving in the opposite direction, bottoming for nearly every top there was. He’d even done a scene—several scenes—with Cam, a fellow top Levi considered a friend.

Every top except me.

The scenes with Cam looked
hot
. Levi felt a stirring in his belly as his cock hardened. The feeling surprised him. He supposed it was a normal reaction for any man perusing a porn site, but for some reason, it shocked him.

Some porn star you are.

He shut the laptop with a bang. Whatever he’d hoped to achieve had been lost in the memory of Sonny’s mocking, humorless laughter. His cell phone beeped. He didn’t bother to look, knowing it was the first of many messages from Jon, pressing him for an answer over the three-way. He sighed and closed his eyes. Rex had already signed up, and Sonny had made his decision clear.

With his momma’s bills still stacking up, one way or another, he was going to get fucked.

* * * *

A week or so later, Levi drove forty minutes outside of the sprawling city to check up on his ailing mother. Leaving the clutches of LA behind, even for a few hours, usually refreshed him, but not when he paid his momma a visit. Bella Ramone was hard work; she always had been. A decade of liquor and gambling had hardened her bitter heart and made her tongue impossibly sharp.

He let himself in the back door of her ramshackle home, following the trail of early-morning chaos to the living room where she sat on the couch, drink in hand, and watched talk shows. The house stank of gin, her drink of choice these days. With her car gone and her license suspended, neat vodka was old news.

“Mornin’, B.” He leaned against the door frame. He’d stopped calling her Momma a long time ago. “Liquid lunch?”

“Very funny.” Bella tore her eyes away from her dusty TV. “What are you doing here?”

Levi sighed. What did she think he was doing here? The same thing he did every week—checking she wasn’t dead or homeless. “Lookin’ in on ya. Not a crime, is it? Where’s the mail?”

“Over there.”

He retrieved the mail and flipped through it, setting aside the envelopes that required his attention. At the bottom of the pile was a handwritten note addressed to him. It was from Mr. Draper, Bella’s ridiculously tolerant landlord. It simply read,
Call me
. Levi frowned and stuffed the note into his pocket. Perhaps the old guy had finally seen the light and was kicking her drunken ass out. He considered what would become of Bella then, picturing her on the leather couch of his apartment.

No fucking way.

He walked through the small, split-level house, scouting for repairs and any obvious hazards. He’d once found Bella passed out in a bed of broken glass—sleeping on a wine bottle she’d taken into her bed. Some days he figured it wouldn’t be a bad way for her to go, but not today. Today, he had other shit to do.

Bella intercepted him on his way back through the living room. The kitchen was his last stop. After scoping the refrigerator for actual food, he was getting himself gone. “There’s some soup on the stove. Take it with you. You look like crap.”

His chest ached, a distant ache that reminded him she’d once cared enough to try to be his momma. “Thanks. What are you doing today?”

“What do you think I’m doing? It’s all right for you in the city, throwing your cash around, partying and living it up. Did you stop to think about me? Do you ever stop to think about anyone other than yourself? If your daddy was alive, he’d…”

Her tone was acid, and just like that, the ache was gone, and a cold, dead weight settled over his heart. His daddy had been gone eight years, and with Levi at college in another state, she’d locked herself in the family home and run up huge debts playing online poker. The drink came next. By the time Levi dropped out of school to pay her debts, he barely recognized her. They’d loved each other once, he was sure of it, but these days, they’d forgotten how.

He left Bella to her gin and talk shows, shutting the door on her tirade. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. He pulled out his cell phone, punched in the number for Bella’s landlord, and rummaged in the glove box of his car, searching for cigarettes. He didn’t smoke much, only when he was pissed off and tired. Visiting with his momma typically left him with a whole lot of both.

“
Hello
?”

Levi paused in the action of lighting a Marlboro. He slammed the glove box shut and sat up, chuffing a lungful of smoke out of the open car window. “Mr. Draper? It’s Levi Ramone. I got your note.”

“My note? Oh, yes, I remember. I left that for you last month. I wasn’t sure it’d reached you.”

“Sorry, man.” Levi rubbed a hand over his face. He picked up all the mail he could, but sometimes shit got lost. “I got it today. Everything okay? I don’t owe you any rent, do I?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that.” There was a scratching sound at Mr. Draper’s end, and the click of a closing door. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to catch up with you for a while. It’s not about the rent, son. You’ve never been so much as a day late.”

Levi took a drag on his smoke, enjoying it like the guilty pleasure it was. Savoring it. “So what is it? Is there something you want me to fix up? I haven’t got a lot of time at the moment, but I’m sure I can work something out.”

That was the other reason Mr. Draper was so tolerant of the abuse Bella inflicted on his property. They had an unwritten agreement that Levi would handle and cover the cost of any repairs. A promise he’d made good on more times than he cared to remember.

“Levi, I’m selling the house.”

The pleasant warmth of the tobacco smoke in his mouth turned acrid and bitter. He choked on it, coughing it out of his lungs. “Wh-what? When?”

“Don’t panic, son,” Mr. Draper said. “I wanted to talk to you before I did anything. I don’t want to kick your ma out, but Peggy’s health isn’t what it was. We’re going to need the money tied up in that house to take care of ourselves. I know you do your best with your ma, son. I’m giving you six months to find her somewhere before I put the house up for sale.”

Levi couldn’t really complain. Mr. Draper and his wife were fast approaching their eighties. It wasn’t unreasonable of them to want to release their assets into real cash. Besides, what other landlord would give six months’ notice before the house was even put up for sale?

He thanked Mr. Draper and hung up, discarding his half-smoked cigarette. The image of Bella on his couch flashed into his mind again. He shuddered.

No fucking way.

Chapter Four

Levi leaned back on the wide, L-shaped couch, eyes closed and posture at ease. He was dressed in faded jeans—barefoot, no shirt, not even underwear. He felt relaxed. If he tilted his head back, he could pretend he was home and catch up on some much-needed sleep. Except, of course, he wasn’t at home, and the smell of body oil and sex in the air reminded him exactly where he was.

He opened his eyes and glanced around the set, busy with crew setting up for the shoot. There weren’t many of them—a couple of camera guys, light and sound and a photographer. Jon liked to keep filming low-key and intimate, and the scene in question was a casual affair—no cliché role-play or bullshit fantasies. Just some good old-fashioned fucking.

Speaking of fucking. On the back of the giant couch sat Kai, his partner in crime for the day. The guy was young, barely twenty-one, but he was kind of cute, all curly blond hair, long legs, and toothy smiles. Levi liked him, though he wasn’t all that attracted to him. He considered Kai’s slight frame. Levi had a big dick. It wasn’t the monster Rex had, but it was long and thick. Kai was petite, with slim, narrow hips. Would he even fit?

“Levi? You ready, dude?”

“Huh?” He blinked, staring at Jon, who for his part looked vaguely amused.

“Get your head in the game, man. We’re ready to go.”

And so they were, and by the look on Jon’s face, they’d been ready awhile. “Um, sure. I’m cool.”

Jon ran through his final checks and held up his hand for quiet. The typical, strange silence fell over the studio. Levi took some deep and even breaths. He often felt he was on another planet in those brief few seconds before the cameras began rolling. The world faded away—street noise, the whir of the air-conditioning, even the thrum of his heart. Five seconds, five blissful seconds that were over far too soon.

“
Action
!”

“So this is, like, my second scene with Blue Boy. You’re gonna go easy on me, right?” Kai turned to face him. His smile was soft and shy, innocent almost, and totally belied the context behind his question.

Levi stretched out his legs and folded his hands behind his head. He didn’t like to talk much on-screen—and Jon seemed to think his brooding silence added an addictive, enigmatic air to him—but he never managed to dodge the prefuck banter. Jon was mad for that shit, and Levi knew how to play his role. “If that’s what you want. You had Cam the first time, right?”

“Yeah. He was real nice to me.”

That sounded about right. Cam was nice to everyone; all the new bottoms wanted to shoot with him first. “I can be nice.”

Kai snickered. “Yeah, right. I’ve heard about you. You’ll be nice until you get me where you want me. Then you’ll break me.”

“That so?” Levi was unimpressed with Kai’s attempt at cockiness. The guy was so nervous he couldn’t keep still. “Maybe I’ll be gentle.”

“Really? That’s not your style.” Kai slid a hand over Levi’s thigh, palming his already half-erect cock. “I heard you like to pound guys into the ground with that big dick of yours.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Kai said. “I watched all your movies to make sure.”

“All of them?” Levi echoed. To his shame, he wasn’t quite sure how many scenes he’d shot. There were so many—blowjobs, three-ways, groups, and locations shoots. Over the years he’d lost track.

“As many as I could download. My laptop’s pretty crummy.”

Levi smirked. “Is that why you’re doing porn? To buy a new one?”

“Sort of.” Kai shrugged. “But I’ve always wanted to do it. Guys like you are my ultimate fantasy.”

It was classic bullshit, and they both knew it, but Levi didn’t mind. It fit with the program and gave him the perfect hook to get the scene started.

“Well, I guess it’s time to find out if I can make those fantasies real…”

Kai took his cue and leaned forward, his face inches away, but Levi turned at the last moment, and the kiss found air. He pounced before Kai could try again, tugged him down from the top of the couch, and deposited him flat on his face.

A tremor ran through Kai’s slim body. Levi ignored it, pulling Kai’s jeans down his lean legs in one swift, sure sweep of his arm. He stood briefly and stepped out of his own before flipping Kai again and throwing him down on his back.