A chapter in which some things are revealed and perhaps more questions are raised.
Song--Smells Like Teen Spirit--not just because it's mentioned in the chapter, but also because the energy mirrors Ashlynn in this chapter...there's both rage and emptiness, desperation and determination...
Ashlynn
You can do this, Ashlynn. You can do this. It's no different than anytime before. He will not a make a scene in public.
Somehow I manage to kick my booted legs out of the car and take Leed's hand. Somehow I manage to only focus on Leed as we pass the barricaded paparazzi and the cordon of security personnel. An event coordinator greets Leed and diverts us, and I see that there are two flows of party-goers entering the eventâthe celebrities who are being directed to the media wall for photographs, and the behind-the-scenes industry types, who are bypassing the press and moving straight into the event...but slowly, because many are stopping to mingle with the celebrities.
Flashing cameras and shouts puncture the air around us, but I'm barely aware. I have to focus on not hesitating as I move past one particular person.
He makes eye contact with me. His expression never changes, and my step never falters.
I turn from his dark to Leed's light.
I smile up at Leed as he squeezes my hand. He rolls his head ever so slightly, just like I've seen him do as he steps up to a mic in the booth. Then the Lion strolls up to the media wall, nodding hello, striking that perfect pitch between god-like sexiness and approachable friendliness that is so very Leed. He turns toward me, introducing me as his date, confirming the spelling of my name that some press assistant shouts out, confirming that, yes indeed, I am the Instafamous Kat Ballard's sister.
Leed's public persona changes the tide of my emotions, and I smile, too. I flow with him into the world where everything is beautiful and perfect.
At some point along the media wall, the still shots cease and the tapings start. Leed is pulled into an on-camera interview with Sabrina Mills, a minor personality who has been in some tv shows and who also does a local LA industry show. She's more polished than me, blonder than me, prettier than me, but she's only one of dozens like that here. Leed beams and gives her the LA half-hug as the camera rolls. He confirms that Madam and their daughter are amazing, raves about fatherhood, teases a few details about Soundcrush's upcoming Grammy performance and confirms that Soundcrush will be back in the studio in the fall.
Sabrina turns to me. "And of course we all have seen you with Ashlynn Ballard recently on the streets of LA and Nashville. Ashlynn, since Leed is dropping hints about upcoming events, any spoilers you would like to share with us?" Her smile is beautiful but her eyes are...sparky, and not in a good way. I feel Leed's hand twitch in mine.
"No, nothing big in the works. I'm just looking forward to the party tonight. I'm hoping I can get Leed to do a Nirvana tribute," I joke, gesturing to Leed's T-shirt. The interviewer laughs and explains for the camera that the party theme is "Step Inside Your Favorite Video." Dozens of sets from the production company's most iconic videos have been staged in the large hanger housing the event, and guests will have the opportunity to explore them, use the props and even re-inact the videos.
"I'm not sure about channeling Cobain right now," Leed tells the interviewer, raking through his short hair. "I don't have the hair to do any decent head-banging."
"Oh come on," she punches Leed lightly in the arm. "You don't need long hair. Your performance is always...incredible. Wouldn't you agree Ashlynn?"
Ah. Now I get it. This chic has fucked my boyfriend.
For the first time in all the press interactions, Leed's laugh seems insincere."Thanks for the vote of confidence." He wraps his arm around me. "Maybe I'll try out the Nirvana set if Ashlynn will wear one of those cheerleader outfits from the video."
I smile for him and for the camera. "I'm game for that."
"And the pom-poms?" he teases.
"Just for you," I wink at him.
"Can't wait to see you two inside on the Smells Like Teen Spirit set," Sabrina wraps up. "Thank you so much for taking the time." She smiles into the camera. When the red light shuts off, so does her smile. She's all business now. "That was great as usual, Leed" she says flatly and tips her microphone at me. "She really knows how to make you shine. That will definitely be on the reel for the Around Town This Week show. I'll send Marcy the pre-release for approval."
Leed just nods as he pulls me into the party. The hanger is huge and thousands of sparkly lights and glowing sound dampeners that look like moons hang from the ceiling, giving the impression that we are under the sky of a far different world than ours.
"Sabrina Mills--have you slept with her?" I murmur softly.
He's scanning the room, but he turns in surprise at my words, his face a little tight with apprehension. "We're gonna do that thing where you ask me that when a woman flirts with me?"
"No. Dozens of women have flirted with you in my presence already and I've never asked you that before, have I? I just need to know if I'm paranoid or if my instincts are right and she was baiting me because she didn't get her fill of you."
His expression softens. He puts a hand at my back and whispers in my ear. "Your instincts are on point. She was baiting you. It was just once, just like all the other fangirls."
"Sabrina Mills is not a fangirl. She's a rising celebrity."
"You think that means she was anything but a fangirl to me?" he snorts. I guess I'm petty but that makes me feel somewhat better. I know I shouldn't have even asked, considering how much I want to leave the past in the past. It's just...my nerves are shot right now, thinking of who is behind me on the red carpet.
However, walking into the party is a perspective shifter. Not just the crowd or the massive outlays of food and drink. It's the theme that's so enthralling. A virtual museum of iconic videography. It's not just the high school gym set from Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit that is famous. I see the bathroom scene from When Doves Cry, the church from Like a Prayer, the Happy Days set from Buddy Holly by Weezer. There are placards explaining context, set notes and storyboards and other anecdotes to read. Every set has the video playing behind it on a large screen, and the music is set to the perfect volume to fade between sets. The whole experience is so interesting that somehow my nerves calm as we explore and get lost in these musical worlds.
For about an hour, Leed stays right by my side, and we drift from set to set, me reading all the history placards while he networks. I know no one here, but Leed introduces me to a few peopleâsome celebrities, some video people that Soundcrush works with. Finally I meet a guy I do know, but wish I didn'tâa minor promoter with whom I had a brief affair. He knew me by a false nameânot even the Ashley Lynn credentials Trace got for me. I had a few other fake id's made. I can't even remember who I pretended to be when I was with him. But as he recognizes me with Leed, he remembers me and knows I gave him a fake name. His look of confusion morphing into discomfort causes Leed to turn the tables on me as he steers me away from the guy.
"It's my turn to ask, now," he whispers harshly.
"Yes," I mumble and to my surprise, Leed grabs me and drags me behind the backdrop of a set.
He face is full of dark fury as he rounds on me. "That's the guy!?!?! Him!?!?! Jesus fucking Christ." He pushes away the back drop and looks around at the props scattered about a Machine Gun Kelley video set, and I realize immediately what he's looking for. Any kind of weapon.
I grab his arm, desperate to correct the miscommunication. "No! No! He's not that guy! He's just a guy. That I slept with. I thought you were asking like I asked about Sabrina Mills." He's trying to shirk me off and move toward a shovel. "Leed! Hey!"
"I hear you," he nods tersely. He paces around the set and picks up the shovel, holding it like a bat, squeezing the handle. "I still want to beat the shit out of him, though."
"No you don't."
"Oh believe me, I do."
"Why?" I whisper.
He gives me an eye roll and swings the shovel experimentally. "Because you're mine and it pisses me the fuck off, okay? That douche, Cam, anybody else you've been with-- hell, Trace too and you didn't even fuck him--they all piss me off." He takes a couple more vigorous swings, sighs, sets the shovel down. "So let's not do this anymore, okay? The former lover disclosures? Let's leave the past in the past."
I push myself into his arms. "Deal."
He kisses me, roughly, deeply. I don't even mind about the PDA. I need it. This whole party has been an emotional disaster since the moment we pulled up and I need Leed's energy and assurance right now. After a long moment of tasting him and breathing him, everything feels better.
He pulls back. "Shit. Suits coming over." He rubs my lip gloss from his lips with the back of his left hand and then reaches his right to clap it out with a blonde man that looks disturbing like Vampire Eric.
"Leed," he smiles. "I didn't actually believe you would show."
Leed holds out his hands. "What? Told you I'd be here with bells on, man. I've been working the room. Got you two favors you can call in on my behalf, an act to scout, and some dirt to leverage."
The man laughs. "Thanks for doing your part." He turns to me with an expectant look and puts his hand out. I make to shake with him, but he kisses my knuckles instead. Ah. A charmer.
"Angelo, this is my girlfriend, Ashlynn Ballard. Ashlynn, this guy is...basically harmless. Too old and too married to be dangerous."
The vampire winks at me. "Pleasure to meet you. Angelo Moran, head of Rock A&R at Colossus."
"That's a nice way of saying he's my boss." Leed grins at him.
"Everybody's got one," Moran makes a dismissive frown.
"Yeah, where is Slade?" Leed scans the crowd.
"Not here. Bigger fish to gut," Moran words are terse and he knocks back amber liquid in a clear plastic glass.
"Dude, I know you they probably don't have fish fries in whatever hell hole you are from, but take it from a son of the South, the expression is...bigger fish to fry," Leed laughs.
"Mmmm...not in this case. Slade just guts them and eats them raw." He gives Leed a level look. There's a serious undercurrent between them, and I don't want Leed returning to his aggressive mood.
"Some would call that sushi," I point out lightly. "A highly civilized meal."
Green eyes and blue ones snap to me. Angelo laughs abruptly. "Fair point, Ashlynn. I suppose it's all about perspective." He gives Leed a nudge. "Beautiful and smart, huh?"
"And so much more," Leed says lightly, saluting me with his diet soda.
I blush, and Angelo nods slowly, assessing Leed and his soda. "Well, seems lion tamer is one of her talents." Angelo attention turns to a party of people strolling by. "Ashlynn, do you mind if I borrow Leed for a second? Shop talk..."
"Of course not."
Leed grimaces and gives West a head jerk to move in closer and behave like a companion so I won't be left standing alone. "Be right back, Sunshine..." he strolls away with Moran.
I watch him walk away, surprised at myself to feel a little sad. Gosh, he'll only be gone a few minutes. I square my shoulders and turn to West. "Pretty cool concept, huh?" I gesture to the video sets.
He nods amiably, standing with his legs apart and his hands behind his backâlike a soldier at rest. He's scanning.
I try again. "Which one is your favorite?"
He glances at me quickly. "Favorite song or video? Cause there's a difference, right?"
"Yeah, I guess you are right. Both."
"Favorite song here...the Aerosmith song."
"Yeah, that's a good one. And favorite video?"
West seems reluctant to say.
"Come on. Just tell me. I won't laugh if it's the B-52's video..."
He shakes his head. "Not that one. The Ties That Bind video sort of sticks in your head, doesn't it?"
He means Soundcrush's epic, medieval videoâthe one where Maiden Mac is accused of a crime and is sentenced to be flogged. Trace is her punisher. Bodie is the magistrate who ordered Mac's wrongful punishment, Adam rescues her, and Leed is a Jesus-figure looking down from above in a separate performance sequence. It plays more like a short film than a video. But most people just remember the shots of Trace tying Mac up and preparing to whip her and they call it the Soundcrush BDSM video. I bite my lip, wondering if that's West's favorite part of the video. My favorite part is Leed singing, followed by Adam's scene where he musters his courage to break into the dungeon...but the kinky part is undeniably hot. I find myself wandering over to the gothic, dungeon set. West follows me dutifully.
We watch the Ties That Bind video. It's surreal to me, to see my friends so stylized, so filtered, so perfected. So untouchable. They feel like strangers. An involuntary shudder racks my spine and I giggle nervously. I turn to West, meaning to express how creepy it is for me to watch this video, and I realize the real reason for my uncomfortable feeling.
The pair of dark flat dark eyes, watching me from a rapidly narrowing distance as he draws nearer and nearer, in his immaculate bespoke suit. It's strange how it always happensâmy compulsion to flee disappears. I feel frozen, paralyzed, unable to move underneath his stare. My eyes shoot toward West in a silent plea to stay with me, but to my surprise, he's noticed the man, too and they are nodding a greeting to each other.
He arrives. He's average height but his facial structure is strongâhigh cheekbones, severe jaw, heavy brow. He's in his forties and generally attractive, though he's missing that certain symmetry of face that sets the celebrities in the room apart from a man like him. His face it a little too long, his features a little too rough cut, his eyes a little too lacking in dimension. I suppose once upon a time I thought him handsome. Now, I see it clearlyâthe lack of depth in his eyes that makes him horrible. Broken, incapable of empathy, unable to tell right from wrong.
He hasn't changed at all. He's approaching to play the familiar games. Pretending not to know me. That's always how it starts.
"You must be Ashlynn Ballard." There's an ironic curl to his lips, because when we first met, he knew me by one of my aliases. It wasn't long however, before he knew all my secrets. He tucks his lips back and regards West. "West. How is your new assignment?"
"So far, it's an ideal situation. Ms. Ballard is a nice person and very reasonable about working with me for her protective measures." West gestures between us. "Ashlynn Ballard, please meet Varrick Von, my boss, and owner of The Sentinel Agency."
Varrick reaches out a hand and I stare at him dumbfounded. Owner of The Sentinel Agency? Since when? I'm struck with a sudden urge to laugh. My world is one fucked up situation after another. The man whom I ran from for nine months, the man whom I need protection from, is now the man who owns the security agency that Leed hired to protect me?
An itch curls under my skin. An itch I haven't felt in a long time. My body is frozen but my spirit wants to flee. My brain wants to escape. I look down at my hands. They are shaking just slightly.
"Ashlynn," Varrick says in the tone I've heard dozens of times. He's displeased with my behavior right now. Somehow I make my right hand meet his in greeting. "So lovely to meet you. I hope you are finding West's services to be everything you need."
"West is very competent. I hope his services are unnecessary," I say quietly.
"Well, at Sentinel we always say that personal safety can't be achieved without the principal's cooperation." I understand his meaning perfectly.
He turns to West with a smile. "West, I just ran into Graves, from your last detail? He needs some contact numbers in Chicago that you were supposed to give him."
West nods. "Yes I'll get with him as soon as the event is over."
Varrick nods. "Of course. Lovely meeting you, Ms. Ballard..." he nods and turns to go, but I know he's not leaving this easily. Just like I know he will, he halts, then points a finger. "Look. There's Graves. West, why don't you go get it settled?"
West gives him a quizzical look and Varrick rolls his eyes. "Jesus West, of course I mean to spot you. I wouldn't leave one of our principals unprotected. Any potential subs?"
"That guy," West jerks his head to my former affair. "And lurker," he points to a rather casually dressed woman, who seems to be making a meal from an appetizer tray, "is a pap that snuck in, I think."
"On it." Varrick says and takes a step up on my left. "You don't mind if I stand in for West, do you? I assure you my military training was just a rigorous as his, only a decade earlier. But I'm still combat ready." It's so very Varrickâa threat that sounds like a charming assurance.
"I don't mind," I say, with my eyes straight ahead. What the hell else can I say?
"Five minutes," West says to me and walks across the room.
I wrap my arms around me tightly, resolved to let him say whatever he means to say and not react.
"Saw your kiss with Lawson," Varrick says. "Hot stuff."
I'm silent.
"Obviously, you are lovers. I'm curious...does he get you off?"
Dead silent.
He shrugs. "Doesn't matter. What matters is...what have you told him?"
Like the grave.
"Ashlynn, dearest," he growls, "this isn't a game about your silly headaches and your weak will anymore. This is a matter of...reputations. You might have been a junkie but you were always a very smart girl. You know what's at stake, don't you? And what lengths I will go to to protect what is valuable to me?"
Like an unopened tomb.
"What if I told you, the reputation most at stake is Lawson's?" he points to Leed, who is wearing his rock star face and drinking tequila with Moran and someone who looks like Hugh Hefner, but can't be Hugh Hefner, because Hef has gone to that Playboy Mansion In The Sky. "Lawson is quite a man, but he's emotional. Loyal. Reckless. Men like that are easily manipulated. They can be led to their own destruction."
"Leave him alone," I blurt. "I haven't told him anything."
"Do not lie to me. You know how liars are punished," His hand reaches out and pinches my left sideâhard. I jerk away, but he's left a biting sting, and made his point. He knows I had to tell Leed something about my scars.
"I told him the truth."
"You told him you had a Dom that you failed? Repeatedly? You told him that this..." he moves so that no one can see how he floats his hand down my scar, "was knife play that you initiated?"
My anger blazes at that. "I told him I became a Sub without realizing my Dom was a sadist and only concerned with his own sadistic pleasure. I told him it ended very badly. Yes, I told him I made two cuts to mark myself for my Dom. Of course, he only sees the cuts as what they became laterâa W. I told him I safeworded on what you are still trying to call knife play, but what any other person would see as a brutal attack. So yes, Leed has a dangerous hate for the anonymous man that hurt me. I did not, and will not, name names. Because yes, I know exactly what's at stake."
Varrick angles his head toward me. "Are you sure about that?"
Despite the fact that I feel like sobbing, I lift my chin. "What do you want from me, Varrick?"
"Just your silence, Ashlynn." He looks me up and down and scoffs. "You don't have much else to offer, do you?"
I refuse to let one single tear fall. I lift my head to the sky, blink and level my eyes to his. "You have it. You know you do."
His smile is as colder than even I remember. "What a good girl you are. For once."
Then, like he has eyes in the back of his head, he swings around to the Lion at his back. It takes me a moment to realize that he read relief in my eyes, and knew that I was watching Leed approach.
"Who the hell are you?" Leed growls at him. Shit. Leed is was reading me, tooâreading my tension.
"Leed," I grab his arm and give him my best school-marm-mind-your-manners look. "This is the Owner of the Sentinel Agency. John, Ben, and West's boss."
Leed's narrowed eyes relax with visible effort. "Shit. Misread you as a creeper." I note that he doesn't apologize, he's just waiting for Varrick to respond.
"No offense taken. Everyone in security is either muscle or a ninja. Your detail is filled with the former, but I'm the latter. I suppose that's not far from a creeper."
Leed blinks then, and visibly relaxes. "Yeah, I guess not." He puts out a hand. "Leed Lawson."
"Varrick Von."
"Varrick Von," Leed repeats. "We have something in common. Double initials."
"Yes," Varrick smiles at me. "I imagine we have a lot in common, Leed. Ah well, here's your man," he hold a hand up toward West, " so I am relieved of protection detail..." the fucker actually gives me a curt bow. "Have a lovely evening."
He strolls off, leaving me raging behind my firewalls. I'm burning up inside my head and desperate for relief.
I scan the room, assessing each person. Sober, sober. Coked up. Tipsy. Stoned. Functional alcoholic. White girl wasted. I keep looking, and it's not long before I see someone with the glassy, disconnected look of opiates that I so need to feel right now. A girl in sequins, with too much makeup. She needs it to hide her acne that's caused by her long standing drug habit. What's in that purse she's carrying? Concealer, pancake make-up, condoms, and...maybe the quench to the agonizing burn that's building in my brain?
"Sunshine," Leed's shaking me gently by the elbow. I snap out of it.
"Sorry?"
Leed gives West an irritated look and moves out of earshot. "Did that guy Von say something to bother you?"
I clear my throat, following the flashing sequins across the room. "He's head of your security agency, Leed. John and Ben work for him. What do you think?"
Leed shrugs. "John's top notch and so is Ben. But they worked for the previous owner. This guy bought the controlling interest six months ago. They said he seems cool and hasn't made many changes, but I don't know shit about the guy. Did he say something to you?"
I shake my head. I can feel my chest and throat flushing, the burn trying to rise to the surface and betray me.
He lifts my chin. "Then what's wrong? Because something is not right. I can feel it pouring off you."
I watch Sequins weaving through the crowd toward the bathrooms. I could follow. She's so high she might lay her purse down on the vanity. There might be just one pill...
I shake my head. No. I don't want a pill just because I'm freaked the fuck out. I've spent ten months learning to cope in other ways. I'll tell Leed I need to go home. I'll mediate. I'll do yoga...I'llâ
Leed moves in front of me, blocking my line of sight to Sequins. My eyes jerk to his. My god, he is so gorgeous when he's all riled up. His appeal is momentarily distracting.
"Tell.Me.What.The.Fuck.Is.Wrong," he demands, backing me up into the Ties that Bind dungeon set, pushing me against the wooden whipping post. My hands go behind me, and my fingers twist around the leather bindings hanging from the post. Without thinking, I wrap them over my wrists, craving the smooth bite of the leather on my skin.
Suddenly, with Leed demanding in front of me and my back against the post and my hands trapped between, I feel calmer. More in control. There is another way to cope. Another way to give my brain a relief that doesn't involve drugs. A way that went all wrong, but would never be like that with Leed.
"There's nothing wrong that can't be fixed," I say quietly.
"Fixed," he repeats. He's starting to understand the nervous energy I'm bleeding. "You're craving a fix?"
"I'm thinking a little more about it than I thought I would," I confess. I slip around the other side of the whipping post, still toying with the ends of the bindings. "But I feel better in this scene, with you." I cast my eyes to the heavy wooden table, laid out with the punishment tools from the video. "It turns me on. It gives me...something else to crave."
A group of partiers cruises by the set, watching us and the video with interest, but something in Leed's intimidating posture discourages them lingering. We are alone again. Leed's eyes flick briefly to the Soundcrush video behind us, then return to me. He takes a step toward me, chasing me around the whipping post. "What are you sayin', Sunshine?"
I show him my wrists wrapped in the leather bindings. "Maybe the fix I really need is you and me and...something like this."
Leed Adam's apple bobs heavily. "You want to play?"
"With you. I think so, yes."
"We could work that out."
I glance at the room full of people. I blink up at him. "Not here."
His mouth twitches into a smile. "No."
He untangles my hands from the bindings and plants them on the workbench. Standing at the end, blocking the line of sight for anyone outside the exhibit, he nods to the implements of pleasure and pain. "Choose."
"That's not how it normally works, you know." I can't help the sly smile that creeps onto my face.
"I never really play by the rules. Even those kinds of rules," he smiles back. "Choose," he repeats.
I look over the toys. There's a long leather flogger that I wouldn't even trust Leed to use on meâespecially if he's inexperienced. It's on the tip of my tongue to ask him if he's ever experimented at all with discipline, but in some ways it's more exciting not to know. I don't like canes. I debate between the riding crop and a smallish suede flogger. Finally I stroke the soft fronds of the flogger and raise an eyebrow to him. He's wearing the rock star face. "Pick it up. Come kiss me and slip it inside my jacket."
Something in his commandsâthe assurance, the mildness, the easeâcalms me even more. I do what he says. I would do nearly anything this man says. I trust him that much.
He strokes the back of my hair. All the heat that was so recently searing me inside has flowed to him. It's concentrated in his eyes.
Pure Green. Blazing Life. Greek Fire.
"Let's get out of here, yeah?"
"Please," I whisper.
Hand in hand, we pass Varrick Von on the way out. I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look his way.
What do you all think of Varrick Von? He is a surprise to all you Slade-haters? (I promise you he's always been a planned part of the story). Clearly Ash is surprised to see him heading up The Sentinel Agency, so there's some pieces of the puzzle we are still missing. Where do you think we are headed? Does Varrick really only want Ashlynn's silence? Or does he still have hurtful motives? How do we feel about Ash, so willing to let him get away with the things he's done?
Uhhh, you guys know what's up next, right? A SEX SCENE! What in the world is our Lion gonna do with a flogger? I'm not even sure!!!! He likes to play but this is next level. Do you guys think Leed has an Inner Dom or is he just too sweet for that?