by Alexa Land
Duke sighed and tucked a hand behind his head. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re amazing, Quinn. You’re fun and spontaneous, and so full of life that you light up every room you walk into. As if that wasn’t enough, you’re also gorgeous, and talented, and fascinating. You’re as dazzling as a hundred fireworks going off all at once, and I’m about as interesting as an old piece of cardboard. Maybe that’s a novelty for now. Maybe you decided, just for laughs, to take a walk on the mild side. But I can’t possibly expect to hold your attention for long. It’d be like a peacock settling down with a pigeon.”
“I bet a peacock and a pigeon could be fantastic together! Although in this case, the alleged pigeon has totally failed to realize he’s a swan.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Don’t talk yourself out of this before we’ve even gotten off the ground, Duke.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are, and I hate the fact that you’re so down on yourself!”
“For good reason.”
“That’s your parents talking,” I said. “They made you believe you weren’t good enough, but they were wrong. You’re fucking amazing!”
He laughed humorlessly and muttered, “Hardly.”
“You are, and you fascinate me! I want to know everything that’s going on behind those gorgeous, sea blue eyes. I want to know what you dream about, and what you want out of life, and what matters to you. I want to know you, Duke.”
“You’re just being nice, which is probably also why you agreed to go out with me.”
“I’m going out with you because you’re kind, smart, beautiful, and gentle, plus a million more good things. And because of this.” I climbed on top of him and kissed him passionately, and he drew in his breath against my lips. I kissed him with all the raw hunger I’d been holding back as I caressed his silky, short hair and straddled his waist.
He held back for only an instant before grabbing me and returning the kiss with an intensity unlike anything I’d ever experienced. His hands slid down my back as he pushed his tongue into my mouth, and my cock throbbed against his belly. I ached for him with every part of me. He flooded my senses, his scent, his taste, the warmth of his body, the sound of the soft moan that slipped from his lips.
He cupped my ass and kissed my neck, and my voice was rough when I whispered, “I’m sorry. I know we’re supposed to be taking this slowly. But you need to know how much I want you, Duke.”
His eyes were dilated when he looked up at me. “Don’t apologize. I only said I need to wait before we have sex.” A wicked little grin appeared on his full lips. “There’s still so much we can do.”
“Really? So you’re okay with—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence, because Duke tossed me onto the mattress, pulled off my T-shirt and started sucking my nipple as he caressed my hard-on through my pajama pants. A delighted burst of laughter slipped from me, and I said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
After that, there was no need for words. He bit my nipple, just a little, and my cock throbbed in response. Duke slid his hand under my waistband and gripped my shaft as the tip of his tongue played with the double-ended silver stud that pierced my nipple. He stroked me for a few moments, almost experimentally, and then he stripped off my pajama pants, leaned over, and looked in my nightstand.
He found what he wanted right away and squirted some lube into his palm. He then started jerking me off while his lips and tongue explored my body, licking, sucking, and tasting all of me. I moaned and writhed with pleasure as he rolled my nipples between his fingertips, first one, then the other until they were rock-hard.
Duke tightened his grip and started jerking me off harder and faster. I couldn’t have held back even if I wanted to. In just a couple of minutes, I groaned and shot all over my chest and stomach. It had been a while, and to say I’d needed release was an understatement.
When he let go of me and sat back, I grabbed my pajama pants with a shaking hand and wiped the cum from my body. Then I threw them aside and launched myself at Duke. Obviously he had to cooperate in order for me to push him onto his back, since he was built like a fortress. I grasped the waistband of his shorts with both hands, looked up at him and said, “If you want me to stop, just say the word.”
He grinned at that and said, “I’d have to be out of my mind.”
That was all I needed to hear. I stripped him from the waist down and knelt between his legs. Then I just had to take a moment to admire the view. His cock was in perfect proportion to the rest of him. In other words, it was long and thick, and at that moment, rock hard.
I ran my hands up his muscular thighs and licked his cock from balls to tip before taking it in my mouth. He drew in his breath as I slid my lips down his shaft and looked up at him. Duke was propped up on his elbows, watching me, and when our eyes met, the connection was overwhelming.
Everything fell away, except for Duke. I held his gaze as I sucked him, stroking his shaft with one hand while working his balls with the other. His expression was one of pure bliss. I was proud of the fact that I’d caused it.
He reached down to caress my face and hair, and in just a few minutes, Duke moaned as he came, cupping my cheek with his big hand, still holding my gaze as his body shook and he gasped for breath. I swallowed his cum, then gently eased him down. When he finished, I slid my lips from his cock and grinned shyly.
He took me in his arms and kissed me, so tenderly, and then we both climbed under the covers. I turned off the lamp on the nightstand and curled up with my head on his chest. He kissed my forehead, and I smiled when he murmured, “Wow.”
“Just to be clear, I didn’t have an ulterior motive when I asked you to get in bed with me.”
“I know.” He tilted my chin up and kissed me again before asking, “Is it still alright if I sleep here tonight?”
“God yes.”
He laced his fingers with mine and kissed my knuckle before resting our joined hands on his chest. After a while, he said, “This has been such a surprising evening.”
I draped my leg over his and said, “In a good way, I hope.”
“In the best way possible. I feel like a different person when I’m with you.”
“How so?”
“Well for one thing, I talk.”
“Don’t you usually?”
“Nope, and certainly not about anything as personal as the stuff I told you tonight. But you just….”
“What?”
He shrugged and looked away. “Nothing. It sounds stupid.”
“Say it anyway.”
He glanced at me, then looked away again and murmured, “Guys like me shouldn’t say stuff like, ‘you make me feel safe.’ I mean, come on. I’m supposed to be the protector, not the one who needs protecting.”
“Who makes these rules? Why can’t a guy be big and strong and still want to feel safe? What’s so wrong with that?”
“It just doesn’t fit.”
“That’s society talking, but other people don’t get to define us, Duke. A guy can be both big and vulnerable, or little and tough as nails. Fuck stereotypes.”
He watched me for a few moments in the semi-darkness, and then he grinned and said, “You make me feel safe, Quinn.” I smiled at him and curled up in his arms.
Chapter Seven
Duke was the first thing I saw when I raised my lids the next morning. It made me smile. His face was just inches from mine, and he was sleeping peacefully with his arm draped over me.
He looked so young, more so than ever when he was asleep, and he was breathtakingly beautiful. A splash of sunlight filtered in through a gap in the curtains, and it lit up a sprinkling of gold in his short, dark blond hair and in the stubble that shaded his jaw. His thick lashes fanned out gorgeously against his skin, and for the first time, I noticed a few faint freckles across his nose and cheeks, barely visible against his light tan. But his mouth was what really riveted my attention. His full lips curved sensually, and it was so tempting to
kiss them, but after that late double shift the day before, I knew I shouldn’t wake him.
How could he routinely work sixteen-hour days without it wearing him down? How could anyone? And all because his mother and father had pushed him into buying a house he really couldn’t afford.
Anger welled in me at the thought of his parents. The abuse I’d endured had ended when I was adopted, but what he’d gone through had lasted until his late teens. Given the emotional damage I carried with me, even after years of therapy, I could only imagine what he was dealing with.
It broke my heart, and it also put a lot about him into perspective. For one thing, I got why he was so driven to work out and bulk up. I’d felt small, weak, and defenseless when I was a child. He’d probably felt the same way, so he’d made himself strong, to make damn sure no one could ever hurt him again. His need for order made sense, too. I wasn’t like that, but I understood it. He probably needed to feel like he was in control of his environment.
It occurred to me that in many ways, ballet did the same things for me. It made me strong, but there was more to it than that. I was always pushing and challenging myself, proving to myself I could do anything I wanted, and that I was in total control of my body. No one else, just me. While the specifics of my abuse had been locked away in my memory, the impression that remained was feeling out of control and helpless. I spent a hell of a lot of time proving to myself I was neither of those things.
I studied Duke as he slept. At first, I’d only seen our differences. But we were the same, in so many ways. Here, finally, was someone who might truly understand me. By the same token, I thought I understood him in a way few people could.
But that connection was actually pretty frightening, because it meant the potential was there for something real to develop between us. I’d made it twenty-four years without ever having a serious relationship, by choice. I got the attention I craved and the intimacy I needed by sleeping with a lot of guys. I’d even dated a few of them, but only for a week or two. That was it.
Letting people get close to me was a challenge. Sure, I had some friends, and I was close to my family, but romantic relationships were another thing entirely. They could start out with the best intentions. The other person might even want to marry you and promise to be with you forever. But since half of all marriages ended in divorce, that meant half those promises were a lie. Relationships failed as often as they succeeded, and people got hurt. Really hurt.
I was a work in progress. I knew that about myself. I wanted to be strong, and in some ways, I was. But deep down, I was still a scared little kid. Hell, just the day before, I’d freaked out over a damn tattoo gun! How did I think I was going to be able to handle a full-blown relationship, even with someone as wonderful as Duke?
For the second time in two days, a wave of panic swept over me, and I took a deep, shaky breath. Fuck! Why did I have to be such a mess? Why couldn’t I just be happy and optimistic?
We were just days into this, and I was already falling apart. We hadn’t even gone out yet, not that the formality of an ‘official’ first date mattered. There was definitely something happening between us, and that scared the shit out of me.
I slid out of bed and grabbed some clothes from the clean laundry pile on a chair in the corner. But then I turned to look at Duke, who was still sleeping peacefully, and was overcome with guilt. After our first night together and what was probably one of his first sexual encounters, I couldn’t let him wake up to an empty house. He trusted me. He’d even said I made him feel safe. Sneaking out like he was just another one-night stand was not okay.
Instead of running, I went into my bathroom and closed the door as quietly as I could. I then spent quite a while in the shower as I tried to get myself together, followed by shaving and getting dressed slowly. By the time I finished, the panic was under control, but just barely.
When I returned to the bedroom, I found a note on my neatly made bed. It said: I went downstairs to make us breakfast. Duke had drawn a smiley face beneath the words. It actually broke my heart a little, because I couldn’t imagine another time in his life when he would have done something that playful.
Another wave of guilt welled up in me. I’d never get through breakfast without Duke realizing I was freaking out. What if he thought I was having second thoughts about us? That wasn’t what was happening, but it could certainly look that way.
I knew I needed to talk to him, but I couldn’t do that until I got myself together. To buy myself some time, I pulled a hoodie over my T-shirt and sweats, packed my messenger bag, and put on my sneakers and sunglasses before heading downstairs.
Duke was hard at work in the kitchen, making blueberry muffins from scratch. He was adorable in his glasses and apron. When he saw me, he said, “Hey. You look like you’re on your way out.”
“Yeah, I have to get to rehearsal.” It wasn’t for hours. I hated myself for lying to him.
“The muffins are going to take a while to bake, but do you have time for coffee?”
“I wish I did, but I don’t want to be late.”
He said, “I could drive you. Then you’d have a little more time.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I circled the island and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Is everything okay?” Damn it. He was way too observant.
I stuck a smile on my face and kept my voice cheerful as I said, “Totally.”
“Alright, I’ll see you later then. I’ll be home around midnight.” I felt like an asshole as I headed for the door.
*****
Even though I’d stopped for breakfast on the way there, I was still ridiculously early for rehearsal. I should have gone out and found something to do to pass the time, but instead, I gravitated to the comfort and familiarity of the warehouse. Dare answered my knock with a grin and said, “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you know we don’t start for two more hours, right?”
“I know. Is it okay if I hang out until then?”
He stepped back and held the door for me. Dare was dressed in what I thought of as his uniform, a black tank top and black cotton shorts, which he wore whenever he knew he was going to be dancing, and he said, “Of course. I was going over some bills in the office. Come join me.”
As I followed him through the quiet warehouse, past his husband’s massive work-in-progress of a head and grasping hands that looked like they were clawing their way up from under the earth, I asked, “Where’s Skye?”
“He’s in San Francisco, meeting with a potential client. It’s kind of odd. They want a sculpture for the lobby of this big office building downtown, but Skye’s work isn’t exactly corporate, so we’re not sure why they approached him.”
“He should make them a gigantic sculpture of two guys fucking. It’s perfect! Corporate America has been screwing people for years.”
Dare chuckled and said, “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
His office was a ten-foot-square space at the back of the building, with fake wood paneling from the 1970s and a tall bank of windows that were made of some kind of odd, corrugated glass and swung outward with a crank. A purple bougainvillea vine in the alley filled the view, bringing color and beauty to the otherwise utilitarian office.
When I sat down on the burnt orange corduroy couch (which had come with the building), Dare’s dog got up from his folded blanket in the corner, flopped onto the couch with his head on my thigh, and wagged his entire butt. I said, “Hey Benny,” and scratched the black and white boxer’s ears. Then I gestured at Dare’s cluttered desk and said, “It looks like you’re drowning in paperwork.”
He shifted some papers and said, “I wish I could afford to hire an accountant. A lot of these are receipts from the dance classes I teach. I was separating them from the bills for our upcoming show, and then I have to type everything into spreadsheets. Joy.”
“Speaking of the show, how are ticket sales?”
“Okay, I guess. We’ve sold nearly two-thir
ds of the tickets, so the way it stands now, we’ll probably break even. It’s too bad the theater rental and advertising were so damn expensive.” He sat down on his creaking office chair and pushed his straight, dark hair out of his eyes.
I said, “You know what we need?”
“A miracle?”
“I was going to say we needed a publicist, but a miracle would be good, too.”
“That’d be nice,” Dare said, “but there’s no way we can pay someone. I could barely afford the material for our costumes. Thank God Haley is sewing them for us, because I wouldn’t be able to pay a seamstress, either.”
I grinned and said, “I just had the best idea. Is it okay if I run with it?”
“Will it cost me money?”
“Since that huge box of flyers in the corner is still half full, nope, not a cent.”
“We’ve already done the flyer thing. They’re up in every business in the Castro and beyond. We’ve also stood on what feels like every street corner in the city and handed them out, over and over again. None of that really boosted sales, even though it’s a pretty kick-ass flyer.” It really was. Dare had printed it in full-color, and it featured Haley holding me above his head in a dramatic pose, against a vibrant, graffiti art background painted by Skye’s artist friend Christian. The name of the troupe, Dare to Dance, was spelled out boldly across the top.
I said, “The problem is, there are hundreds of dancers, performers, and artists vying for attention in San Francisco, so even a gorgeous flyer like ours gets lost in the sea of information overload. But I know someone who’s great at thinking outside the box, and I bet she could help us sell the remaining tickets.”
“So, who’s this miracle worker?”
I smiled cheerfully, pulled out my phone, and selected one of my contacts. When the call connected, I said, “Hi Nana, this is Quinn Takahashi. You know that show I’m in, the one with Dare Evans’ dance troupe? We need help selling tickets, so I’m wondering if there might be a way to cross-promote both the show and the upcoming fundraiser for your shelter. Kind of a two-for-one.”