“Actually, I probably would be keeping my eyes on the floor.” Lucas rubbed his cheek against his shoulder, making his already flushed skin even rosier.
Cody narrowed his eyes, trying to picture Lucas in a big urban gay club. In some ways the image was jarring. Like seeing a suburban mother in Old Navy fleece shopping the boutiques on Rodeo Drive.
But in other ways the image was intriguing. Kinda made Cody wanna get his Clueless on and do a Hollywood-style makeover. With the right jeans and a form-fitting shirt, Lucas’s body would look damn hot.
“I don’t suppose you could pretend you’ve had a few shots of tequila?”
“That’s probably beyond my powers of imagination, yeah.” Lucas’s laughter was rich and warm and enough to make Cody want to hunt down a bottle and see what could happen if Lucas unwound a bit more.
But he’d promised to behave, so instead he grabbed Lucas’s hands and arranged them into a classic dance pose. “Fine. Be boring. Pretend we’re at a school dance.”
“Also not a relevant metaphor for me. I think I might’ve danced with a girl . . .” Lucas’s forehead wrinkled. “Junior high? But I came out to my parents after freshman year, so I was kind of spared the whole girls thing.”
“No kidding?” Cody couldn’t imagine ever voluntarily coming out to his grandma. Being outed by the whole mess with Tyler had taken care of that nicely. But on his own? No way would he have shared that until he had bus tickets to LA in hand. “They were cool with it?”
“Pretty much.” Lucas shrugged, a loose, no-big-deal gesture.
“So if we’re going to dance, which of us is the girl?” Lucas asked.
“I’m pretty sure I look better in sequins, but I’m leading.” Cody forced lightness back into his voice. Thank fuck for a distraction from the muck of memory lane. “Follow me, and try not to squash my toes. I need them tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Lucas nodded, then bit his lip again. “Actually, no. Wait.”
Cody braced himself for all the reasons why Lucas couldn’t possibly let himself be led, but instead Lucas did a weird shimmy and shook free of his shoes—sturdy loafers of the sort Cody’s grandmother’s boyfriend, the ever proper Mr. Miller, would have been proud to own.
“Okay. There. Now I can’t hurt you. Much.”
Cody had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Baby lion was darn adorable when he got all fierce and protective, his broad back regally straight, his eyes flame blue.
“Left, one, two—whoa.” Cody got them arranged in the dance pose and tried to use the music to get them moving, but it was a bit like dragging around a pallet of bricks. A pallet of bricks determined to keep a good two feet of space between them.
“Can you try to relax?” he asked. Lucas’s eyes fluttered closed. Cody groaned. “Not that relaxed.”
A new song started, a slow jam Cody couldn’t get enough of, and his body started grooving to the rhythm. Dropping Lucas’s hands, he let go of any expectation of leading Lucas and simply moved the way he wanted to. Like he was at a club, dancing by himself, waiting for someone to join him. He never danced alone long.
“Oooh.” Lucas’s breath hissed out. “That’s . . .”
Cody preened a little, knowing that Lucas’s eyes were at last wide open and focused on the right thing—Cody’s body. He danced around Lucas, coaxing him into stepping forward, slithering against him, a quick brush of rough fabric then away. He let the song wash over him, work its magic. He hummed along because it was that kind of song—he couldn’t not sing along. Couldn’t keep his ass from shaking. Couldn’t keep from spinning.
Somewhere in the third chorus something changed and Lucas . . . well, no objective viewer would call it dancing, but he loosened up a bit. Lucas smiled. A tentative, shaky little smile that bobbled across his face as his shoulders rolled and his knees wiggled. When Cody shimmied around him, he grabbed Cody’s wrist.
It was a tiny little thing, but heat chased up Cody’s arm. The world shifted, and his stomach went all wobbly and his feet shuffled. His feet never lost rhythm. Never. Something had disrupted gravity.
And something had shifted in Lucas, too. Cody could see it in his eyes, which had turned into sparkly blue pools, but, more importantly, he could feel it in motion. Their hands linked, tangled. Lucas was following him. The song switched, but the improvement stayed.
Dancing.
They were dancing.
And Cody hadn’t really taught him a damn thing.
“Hey!” Lucas grinned. “I know this song.”
He had dimples. Of course he did. Like Cody wasn’t already turned-on enough. Cody was a sucker for dimples—Tyler had had dimples. And Keith, on the rare occasions he smiled. And dozens of the club rats he’d picked up over the years. But there was something even sweeter about Lucas’s—none of the guile and an extra helping of wholesome.
“What? You know music from this decade?”
“Screw you.” Lucas flushed all the way up to his golden curls. “Not literally,” he mumbled.
“Thanks for the clarification. Wouldn’t want to get my hopes up.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting to see what Lucas would do.
Lucas coughed and stumbled.
Well, all righty, then.
Cody reset their positions, getting Lucas back to dancing, distracting him by singing along. A rogue low note slid right under Lucas’s voice, so smooth he almost didn’t catch it.
“Yes! Sing!” Cody remembered he was supposed to be helping Lucas, not just hosting the world’s most awkward dance party. “Sing along.”
The encouragement threw Lucas off again, but Cody was getting good at this. He ignored the blushing and shuffling and kept doing his own thing, singing along and moving however the music called him to, slithering up against Lucas’s solid body.
Suddenly the bass and drums of the song swelled—well, shit. Show-off.
Lucas wasn’t singing along like Cody. He was doing the vocal percussion beatboxing thing Cody still didn’t entirely understand.
Cody sang like a boss and he could harmonize nicely. But vocal percussion and bass guys made music. And Lucas was doing it now—throwing down a bass track under Cody and Gaga.
Holy shit. He wished Ashley could see him now—Lucas was wicked talented. Way better than Keith and probably better than anyone else on her list of replacements. They danced their way into a hip hop groove, which let Lucas show off his beatboxing chops. Watching Lucas’s mouth work gave Cody’s dick all sorts of bad—or really terrific—ideas. Lucas’s lips moved impossibly fast—quirking and twisting and vibrating. Cody’s butt clenched.
Singing with a massive hard-on wasn’t the easiest, but somehow that added to the whole experience. They sang their way through a couple more songs, Cody getting more and more turned on and Lucas seemingly blissfully unaware, making music with his mouth and following Cody’s lead until finally—success!
“Look at you! Turning and singing!” As the song ended, Cody applauded. His chest felt strange and bubbly—like a performance high, but different because it wasn’t his success.
“Yeah.” Lucas looked down, like maybe he’d been given someone else’s feet. “I guess I am.”
He grinned at Cody, a wide, warm smile that seemed to eat up the space between them. Oh, yeah. Cody could see it in his eyes—Lucas wasn’t oblivious anymore. The hungry look was back in Lucas’s eyes and his mouth went softer. God. His lips were the softest, pinkest things Cody had ever seen, but he hung back, letting Lucas be the one to lean in. The rough fabric of Lucas’s shirt brushed Cody’s T-shirt. Yes. Cody let his eyes drift shut and stretched to meet Lucas halfway—
For the world’s most awkward half-hug. Lucas patted Cody’s shoulders with an efficiency better suited for a security screening.
“Maybe we should—”
“Try your group’s song again.” Cody cut him off. He absolutely wasn’t listening to any can’t-we-be-friends speech. He stalked over to the stereo, selected the song, and took his
place in front of Lucas. “I’ll play the part of Trevor. Try not to flatten me.”
Maybe if Cody sang and danced along with Lucas, he wouldn’t have to think about the shit going on in his head.
Wonder of wonders, Lucas made it through the entire song. His voice was clear and strong and he worked his bass voodoo tricks like a boss while managing to hit most of the dance steps.
No fair. Cody was the one reeling, struggling to stay on pitch and in sync with the choreography. Shouldn’t Lucas be tripping even more after that brain cell–decimating dance? The air in the room felt thick, like all the teasing and flirting and dancing had created the right conditions for a lightning storm. Maybe Lucas was some kind of mutant who worked better with blue balls, or maybe he was oblivious to Cody’s plight—and his own desires.
“Oh. My. God.” Lucas giggled as they finished. Flat-out cheerleader giggled.
“Careful there, dude. You wouldn’t want to sound gay.” Yeah, Cody knew his voice slid past sarcastic into bitter, and no, he didn’t care.
“I told you. I am gay.” Lucas rolled his eyes. “I’m not closeted. Just celibate.”
The speakers erupted with a random mix Cody had been messing with. A dirty little groove that was all pulse. It reminded him of his favorite club—sparkly without being pretentious and all about the sexy, making him think of bare chests, hot bodies sliding together, and cosmopolitans going down smooth and icy mellow.
Without really thinking, his hips started to move. The beat slid down his spine, loosening up all the frustration and anger and thwarted lust.
“Heh.” Lucas made a sound like his breath couldn’t quite find the exit. Their eyes met. And held. And held. One beat stretched into the next, and Cody put a little more into his movements. He held out his hands.
“Uh?” Lucas’s forehead wrinkled. Good. Let him be confused.
“Come on. One more dance. Got to be sure it’s not a fluke, right?”
Cody danced like someone had replaced his spine with Twizzlers. Each part of his body twined in smooth motions, shoulders rolling, hands reaching, pelvis rotating. It was mesmerizing.
Lucas’s favorite fantasies flooded his brain. Fantasies in which he went somewhere dark and glitzy and full of beautiful dancing bodies. In his fantasies, he never stood apart from the pretty people. Instead, he was another sweaty body finding his way with a partner into a secluded corner. . . . Okay, so that dark-corner part was always where he shut the fantasy down.
But with Cody, he didn’t need to stay stuck in a fantasy when it came to simply dancing. Heck, with Cody he could dance in real time, real life, eyes wide open. Dancing. Him. He laughed again. He beat-boxed a little to the techno jam pulsing through the speakers. Thanks to Cody, he’d figured out that singing actually helped him move. Instead of overthinking like usual, trying to make two separate actions work together, he let them become one. Which sounded all woo-woo Zen crap, but it was working.
He didn’t kid himself, though. Whatever rhythm he’d managed to find was nothing compared to what came naturally to Cody. He had the stage presence of Adam Levine—every little movement was pure sex. Like a porno could totally start up in the room at any second and it wouldn’t be out of place.
There was a door with an “Exit” sign behind Cody, and if Lucas had any sanity left, he would march right through it. But that waiting-for-the-action feeling thrummed through his body, infecting him. He’d been hard most of the last two hours. Impossibly, unspeakably hard.
“Yeah?” Cody raised his eyebrows.
Lucas had no idea what the question was, but he nodded. The air felt charged, that same sharpness and anticipation as the wait for fireworks to start each Fourth of July. Cody brushed the hair out of his eyes, and there was something . . . different in his eyes and his motions.
Thud. He tripped again. His brain had stopped talking to his feet while he watched Cody.
Cody smiled at him, a sly come-on as he gyrated effortlessly to the pulsating techno track.
Oh.
Cody was dancing for him. And they were more than simply two bodies occupying the same empty room dancing—okay, lurching in Lucas’s case—to the same music. They were dancing together.
Cody was fire. Dangerous and seductive and powerful, his body becoming the music, twirling and flexing and brushing against him. Lucas reveled in the bonfire, soaking up the warmth, risking the sparks and soot because it felt so good.
“Oh.” Lucas bit his lip. “Man.”
“Yeah?” Cody asked again, with a hint of a dare—an ask-me-for it tone that went straight to Lucas’s groin.
Again Lucas could only nod. They were pressed together now. He’d seen enough gay movies to know this wasn’t precisely dancing—it was grinding. The first time he’d seen it while streaming a Queer as Folk episode, he’d almost come in his pants. Trying it in real life with Cody was almost too easy—he didn’t have to move much, and he no longer had to worry about tripping on his feet. All he had to do was let Cody move on him. Around him. Against him. Even through their pants, he could feel how hard Cody was. Their dicks lined up, sliding against rough fabric, a tight pressure.
Somehow they’d danced their way to a stack of folding chairs in the corner of the room, a space shielded from the fluorescent lights. The sudden dimness made Cody seem even closer. Cody’s studded belt bit into Lucas’s stomach, catching bare skin where his shirt had ridden up.
“You okay?” Sweeping his hands up Lucas’s sides, Cody pressed in, torso to torso, thigh to thigh, dicks still trapped together. “Yes?”
He knew Cody was asking permission for something and knew there were hundreds of reasons why he should say no. But it didn’t matter because he was thirty seconds away from coming. Felt like wildfire was scorching his few remaining neurons.
“Please.” Lucas’s eyes shut. “Please.”
Cody’s lips slid over his, a much more predatory claiming than last night. His face was sweaty from the dancing and he tasted like salt and need and something Lucas had craved for years. His hips rocked into Lucas’s, hard and insistent. Lucas’s dick strained against his fly, friction almost too much, until it was exactly enough. His fingers dug into Cody’s sides, as the orgasm burned through him. No slow build. No gentle waves. Only ground-shaking explosion, all in a single hot rush. He ground his teeth together, only years of experience in keeping a lid on his passion kept him from bellowing.
“Jeez. What . . .” His muscles locked down as an aftershock hit him hard. He couldn’t think. Didn’t want to think. Cody mouthed the side of Lucas’s jaw, still rocking against him but slower now.
Click. The metallic sound echoed through the room. A door was opening—
“Oh!” A pair of giggles erupted. “Sorry!”
“Fuck.” The door clicked again.
“Damn. Is this what dorms are like?” Cody stepped back, pushing his hand through his hair. “No fucking privacy.”
Without Cody’s support, Lucas slumped to the floor. “Oh. God. What did they see?”
“I thought you were out?” Cody’s bravado was back.
“Not . . .” Lucas struggled to explain. His stomach was knotted as tight as his stupid M&Ms tie. He could feel gossip starting, little tendrils of tales that would grow thick and ugly until they reached O’Malley and the rest of the M&Ms leadership. “I’m out as celibate.”
Choices are everything. He rested his head on his arms, picturing the campus at Mount Monticello. The bell tower above the chapel, the heavy marble pillars in the courtyard, the red-brick building that housed his dad’s office. Weighty images that pressed down against his leaden muscles.
How could it have been so easy to forget something he took so seriously? He knew his acceptance within his group of friends hinged in part on the fact that everyone knew that he—and the other gay guys on campus—were waiting for marriage, just like the straight students were supposed to stay abstinent until married. A few of the guys in the gay-straight alliance had decided to live as per
manently celibate as a compromise with their faith, and people respected that, too. The Mount Monticello code of conduct was old-fashioned and strict, and parents paid the high tuition knowing that the college had such high standards. Lucas had grown up with the code—both his parents had served on the college’s ethics committee at various points, and they believed that high expectations promoted good choices. Sleeping around wouldn’t get someone kicked out, but the antidrinking, an-tipartying, antisex-without-marriage peer pressure could be intense.
Crap. Triple crap. He’d totally horked up. He was already on thin ice with the group. O’Malley and his buddies wouldn’t hesitate to use this as one more strike against him. Shame, thick and heavy, washed over him.
“They didn’t see you.” Cody turned away from him. “Just my back. Your reputation’s probably still OxiClean white.” He strode over to the stereo, ripping his iPod loose.
“Wait—”
“Yeah?” Cody turned back, a wary expression on his face.
Crap. Lucas didn’t know what to say. His gaze traveled from Cody’s eyes—dark and dilated with desire—down to where sexy-as-hell jeans rode tightly over an obviously erect cock. Was he supposed to offer to get Cody off? Lucas’s own dick bucked against his damp briefs, but his stomach churned with shame, not lust. Shame at being discovered. Shame at coming in his pants like he had zero control, shooting from nothing more than making out. Shame for not being the kind of guy who could reciprocate, for not being like the casual, sophisticated guys Cody was undoubtedly used to.
He wanted to get Cody off. But he knew what the pillars in the courtyard at Mount Monticello meant. He knew what the promises he’d made freshman year meant. Yet he wanted to do everything he knew about and more with Cody. He also knew what his dad’s writings meant.
All those values and promises and ideals meant something. His ears were still ringing with the echo of those girls’ giggles. He’d spent four years pushing down want. He’d compromised on porn as a bargain with himself—he wasn’t sure how much he could compromise, and still . . .
Heck. He shook his head. Hard. Cody’s eyes were on him, the intensity of his gaze burning past everything else. What he really wanted was for Cody to once again obliterate every thought from his mind. To simply not have to wrestle with this right now. What he wanted was for every decision to be taken away from him. Tell me. Make me. Command me. His dick twitched with new energy at the thought, but his brain . . .
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