Spenser didn’t know how to respond. Not without admitting, no, it wasn’t any different when they knew who you were. Or rather, it was different in the wrong way. He wasn’t actively cynical, but he didn’t have the hope Tomás did. He wanted it, though. Wanted the flame burning bright inside the man before him. The conviction, naive or not, that the world might turn out okay. That people wouldn’t look you right in the eye and despise you for being who you were. He wanted, like Tomás, to have a belief in a better tomorrow. In a better world. In people, believing they would do the right thing.
Or maybe, Spenser acknowledged, he simply wanted the man who felt so passionately to feel passionate about him.
Spenser uncrossed his arms and closed the distance between them. Ran his hands up Tomás’s arms. “I want to take you to my bed, Tomás. And I don’t want anything to interrupt us. Not even if your mother shows up with empanadas stuffed with nectar from the gods.”
Laughing, Tomás wrapped his arms around Spenser and drew him close. “I suspect she’s decided we’ve courted long enough.” He ran his nose along Spenser’s forehead and down his cheek. “Except I kept trying to tell her I was always interested in more than sleeping with you.”
Spenser nuzzled him back, his whole body awake to the electric potential awaiting it. “It was my hot dish. It brings all the boys to my yard.”
Tomás drew Spenser’s earlobe briefly into his mouth. “It was the way you danced the night of the election. When you stopped feeling self-conscious, when you let go and enjoyed yourself. With me.”
Spenser’s startle was as much from what Tomás said as it was the way his stubble tickled Spenser’s skin. He attempted to come up with a rejoinder, but all he could do was grip him tight and whisper, “Tomás.”
“I’m right here.”
Tomás led him across the apartment, into Spenser’s bedroom. Closed the door. Kept his smoldering gaze on Spenser as he peeled off his shirt, unbuckled his pants, and took Spenser into his arms.
Oh, but Tomás liked the way Spenser’s expression went dark and unfocused when Tomás stepped out of his pants. Or rather, his focus was concentrated on Tomás and Tomás alone. Hungry. Aching. Tomás had no intention to deny him. But when he reached for Spenser’s waistband, tugging on the panels of his shirt, Spenser stiffened and pushed at Tomás’s hands, abruptly self-conscious.
“I don’t—I didn’t realize. But of course you’d have a great body. You’re a dancer.” His gaze drifted over the planes of Tomás’s chest, his fingers following. “You’re hard everywhere.” He withdrew his touch and rounded his shoulders as he backed into the door. “I’m…not.”
“I’m eager to get to know your body better,” Tomás assured him. “Just as it is.”
“It’s pasty and doughy.” His hands skimmed over Tomás’s pectorals, his expression turning hungry. “God, but you’re like a sculpture.”
Tomás pressed in close, smiling as he learned his close proximity caused Spenser to tremble and inspired him to touch Tomás more boldly. He didn’t attempt to untuck Spenser’s shirt again, but he did knead him slowly, deliberately through his clothing. If you’re dough, darling, I’ll work you until you’re elastic in my hands.
Tomás trailed soft kisses to Spenser’s ear, along his neck, worked his buttons loose one by one. By the time Tomás slid his shirt panels aside, Spenser didn’t have enough breath to object, and when he fumbled to push him away, all he managed was to lace his fingers in Tomás’s hair as he kissed his way down his throat.
“You’re so beautiful.” Tomás ran his tongue along the edge of Spenser’s clavicle, blood humming as the gesture made Spenser gasp and clutch him tighter. “So sexy.”
“I’m not,” Spenser whispered.
“You’re terribly sexy.” On impulse, he repeated it in Spanish. “Eres terriblemente sexy. Tan increíblemente sexy.”
Spenser shuddered, his knees giving out as he flattened his back into the door. “Oh God—what…what did you say to me?”
Smiling into Spenser’s skin, Tomás kissed his way across his lover’s chest, murmuring tender endearments his mother would blush to hear in her native tongue. He remained in Spanish until Spenser was goo in his hands, until he was so far gone he didn’t notice Tomás had unbuttoned his trousers and had worked them over his hips. When they fell away, Tomás cupped Spenser’s erection through his briefs and repeated it all, this time in English.
“You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever known, darling. The way you move. So quiet, but so graceful. You say you don’t dance, but you do. Your smiles would soothe the heart of a devil. But the slope of your neck would tempt an angel. You tempt me every day, lover. You make me want to get on my knees.” He was on his knees now, and he nuzzled the bulge before him as he continued his litany. “I want to take you in my mouth. Make love to you. Make you gasp my name, cry out as I taste you. I want to lick every inch of your skin, until my tongue is alive with your salt.” He nudged the elastic band down so Spenser’s cock could spring free. “Come into my mouth, Spenser. Let me take you home.”
The guttural sound Spenser made thrilled Tomás, but it was nothing on the rush he felt when Spenser tugged his hair, pulled his head back, and aimed his cock at Tomás’s face. Tomás helped him out, guiding him closer. Then Spenser was inside him, and he forgot everything else.
Softness and heat. The pressure on his knees, the tension of the grip on his hair, the desperate thrusts of Spenser moving in and out of his mouth. Everything about it was perfect. It had been a long time since Tomás had slept with anyone, yes, but this was more than sex. This was Spenser. This was the man he’d danced around for months. The man he’d danced with.
This was the man, he realized, he had oh so many hopes for. The man he wanted to be his future. His family.
The realization shook him, making him feel vulnerable, more open than he’d meant. But it felt so good to hope. To dream of not only this night but endless more chances to make love. To confess his joys and his sorrows.
I need this. I deserve this.
I have this.
He would have swallowed Spenser down, but as Tomás felt his lover’s climax building, Spenser pulled away and sank down the door, gasping. He held Tomás’s face in his hands, kissing him with his whole body trembling.
“Come to bed with me.”
They rose together, kissing as they discarded the last of their clothes and stumbled together toward the mattress.
“Tell me what you want.” Tomás nipped at Spenser’s bottom lip, hands moving over his lover’s body. “Tell me what you want, so I can give it to you.”
Spenser’s self-consciousness was gone now, smothered under his desire. “I want to be under you. To feel you move with me.” They’d bumped into the end table, and Spenser fumbled with a drawer, producing a bottle of lube. “I want to come with you.”
Tomás kissed Spenser long and slow, easing him onto the mattress. Pressed their bodies together, naked and damp with sweat. Captured Spenser’s hands and held them over his head, pinning them down as he opened the lube in the other.
Spenser jumped when Tomás captured him, but as the friction of his touch warmed the lube, as Tomás brought their cocks together, drawing them slick and tight in the heat of his hand, Spenser shut his eyes and pushed into him. When his mouth opened on a sigh, Tomás leaned forward and took possession of it, swallowing the cries as he ground them out of his lover.
He hadn’t meant for this grinding to be their whole opening act. Tomás had laid Spenser out with a multilayered seduction in mind, intending to drive him into a mindless frenzy before giving them both their release. As soon as Tomás slid his body against Spenser, however, all his plans evaporated. Everything evaporated. His plans, his fears, his soul-crushing responsibilities. The world condensed and concentrated in the man beneath him.
Spenser.
He was so perfect, lying there. Unleashed, he didn’t reveal a tiger or a sex kitten—in the throes of passion, Spenser became soft an
d open, fragile in a way Tomás hadn’t expected to witness. This was what his walls, his reserve protected. A tenderness and vulnerability shaking Tomás to his core. It drove him to shield Spenser with his body as he spun his lover out further, as Tomás delved deeper into this sweet, wondrous experience that was Spenser unbound.
He wanted to love this man until they both exploded into light.
He wanted to protect this man so nothing ever made him put up those walls again.
He wanted to be those walls for Spenser.
They came together, gasping and pushing and clawing their way to release. Spenser cried out, then melted into the mattress as if he had no bones. Tomás, shaking, fell into Spenser, sheltering him with his body and burying his face in his lover’s neck as he fought to regain his breath. As he shut his eyes and drank in the moment, never wanting it to end.
When Tomás woke in the morning, they were spooned together, Spenser snuggled in front of him and hugging a pillow. Tomás roused him with kisses on his shoulder, and Spenser smiled and rolled over sleepily in Tomás’s arms.
He brushed a lock of hair from Tomás’s face, still soft and vulnerable. “I want to do this again.”
Tomás wanted to do it right now. All of it. The dinner, the sex, the snuggling. He caught Spenser’s fingers, kissed them lightly, then drew each one into his mouth. He liked the way Spenser’s breath hitched, the way his erection stirred along Tomás’s leg. He took hold of it, coaxing him to full attention.
Spenser thrust into his hand, but though his gaze became feral, unfocused, he didn’t shut his eyes. He threaded his fingers through Tomás’s hair. “Your turn,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want.”
Tomás wasn’t in the mood to speak. He reached for the lube, warmed a dollop in his hand, then massaged Spenser’s cock. His balls. His taint, the circle of his entrance.
Spenser clutched his shoulders, slid his knee up Tomás’s hip, giving him better access. Gasped as Tomás pushed inside, stared back as Tomás loosened him. When Tomás added a second finger, Spenser shut his eyes, tipped his head back, and slid his knee higher.
Tomás rolled Spenser onto his back, tucking his lover’s trembling leg over his shoulder as his cock nudged the inside of Spenser’s thigh. He stared down, riding the rush of power and determination to protect this man as Spenser melted for him, surrendering his body, yielding his tight heat unti he gave way.
Tomás pressed deep enough to make Spenser cry out, then growled into his neck and thrust along the path leading to the place he most wanted to be. “I want to be inside you. I want to come inside you.”
Spenser clawed at his back, drawing his other knee higher, opening himself for Tomás as he fought for breath. “Yes. Please, Tomás. Do it, please.” He sucked and bit at Tomás’s neck. “I haven’t… It’s been so long.”
Tomás did his best to cling to sense, but Spenser was too close, too sexy-sweet. He tried to hold back, to only tease his cock at Spenser’s entrance, but it was too easy to push inside. Too easy to give into the desperate sounds Spenser made as Tomás began to fuck him, hard and slow. Tomás would not rush this. He would be good to this man. So good. So perfect.
As perfect as he was.
“Fuck me, Tomás.” Spenser slid his leg over Tomás’s arm, thrusting himself onto more of Tomás’s cock. “Oh, God, fuck me, please.”
Tomás did. He held Spenser’s waist, pulled back, and slammed home. The raw heat hit him—he growled, gripped tighter, and ground his hips. This time he wasn’t undone by Spenser’s release to passion. This time he reveled in it, determined to show he and he alone was the one who could treat the gift of this man with the care he deserved. He took his time, pushing deep and keeping himself there until Spenser begged him to move. Read his body until he knew exactly how to please it, how to give Spenser a safe space to release. Held Spenser in place, letting his head fall over the edge of the bed so he could stretch himself out as he chased his bliss, so Tomás could see his beautiful, slender throat while he fucked into him.
There was no more world for them, not for what felt like a lifetime. Only their bodies, the smell, sound, and feel of sex. Tomás felt like he could stay this way for the rest of his life, moving in and out of Spenser’s body.
Spenser’s fingernails dug into Tomás’s arms. “Please.” He lifted his head enough to stare at Tomás, fucked out, passion drunk, lost. “Please—more. Please…please harder. Rougher.” His fingers relaxed, stroking in silent plea along Tomás’s skin. “Fuck me so hard I explode.”
The whispered, tender request for something so raw snapped the last of Tomás’s control. He pulled out, drew Spenser to him, and kissed him with the full brunt of that intensity. Turned him around, pushed him to the mattress, knelt behind him and entered him again, keeping Spenser’s head angled so he could kiss him as he gave his lover the fucking he had asked for. Gave him hard and rough. Gave him pleasure so focused Spenser could do nothing but surrender to it, dissolve in it.
Gave him all of his love, his promise to protect and keep him.
My Spenser. Mine.
He came inside Spenser first, biting his neck as Spenser whimpered and shuddered and followed suit, shooting against the sheets. But as they collapsed onto the bed, Tomás drew Spenser closer, hands still moving over him.
“I could fuck you all day,” he whispered. I could love you for a lifetime.
Spenser ran fingers over Tomás’s arm as if the gesture took all the strength he had. “Don’t you have to work?”
Tomás did. A shift at Starbucks starting at noon. He would make almost one hundred dollars, money he needed. Money his family needed. Yet for the first time since he’d told his mother he’d get a job to help out, as he did the math on where the shift’s money would go, how much it would sting not to have it…he couldn’t talk himself into the sacrifice. Because he’d found his bliss. The thing Marcus had said he should search for. The spark that made life living.
Loving Spenser. Being with, taking care of Spenser.
Tomás shut his eyes and held Spenser tighter to him. “I’m calling in sick. I’m staying with you.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next few weeks were a wonderful blur for Tomás.
Sure, after his weekend of hooky he went back to working way too much, but he also saw a whole lot more of Spenser. Metaphorically and literally. He tried to be discreet with his affections, but every time he saw the man he wanted to take him somewhere quiet and remove all his clothes, and as much as he could, that was exactly what he did. Spenser made noise at first about not being able to have sex while Duon was around, but all Tomás had to do was lock the bedroom door and press his erection into Spenser’s back, and it was all over. Often Tomás came over for “breakfast,” coaxing Spenser into making out against the closet door of his bedroom. Usually with Tomás whispering naughty Spanish into his ear.
“What did you say?” Spenser fought for breath as Tomás pounded behind him. “What did you tell me to do?”
“I told you to hold still while I make love to you.” Tomás ground his hips, sliding a hand around their bodies to stroke Spenser’s cock. “I’m going to make you sticky with me, lover. Fill you up and fuck you out. You won’t be able to walk, I’ll fuck you so hard.”
Spenser shut his eyes and pushed against him, spreading his legs wider than Tomás was forcing him open. “Yes. Oh God, yes.”
Tomás had never engaged in dirty talk before. But he’d never been in a relationship like the one he had with Spenser. Light. Happy. Fun. Even when they barely saw each other for days, they made time to kiss and nuzzle one another, to ask each other how things were going.
And they danced.
Spenser still insisted he wasn’t any good, but he came to his tap lessons every week, sometimes with Laurie, sometimes with Tomás, and sometimes in a group with the three of them and Duon. Sometimes Ed was along. Spenser was getting quite good, and they were all trying to convince
him to work up an act for the summer show.
“It’s not anything huge,” Laurie assured him. “Friends and family, and donors of Halcyon Center.”
“I’m not ready for that yet,” Spenser kept saying, but Tomás thought he was beginning to soften on the issue.
He and Duon were locked and loaded for the performance, though. They each had their own pointe shoes now, and the three of them—Duon, Laurie, and Tomás—had worked out a routine together. “Men en pointe,” Duon said every time they strapped into their shoes, and he spoke the words with pride.
“These pointe lessons are good for him,” Tomás remarked one afternoon as they waited for Duon to arrive. “Have you noticed how much more confident his ballet overall has become since he started? Hell, how confident he is in general?”
Laurie nodded, smiling with quiet self-satisfaction. “It was the same way for me, which is why I didn’t hesitate to teach him once he showed interest. Pointe to me, when I discovered it, felt a bit like ballet drag, but I don’t believe Duon would describe it in those terms. It’s more of a pure discipline, as if pointe closes a circle for him. Shows him who he is as a dancer. The right dance can do that.”
The right dance and the right partner, Tomás thought, heart lifting as the door to the studio opened and Spenser entered with Duon.
Tomás’s mother knew they were officially a couple now, and it was clear she and his father couldn’t be more pleased. She invited Spenser and Duon over for dinner almost every other night, and when they couldn’t make it, she sent them care packages of food “for later.” She also began shopping for Spenser on her thrift store runs, a move which perplexed Spenser and delighted Tomás.
Duon had also figured out they were an item, and he seemed to be the only one happier than Renata. He joked about “my two dads” and asked when they were going to ask him to be the ring bearer at their wedding. It was also clear he wasn’t making a joke but trying to egg them on.
Enjoy the Dance Page 17