Rare (3 page)

I followed his finger with limited interest. Strange things like that always fascinated him. He’d probably ponder for days how something as intricate as the pattern on the cardboard pillar came to be in a place as crass as the club, but it went over my head. I mean, really, who cared?

Ash rolled his eyes. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it. I know you do.”

I tugged on his hand, pulling him closer. “No, I like watching you like it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, well. What’re you going to do?”

Nothing, it seemed. He slid his arms around me and gestured at the way we stood, pressed together. “This is weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird?”

He laughed, and I felt it rumble through my chest and into my bones. “Both, I guess,” he said. “Good because I can touch you and not care who sees; bad because every guy in here is staring at you and I want to punch them in the face.”

“Ash, they’re not staring at me.”

He looked around again. “Yes, they are. And I don’t blame them. They’re only thinking what I’m thinking, right?”

Was he kidding me?

I opened my mouth to say as much, but he shot me an evil grin and followed his back-to-front observation by kissing me, and I mean
really
kissing me.

He caught me off guard. Aside from the odd snatched peck on a drunken walk home, it was the first time we’d ever kissed in a public place. But my hesitation was brief, real fucking brief, because the next thing I knew I was grabbing his face and backing him into that stupid pillar.

Somewhere, even over the music and distraction of Ash’s lips, I heard a loud whoop. I didn’t have to look to know it was Joe. It bothered him that Ash and I kept our affection behind closed doors. A PDA like this would make his day.

Ash dug his blunt nails into my hips. I let him go. He laughed, beer-fueled amusement dancing in his eyes. “Exhibitionist, much?”

I kissed him again, hard. “Shut up and buy me a drink.”

S
OMETIME
LATER
,
I found myself quite happily drunk off my ass. We found a dark corner of the club and shared a beer as we watched Joe and Charlie go to town on the dance floor. Ash sat on a strange beanbag-type contraption with his legs bent and his elbows on his knees. I slouched on my side around him, in case some overzealous dude tried to slide in behind him. After a while, Ash stretched out so he was effectively using me as a cushion. It felt nice to have his back pressed against my belly, even if it was at a bizarre angle.

I let my hand roam up his back until it found the nape of his neck, then tugged gently on his hair. He shuddered and turned his face toward me.

“Is it me, or are there a whole bunch of straight guys in here?”

I smirked. “It’s not you.”

Among the handful of questionable women, a significant number of “oh so straight” men hovered by the bar. They were easy to spot; they stood with their backs to the walls, probably in the hope they wouldn’t be noticed. Trouble was, they weren’t as inconspicuous as they thought. Any fucker who’d been around the block could spot a closeted virgin a mile off. It wouldn’t be long before their covers were blown.

Ash swiped the beer bottle from my loose grip. I watched as he took a languid swig and let his eyes fall closed. Dancing and glitter weren’t our scene, but something about the vibe in the club put him at ease. I hadn’t had time to speculate why until we sat down, but now with him contentedly lying on top of me, I took a moment to think it over.

Inevitably, the only reasoning I could come up with was the same crap I’d been chewing on all night: it felt good to be himself in public, with me. The train of thought took me to some complicated places, because I’d realized only recently that keeping my sexuality a secret at work had effectively put both of us in the closet. But coming out at work wasn’t an option. There had to be another way….

Cool glass touched my lips. I refocused and Ash motioned for me to take a drink. When I was done and the bottle empty, he put it on the floor beside us. The movement caused him to lean over me and exposed the skin of his neck. Without thinking, I traced it with my tongue. Ash shuddered and shifted over to face me. With one hand, he made swift work of pushing me onto my back. “Don’t do that. It’s hard enough to keep my hands off you.”

I grinned and slid my hands under his shirt. “Maybe I don’t want you to keep your hands off me.”

He treated me to one of his smoldering stares. It was amazing how his blue eyes could give off so much heat. He dropped his head and gave me the kiss I’d been craving since we sat down. Much like our encounter by the pillar, the combination of beer, sweat, and the lack of inhibition in the air meant all bets were off the moment our lips met. I grazed my hands over his heated skin as he gripped my face and pushed his tongue into my mouth. The club and everything in it disappeared. A heartbeat thudded between us. Mine, his, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was I didn’t know where I ended and he began.

I broke away, my chest heaving. “We need to leave.
Now
.”

W
E
STUMBLED
through the door to the apartment, knocking into furniture and tearing at each other’s clothes. Ash led me to the sofa and pushed me down. The bedroom was too far away, but as he retrieved condoms and lube from a box stashed with his tattoo supplies, there was no question about how this was going to go down. He was more comfortable bottoming than I’d ever dared dream, but I
never
fucked him when I was drunk.

Besides, there were times when all I wanted was for him to own me, inside and out. This was definitely one of those times.

Ash tossed a condom onto the couch and popped the fly of my jeans. It wasn’t long before we were naked and on the floor. I made a clumsy grab for the condoms and rolled one onto him, but I batted his hands away as he reached to prepare me. I didn’t need any of that; he had plenty of lube on his dick.

He aligned our bodies. His eyes blazed. He was buzzing tonight. The heady mix of the club and the first alcohol he’d touched in forever had given him an energy I’d missed, a spark I’d feared was gone for good.

I reached down and guided him into me. The burn was unbelievable. He thrust forward and heat spread through my belly and into my veins. I threw my head back. “
Fuck
.”

Ash smirked. He knew my body well, probably better than I knew it myself, and he set a fierce rhythm that shunted me along the wooden floor with every roll of his hips. I hit the wall, halting the slip and slide across the floor. Ash growled as the motion drove him deeper, and his eyes took on a new intensity.

I braced myself against the wall and wrapped my legs around his waist. He moved faster and faster as pent-up frustration poured out of him and into me. I loved it. It was what I craved from him, what I needed from him when he topped for me. It had been a while since we’d fucked with such abandon. For a long time, we’d been cautious and restrained. It didn’t feel like that tonight. Maybe it was the booze, but something felt different.
He
felt different.

I was teetering right on the edge when he slowed his pace and pulled back. Frustrated, I made an unintelligible noise, but he held my gaze, panting, flushed, and totally fucking beautiful.

“Turn over.”

I obeyed him without question. He trusted me more than he did himself, and pushing the boundaries tended to happen when I was on top, but I wasn’t stopping to speculate. I turned over and placed my palms flat on the wall. Behind me, Ash slid into me, sure and fast, before he could think about it too much.

The noise that came out of me was somewhere between a groan and a yelp.

Damn him.

Ash froze. I squeezed his hip. “Don’t stop.” I pushed back onto him. “Don’t you fucking stop.”

In response, he drove into me, clutching my hips in a painful grip. I pushed back onto him again. I needed more. “Harder.”

Ash slid his hands under my shoulders, slamming into me as we chased the earth-shattering orgasm still out of reach. I took a hand from the wall and reached for my dick. My balance was off and the only rhythm I could manage was ragged and sketchy, but it didn’t matter. The feel of him inside me that way was better than I’d ever dared imagine. Somewhere in the lust-filled haze, it felt almost surreal, and my world turned white.

I came with a shout, driving my fist into the wall. Ash wasn’t far behind. He let out a strangled noise and bit down on my shoulder. A gasp, a sob, a groan, I couldn’t tell.

After a long, protracted moment, he pulled out and slumped against the wall in a heap beside me. I turned and wrapped my arms around his trembling form as he hid his face in my chest. He gasped for breath, his shoulders heaving so much I thought something was wrong. Then he raised his head and grinned at me with happy eyes, and the world was softly perfect.

“I… that was… fuck. I liked that.”

His incoherence made me smile. I knew how he felt. I closed my eyes and pushed my body as close to him as it would go. “I know, fucker. I know.”

We lay on the living room floor for ages, but eventually the high wore off and Ash decided he wanted our bed. He helped me to my feet and led me to the bedroom. He disappeared briefly to clear up the mess we’d made, but he was back before I could miss him.

He lay on his back with me sprawled over him. I put my cheek on his chest, and he rested his chin on my head. With his heart beating in my ear, I felt as close to him as I’d ever been, and it was the first time in more than a year I felt I truly had him back.

W
E
WOKE
up sometime later in a sweaty, sticky pile of limbs. Beneath me, Ash made a noise of discontent. I pulled a few pillows aside and uncovered his face as his eyes flickered open.

“Where are you going?”

I grinned through the blistering hangover brewing at the base of my skull. “Nowhere. I thought I heard something.”

Ash sat up, scrunching his eyes against the dim light of the early morning. “Maybe it was me. I was having a really weird dream.”

“Good weird or bad?”

“Good, I think,” he said, acknowledging the repetition of the question I’d asked the night before with a faint grin. “But I think I was dancing in that damn club. That shit ain’t right.”

I shifted, ignoring the dull ache in my lower back. The faint Texan twang in his voice made me smile. It only came out when he was tired or drunk. Right now, he was probably both. “Babe, you don’t dance.”

“I know. That’s how I knew it was a dream. Are you okay?”

He gazed at me with sleepy, worried eyes. With my body still buzzing from the night before, it was the last thing I wanted. “I’m more than okay,” I said. “Apart from the headache from hell.” I punctuated my words with a gentle kiss. “How about you? Are you okay?”

“Ask me later.”

He rubbed his head, and the gesture’s double meaning wasn’t lost on me. Having sex the way we had, fucking me from behind, was a huge step for him, perhaps one he wouldn’t ever be able to repeat. He’d worked hard to shake off his demons, but old habits die hard. In the cold light of day, he needed some time to brood over it.

“Sure thing.” I tilted his face and found his gaze. “Last night was amazing for me. You can do it again anytime you want, but that doesn’t mean you have to. You know that, right?”

Ash flushed and smiled a heart-stopping smile that made me warm all over. “I….” A loud whoop cut him off. “What was that?”

We both fell silent, sure we’d imagined it, but the noise came again and I remembered what had woken me up in the first place.

I slid out of the bed and made a grab for the sweatpants I’d helpfully left on the floor. “Is that who I think it is?”

Ash squinted through his messy hair. “I want to say no, but it sure sounds like them.”

I yanked the pants up my legs and made my way to the window, following the raucous singing until I found the source. When I saw them, I didn’t know whether to be pissed as hell for the show they were giving my neighbors or kill myself laughing.

Ash appeared beside me, wrapped up in the comforter. “Oh, God. What are they doing?”

I considered the two half-naked men below our bedroom window. “Um, looks like they’re dancing in their underwear.”

“Joe’s not dancing.”

I watched Joe fall over his own feet and land in a heap on the sidewalk. Charlie was quick to follow. Ash laughed, but it cut off as it became clear that neither Joe nor Charlie were getting up. If anything, they looked like they’d settled down to watch the sunrise.

“We better go fetch them.”

I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Let them sleep out there.”

“No way, it’s cold.”

“Do them good.”

Joe was my buddy, and I was fonder of Charlie than I ever let him think, but there was no way I was having those crazy drunk fools up in our place. Charlie was a puker, and I had firsthand experience of how loudly Joe snored when he was tanked. Besides, having people in the apartment meant clothes….

Ash cleared his throat and pulled the comforter tighter around his bare chest. His long battle with pneumonia had left him asthmatic—something that bothered me far more than it did him—and the smoke machines and dirty club air had left him a little hoarse.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever slept outside in the winter.”

His choice of words made me feel like an asshole. I sighed and grabbed a shirt. “Stay here.”

I pushed open the exterior door to our building, shivering as the cool autumn breeze hit me. It wasn’t anything like as cold as it was going to get later in the year, but I knew well enough that someone sleeping outside in their boxers was vulnerable to the elements. A flashback of Ash curled up on the couch, pale and fighting for breath, flashed into my mind. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

“Hey, Pete!”

The clichéd gay bar song cut off. It seemed Joe had spotted me first. I made my way over and crouched down beside him. His hand thumped my shoulder, clumsy and heavy.