Chapter 20
Trevor
Isaac’s cheeks are rosy as we sip our drinks.
We haven’t ventured out onto the dance floor yet, but I doubt it will be long.
Todd is nursing his water now, a glazed look in his eyes as his head sways to the music.
Lumi made a few new friends who’ve joined our small group, the lot of them playing a game that involves guessing which fact about themselves is a lie.
Isaac’s other housemates disappeared not long after we arrived.
I run my thumb along Isaac’s neck, where his pulse is feathering. “Want to try one?”
“Try one what?” he asks, scooting closer to me to be heard over the music.
“Two truths and a lie.”
He bites his lip, considering. “I had a 4.0 my first semester of college. I broke a finger when I was in sixth grade. I’m wearing a plug.”
I bring his hand up, kissing each finger regardless of not knowing which one he broke. “You’re not wearing a plug, Red. If you were, you’d be in my lap right now looking for some relief. I’m sorry about your finger.”
He looks amused, his hand curling against my thigh. “It was a long time ago. Your turn.”
I hum. “I once read an entire dictionary. I went skydiving when I turned eighteen. I fully plan on having your cock down my throat by the end of the night.”
Isaac swallows hard, even as he swats my chest. “That’s not how you’re supposed to play.”
“Are you saying it’s a lie?”
He shakes his head a little, but his eyes are bright. “I think skydiving is the lie. I can totally see you reading the dictionary. How old were you?”
“Eleven,” I admit. “I still have the copy.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Hey,” Todd yells, right next to Isaac’s ear. “I’m gonna dance.”
Isaac lifts an eyebrow in question.
“After you,” I tell him.
Todd doesn’t wait for either of us. He’s already pushing onto the dance floor by the time we stand. Isaac exchanges some sort of quick signal with Lumi, and then his hand is in mine, tugging me into the crowd.
It’s darker on this side of the club, a steady pulsing light helping us navigate. Isaac stops near Todd, who’s dancing to his own beat. I see Isaac’s face in flickers. Blue eyes and then dark. Smiling lips and dark again. He presses up against my front, his hands at the base of my spine.
I’m bowled over by the simplicity of the moment. The same man who bristled on autopilot the first time we met is now tucked against me as if it’s natural. As if it’s exactly where he wants to be.
I run my hands through the hair at the sides of his head, getting glimpses of Isaac’s expression as the lights dance. His eyes, looking lust-drunk already. Parted lips. His freckles are lost to me, but I remember where they are.
I lean close as we move in a gentle sway to the music. “Do you want people dancing with us, brat?”
I can feel Isaac shaking his head, his hair against my cheek. “Not yet. But…soon.”
My lips find his temple before I trail hands up and down Isaac’s back.
He’s grinding on me subtly, slotted against my thigh as his cheek presses to my chest. His fingers bite against my back, nails scraping for only a moment before smoothing over the spot.
His breath is hot on my skin through the material of my shirt, a reverberation letting me feel his soft moan.
I can’t stop my smile.
Isaac has made it clear he didn’t trust his past partners with certain pieces of himself.
His voyeurism, for one, wasn’t something he could explore before.
Knowing he trusts me—that I’m a safe place for his body, his mind, and, I hope, his heart—makes me understand more than ever why some poets spend their entire life trying to encompass the impossible.
How do you put words to love? To the way it grows and spreads.
From miniscule seedling to towering sequoia to an entire forest both above and below ground.
The way it shields. The way it burns. The complex symbiosis that’s unique to any two or more individuals.
Love isn’t one-sided. It can’t be. It’s an ever-changing reactionary storm that can be fed… or snuffed out.
If I am that seed in a forest full of ash, waiting to be broken open, I can feel it now…the flames licking at my skin. The birth of new life. New love.
I’m not sure words exist to describe that feeling.
I hold Isaac tighter, the two of us moving in a slow grind that reminds me distinctly of sex.
There’s a questioning tap at my hip, but I shake my head, and the guy moves on.
Isaac’s hands travel over my back, one slipping under my shirt.
His forehead is pressed to my chest now, his breath on my bare skin above the neck of my shirt.
His lips brush against me before Isaac turns his face up, mouthing gently at my throat.
It’s all I can do not to fit my lips to his.
We dance for several songs before Isaac gives the back of my neck a tug, his mouth near my ear. “I want to watch you dance with someone now.”
I catch his eyes, flickering under the lights. “You say stop, and it stops.”
He nods, his lip caught between his teeth.
I glance around us at the crowd. Lumi and her new friends have joined Todd on the dance floor not far off from where we are.
There are groups dancing together in the throng.
Couples. Individuals. I catch eyes with a guy only an inch or so shorter than me, although far slimmer.
He’s handsome, but not in a way I’m drawn to.
Isaac is the only one who holds that honor.
I crook a finger, and the guy moves at once.
He weaves around the people between us, his hand on my arm as soon as he’s close enough.
I cant my head back, and he catches my drift, sliding behind me, not shy in the least with the way he plasters his body to mine.
His hands smooth around my stomach, one moving to Isaac’s arm.
Isaac’s eyes ping to mine, and I understand the alarm there.
I turn my head and hook the guy’s jaw with my fingers. “Only me.”
He nods, shifting his hand off Isaac and down to my hip. We dance for long minutes, the stranger’s touch turning bolder as he grinds shamelessly against my ass. When he runs his lips along my neck, I see Isaac mouth, “Fuck.”
Isaac’s eyes are glazed, one hand on my chest, the other moving up to grip my hair. He tugs my head further to the side, and the stranger groans at my back, licking a path up my skin. Isaac inhales sharply, his arousal evident even if I didn’t have his cock pressing against my thigh as proof.
The guy slips his fingers beneath the waistband of my jeans, his voice hoarse at my ear. “You two into sharing? ’Cause I’d really like to suck your dick.”
I can tell Isaac heard by the way his eyes flare and the hitch of his chest. If I ever had any doubt that my boyfriend would, in fact, enjoy watching someone else’s lips wrap around my cock, it’d be obliterated by the look on his face right this instant.
The clear want. The edge of desperation, even, like he’s witnessing something he wasn’t sure he’d ever get. A touch of guilt, too, likely trained into him by what society deems…acceptable.
I can see the yes in his eyes, the wishing. But this isn’t something we’ve had a chance to discuss. Not the reality of it, anyway. And that needs to happen when neither of us are clouded by lust.
I remove the man’s hand from my pants, a smile offered over my shoulder in apology. “Not this time.”
He sags, one hand patting my shoulder and a quick kiss placed against my jaw before he’s gone.
Isaac is staring somewhere in the vicinity of my throat. I lift his chin, finding pupils blown wide, the lighter blue of his eyes all but swallowed.
“All right?” I check.
He nods before shaking his head. Trembling slightly, he grabs my hand and pulls me off the dance floor.
We weave through the crowd and down the hall where the restrooms are. There’s a line, but it’s only a couple minutes before a door opens, and we’re next up. Isaac pulls me after him into the private room, earning a wolf whistle from someone behind us.
He shuts and locks the door. “Is there something wrong with me? That I found that so…”
“No,” I say at once. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Isaac. You’re allowed to find that hot. You’re allowed to feel any way you want about it.”
He blows out a breath, his eyes finding mine. “You said, earlier… I want…”
I palm his cock, and Isaac hisses. “You want your cock in my throat?”
“Yes,” he says on an exhale, his head thunking against the wall. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I lift the hem of his shirt so I can see the color I know will be blooming across his skin. My thumb follows the path up his stomach, over soft muscle and a smattering of freckles.
I drop to a crouch, and Isaac curses.
“Were you imagining what that stranger would look like in my place?” I ask. “With me in yours?”
His stomach shudders as I pop the button on his jeans.
“Would you enjoy that, brat? Watching someone else get a taste of your property?”
“You’re not—”
I shift Isaac’s hand to my throat as I lower the zipper on his fly. His mouth snaps shut, and he swallows heavily.
“You own me,” I tell him truthfully, leaning forward to nuzzle the bulge beneath his underwear. “So tell me, brat. How would it feel to loan me out?”
His hand slides up to the side of my face as he draws in a shaky breath, his cock hard as steel as I slip him free. I run my lips up the side of his shaft, down again, use my tongue on the journey back toward the head.
Isaac’s other hand flexes on the wall, even as his eyes never look away from my face. “I’d feel powerful,” he says at last. “Because I know the minute I said enough, he’d be gone. If I said no, he’d be gone. If I wanted to watch him gag on your cock, you’d let him. For me.”
I take him between my lips, one hand sliding up to his chest to toy with his nipple beneath the fabric of his shirt. He goes on without my having to ask.
“And after, when you’d come back to me, I’d have you fuck me so good there’d be no question about who you belong to. Because we fit. You and me.”
His breath stutters as I drag on his cock, suction strong. Fingers slide into my hair, Isaac’s grip tight as he flexes his hips, moving himself along my tongue.
“Fuck. And you’d tell me, Trevor. Every time, you’d fold me in your arms and tell me you’re home. Because I—”
Isaac cries out as he shoots across the back of my throat, arching off the wall as I help hold him steady.
His cock throbs one more time as he pushes lazily into my mouth, his breath a harsh pant amidst the dull throbbing of music through the walls.
His fingers curl in my hair, his eyes meeting mine as I let his cock go.
His voice is so quiet I nearly miss it. “I’d be your home. In my wildest fantasies, that’s what I want.”
My heart clenches as I lift myself off the floor, Isaac’s taste on my tongue. I kiss him as hard as I dare. Someone pounds on the door, but the noise is easily ignored.
I run my thumb over Isaac’s neck as his tongue flicks against mine. “You and I could build a whole forest.”
I can tell by the furrow in his brow he doesn’t understand. But the pounding starts up again, and I let Isaac go with a sigh. I tuck his cock back into his pants before heading to the sink to wash my hands.
“Wait,” he says. “What about you?”
I catch his gaze in the mirror. “It can wait.”
“No, no, I can…” Isaac frowns slightly before testing a crouch. His mouth only reaches the midpoint of my thigh. Grunting, he stands. “You’re too fucking tall.”
Chuckling, I dry my hands and cradle his face. I press a kiss to one corner of his mouth and then the other as someone yells outside the door. “We’re out of time, Red. Later.”
He deflates, accepting that.
I make sure I’m the first one stepping outside the bathroom. The guy who’d been pounding his fist against the door takes an immediate step back, swallowing as his face turns up until he meets my eyes.
“Excuse me,” I say evenly.
He backs up, and I walk with Isaac past the line, ignoring the knowing looks. Isaac seems unbothered by them. Instead of returning to the dance floor, Isaac and I head back to our table, empty glasses and a fishbowl still waiting.
“Thirsty?” I ask.
Isaac nods, so I give his hand a quick squeeze before making my way toward the bar. There’s a line three people deep around the entire thing. As soon as a spot opens up, I order a couple waters.
While I wait, someone sidles up next to me. “Hey, handsome.”
I look the stranger’s way and give a polite nod.
He seems to take that as permission, fingers slipping through the belt loop at my hip. I like it a lot less than when Isaac did the same thing. “You here with someone?”
“I am,” I answer. “So I’d appreciate you removing your hand.”
His smile doesn’t falter. “I like the ink.”
Realizing he’s planning on ignoring my request, I gently pluck his hand free and turn back to the bar. The next second, fingers are smoothing over the back of my neck.
I close my eyes, letting out a sigh. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
He scoffs, even as he steps closer. “Honey, do you think I’m afraid of a big teddy bear like you?”
I glance his way, wondering if this guy is looking for someone to rough him up with the way he’s acting. It’s beside the point. “I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”
His brow creases for only a moment before his hand is unceremoniously flung from my neck.
Isaac pushes his way between us, every line of his body taut. “When someone says hands off, it means hands off.”
“Oh, you have a little guard dog,” the guy says, his smile sharp. “Is he house-trained?”
I curl an arm around Isaac before he can do something he’ll regret. Lips at his ear, I murmur, “He’s looking for a fight. Don’t give him one.”
Isaac turns in my arms, the anger evident on his face.
“Move back,” I tell the other guy flatly. “You’re not going to get what you want here.”
He rolls his eyes before wandering off down the bar. I run a hand up and down Isaac’s arm.
“You told him to back off,” he says. He clearly saw the interaction, even if he couldn’t hear the words.
“I did.”
“He didn’t.”
I press a kiss to the top of his head. “I can handle myself, Red.”
“And I’m allowed to get pissed when someone doesn’t listen to your boundaries.”
My exhale is small, my chest warm where Isaac is pressed against it. “Yes, you are.”
“I never want to watch you be uncomfortable, Trevor. You know that, right?”
There’s that fire again, curling around me like the most precious cocoon. “Oh, Red. I understand you perfectly.”
He looks up, meeting my eyes. Blue flames dance in his.
Fire, fire, licks and burns…
Consume me, piece and peace.