CHAPTER 7
Gabe slid a hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. “Do you think I’m fucking up with him?”
Beside him, Dane sipped on a glass of Coke with ice. “You mean, because you practically fucked him right there on the floor?” He smiled when Gabe looked at him. “From my vantage point, he didn’t seem to mind and looked like he was totally into it.”
“Yeah.” Gabe rubbed his eyes again. “Still, I think he’s new to all of this. I’m worried about overwhelming him. I want him to stay, you know?”
“I get it,” Dane said. “He seems cool.”
“But when I get around him…” Gabe groaned. “Fuck, I can’t stop myself from touching him, flirting with him.”
Dane shrugged. “He’s hot.”
“I know. But what makes him any hotter than the other guys around here? I don’t want to obsessively make out with them.”
Sipping his drink, Dane said, “It isn’t always just about looks. Physically speaking, do you think I’m better looking than Cole?”
“Well… yeah.”
“But you’d rather make out with Cole than me, right?”
Gabe sighed. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
“See?” Dane smiled. “Not just about looks. You connect with him on some level, and that makes all the difference in the world.”
“Yeah,” Gabe mumbled. “But does he connect with me? Or am I just pushing myself on him?”
“Again,” Dane said. “From my perspective, he’s very into you. I mean, shit,” he laughed. “He was practically humping your leg on the dance floor. That was all him.”
Gabe shivered, and a small smile flickered across his mouth.
“If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t keep going out on the floor with you or agree to take dancing lessons. Nothing is forcing him to be here.”
Dane was right; Cole could have walked away last night, not texted, and not come back today. That would have been the end of it. Easy peasy.
But he did text last night, and he’s here today.
And he definitely wasn’t “fighting” Gabe on the dance floor.
Gabe exhaled slowly and tried to settle his nerves. It helped for about two seconds—then Cole sat down next to him.
The heat ignited on the dance floor was still burning hot inside Cole when he took the stool beside Gabe.
He was sure that if Gabe touched him just then, he might spontaneously explode.
Or, at least, one part of him might. Cole was confused by the effect Gabe had on him.
He’d met attractive, fun men over the years, but whenever things started to get sexual or too intimate, Cole decided it was time to move on.
Instead of running from Gabe, though, he couldn’t seem to stay away from him. The idea of sex was exciting, not unsettling or uncomfortable. Maybe he was just tired of running, tired of being alone all the time, and he just wanted to feel something... if only physically.
Cole didn’t understand the “phenomenon” and lacked the mental fortitude to analyze it. Maybe it was as simple as just being horny. He was a young man in his prime who constantly denied himself the company of men. His hormones were probably going crazy.
The bartender slid a cold beer to Cole. He took it eagerly and sucked down a third of it, savoring the cool sensation that spread through his chest. If only it would reach all the way to his fiery crotch.
“Are you alright?” Gabe asked, his tone seeming sincere.
“Yeah.” Cole cleared his throat and took another drink. “I’m good.”
Gabe gave him a lingering look. “Still up for some lessons?”
Was he? Could he handle a man’s touch right now?
Sitting so close to Gabe, the warmth of his body seeping into Cole, he didn’t have the willpower to say no and walk away.
So what if he stayed and things got a little…
crazy? It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Maybe he needed some crazy in his life—some good crazy…
not the bad crazy he’d been running from for years.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m still… up.”
Gabe glanced at him for a moment before laughing. Dane chuckled along with him. Cole pressed his lips together, trying to hold back his own laughter.
“You definitely belong here,” Gabe grinned, squeezing his shoulder.
Cole trembled beneath his touch, the casual gesture fueling the fire between his thighs. He hadn’t come down from the high he’d been riding on the dance floor, and Gabe’s proximity continued to heighten it.
Removing his hand a bit abruptly, Gabe cleared his throat. “Maybe your first session should be with Dane.”
Cole started to ask why, but then he caught the man’s intense blue eyes and realized: Gabe didn’t trust himself to get up close with Cole again so soon.
Cole didn’t trust himself. Glancing past Gabe to Dane, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself with Dane, either.
The man was hot as fuck, and the way Cole was feeling…
Cole nodded, his voice suddenly rough, “Yeah, uh… okay.”
Dane stepped off the stool and looked at Cole. “No time like the present.” He motioned toward the dance floor.
Cole swallowed the rest of his beer in one gulp, wiped his mouth, and stood. As he followed the beautiful dancer onto the floor, Cole wondered if the lessons today would end with him drowning in a puddle of sweat and cum.
He shivered as another surge of heat flooded into his groin; there were worse ways to go.
Another club boy took to the stage as Dane and Cole walked to the center of the dance floor.
The customers were sparse early in the day, and the floor was almost empty of other bodies.
Gabe twisted around on the stool and rested his elbows on the bar, his eyes fixed on Cole.
He wanted to be out there with him, but his body needed time to cool down and regain control.
He didn’t know how that would happen, though, while he watched Cole and Dane rub on each other.
Dane began slowly, repeating the same basic moves Gabe had practiced last night.
The moment Dane’s fingers pressed into Cole’s hips, Gabe's breath caught.
A hot ache spread through his lower body, his muscles tensing with the need to cross that floor and join them—and Christ, they were only just beginning.
I’m not going to make it.
Desperate for a brief distraction from the lessons unfolding on the dance floor, Gabe forced his gaze toward the stage, where sweat-slicked skin caught the pulsing purple lights.
Gino, a charming young Italian with olive skin and a gymnast's build who had been at the club for three months longer than Gabe, spun around the stripper pole with fluid precision.
His muscled thighs gripped the chrome as he arched backward, dark curls dangling, wearing nothing but a silver G-string that reflected spears of light with each gyration.
Even as Gino dropped into a floor split that made the front-row patrons gasp and fumble for their wallets, several customers still drifted away from the spectacle, drawn like moths to the intimate heat building on the dance floor.
“Hey.” One of the customers, a regular that Gabe had danced privately for a few times, sidled up to the bar and took a stool beside Gabe.
“Saw you out there with the blond before.” He groaned and leaned closer.
“That would’ve made a great stage show.” He nodded at Cole.
“Why are you and Dane keeping him to yourselves?” He brushed his knuckles along Gabe’s bicep. “It’s nice to share.”
Gabe smiled, his gaze lazily resting on Cole and Dane. “He isn’t ours to share.” He glanced at the customer who went by the name of Bentley. Real or alias, Gabe didn’t know and didn’t care. He doubted many of the customers used their real names. “Yet.”
“Oh?” Bentley raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
“He hasn’t signed on with the club yet,” Gabe said. “He’s taking lessons to see if it’s something he wants to do.”
Bentley watched Cole as he fell perfectly in sync with Dane, their bodies moving like a single entity in the pulsing light.
Cole's hips rolled in hypnotic waves, his spine arching and releasing with the beat, shoulders relaxed yet controlled. Every movement flowed into the next with such fluid grace that it seemed impossible this was only a lesson—as if the dance had always lived inside him, waiting to be unleashed. “Let’s hope he chooses the club,” the man murmured.
“He’s sure got the talent.” The corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “And he’s fucking gorgeous.”
Gabe watched, mesmerized. “That he is.”
“I’d pay extra right now to have you and him dance for me.” He craned his head toward Gabe and grinned. “Any chance…?”
“Not today,” Gabe laughed softly. “But if he joins us, then…” He shrugged. “We’ll talk.”
“All right, then.” Bentley stood and pointed at him. “But remember, I asked first. I got dibs.”
Gabe nodded. “I’ll remember.” When the man headed back to his table before the stage, Gabe refocused on the floor. As the lessons heated up, so did Gabe.
“Gabe is right,” Dane said. “You’re a natural.”
Cole felt a little lightheaded—and a bit heavy elsewhere—as their bodies moved in a sensual rhythm. “He… said that?” Cole wondered if Gabe might have said it to him, too, but his brain was misfiring at the moment.
“Yeah. And you are.” Dane's strong fingers pressed into Cole's hips, leaving five distinct points of heat through the denim as Dane's pelvis rolled in perfect sync with the bass that vibrated through the floorboards and up Cole's legs, settling low in his belly.
The pressure of those fingertips guided Cole's movements, steering him like a ship through tumultuous waters.
Cole's cock, which had been half-hard when they stepped onto the floor, now threatened to burst through the confining denim, the metal teeth of the zipper creating a delicious friction with each thrust. Through the thin fabric separating them, he could feel Dane's arousal—substantial but contained—nothing like the granite hardness that had radiated from Gabe earlier, threatening to burn through both their jeans.
“But I think you’re holding back,” Dane said. “Just let your mind go, and your body will follow… like when you were dancing with Gabe.”
You mean, when I was practically fucking the man on the dance floor?
Cole nodded, letting out a shaky breath. He looked over at the bar. Gabe was watching, his baby blues tracking every move of Cole’s body. Gabe’s full attention made him hotter. Cole realized it was turning him on to be watched so intently by the man. And that influenced the dance—a lot.
“There you go,” Dane murmured as Cole pressed closer, adding more intent to the thrust of his hips.
Dane slid his hands lower, cupping Cole’s ass cheeks through his jeans.
Cole didn’t need to look to know Gabe’s eyes were on the man’s hands as he gripped Cole’s ass and pulled him closer, grinding their crotches.
A light haze settled over Cole’s mind, and beyond that haze, he faintly sensed others watching them, too. Instead of feeling self-conscious, as expected, the “voyeurs” fueled the fire burning inside him.
As if it suddenly melted off his body, Dane's shirt disappeared, revealing a torso sculpted with lean muscle and glistening with a thin sheen of sweat.
Cole's hands pressed against hot, bare skin that felt like sun-warmed silk stretched over steel.
A violent shiver cascaded down Cole's spine when Dane slipped his long, nimble fingers underneath the hem of the T-shirt and lifted it over his head, the cool air of the club kissing his feverish skin.
The onlookers cheered and whistled, their voices merging with the throbbing bass.
Cole barely noticed them; every nerve ending in his body ignited beneath Dane's touch as his hands caressed Cole's exposed back, tracing each vertebra before moving down to grip his hips with possessive intensity.
His fingertips nudged beneath the rear waistband of his jeans, gripping the upper swell of his ass cheeks.
Cole instinctively shoved harder against the man, his palms exploring Dane's lean, muscular chest, thumbs grazing across his stiff nipples that hardened further under his touch.
Suddenly, Cole's back collided with Dane's chest, their sweat-slicked skin fusing like hot wax.
Dane's fingers dug into his hipbones as the man’s denim-covered erection ground rhythmically against the curve of Cole's ass.
Cole found Dane's wrists—strong, corded with veins—and their fingers laced together, palms sliding over the ridges of Cole's abdomen, tracing the shallow valley between his pecs, before trailing lower to daringly follow the rigid shape pressing insistently against denim.
“Fuck.” The word escaped Cole's lips as he arched backward, pressing so forcefully against Dane that the thunderous gallop of the man's heart reverberated through his shoulder blade.
His eyelids fluttered closed, and in that velvet darkness, Dane's features dissolved into Gabe's—those piercing blue eyes, that full bottom lip caught between teeth.
When his eyes snapped open, they locked instantly on Gabe across the pulsating club, white-knuckling the edge of his barstool, thighs tensed and jaw clenched as if physically restraining himself from pouncing.
Cole held that electric stare, his chest heaving with shallow breaths, lips parted and glistening as his tongue darted out, sweeping a wet path across them.
That single, deliberate gesture shattered Gabe's restraint.
He launched from the stool, crossing the floor in long, purposeful strides, his fingers already working the buttons of his shirt before violently tearing it from his torso and hurling it into the mass of men whose hungry howls rose above the thundering bass.