14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CONNOR
Iregret coming here before we make it ten feet through the door.
“What are we even doing here?” I ask, raising my voice over music loud enough to vibrate through my chest.
There are people everywhere. Packed against the bar, spilling into the narrow spaces around us, crushed together beneath technicoloured lights that flash quickly, making the entire room feel disjointed.
Every few seconds someone brushes against me, shoulders knocking mine, and I resist the urge to start physically moving people out of my way.
This is hell.
Logan rolls his eyes and links his fingers through mine, tugging me forward. “Will you stop being such a sour puss and just let loose for once?”
His body falls into the beat without any effort, while I dig my heels in and let him drag me deeper into the crowd. The rubber soles of my Converse stick unpleasantly to the floor with every step, my shoulders climbing higher every time another body brushes against mine.
“I’m charging you for my therapy after this.”
Logan laughs and keeps moving, apparently taking my lack of immediate escape as enthusiastic participation. I try to follow whatever rhythm he’s found, but the bass is too heavy, and every time I manage to loosen one part of myself, someone brushes too close, and everything locks up again.
I look up from my feet, my eyes finding familiar green ones.
Theo’s leaning against the bar with a drink loose in one hand. He cocks his head, his tongue swiping over his lip ring, eyes on mine.
Whatever rhythm I had managed to find disappears. I’m standing completely still in the middle of a packed dance floor with Logan’s hand in mine and Theo watching me.
Theo lifts a shot glass to his mouth without breaking eye contact, a faint smirk forming against the rim before he tips his head back and swallows.
The glass hits the counter, and he pushes away from the bar.
His body cuts through the crowd with ease, people shifting around him while he moves towards us. He isn’t even dancing, but somehow every step falls into the beat anyway, loose and effortless, making me more aware of how badly I fit into a place like this.
I turn away, determined to put Theo back where he belongs. Out of my head.
Logan taps my arm before leaning towards my ear. “I’m gonna get a drink. I’ll be right back.”
My head whips towards him. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
I grab his hand, pulling him back towards me, but Logan isn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes move over my shoulder, and when they come back, the corner of his mouth is already lifting.
“I have a feeling you’re gonna be just fine without me,” he chuckles, slipping his hand free.
“Logan.”
He only grins wider before disappearing between two bodies, leaving me staring after him with the uncomfortable certainty that I know exactly what he saw over my shoulder.
“No, no, no.”
Theo’s voice is low against my ear, a hand closing around my hip, calloused fingers catching me firmly, halting my next step.
“Fuck, Reid, just stop,” he chuckles, his thumb pressing into my side before he lets me go and moves around me.
His black shirt is damp with sweat, clinging to him. His next breath shifts it against the hard lines underneath, giving me a brief glimpse of muscle.
I wrench my eyes back to his face, Theo’s tongue passing over his bottom lip, his mouth curving up.
I knock his hand away from my hip. “Fuck off, Knox.”
Turning away before he can answer, I barely make it half a step before his fingers close around my wrist and pull me back around.
“Would you stop fucking touching me?”
I tear my wrist free and glare at him, but Theo only rolls his eyes like I’m the one being difficult.
“Love the push and pull, baby,” he murmurs.
My pulse gives an ugly little jump, made worse when Theo dips his head, bringing his mouth to my ear.
“Turns me on.”
Blood rushes in my ears, drowning everything else out.
“I’m not your fucking baby.”
I plant my palm against his chest, shoving him, but the only thing I achieve is getting a handful of solid muscle.
Theo laughs, the vibration of it humming straight into my palm.
My fingers flex before I snatch my hand away.
“Sure you’re not.” He winks, already backing away. “Now watch and learn.”
I should use the opportunity to leave. Find Logan, get a drink, go home. Literally anything would be better than standing in the middle of a packed club watching Theo Knox dance.
Then he starts moving, and my feet have other ideas.
There’s something annoyingly familiar about the way he moves, the same easy control he has on the ice carried into the slow roll of his hips. His body follows the music, loose and unhurried, while I stand there painfully aware of how rigid I felt trying to do the exact same thing five minutes ago.
His fingers hook beneath the hem of his shirt as he moves, dragging the fabric up, baring a strip of skin across his stomach, and my mouth goes dry when muscle shifts beneath it.
I wrench my eyes away, looking anywhere but at him, the back of my neck burning.
He grips my chin, guiding my face back to him.
“Eyes on me, princess.”
It shouldn’t reach me over the music, but it does, and my eyes lift to his.
He looks me over slowly, and I become painfully aware that I’m still standing exactly where he found me.
“You have to actually move your hips,” he says, his eyes dropping towards my waist.
The second I try, I become aware of every single thing I’m doing.
Where my feet are. What my arms are doing.
How much I’m moving. Theo’s eyes stay on me through all of it, making something that should be completely basic feel impossible, and I catch my tongue between my teeth, trying to follow the beat.
“Christ, you’re hopeless,” Theo laughs, tipping his head back, sweat glistening faintly against his skin where it disappears beneath his collar.
His hands find my hips, broad palms spanning either side of me, fingers spreading as he adjusts his grip before pushing one hip gently beneath his hand.
“Do you mind?” he breathes against my cheek.
“You’re already fucking doing it.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
I roll my tongue against the inside of my cheek. “Would it stop you if I said yes?”
Theo’s mouth curves. “Not in the slightest, princess.”
“I hate when you call me that.”
“I know.”
He guides my hips again, drawing me into the rhythm with him until I’m following the pressure of his hands instead of trying to pick the beat out of the music. It’s easier like this. My body loosens beneath his grip, hips moving where he puts them.
I stop having to think about what I’m doing. My hips follow the pressure of Theo’s hands, finding the rhythm with his until I’m moving with him instead of fighting every beat.
The next movement presses us together from chest to thigh, my teeth coming together, as I become abruptly aware of just how much of him I can feel.
Theo dips his head, his mouth grazing my ear. “Relax,” he murmurs, softer now. “We’re just dancing, Reid.”
“I’d be more relaxed if you weren’t practically grinding against me.”
I turn my head, Theo’s hand sliding from my hip to the small of my back, drawing me flush against him.
His thigh slips between mine, my next breath stuttering out.
The rhythm between us falters until neither of us is moving anymore, and when I lift my eyes to his, Theo is already watching me.
His brows pull together, teeth catching around his lip ring, and for once I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
Then his eyes fall to my mouth, my lips parting and Theo’s teeth release his lip ring.
The music keeps pounding around us, bodies moving and knocking into mine, lights flashing across Theo’s face quickly enough to change the colour of his eyes every few seconds, but all of it has slipped somewhere beyond the hand pressed firmly against my back and the thigh still wedged between mine.
He angles his head, his nose brushing along mine.
I know that angle. Know how easily his mouth could close the last few inches between us. My chin lifts.
I wrench myself backwards, pulse hammering, breaking away from Theo’s touch so quickly my feet stumble beneath me.
Theo’s hand shoots toward me, but I jerk away the moment his fingers brush my side.
“No.”
Theo’s hand freezes.
“D-don’t touch me.”
My voice breaks, thin and unsteady, panic clawing up my throat. I shake my head, backing away, needing space, needing him farther away from me, but the second he isn’t filling everything in front of me, the rest of the room comes crashing back in.
Bass punches through my chest while lights strobe across faces I can’t focus on, bodies pressing in from every direction until there doesn’t seem to be enough air between any of us. Sweat sticks my shirt to my back.
I catch one glimpse of Theo, his hand still hanging uselessly between us while he stares at me like he doesn’t know what just happened, and my chest squeezes.
I can’t stay here.
Forcing my way into the crowd, I shoulder through whatever gap opens in front of me. Hands and elbows and bare skin catch against me as I push through, but stopping would mean turning around, and I can’t do that.
My chest gets tighter with every breath.
I need air.
Somewhere quiet. Somewhere nobody is fucking touching me.
Somewhere I don’t have to think about the way Theo tilted his head and my chin lifted to meet him.