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 handstravel 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 theyesin 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.
