I gave in to him. I had never had a choice. He had always been the eye of the horizon, the gravitational pull that made me orbit him, and the bull’s-eye I never missed. Innocent or not, he had always been this. And I couldn’t make myself step back.
The willowy twink, Silas, continued to dance between the two jocks, all intimacy, hands, fingers, touches. He was just next to us, a wolfish smile touching his lips when he looked at Seth, who met his gaze, then grew more stubborn.
I felt like a tool in a competition when Seth spun away from me and leaned back, trusting I would be there to lean on, to catch him, to hold him as he thrust his ass hard against my crotch.
Silas shouted something affirming, but Seth was long gone, lost in the fantasy, unleashing his most desperate self.
He wanted to pretend we were strangers hooking up at a party, but I knew I had to draw a line somewhere. Not yet, but eventually. Tonight, or just before the dawn, or just after he asked me to take him someplace quiet.
When the music changed into a hyper-dancey remix of a song that sounded familiar, Seth spun back to face me. His fingers moved up my torso and undid the top button of my shirt, baring my chest more and more with each button he solved. His teeth closed around his lower lip, gaze moving down my body as he revealed my flesh.
I was hard enough to explode, horny enough to not think for the rest of the night, and elated in a way I hadn’t been in over a year. Not once since we had gone our separate ways had I felt anything close to this magnetic pull of attraction. His proximitymade my brain short-circuit, made me forget all about rights and wrongs, grudges and forgiveness. He made me forget what even a memory of restraint was. He drove me mad in all the best ways, so I let him undress me in the center of a crowd.
Anyone could see us here, though few wanted to speak about a place like this, and fewer still wanted to admit they’d been here. We were far from Nick’s watchful eyes, and Seth’s hands were hot on my bare torso, my shirt on the floor, trampled and ruined.
I pulled him in, rough and dominant in a way that made his lips part and a fascinated smile play across his mouth.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” I said.
His eyes flashed with defiance. “Show me.” His fingers dug deeper into my body, sinking through the muscle and poking me in the ribcage.
He looked up at me, waiting, moving, rubbing himself against me, and I knew what he expected. I knew that because I expected it, too. Even as I told myself not to make this mistake, I was leaning in, lips hovering over Seth’s, his breath still smelling like mint with a note of whiskey.
And when I surrendered to the torrent that led me to him, I crushed his mouth with mine, kissing him with the force that had torn apart all the straps of restraint that had been holding me at a decent distance for all of twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes was all it took for Seth to ruin me, to cull me, to wreck the simple life of mindless pleasure and cheap thrills I’d enjoyed for a whole year.
Twenty minutes was all it took to give myself to him.
I kissed him with hunger and lust, my tongue in his mouth, his arms around my body, hands on my back. He thrust himself closer to me, his dick rubbing against my leg like shameless proof that he wanted this as much as I did.
And when my hand slipped under his black T-shirt, the heat of his body spread up my arm, crawling into my heart, and I kissed him harder.
Seth bit my lip in revenge for something, anything—God knew we had plenty to choose from—and I replied by pulling back and burying my face in his neck, kissing him where I knew he was the most sensitive. He pulled me in closer, holding on to me as the sensation ravaged him.
When I called myself back to my senses or whatever was left of them, I pulled away just enough to look into his eyes. The pleading expression on his face devastated me. “Don’t stop,” he said, only his lips moving, his voice lost under the wrecking volume of the speakers around us.
I couldn’t stop. Even if I tried, I couldn’t perform that miracle. I was in the very center of the storm, and the storm dictated my every move.
My hands found the bottom edge of his T-shirt, and I lifted it off his body. It slipped over his head, leaving his stocky torso bare, muscles glistening with sweat under the flashing reflector light.
“Fuck, you’re still so gorgeous,” I murmured, thankful that he couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t the romantic type. Not so long as Seth was far away and I could control myself.
Seth stepped into my arms in the next heartbeat, merging our bodies in sweat and desire, hooking his fingers inside my belt and holding on to me, teasing me with more whenever he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, dragging his dick over mine.
The people bumped into us, drunk and high. We moved with the throng, even though we were neither. I was high on him, on his presence, on his touch, and he was lost in the maze and holding on to me.
He rose to the tips of his toes, kissing my lips softly, then harder. He kissed me with the unrestrained desire of someone who’d done this countless times. Even the idea of that made me boil with anger. It hadn’t been me he’d practice kissing with. But I had known that already. I’d known that Seth had met some nice guy in Chicago, was lab partners with him, and started a nice little relationship that led to the guy visiting Seth for the winter holidays.
I hadn’t gone home last Christmas. Not because Seth had brought a date, but becauseBlades of Northwoodwas filming, and raising my profile seemed more important than another family dinner descending into madness and bickering.
The thought of Seth dating some guy who wasn’t me hadn’t bothered me. It had been an inevitability I had prepared myself for. Yet now that he was in my arms, I kissed him all the harder for finding his way to me.
He tasted like summer and unspoken promises. It wasn’t a flavor you’d expect to find in a den of despair like this.
And when he pulled his head back and batted those ridiculously long eyelashes at me, I was speechless. He smiled at me. “I hope you know a quieter place.”
I nodded. Every alarm went off at once.Abort. Abort.But my feet moved over our trampled clothes, and I led the way through the crowd, hands touching me in passing, feeling the steel of a famous body, smearing the sweat of a guy they’d thirsted after all year. I didn’t push them away. They couldn’t have me tonight. I was Seth’s for all his wicked pleasures and his to discard if he wanted to. We’d established that already.