Dancing Lessons (19 page)

Without thinking, Chico put a hand out, palm up. Rafael grasped it and then leaned down, pushing Chico’s hand to the bed. He exhaled wetly over Chico’s neck as he rubbed slick over his cock and then over Chico when it was warmer. He didn’t tease, not when it mattered. Chico shivered with pleasure and smiled when Rafael sucked a reassuring kiss at his neck. “Raf.” He liked the sound of the name. He bent his knees and shifted up until Rafael took the hint that Chico wasn’t interested in any more prep. When he lined himself up, Chico tensed despite himself, but he took hold of Rafael by his hair when Rafael started to move back.

“Raf,” Chico said again, his voice tight and shaking, “I want to feel it.” He tipped his head back to moan at the ceiling as Rafael nodded and took him at his word and began to slowly open him up with his cock. He’d never felt so small and breakable, and he loved it. The sounds Chico was making would have been, had been, embarrassing, to other people, but Rafael groaned into Chico’s damp, stinging skin and pushed a hand to Chico’s hip when he was all the way in.

“Fuck,” he exclaimed, his voice warmer and rougher than Chico had ever heard it, and then did exactly that, slow and torturous and perfect. Chico arched up with a sweet shudder and felt the response when Rafael met him. He had that dancer’s body under his fingertips and pressed in to feel it flex and strain when Rafael moved. It was his last thought before he turned his head to the side to bury his desperate noises into the pillow.

He was always loud when he was fucked, but this was worse. The slide of Rafael’s cock in time with the feel of his muscles, the open heat of his mouth, were overwhelming. Chico choked out a sob and clung to him as tightly as he could and still the sounds escaped.

“Raf.” He was surprised he could remember the name, but Rafael rose up. He took Chico’s other hand from him and slid that to the bed as well. He held it there, near Chico’s head, pinning him without a fight, and smiled breathlessly when Chico opened his eyes.

“That’s it,” he murmured, as if Chico weren’t biting his lip to try to stop his incoherent moaning. Rafael pressed a brief, off-center kiss to Chico’s sore mouth and another at the corner of his eye. Chico felt loose and fucked and loved, and he closed his eyes before he nodded. Then Rafael released his hands so Chico could grab him and haul him in closer, tighter, while he fucked him deep and slow and exactly right, like he’d known, or wanted, the same thing.

When Chico came, his eyes were wet and his throat was raw. Rafael was staring down at him when he blinked his way back to reality. Chico could feel his cock against his stomach as Rafael rocked against him. When he saw Chico was back with him, he smiled and rolled them over, which is how Chico found himself on top. That wasn’t nearly as surprising as Rafael rising up to groan against his shoulder. “Chico, please.”

Chico dropped against him, nowhere near in condition to ride him. But he slid his legs apart to straddle him and hummed appreciatively when Rafael squeezed his ass and slid his cock back inside. He grunted at the thrusts but didn’t object. Fast and rough was good too, better than good. “Raf.” He licked at Rafael’s sweat and reached around to hold himself open, liking Rafael’s demonstration of strength.

“Chico,” Rafael gasped, startled like Chico had surprised him by liking it this way too, and groaned when Chico started to move with him. Chico twitched his hips, just a little, and bore down to meet Rafael’s push upward, and for his effort got Rafael’s hands spread out over his hips and stomach, and Rafael’s desperate, faster breathing. Chico decided he liked surprising Rafael and told him so as he smoothed his hands over Rafael’s body after he’d come, still buried deep inside Chico.

After a while Chico rolled to the side, triumphant, but too exhausted and shaky to attempt to clean up or walk anywhere. Rafael, with far more stamina, got rid of the condom at least, before yanking Chico back over him like a skinny Portuguese blanket.

The door to the balcony was open. Starlight would have streamed in if the lights hadn’t been on, but Chico didn’t feel like moving to do anything about it. He doubted his legs would work. He was done for the evening. Even if he hadn’t gone so long without sex like that, Rafael’s cock would have broken him.

He lowered his head to Rafael’s neck, quite happy to see Rafael was covered in the same bruises and wet hickeys that he was. The embarrassment wouldn’t be his alone.

Who was he kidding? Rafael wasn’t going to be embarrassed. He was going to be pleased as hell. He was going to walk around after the ballet recital with Chico’s love bites on his neck, and he was going to smirk about it and make Chico blush, and it was going to be anything but awful.

“You like me a lot,” Chico commented into the skin just above Rafael’s nipple.

Rafael cracked one eye open, then the other. He studied Chico before closing them both again. “I like you a lot,” he agreed, instead of the joke Chico had kind of been expecting.

Chico stared at him and then around the room, the clothes everywhere, the tied-off condom on the floor. He opened his mouth to respond, and his stomach grumbled.

Rafael slid an arm over his eyes and started to laugh. If it hadn’t involved moving, Chico would have sat up indignantly. Rafael began to run his hands up and down Chico’s back, pausing once or twice to rub circles over his ass as though he knew Chico was starting to feel the ache.

“Shut up,” Chico muttered, and got more pets for his trouble.

“I guess I can order that pizza.” Rafael pulled his arm from his face to quirk an eyebrow at Chico.

Chico’s chest went tight. “I’m staying?” He didn’t mean to sound so surprised. He’d already guessed Rafael wanted him here. But trust was something he was working on.

Anyway, Rafael only teased him. “You’re the one who demanded I fuck him—thank you for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” Chico tossed back breathlessly. He spent a moment planting kisses on Rafael’s lips before his stomach rumbled again. “I’m so sorry!” Rafael’s cackling made him finally roll away. He would’ve rolled right off the bed, but Rafael caught him and dragged him back by his hip. “I was going to get my phone,” Chico explained, as though he hadn’t been about to fall off the bed. “For the pizza.”

“Let me.” Rafael started to sit up but stopped when Chico gave him a stern look.

“I’m not helpless,” Chico insisted, but nearly slid off the bed again when he leaned over the side and unexpectedly encountered a cold, wet patch of lube and come. Rafael settled a hand at his hip, but loosely this time, so Chico didn’t mind as much. He curled toward Rafael as he came back up with his jeans in hand.

He had messages. One from his mother, asking about the performance, informing him his father would be driving, and they would be staying at Davi’s for the night before driving home the next day.

Chico glanced at Rafael, who gazed back at him expectantly. His hand remained at Chico’s waist. Chico struggled to focus on something else.

The other message was from Davi. It said,
slut
, with a smiley face.

Chico was going to introduce his nosy, awesome cousin to that yoga teacher. It was exactly what Davi deserved. Maybe he’d do it when his parents were here. That might distract them from asking questions.

No. Davi had told them. They already knew everything.

Well, almost everything.

“What are you thinking to make you grin like that?” Rafael brushed his thumb over Chico’s chin.

Chico considered him, bitten and perspiring and flushed, his head on the pillow. “May I take a picture of you? Not like that!” he added quickly because, while he was tempted, Rafael had students and a reputation and his family was sort of well-known. Then he remembered the artsy nude photograph downstairs and changed his mind. “I mean, not like that right now,” he murmured primly, liking the way Rafael shook all over with amusement.

But Rafael finally quieted and studied him in all seriousness. “What for?”

That made Chico pause. He lowered his attention to Rafael’s chest. “I have an important status update to make.”

Rafael froze for one very noticeable moment, which Chico liked, despite how he normally enjoyed Rafael’s control. Then Rafael nodded.

He watched as Chico climbed over him, and he looked up without blinking when Chico snapped the picture. Chico turned the phone to let him see the image: Rafael, handsome and sexy and very obviously in bed, even if only his face was visible.

The picture captured an expression Chico had never once questioned. But the changed perspective was better than any magic mirror for making Chico notice the obvious. It made him stare from Rafael to the snapshot of him and then back to Rafael. He leaned down with his phone still in hand and kissed Rafael’s mouth. “You like me a lot,” he said again, smoothing Rafael’s hair from his face, then bopping his nose. “Silly Raf.”

Rafael looked at him like he had lost his mind. But he took Chico’s finger from his nose, kissed it, and bopped Chico back with it. “The next time I catch you in the sewing room with that measuring tape curled against the bare skin at the back of your neck, you’re going to be lucky if I remember to lock the door before I bend you over your desk and fuck you.” He seemed to enjoy how Chico’s mouth dropped open as he thought about it. “I am going to show you every dance step there is. Students are going to get tired of seeing you in my classes. Oh, no, Raf’s going to show off Chico again, they’ll say, and I’ll get this reputation as the creepy instructor who drags out this innocent, Bambi-eyed, lilac fairy for his nefarious cocksucking purposes and—”

Chico shut him up with another kiss. “Lilac fairy?” He didn’t know what that meant, but didn’t give Rafael a chance to answer. “Show
me
off?” He huffed at Rafael’s neck before he pushed himself back up to a sitting position.

He typed, “This is Raf,” over the picture and then posted it before he could change his mind. He handed the phone to Rafael a moment later.

“If this is your version of slow, I’d love to see you moving fast.” Rafael sat up to tease him, nuzzle his temple, and pull him back down to the bed. “You”—Rafael ran his hands over Chico’s chest—“are nuts about me.” He didn’t sound like he minded.

Chico felt and then heard his phone vibrate with a message. It was probably from Davi, calling him a slut again, or possibly it was his old friends who had already seen his picture of Rafael and had questions. Chico left the phone where it was and stared at Rafael, which was what had gotten him into this.

He did not deny the accusation about his feelings. How could he?

Rafael gently touched his face like the mind reader he was and gave Chico a familiar warm smile. “Passionate Chico,” he whispered. So Chico curled in closer to him and kissed him because he was brave Chico too, and smart, and anything but lost.

Former soldier Octavio “Tavio” Reyes works as a barista, a favorite with the customers—especially Tommy O’Shaughnessy. An avowed geek, Tommy comes in daily to flirt, usually under the guise of Trekkie talk. Tavio hesitates; now that he’s out of the army, he’s not sure how out he should be, or whether to take his chances on a geek devoted to sci-fi and comic books. But when Tommy compares him to an unemotional Vulcan, Tavio finally considers dating an out-and-proud nerd. Then Tommy surprises him again and introduces him to his daughter, whom Tommy loves even more than Star Trek or Tavio. Now Tavio has a whole new decision to make: Is he ready to romance a family man?

Union soldier Wicklow Doyle is infiltrating enemy lines to set up new radio communications technology in Confederate-held Charleston when his location is betrayed. After sacrificing himself to get his team to safety, he’s on the lam, friendless in a hostile town. Determining who betrayed him without discovery by Confederate soldiers is dangerous, but Wicklow grew up in the slums of New York and knows how to handle himself. He isn’t expecting anyone on his team to return to help him, much less Alexander Rhoades.

An effete dandy of great intelligence and conviction, Alexander Rhoades speaks through stories instead of giving orders, and he has earned the confidence of the rich and powerful. While Wicklow has come not to trust men with those traits, Rhoades has never once let him down. He looks at Wicklow in ways that make him burn beneath his skin and tells him stories of love and bravery Wicklow yearns to understand. Wicklow has absolute faith Rhoades’s brilliant mind will uncover the traitor in their midst and find them a way out of the city. But when Rhoades tells him he’s not alone, Wicklow isn’t sure he can believe him. For the first time in his life, though, he wants to.