Best Served Cold, page 9
He quirked one eyebrow like he was asking if I was okay with whatever was about to happen.
I nodded, not knowing or caring what I agreed to as long as I got to see him dance again.
Zane’s smirk deepened as he dropped his arm and did a leaping cartwheel-type flip off the stage.
The audience shrieked and yelped, but my eyes were glued to Zane as he stalked toward me.
He stopped in front of my table and crooked his finger.
Barely aware of anything other than Zane, I stood.
He grabbed the front of my jeans, dragged me around the table, and back toward the stage. I stumbled behind him like a newborn deer walking on ice for the very first time.
Luckily, he took pity on me and led me on stage via the little platform. I would have for sure fallen on my face trying to climb onto it without the steps.
He pulled me over to the chair and shoved me into it.
I went willingly.
As soon as my ass hit the seat, the loop ended and the song began to play.
Zane straddled my legs and pulled my arms above my head. With practiced moves, he held my wrists together and fished out a pair of quick-release handcuffs from his back pocket. He snapped them over my wrists, looping the chain behind the pole and anchoring me to it.
He gave me a look that was half taunting and one-hundred percent challenge as the vocals kicked in. I finally recognized the song as “Believer” by Imagine Dragons. Not a song I would have expected someone to strip to, but it suited him.
Zane spent the first few minutes of the song dancing for the audience and slowly stripping off his clothes during the verses, and grinding against me and using me as a prop during the chorus.
He wasn’t gentle as he dragged my cheek over his stomach and shoved my face against his crotch. He yanked on my hair hard enough to sting, but every little pulse of pain only ramped up my arousal.
I knew my boner was visible to everyone, but I couldn’t be assed to care as Zane continued to give me what was essentially a lap dance on stage.
Everything about the moment was overwhelming, but in the best way possible. His scent, the familiar combo of sweet and spicy, the heat from his body. Even the slicks of sweat he left on me as he teased me were sexy as fuck.
Toward the end of the song, when the final chorus came in, he hauled me to my feet and kicked the chair out from under me.
Before I could even blink, he lifted me right off the floor, balancing me against the pole as he settled me at his hips, my ass bumping his hard dick.
Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around him and gripped the pole tight as he flipped to full-on dirty dancing with me.
Pleasure surged through me with every drag of his cock against my ass and taint. My dick throbbed and my balls drew up tight as he toyed with me, his intense eyes never leaving mine.
“Oh fuck,” I muttered as he held the pole and pressed me tight against it so he could sink down in a squat with me sitting on his thighs. When he stood back up, he angled his hard dick against mine and rolled his hips in a quick wave. The effect was the same as if he were stroking me with his hand, but it was the intense look in his eyes that made it hard to breathe.
The song ended and Zane held his pose for a few beats, our gazes locked as we panted together. He pursed his lips in a quick and mocking air kiss, then slid me down his body so I was back on solid ground. He had the handcuffs off me in seconds and leaned in close.
Zane’s mouth was open and hot against my ear. “Behind the building. Five minutes.”
I blinked dazedly as he pulled away. He had literally rocked my world.
I had no words.
He took my hand and gently pulled me away from the pole. He gave me a moment to catch my balance, then led me to the platform.
The crowd of men around it helped me down. I strode back to my table on shaky legs, Zane’s words echoing in my ear.
I slid into my chair and leaned against the table, trying to get my bearings as my world still spun in a dizzying circle.
Why did he want to meet me outside? Was he pissed at me for showing up here? It was a bit of a violation, but he hadn’t seemed mad when he’d pulled me on stage.
I could just go home and pretend nothing happened. And leaving Zane hanging would be a victory.
My stomach coiled with unease. No, I couldn’t do that. Not after I’d shown up here unannounced. I’d let him say his piece, maybe gloat about how he’d turned me into a simpering half brain-dead mess with a raging boner in front of a club of strangers, then go home and forget about Zane’s moves and the way he’d looked at me.
8
ZANE
“Break time?” River asked casually.
I tugged my tee over my head. “Something like that.”
“Who was that guy?” Nick asked at my elbow.
“No one, Angel face.”
“Liar. You never pull people from the audience.” Nick put his hands on his hips and pinned me with a glare, or at least what passed as a glare on his cherubic face. “And you switched sets with Gray so you could go back out. Why?”
“No reason.”
“Zane Bartholomew Masters.” Nick threw up his hands in exasperation. “I love you, but you’re exhausting sometimes.”
“How did I not know your middle name is Bartholomew?” Kai asked, looking up from his phone.
I closed my locker. “It’s not.”
Nick shrugged when everyone swung their gazes to him. “He needed to be middle-named and since I don’t know his middle name, I made one up.”
“Bartholomew.” River snickered. “Almost as bad as our real middle name.”
“Okay, you have to tell me now.” Nick gave me his best puppy eyes. “Pretty please.”
“Wait, you have the same middle name?” Kai asked, tucking his phone away.
“Kind of.” I shoved my feet into my shoes.
“Nope.” Nick jumped in front of me, blocking my path. “You can’t cliffhanger us like that. I won’t allow it.”
“My middle name is Presley,” River said with a grin.
“Imagine if yours was Elvis?” Nick snickered.
I winked and sidestepped him.
“Wait, what?” Nick hooked his finger over my waistband and tugged me to a stop. “You’re fucking with us, right?”
I shrugged and peeled his hand off my pants.
“How about we let Zane go do whatever he needs to do,” Stone suggested from where he sat a bit removed from the rest of us, a thick book in his hand.
“You’re right.” Nick batted his eyelashes at me. “You go do whoever you’re gonna do and Imma get the info out of River.”
I slipped out of the back room as everyone turned on my brother.
I half expected to be greeted by nothing as I made my way behind the building, but Noah was there, leaning against the bricks with his hands shoved in his pockets and his face angled up toward the sky.
He looked…good. For some unknown reason, my stomach swooped as I trailed my eyes over his big frame. I’d pulled him on stage to fuck with him, but he hadn’t been the only one rocking a boner.
I already knew what he felt like thanks to that night at Mason’s party, but dancing with him, for him, had been a completely different experience. The trust he’d shown by letting me handcuff him to a pole and give him a lap dance in front of a room full of strangers was almost as heady as seeing his pleasure-slack face and blown pupils as I grinded against him.
Not wanting to be caught creeping, I kicked a small rock against the building to alert him to my presence.
He watched as I approached, his eyes wary. “Are you pissed?”
“Pissed? No,” I said. “I told you I worked here.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean you’re cool with me just showing up.”
“I figured you would.”
Noah pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
“You smoke?” I’d never seen him light up at work.
“Not anymore.” He toyed with the flap of the package.
“Having that seems a bit counterproductive to quitting.”
“Sometimes I’ll buy a pack and carry it around when the cravings are bad. No clue why. I guess I like to test myself. See how weak I am.”
“Addiction is a disease,” I told him. “Cigarettes are addictive. Not being able to quit doesn’t make you weak. And setting yourself up for failure is either self-destructive, or an excuse to relapse.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it sounds like you’re giving yourself permission to relapse by carrying around the thing you’re trying to quit. Or you’re punishing yourself for starting in the first place by making it easier to fail.”
“Or maybe I’m just a dumbass with no impulse control.” The corner of his lip curled up in a smile.
“That too.”
“How’d you know I was here? Was it that owl guy?”
I snort-laughed and leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. The nights were getting colder, and the chilly air seeped into my thin t-shirt. “Nah. I saw you as soon as the lights went up.”
“You did?”
I nodded. “You liked watching me.”
Noah’s cheeks went red. He’d shaved his scruff off. It was weird to see so much of his face.
“You liked being brought on stage,” I continued.
His blush deepened.
“Bet you liked everyone seeing just how much you were enjoying yourself.” I flicked my gaze to his crotch, then swept it back up.
He shot me a flat look. “It’s not like I was the only one who got hard.”
“How do you know that wasn’t from being on stage? What if I have a performance kink?”
“Do you?” he asked, his brow knitting with confusion.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re trying to fuck with my head.”
“Whyever would you think that?” I smiled serenely at him.
“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be an innocent face, but it’s serving crazy with a side of serial killer.”
I smiled wider.
“Now you just look deranged.”
I shrugged.
“You’re really annoying when you want to be.”
“It’s a gift.”
“So, are you like, a gymnast…or something?”
“Or something.”
“Why did you tell me to come out here?” he asked.
“Probably the same reason you’re carrying those around.” I nodded to the cigarettes he was still holding.
He looked at them in surprise, like he was remembering he had them.
“Do you want one?” I asked.
He looked up. “No.”
I held out my hand.
He hesitated, then slapped the package into my palm. “You smoke?”
“Not these.” I held them up. “Last chance before I trash them.”
“Go for it. You a fan of four-twenty?” he asked as I crushed the packet, making sure to snap every one of the cancer sticks inside.
“Yup. You?”
He nodded, his gaze on the ruined smokes.
“Why’d you come here? For real?” I shoved the package into my pocket.
“No fucking clue.” He sighed and leaned against the wall again. “Curiosity, I guess.”
“And what did you think?”
He side-eyed me. “Fishing for compliments?”
“Depends. Do you want to compliment me?”
“You know you’re good. You don’t need me to validate you.”
“No, I don’t. But it’s fun watching you squirm.”
“Like you were squirming the last time we were against the wall of a building?”
Strange flutters danced up my spine as heat pooled in my belly. “I seem to recall you were the one who was squirming against me.”
“Maybe, but who came first?”
“So what?” I fought the urge to crowd him against the wall and have a repeat as the memories of that night made my cock throb. “Anyone would get off having someone rub up on them like that. It was the friction, not you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“You really think any of that was because of you? It wasn’t.”
“If you say so.”
“I wasn’t the only one who came,” I fired back. “Who was the one who kept humping me after I finished?”
“Like you wouldn’t have done the same. And I already told you my piercing is sensitive. It had nothing to do with you. I would have had the same reaction from humping a couch.” His eyes glittered with amusement and something I couldn’t quite read. Something dark and a little primal.
“Still have a thing for furniture, hmm?”
“Apparently.” He paused. “What are we doing?”
“What do you mean?” I played dumb.
“This. Are you even into guys?”
I shook my head. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d never been into anyone regardless of their gender, but held back.
I’d gotten off with Noah at the party, there was no denying that. What we’d done had felt good, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of the physical sensations of being with someone, or because it was him.
The thought of letting anyone else touch me like that, see me in such a vulnerable state, made my skin and brain itch. It wasn’t that intimacy or sex grossed me out or anything, I’d just never wanted that with anyone. I still didn’t.
At least I didn’t think I did.
I’d had plenty of orgasms over the years, but they’d all been by my own hand. I got horny and had the urge to jerk like everyone else, I just didn’t think about people while I did it.
It was hard to explain, but arousal and attraction were separate for me. I didn’t feel attraction toward people, but I still had all the same equipment, so I got aroused, it just wasn’t because of anyone, and was more of physiological need.
I’d heard other guys, including my brother, talk about fantasizing while they jerked, but my brain didn’t work that way. It felt good, and I was in tune enough with my body that I could focus on the sensations of pleasure and enjoy it without wanting to do it with someone else.
It was a physical release, plain and simple. A way to get some good feels, and it was my go-to when I couldn’t fall sleep.
But that was where my interest in sex ended. Or so I’d thought.
That first kiss with Noah, my first kiss ever, hadn’t really affected me physically. Feeling his hard dick against my soft one had been intriguing, and the rush from knowing I’d done that to him had been heady as fuck. But I’d been so intent on winning and not letting him know that I had no clue how to kiss someone, I hadn’t let myself experience the moment.
Nope.
That shit had happened later, and it kept fucking happening.
The memories of that kiss still lingered. I’d expected it to be weird and gross. It had been weird as fuck, but it hadn’t been gross.
And it wasn’t the win I kept thinking about. It was that damn shuddering breath he’d let out, the way he’d gasped when I toyed with his tongue stud. How the cool metal of his snake bites had tickled my lips and warmed under my tongue.
I’d chalked it up to it being a new experience, but that didn’t explain Mason’s party.
That I couldn’t explain away.
I’d kissed him because I wanted to.
I’d jerked him off because I wanted to.
I’d let him manhandle me, and his dirty talk affected me on a level I still couldn’t quite understand.
But even now, I wasn’t sure if it had been the act itself, or the orgasm that had scrambled my brain and turned me into a whimpering mess who’d not only come from having Noah rub off on me, but had done it on command.
Was I attracted to him? Or was I confusing attraction with the good feels?
I’d always struggled with impulse control. Both River and I had addictive personalities, and we’d learned that the hard way. I’d spent years training myself to responsibly consume my vices, like alcohol and weed, but stayed the fuck away from anything harder because I knew I’d like them too much.
I liked things that felt good. Orgasms felt good, and apparently, an orgasm with another person could feel even better than doing it alone. But only when that person was Noah.
“Me neither.” He raked his hand through his hair, messing up the carefully styled locks.
“But you liked it?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
What did it matter if he liked it?
“I guess.” He clicked his tongue stud against his teeth, distractedly. “Did you?”
“I didn’t hate it.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to say something but closed it and exhaled a sigh.
Something about that sigh and his body language sent alarm bells off in my head. It looked defeated, like his soul was weary and he had the weight of the world pressing down on him.
His gaze met mine. “This is fucked up.”
“It is.” I stepped closer. The toes of my sneakers brushed his combat-style boots as I trapped him against the wall.
His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened with what I now recognized as arousal.
Why did I want to see more of that look, see his face twist up in pleasure and hear him say my name in that lust-drenched voice he used when he was close?
Why wasn’t I walking away from him?
“You can end it now,” I said, ignoring my instincts. My stubborn side refused to let me be the one to concede. “All you have to do is tell me to fuck off.”
He smirked, all traces of his weariness melting away. “Or you can just leave.”
“That’s always an option for you, too.”
“Is it?” He leaned back as casual as could be. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one blocking me in.”
“I thought you could bench me without straining yourself?” Caging him in with my hands, I leaned closer, until our chests and faces were only inches apart. “Are you saying you can’t get by me?”
“I’m saying I could, but you’re the one blocking my exit.” He tilted his head, his eyes on my lips. “It’s almost like you can’t get enough of me.”
