Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  After that, it was difficult to think about anything. Anything other than him.

  “Fuck, you’re thick,” I sighed in awe, sliding his boxers down his thighs.

  “Too much for you, Mr. Garnet?”

  I grinned up at him wolfishly. “Not at all, Mr. Bishop. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve got a pretty big mouth.”

  A mouth that was starving for him, too. I ran the tip of my nose up and down his length, tracing the veins and breathing him in. God, he smelled divine—sweat and musk, the slightest salt of his precum trembling at the tip. I stuck my tongue out, lapping it up like it was water from the fountain of youth and I was Juan fucking Ponce de Leon.

  I moaned at the taste of him—salty, sure, but sweet, too. It only made me want more of him. Pinning Damon’s hips to the mattress, I took it—his cock into my hot, wet mouth, sucking and slurping at him like a man unhinged.

  “Nathan—oh, God, Nate!”

  That’s right, Damon. Say my fucking name. I swallowed his cock down my throat, taking him in long, hard strokes. I wasn’t Mr. Garnet anymore. Not if my cock-sucking skills were as good as I suspected they were. That silly formality dropped as I lowered my lips to the base of Damon’s cock, burying my face in the smooth-shaven skin of his pelvis. My throat tightened around him eagerly as my tongue struck out, lapping at his balls while I wolfed down his dick.

  “Nathan—Nate—”

  I pulled up, grinning as a string of saliva connected his tip to my mouth, then plunged down again. I was working faster now. Harder. I needed to feel him tensing beneath me, feel his body pumping so much blood to his cock that he was stiff as a Roman column while I sucked every last drop of cum from his tight, heavy balls.

  “Nate! Oh, god, Nate!”

  And then, there it was. His cock, twitching madly between my lips. His seed, gushing out of the tip and flooding my mouth to the brim.

  Of all the sights and sounds that I’d seen in my life—the roar of Wall Street as the markets opened for the day, the lights of New York as the plane flew in, engines thrumming as it made its descent—they were only half as wondrous as the sight and sound of Damon coming for me. It was like a tsunami wave had crashed down on top of me, carried me off and spun me in the brine until I didn’t know up from his down. Like I’d leapt onto a moving train and suddenly, I had no choice but to hold on for dear life. It was something bold and full of might. Something sacrosanct, like kneeling at the altar of God himself.

  It left me breathless. Left me awed.

  Then I swallowed, and I felt it all over again.

  “Nathan,” Damon moaned, whimpering between breaths, “Nathan, fuck me. Fuck me now.”

  I’d thought that hearing Damon Bishop come for me was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard—but then I heard my name from his mouth, begging me to take him, and just like that, he proved me wrong.

  I was all his then. His hand curling through my hair, pulling me up to his mouth for a kiss. His lips against mine, forming my name, his taste on my tongue—it was a holier thing than any Eucharist wine, and if that was blasphemy, well, I’d never been a very good Christian anyway.

  I took him beneath me, turned him belly down on the bed. My cock fell heavy against his back as I tore off my boxers. I let it rest there for a moment, letting him feel how deep inside him I’d be if he was sure he wanted me to take him.

  “Oh, fuck. Nate—please—” he moaned.

  It was all the go-ahead I needed. I took his hair in my fist, pulling his head back like some kind of barbarian as I mounted my prize. Slipping two fingers into my mouth, I coated them with my saliva and the remnants of his cum, then pressed them against the tightness of his hole.

  So fucking hot. Like playing with a loosed flame. His ass resisted me for a second only; by the next, it had widened, slick with his honey, taking them in. I stroked his prostate with them, edging him toward another orgasm of a different kind. His hips thrashed as I did it, bucking wildly with pleasure, but I wasn’t going to let him get away from me—and judging by the way he was moaning, he didn’t want me to, either.

  When he was close, all tensed up and panting for relief, I withdrew my fingers, sucking them into my mouth to taste how wet he was for me as I replaced them with the tip of my cock. That same resistance came again two-fold. I was just as thick as he was, and even longer. I’d have to stretch him if I wanted to fit. Mold him to the shape of me, over and over again until Damon’s ass was perfectly fitted to the size of my hot, throbbing cock thrusting inside.

  It took a thrust, then another. Then, something clicked; the head of my cock slipped inside him, and before he could tighten again, I claimed even more of his ass with my length.

  “Oh—oh, Nate!”

  My hands curled around his thighs, my fingers still slick with him, holding tight as his legs shook. My hips thrust against him, slow at first then building to something feverish and desperate, coaxing another orgasm from his perfect body as I pounded my way to my own. Every thrust, every inch deeper I delved into his heat, was a wave, and I rode it out with him until it crashed on the shore.

  “Nate…fuck, Nate, I’m going to come!”

  “Come with me then.” I dipped my lips to his neck, pressing insistent kisses against the base of his spine. The muscles there—trapezius, he’d called one. Spinalis—were trembling. His whole fucking body was trembling, so overloaded with sensation and so close to release that I could feel it all the way down his torso to the way his ass tightened around my cock at the base. “Come with me, Damon! Come!”

  My breath hitched in my chest as I felt him, sudden and sharp and hard. My whole body was washed in heat, sweat dripping down my temples and splashing down onto his back. I released inside him, pumping and snarling as my cum rushed to coat his inner walls, and he throbbed around me, tightening and tightening as his ass swallowed up every drop of it, drawing it deeper and deeper within.

  After, there was no sound but the heaviness of our breathing. Hard and fast and labored as I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him up until his back was flush with my chest. I rubbed him down, my cock still twitching incessantly inside him like it wasn’t ready to be done with him yet. My lips claimed the thin, sensitive skin over his jugular; I took his pulse with my tongue, relishing the way it raced as I lapped the sweat from his skin.

  “God,” he panted. “God…God.”

  I laughed, nipping at his neck. “Is that what you’re calling me now?”

  “Mm. Maybe so.”

  “I’ll be your god then.” I smiled against his skin. “You can worship at my altar any time.”

  When I pulled back to release my cock from the vice-like grip his ass still had on it, he reached back to stop me.

  “Leave it in,” he said softly, fingertips cool as they stroked down my thigh. “Just for a little while.”

  “As the gentleman wishes,” I said again. The same words that we’d begun with—but they felt different now. It all felt different now—heightened and more intense.

  To tell the truth, I didn’t know if I could bring myself to pull out of him anyway. It felt too good, all that heat wrapped around me, that tightness that just wouldn’t quit. I laid us down clumsily, taking the brunt of our tumble back onto the mattress by wrapping him up tight in my arms.

  “I…” he began, then cut himself short by pressing a kiss to my wrist.

  “You what?” I purred against his ear.

  “No. That was stupid. I shouldn’t say—”

  “Were you going to tell me you loved me?” I laughed, my teeth grazing against his earlobe.

  “This is our second date. Of course not.” He shivered. “Would you have said it back?”

  “Mm. It’s too early to say for sure,” I told him, suddenly glad that he wasn’t facing me. Glad that he couldn’t see the way my eyes lit up at the prospect of it. The flash of fear that followed as I realized I’d never felt it before—let alone said the words. “This is our second date.”

  “Then
it’s a good thing I didn’t say it, huh?”

  I held him a little tighter, unwilling to give this moment the slightest chance of flittering away from me.

  “You wanted to, though,” I said, suddenly smug. “On our second date, no less.”

  “How embarrassing for me,” he replied with a soft, tired laugh. “Just imagine what’ll happen by our third.”

  12

  Damon

  “Son of a bitch,” Nathan swore, rifling through the cupboard like it had just stolen his wallet. “I’m out of coffee.”

  I stood there in the kitchen, watching the way his shoulders flexed and rippled with every movement of his arms. He was only wearing sweatpants, which I never would’ve suspected to be a good look on a man—but then I’d seen Nathan in them, and now I doubted I’d ever be able to look at athletic wear the same way ever again.

  “It’s okay,” I finally said, moving behind him and pressing my body against his. I wound my hands up around his wrists, pulling them out of the cabinet and down to my side instead. “Although, I’m beginning to seriously question your grocery buying habits.”

  He laughed. “No condoms, no coffee…”

  “What kind of establishment are you running here anyway?” I teased.

  “And yet…” He turned, and somehow, my wrists ended up in his grasp. “You keep coming back here anyway.”

  “Bruff!” Lady yipped impatiently, nudging my ankle with her cold, wet nose the moment before Nate’s lips lowered to mine for a kiss.

  We both looked down at her, seeing the impatient little way her feet tippy-tapped against the floor.

  “At least I’ve still got dog food,” Nathan sighed, turning to the cupboard to get Lady her breakfast. “You sure you’re okay with no coffee? I could always make you a cup of tea or something.”

  I reeled back, giving him a judgmental look. “Tea? In the morning? What kind of New Yorker are you, anyway?”

  “The embarrassed kind, obviously.” He dumped a scoop of food into Lady’s bowl, appeasing the beast for the time being. She was looking at me with a little jealousy this morning, but I presumed it had less to do with an actual dislike of me and more to do with the fact that she’d spent the night on the couch.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I assured Nate. “I’ll grab some on my way into the club. Foster has some kind of brilliant new routine he wants us to work on—and there’s a Starbucks on the way to the pharmacy anyway.”

  “Mm. The morning-after pill. Right.” Nathan moved to his coat—the one he’d thrown onto the floor of the entryway when we came in last night. “Will three hundred cover it and some coffee? I don’t want you to go blowing all that lap dance money in one place.”

  I laughed as he offered me three crisp bills. “How much do you think the morning-after pill costs?”

  He shrugged, digging back into his wallet. “Five hundred, then. I feel really bad about—”

  I stopped his apology with a kiss. “Stop it. I asked you to do it, didn’t I?” Plucking one of the bills from his fingers, I shot him a grin. “It’s like sixty bucks, tops, Mr. Garnet. You should stop carrying so much cash on you, you know. You’ll get mugged.”

  “That happen a lot, out where you live?” He tucked the other bills back into his wallet. “This is a pretty safe neighborhood. I never really thought about it.”

  “Happens sometimes. If you’re stupid, anyway. The club takes in all our tips at night and direct deposits them into our bank accounts. Stops any potential scoundrels from getting any bright ideas.”

  “We should move you somewhere safer,” he mused. “There’s a gorgeous place down the block…”

  “Out of my price range,” I reminded him. “Even if you do keep trying to give me half a thousand dollars for basic medicine and coffee funds.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck apologetically. “I don’t mean to sound like such a rich asshole, you know.”

  “I know.” I pressed another kiss to his cheek, then scooped my coat up from the floor. “But then you open your mouth…”

  Nathan swatted at my ass and I squealed as I raced toward the door.

  “Have a good day,” he called after me. “I—”

  I paused in the doorway, but whatever he’d planned on saying, he waved it away with his fingertips.

  “Just, have a good day. Be safe, Mr. Bishop.”

  “You too, Mr. Garnet.” I blew him a little kiss before I closed the door.

  Flirtatious, bubbly and bright. Fuck, I normally wasn’t like this unless I was on the clock at work. But somehow, Nathan had found a way to bring out that side of me even when I wasn’t strapped up in a halo and angel wings.

  Or maybe, I considered, it was just the sex.

  The insanely good sex. I pulled my phone out of my pocket on my way to the elevator and pulled up Anders’ number.

  I have something exciting to tell you, I messaged him, grinning as I typed the words. If anyone wanted to hear me brag about the incredible night I’d spent with Nathan, it was Anders—and for once, I was actually in the mood to brag.

  It wasn’t until I got to the ground floor that I remembered the single sour note of the evening—that awful-almost-I-love-you that Nathan had called me out on just as I’d started to say the words.

  It had been stupid of me, in hindsight. Downright idiotic. We’d had sex, sure, but that didn’t mean I needed to go blurting out shit like that just because I was too cock-struck to stop myself. In the moment, though…part of me had just been so blissed out and happy, lying there in Nathan’s arms, that for some ridiculous reason, it’d felt right.

  I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Not if I wanted to see Nathan again. While my initial judge of his character might’ve been somewhat off, dropping an I love you after the first time we’d slept together was one of those things that tended to scare an Alpha off faster than a racehorse on derby day. Love didn’t happen like that—he’d obviously just fucked me so well, all those brilliant sex hormones were getting the best of me. I liked him, sure—but not love. Not yet.

  The coffee shop was crowded by the time I got to it—this far into the nicer part of town this early in the morning, it was equally filled with grumpy businessmen and wide-eyed tourists. I gave my order to the barista—caramel macchiato, skim milk—then loitered around waiting for it to arrive. Anders hadn’t texted me back yet, which was strange. Usually, he was so attached to his phone that he was more prompt than this. But it was early still. He was probably sleeping off a hangover—or maybe still doing his own walk of shame home.

  “Hey—Damon?”

  I looked up from my phone, expecting to see the barista with a hot cup of coffee for me. Instead, I was met with the gaze of a strange Alpha with amber eyes, clad in a business suit and five o’clock shadow that suggested he’d been out all night as well.

  I sighed as I saw the way he looked at me. It happened sometimes—clients from the club recognizing the dancers on the off hours. Not wanting to disappoint him, I shifted my lips into a polite smile.

  “Hi there. Do I know you?” I said awkwardly. Didn’t know what else to say.

  “Damon,” he said again, eyes lighting up with recognition. “You’re Garnet’s latest catch, aren’t you? Recognized you from the pictures.” He looked me up and down, tongue slicking out across his lips. “They were pretty good, but let me tell you—they don’t do you near enough justice. Not even close.”

  “I, uh…Thanks,” I said with a laugh. “I didn’t realize Nathan even had pictures of me. Are you two…friends?”

  “Coworkers. Duncan Rourke, at your service.” He struck a broad hand out and gingerly, I shook it—noticing the way he held my grip for a moment too long. “Can I buy your coffee? It’s not often that I run into Nathan’s flings in the wild like this.”

  “It’s already paid for,” I told him, forcing that polite smile of mine to endure for a little while longer. I didn’t like that word—fling. It was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid with Nate—and n
ow, here I was, stuck with the label anyway. “Thanks, though.”

  “Shame. It’s going to be harder to impress you if you won’t let me wave my wallet around.”

  My laugh was even more awkward this time. “Why on earth would you need to do that?”

  Duncan shrugged, giving me a cheeky wink. “You know how Garnet is. Hit ‘em and quit ‘em. And you…well, I don’t have to tell you how good looking you are…”

  I swallowed hard, my smile slipping away as my heart dropped down into my stomach. “I’m not sure that I follow.”

  He blinked, some kind of strange realization catching in his eyes. “Are you…planning on seeing him again?”

  “I was…uh, hoping for it, I guess?” My stomach churned at every new word out of Duncan’s mouth. Is that what Nate really thought of me now that I’d finally given in and fucked him? He’d seemed so affectionate this morning… “I’ve gotta go to class, actually.”

  I moved to the door, but Duncan blocked my path, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, I’m really sorry. When Nathan mentioned you, I guess I didn’t realize how serious things were. Where’s class? I can always give you a lift. A completely platonic lift,” he reassured me. “An apology lift. I’m sorry, I’m an ass.”

  I bit my lip. “NYU. It’s not far from here—no lift necessary.”

  “NYU, huh? That’s funny—Jim here is on the scholarship board. Hey, Jim—”

  Duncan nudged the man behind him with his elbow. I groaned as he was momentarily distracted—after what Duncan had just told me about Nathan, dealing with yet another rich Alpha was the last thing I wanted to do with my morning.

  But then the man turned, and so did my tides. The red hair. The beady eyes. The stitches cutting through one eyebrow, only half-healed from where Nathan had split the skin there open with his fist.

  Our eyes locked on each other, mine wide with anxiety, his glimmering with hate.

  “Jim, Damon here goes to NYU. Fancy that, huh? Say, Damon, what program are you—wait, where are you going?”