The second time it happened, he waited until I started to take a drink of the cocktail he’d gotten for me. Again he put his hand on my lower back, but this time, he pointed his fingers down toward my ass, the angle of his arm slightly awkward. I felt the tip of his middle finger lift the hem of my shirt and graze against the skin of my back. I choked on my drink, cranberry juice dripping down my chin. I mumbled an apology as I used my arm to wipe my face. Vince dropped his hand, and I refused to look at him. Darren didn’t seem to notice.
And on it went. There would be a grip on my arm as Vince tugged me to the back patio, biting his fingers into my skin, part of me relishing the pressure, another part wanting it to stop immediately before I sprouted wood right then.
He would slide his hand down my arm when it became impossible to walk side by side, slipping fingertips along my forearm, my wrist, my palm until his fingers would catch mine, pressing our hands together as he led me through the crowd.
We reached the patio outside, and conversations were happening all around us, voices running together until they were just a wall of noise that I couldn’t separate into single words. Vince kept glancing back at me as he pushed his way through the crowd, a little smile on his face, his eyes narrowed with something I couldn’t quite place. I didn’t know where Darren had gone, only that he was no longer with us, and I didn’t know where Helena was, only that her show was over and the people around us moved and swayed and danced and writhed.
Vince found a dark little corner, near a set of stacked chairs, away from the crowd, away from the noise. It only took him a moment before he had me pressed up against the wall, putting his hands on either side of my head, standing so close that I could feel his breath on my face, but no part of his body touching mine. I tried to control my breathing so it wouldn’t seem like I was panting, but that was exactly what I was doing.
I opened my mouth to speak—to say what, I didn’t know—but it came out as a croak, a low noise that sounded as if I groaned. Vince quirked his lips, trying to become a smile, and I became fascinated by his lower lip, how full it looked, how it had tasted in my mouth, how plump it had felt as I rolled it between my teeth. His tongue came out, a flash of pink against a darker red, wetting his lips. I saw the hint of teeth, strong and white. He shifted his right hand slightly behind my head, scraping his fingers along the brick of the building, the sound like a roar in my ears.
I opened my mouth again. “So,” I said.
“So,” he said, his voice deeper than I’d heard it before, like a rasp.
I swallowed thickly. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I felt like I should say something, anything to fill the charged silence between us, but nothing came to mind, and I was afraid if I started babbling, I’d never be able to stop. I tended to do that when I was drunk, nervous, or turned on out of my fucking mind, and I was two out of three, which did not bode well for coherent conversation.
Fortunately for me (I think), Vince didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk. I could feel the heat of his body so close to mine, but I didn’t push for those last few inches that would have him pressed against me. It was already a warm night, and I felt sweat trickle down the back of my neck into the collar of my shirt.
He leaned forward then, still pressing his hands against the wall. He went to the side, his cheek barely scraping against mine, the grate of his stubble against my smooth cheek. His breath was on my ear, but he didn’t take it further, just stayed there, breathing in and out. Then he pressed his nose against my neck and breathed me in. Our shoulders knocked together, his chest against mine as he breathed in, separating as he exhaled.
He found the patch of skin under my ear that drives me up the fucking wall. I stifled the groan that threatened to rise but could do nothing about the way my jaw grew tight, the way my blood thrummed just under the surface. He sucked on the skin, hard enough that I knew it’d leave a mark. I should have been somewhat horrified that I was a thirty-year-old man receiving a hickey in the back of a gay club while people milled only feet away, but I couldn’t be bothered. I was too far gone under the sensation of his lips latched onto my neck, the scrape of his teeth, the press of his tongue. He leaned back and inspected his work, looking darkly pleased with himself. He took his left hand and rubbed his thumb over the mark, the slight burn growing stronger with the caress.
I’d never been so fucking hard in my life. His systematic breakdown of all my defenses was leaving me somewhat breathless. I was never one for public displays of any kind of affection, and the fact that he had me pressed up against a wall for everyone to see caused my stomach to twist. But even that emotion was overrun by the hot pleasure I was taking from him, the perverse idea that everyone was watching him fuck with my head, that they could all see my arousal. My dilated pupils. The quick breaths. The shaking of my hands. The way I craned my neck to give him better access to study his mark. I wanted everyone to see. I wanted everyone to know.