Dance With Me (21 page)

“So all those kids been taking dance,” Duon observed at last, “since they was little.” He snorted. “Hell. Some of them still
are
little. Shit, man.”

“My sister took for a few years,” Ed offered, “but she had to quit because it was too expensive. The weekly fees weren't so bad, but the shoes and the costumes and the performance fees—well.”

They stood together and watched the crowd go by.

“I wonder what that's like,” Duon said after a while.

“To take dance?” Ed asked.

“To have family that would pay that kind of money out on you for something you wanted. That could pay. Even for a few years.”

It was a bald confession for anyone, but from Duon it was almost alarming. Ed felt he should say something, but he didn't know what there was to say. Before he could come up with anything, the lights flickered, and they had to make their way back to their seats again. Ed searched a little longer for something wise or at least pithy to offer the boy, but Duon had buried himself in his program, signaling that he was done talking. Giving up, Ed picked up his own and did the same, though more absently, as he waited for the show to start back up again.

When it did, he saw Laurie.

At first, Ed didn't recognize him. He came out on the arm of a ballerina who was wearing a seriously intense tutu, but Laurie had his hair slicked back and something around his eyes—liner, but glitter too. He wore all silver, and his costume was much simpler than his partner's, but he glistened in the stage lights. And oh, yeah, he was wearing tights. His muscular legs were defined by the smooth white silk, and the bulge in his crotch was like a magnet to Ed's eye. God.

God.

And then Laurie was gone again. Ed sat through parade after parade of other people's kids dancing to all different kinds of music in a rainbow array of costumes, and each time they came out, he was disappointed they weren't Laurie. But just when he was about to give up hope, there Laurie was with the tutu lady again. He mostly, to Ed's disappointment, propped her up while she did all manner of tricky dances. It was nice, but he wanted to see Laurie move. He supposed this was it, and he tried to enjoy it to its fullest, but mostly he just felt disappointed.

But then the tutu lady left, and Laurie remained. And he danced.

He was beautiful.

Ed couldn't describe what Laurie was doing—he barely understood. Leaping. Arcing. He'd move his arms, and slide his leg up his other leg, and he'd kick and leap again. Ed didn't know what it was. He just knew it was...beautiful. It was like watching light. It was like... God, he kept stuttering over it, and it made him stare all the harder, trying to figure it out. It was like Laurie was finding something inside Ed and pulling it out. And it wasn't all, or even much, that it was Laurie and that Ed was attracted to him. It was a lot more than that. He'd have been moved by this even if he'd never met the man. As Laurie leaped and turned and kicked kind of all at once, and the audience gasped in wonder, something in Ed opened like a lotus, and he knew.

It was that Laurie was beautiful. It was that Laurie was male, and he was beautiful, and when he danced, he made male beauty come alive. Watching him dance was moving Ed because he'd never really seen anybody do that, and he hadn't known it was something he yearned for until he saw it. Laurie wasn't just good. Laurie was a fucking
artist
. As far as Ed was concerned, he was a legend.

And I've kissed him
. A soft, startled thrill rushed through Ed, the kind he hadn't had since he was twelve.

I've kissed him, and I might just kiss him again.

Soon.

And then, without warning, Laurie fell.

It was a brief stumble, just a turn that didn't quite pan out, and he was back on his feet almost instantly, but even Ed could tell it had been a mistake. The crowd erupted in whispers, and onstage, Laurie's expression went glassy as he tried to hide his mortification. But the spell was broken now, the grace gone. The rest of the dance seemed jerky and stiff, and when it was time for Laurie to exit, he all but bolted into the wings.

Beside Ed, Duon whispered, “Shit.”

Ed ached for Laurie, and his absence left Ed feeling bereft. The tutu chick was back, and yeah, she was fine, but who cared? How could anybody care about anybody else dancing after watching Laurie? Ed wanted to see him dance again. And he wanted to dance
with
Laurie again too. He wanted to feel that beauty in his arms. He wanted... He wanted....

Beside him, Duon stirred, and Ed looked down at his hands.

The show was dragging now, but it was because Ed wanted to get to the part where he went backstage to tell Laurie how much he'd liked his dance, to reassure him he'd done well. When the lights finally came up and everyone came out, Laurie wasn't with them. Eventually the dancers all disappeared behind the curtain again, and the house lights came up in full as the audience rose.

Vicky was beaming. “What a show! Did you guys like it?”

The kids murmured varying degrees of interest. Most of the guys pretended to be bored, which gave the girls great outlet to tease them and try to get them to admit it was cool. Duon remained quiet, as did Ed.

“We need to head out,” Vicky said as the crowd began to move toward the door. “You want to come with us, Ed? We're going back for sundaes at the center before I take everybody home.”

Ed cleared his throat. “Ah—no. I'm—” He glanced at the stage door, and the rest got cut off by a sudden rush of nerves.

Vicky grinned. “Tell Laurie hi. Tell him he did great. Don't let him focus on that little flub, either. Come on, guys. Stick together, and nobody wander off.”

Ed stepped back to let them pass. Then, trembling a little, he headed for the stage.

He felt out of place again now that the magic of the performance had been spent, and by the time he was on the stairs, ducking little girls in angel costumes and dressed as snowflakes, wrapped in the din of parents and children greeting one another, it just felt so surreal, and not in a good way anymore. He wished the center kids were with him, because at least they'd feel out of place together.

A stagehand in a headset gave him a narrow look, like he wanted to expel Ed for daring to be where he shouldn't. Ed stammered that he was looking for Laurie, that he was expecting Ed. He felt like an idiot, but he kept trying to climb back into the spell Laurie had cast on the stage, trying to recapture that feeling he'd felt then. He followed the stagehand down the hall, nodding thanks as he saw the door. He dodged mothers and grandmothers and giggling teenage girls—weren't there
any
males in this show?—and then he was at the door, watching his own hand knock. He felt almost sick with nerves, and he might as well have been standing there buck naked for as exposed as he felt. And then the door opened, and there Laurie was.

He was still in his costume, still glinting and glistening, his eyes still lined and his face spackled with glitter. His hair was mussed, like he'd been shoving his hand in it. He looked like a fairy prince, more surreal up close than he'd been on the stage.

He was still wearing the tights.

Laurie smiled weakly, and the glitter twinkled in the dim light of the hall. He was upset, Ed could tell.

“You did great,” he said.

Laurie's smile disappeared. “I was awful.” He sighed and shoved his hand into his hair. Then he composed himself and forced another smile. “Would you like to come in?”

Ed did. He watched Laurie shut the door, watched him turn around, looking nervous and trying to hide it. Ed tried to find the words to reassure him, tried to find the way to erase that look from Laurie's face, to get his hands to stop worrying each other, to get him to glow again. But he couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't imagine how in the world he could ever gather together the chaos inside him and put it into mere words. Couldn't think of how he could ever explain what watching Laurie onstage had done to him.

So he didn't say anything at all. He just reached out, slid a hand behind Laurie's neck, and kissed him.

When the kiss began, Laurie's eyes were still open.

If he'd seen it coming or had even half expected it, he might have closed his eyes and sank into it right away. But it was the last thing he'd figured Ed would do, so he just stood there for a few heavy seconds, stunned. He stared into Ed's face, so close to his own it was out of focus. He stared at Ed's eyes, at thick, dark lashes gently closed. He felt the movement of his mouth, his tongue stealing inside. But he saw Ed's face, soft, tender, lost inside the kiss, and it undid him.

Shutting his eyes at last, Laurie slid his hand to the back of Ed's neck, mirroring the grasp against his own, and then he tilted his head slightly to the side and deepened the kiss. He dove deep into that spice, into the wet softness of him, taking in deep draughts of Ed, woodsy and sharp, and he sucked in air through his nose as he came up for air before sliding in again. The terror and then the thrill and the ultimate shame of the performance warred with the yearning he'd had for so long for Ed. Now it was real, now it was here in his mouth, here in Ed.

When Ed pushed Laurie up against the door, pinning him there with his body, Laurie went pliant, letting his body bend to Ed's will. When Ed drew Laurie's bottom lip into his mouth and suckled on it, Laurie gasped and dug his fingers into Ed's shoulders, then offered him his tongue as well. His erection strained against the Lycra of his tights as Ed rubbed his own against it, the buckle of his belt catching the tip in a friction that edged toward but did not cross over into discomfort. The kiss had begun tenderly, but now it was raw.

And now Ed's mouth was sliding down Laurie's throat, down his chest, all the way over his stomach to the hem of his tights, which Ed was gripping and tugging insistently down as he went to his knees on the floor.

When Laurie felt the wet heat of Ed's mouth on his cock, he gasped and reached for Ed's hair. A faint voice at the back of his head called out feebly, “Wait!” but need and want and yearning shoved it forcibly away. He didn't care that his students were on the other side of the door. He didn't care that if he ruined these tights, he was seriously screwed for the Sunday matinee performance. He didn't care, he didn't care, he didn't care. Because Ed was sucking him. He looked down, ready to watch again, and he shivered as he saw Ed sliding with the same soft expression down the length of his cock, Ed's mouth taking him deep, his lips sliding, sliding, his tongue circling—

Laurie cried out, then bit his lip to stifle his sound. His hand fisted in Ed's hair, and his head rolled back, and then—then he started to thrust. Outside the door, he could hear little girls giggling and mothers chattering on and on and on, but inside this room, he was fucking Ed's mouth. He gasped with the pleasure of it, both of Ed's suckling and of the wickedness of what he was doing, and without warning, it was suddenly too much. He cried out again, a cascading shout that probably carried through the door and absolutely sounded like someone having sex. His balls drew tight and spilled out, flooding Ed's mouth as he thrust.

When he was spent, he sagged against the door. Ed rose and took Laurie's face in his hands again. This time the kiss was slow and sensual, and it was salty too.

“I want to fuck you,” Ed whispered, then kissed Laurie again.

Yes, Laurie thought, opening to him, trying to spread his knees to invite him there, but the tights trapped his legs. So he just kissed Ed back, tasting himself, letting Ed's words roll deliciously inside his head. “
I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you
.”

The sharp rap on the door startled them both, and they broke the kiss.

“Mr. Parker?” a woman's shrill voice called. The knocks came again. “Mr. Parker, Ms. Davies is looking for you.”
Knock, knock, knock.

“Yes,” Laurie called out, his voice breaking. He felt Ed's hand close over his fading erection, and he shut his eyes and leaned into his lover. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Is everything all right in there?” the woman called again. “This door was shaking.”

Ed snorted a laugh, and Laurie couldn't help a grin. “I'm fine,” he replied, tipping his head to the side as Ed kissed his way up his shoulder.

“That you are,” Ed agreed and licked a long muscle down the slope of his neck.

“Ed.” Laurie clutched at him as he fought back the urge to beg Ed to push him onto the floor and take him right here, right now. “Ed. I—” He gasped as Ed found his earlobe. “Ed.”

“That's me.” He suckled the soft flesh before worrying it gently between his teeth. “Baby. I want you. So bad.” Laurie clutched at Ed's shoulders as the other man's hands found their way around to the back of Laurie's ass. He hitched in a breath as Ed began to knead his flesh. “I cleaned my apartment,” Ed murmured as he trailed down Laurie's jaw. “And bought new condoms.”

His fingers were trailing down Laurie's bare cleft, and Laurie couldn't think. “Hhh,” he said and sagged forward, letting his backside part as Ed's finger slid deep into the musky crack.

“You are fucking hot in tights,” Ed said, and then he pushed the tip of his finger firmly against Laurie's hole. “You're even fucking hotter out of them.”

The fingertip pushed partly inside Laurie, and he moaned.

The pounding on the door started again, but this time all Laurie managed was a twitch, and most of that was because Ed had withdrawn and pushed again, wedging himself a little deeper. Laurie's ass burned, and his breath hitched.

“Laurie?”
Pound pound pound
. It was Maggie this time. “Laurie?”

“Yea—” Laurie's reply strangled in his throat as Ed tried, gently, to stretch him. It burned, more all the time, and he needed lube, but he couldn't bear to make it stop.
Just a little more. Just a little more.

“Laurie, are you all right?”

No. I'm trying to have sex, and people keep getting in the way
. He bit against Ed's shoulder for a second before composing himself enough to say, “Yes.”