Lead and Follow (29 page)

She grabbed the clipboard. “I’m good with that. Dima?”

His mouth opened. Closed. He put his hand over hers. She came away from the main crowd with a tiny tug on her wrist, following easily. He bent his head so that she could hear him in the press of people and talk and noise.

Damn, this was still harder than he’d expected. His chest pulled shut on a rush of nervousness greater even than when he’d taken to the stage. “We’ll sign, but with both of us on the line we can get more out of him.”

“God, I love you.” She beamed. “Plans?”

He nodded. Laughed a little. Because maybe this wasn’t so tough. “I want enough for us to stick around, a year maybe? For both of us together, we’ll get more money too. It’ll be enough to take us through to audition season.”

“Audition season?”

“In Hollywood.” Her mouth tasted like his dreams. Thrilling. Their kisses pushed deeper, even though they were in the middle of a crowd. “Because I’m crazy, maybe? But we’ll try.”

“Together.”

He traced his grip up over her arms, along her bare shoulders, until he framed her perfect face. That wide smile he loved so much. He rubbed his thumbs over her bottom lip. Kissed her briefly. “Together. Because nothing would be right without you. Lizzie, you are the sum of all my plans. All that I need. Forever.”

About the Author

Katie Porter is the writing team of Carrie Lofty and Lorelie Brown, who’ve been friends and critique partners for more than five years. Both are multi-published in historical romance. Carrie has an MA in history, while Lorelie is a US Army veteran. Generally a high-strung masochist, Carrie loves running and weight training, but she has no fear of gross things like dissecting formaldehyde sharks. Her two girls are not appreciative. Lorelie, a laid-back sadist, would rather grin maniacally when Carrie works out. Her three boys love how she screams like a little girl around spiders.

To learn more about the authors who make up Katie, visit
www.katieporterbooks.com
or follow them on Twitter at
@carrielofty
and
@LorelieBrown
.

Look for these titles by Katie Porter

Now Available:

Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Vegas Top Guns

Double Down

Inside Bet

Hold ’Em

Coming Soon:

Vegas Top Guns

Hard Way

Bare Knuckle

Club Devant

Chains and Canes

Pretty and Twisted

Watch and Wait

Blaze and Betrayal

Lights, lovers…action!

Came Upon a Midnight Clear

© 2012 Katie Porter

Born to old Virginia money, film producer Kyle Wakefield’s conservative upbringing kept him in the closet. Only once did he venture outside: for a tempestuous teenage affair with Nathan Carnes. When Nathan’s self-destructive streak landed him in prison, Kyle slammed the door on youthful hopes. Despite Hollywood successes, he still hides his true self.

He thought he’d moved on, until his production company hires Nathan and his Second Chances stunt crew to work on the London set of a big-budget action flick. Watching Nathan risk life and limb with fellow ex-cons looking for a fresh start makes it tough for Kyle to keep his desires hidden.

Thirteen years have passed since Nathan’s teenage self-doubt led him to sabotage any chance of a future with Kyle. He’s come a long way since then, but despite their explosive sexual chemistry, Kyle treats their attraction like a deep dark secret.

Their matched Hollywood ambitions and a pain-in-the-ass director make cooperation essential. As the London holiday season casts its spell, the two men find themselves on the verge of falling in love again—even as old secrets and pain keep them shackled. The only hope of unlocking their hearts is a Christmas miracle.

Warning: This book features a snowy London Christmas, sex on a pool table, a hot-and-dirty gay nightclub, and naughty references to candy canes.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Came Upon a Midnight Clear:

Kyle had wanted to let loose. That tight, pained place in his soul had
needed
it. Seeing Nate again… Remembering how free he’d once felt in the arms of the young man he’d loved…

Kyle was strangling on the precepts that kept his life ordered and successful.

Don’t let it show.

Don’t let anyone know.

And don’t get caught.

That last one was imperative. He hadn’t been a monk for the last ten years, but that meant stray hook-ups in the recesses of various cities. A guy had to protect his sanity. He’d stayed safe, got off, went home. Not exactly a stable emotional basis for accepting his homosexuality. Too much of it was cloaked in shadow and shame.

There, however, in a thumping underground club in the heart of SoHo, he could let it show, and everyone sure as hell knew he was queer.

As for getting caught, that rule didn’t seem to apply when he looked passionately into Nate’s eyes. The Christmas lights, disco balls and strobes didn’t dispel the power of his intent gaze.

“You heard me,” Nate said, so quietly but so near to Kyle’s mouth that the words registered as breath more than sound. “Do it.”

Kyle levered up and hitched his ass on the table, then spread his knees. Tim and his partner—was it Mick?—laughed and watched the show. Kyle. The opening act. The center of attention in a gay nightclub. His heart hammered with excitement and anticipation. He felt a very different sort of release when he and Nate locked eyes.

Kyle was right where he’d always longed to be. Being with Nate made him honest and real. Maybe he wanted to be that kind of person more often.

With a knowing, naughty smile, Nate grabbed one of the Jell-O shots. “You know where this goes, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then show me.”

Hands steady despite his gut-clenching arousal, Kyle stripped his purple V-neck T-shirt—some impulse purchase he’d made, along with the collar, on a drunken, giddy night out with Steph when they’d first gotten to London.

He leaned back on one elbow and hooked a thumb under the waistband of his jeans.

“It goes right here,” he said.

The air thickened between them, all teasing gone.

Nate’s expression was as intense as when he prepared for a big stunt sequence, all focus and calculation. His mouth was serious, but he never compressed his lips. They rested together with a unique, stern beauty, rimmed above and below with a shade of evening stubble. Blunt nose, rough-hewn cheekbones and a brow twisted in concentration. But his eyes… They were large and soulful, searching for something Kyle couldn’t name, couldn’t understand.

Kyle expected derisive words. A smirk. Hell, he half-expected Nate to walk out at any moment, if only to prove a point: that Kyle was gay, closeted and a goddamn hypocrite.

Instead, Nate leaned forward and licked the notch at the juncture of Kyle’s collarbones. “That’s right, college boy. Can you handle it?”

“I’m here waiting.”

That serious expression didn’t abate. “You have no idea what it is to wait.”

Cold skittered over Kyle’s bare chest, despite the hot, grinding sweat of the club. That unease needed to go. He didn’t have the stamina to contemplate dark roads. This was the time for raunchiness, for forgetting old pains and lingering doubts. He shoved Nate’s wrist down his body.

From there, Nate took over. Good. Sometimes the man was a goddamn mule.

Nate slid the conical plastic shot glass down along Kyle’s tensing stomach until it nestled between skin and denim. For a moment he seemed to savor his prize, eyeing Kyle from head to crotch. The attention made Kyle feel worshipped. Stripping half naked, wearing his outrageous collar—the decisions that had made his gut churn in the hotel room were so perfect right now.

Nate glanced at the two men avidly soaking up the show. “Watch and learn, boys.”

With that, he slid his tongue and teeth down Kyle’s chest, past his abs, until Nate’s mouth hovered above the shot glass. Nate dug his blunt fingertips into Kyle’s hips. Holding him. Immobilizing him.

Kyle groaned.

Lowering farther still, Nate sucked on the shot glass. The sight of his sandy-blond hair, tinted with every color of the rainbow, was more than Kyle needed. Fantasies and memories and reality merged into a heady cocktail of
want
. He gripped the hair at Nate’s crown and twisted. Lifted. Nate straightened, his mouth pursed around a mouthful of Jell-O and shaped into a smile of pure sin.

He swallowed.

So did Kyle.

Ah, fuck.

“Damn that was hot,” Tim said almost reverently. His hulking bear of a partner was busy sliding rough hands up and down the smaller man’s heaving chest.

Fingers still tangled in Nate’s hair, Kyle yanked him close for a swift kiss of vodka and strawberry and man. “Again,” he rasped.

Nate was quicker this time. His fingers shook slightly as he reached for another shot. To see how much Kyle visibly affected a man who’d spent three years in prison was almost too much. He was upending the hardest badass he’d ever known. Kyle’s cock was swollen. He wanted to fuck. He wanted this torture to go on forever.

No matter how unsteady, Nate managed to unfasten the top button of Kyle’s jeans and tug down the zipper.

“Turning you on, college boy?”

“
Turned
on. It’s a done deal.”

That made Nate grin, cocky and boyishly lopsided. Kyle’s heart turned over. But then he couldn’t breathe—flat out couldn’t—when Nate tucked the next shot inside the waistband of Kyle’s boxer briefs. The cool, conical plastic nestled right where the head of his cock was contained by that elastic band. Not that it was concealed. The bulge of his erection was unmistakable where it strained against his fly.

To his left, Kyle heard a moan. The bigger guy, Mick, had found his partner’s crotch and was giving it firm, pulsing squeezes. Nate watched them too. All around, the thunder of music created a trance of
here
and
now
.

Kyle’s head jerked backward. So dazed, it was only afterward that he realized Nate had yanked on the collar.

“Like that,” Nate rasped against Kyle’s throat. “They’re getting off watching us. You splayed out like some gay pin-up, chest arched, shoulders brawny. And that monster cock—they can see it, just like I can. Fucking
fantastic
.” He licked along Kyle’s jaw and bit his earlobe, giving the collar another jerk. “But you know what?”

Kyle was spinning. “What, sir?”

“Shit,” Nate hissed. “You always knew what I liked. And I like your long, fat prick. They can look all they want, but it’s mine. Tell me.”

“Yours, sir.” Kyle regained some semblance of power when he turned and kissed Nate. Quick. Rough. Teeth and tongue and biting force. “Now get down there and suck.”

Nate chuckled, their game made playful with a single sentence. He released the collar and found purchase along Kyle’s tense thighs. Head down, Nate’s mouth so fucking close to what Kyle wanted. The sight was incredible enough. The feel of Nate’s tongue dipping beneath the waistband—that was mind-blowing. The wet tip slid against Kyle’s throbbing head, darted, teased. Every movement was concealed by Nate’s face and the hunched power of his shoulders and burly upper arms.

Then slurp, lift, swallow. The shot was gone.

Tim and his partner were kissing with potent intent, oblivious now, caught up in each other as Vertigo Dreams took to the stage. Their music had been the soundtrack behind every step in the tentative, then torrid young relationship between Kyle and Nate. For a moment, they both stilled. Fingers interlaced. Gazes fixed. Sure, the band had aged. Glam was a little less shiny, a little more weary. Kyle didn’t care, and it didn’t seem like Nate did either. Simultaneously, they squeezed each other’s hands as the first song began.

Something more unfathomable than desire punched Kyle in the chest. Old years. Old hurts and desires and hopes.

Maybe Nate felt it too because he grabbed Kyle’s collar and pulled. It was either stumble or follow, so Kyle found his feet and yanked his jeans back into place. He hooked his discarded shirt and two more shots, slurping both for himself.

It was obvious Nate didn’t know where they were going. He simply led. Searching. Hunting for something. Kyle grinned, knowing exactly what his lover sought. He could only imagine how hard Nate was, how ready he was to satisfy this aching want, ready to indulge the best of what they’d been.

Club patrons clapped and shouted like mad. Kyle grasped Nate’s powerful wrist where he still held fast to the collar.

“This way.”

Again, that suspicious brow appeared. “Where?”

Kyle petted up and down the taut tendons of Nate’s bare forearm. Soft, golden hair added a vulnerable counterpoint to their lust, but it was no less powerful. “Trust me.”