Page 5 of Dream a Little Dream

Involuntarily—yeah, right—Aaron merged into a solitary sultry dance. The rest of the echelons rutting against him were merely his backing dancers. And the others coating the edge of the floor had pirated the show. Aaron rarely gave anyone the time of day, but it was his subconscious that had him gravitating toward the embodiment of dark eyes lost in plain sight. The man was almostpainfulto look at. Aaron had nursed himself happy in here many times. He knew the telltale signs of someone else doing the same. And, for a reason he only talked about in therapy, the man had him hard within seconds of him gazing at him as though he’d paid for his services.

He should have taken the cash and run.

Consciously. Unconsciously. Who knew? Aaron ended up right underneath him. A step and a barrier away. Sweat, musk, and sandalwood hung thick in the air, but it was the sharp tang of anticipation filling his gut. Taking a leave of his senses, Aaron couldn’t shake the conviction that what he was about to do wouldn’t kill him in the end.

Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it?

And he had sharper claws.

With a boldness foreign yet somehow predestined, Aaron reached out, brushing his fingers against the man’s clutching the glass of whisky. An electric charge crackled. Like lightning. Thunder. A storm of memories flicking before him, masked by searing strobe lights. Tension swelled in his gut, about to burst,but Aaron curbed it by snatching the glass, tipping his head back and downing the lot.

It burned, spreading fire into his throat, his chest, hiscock.

Recollection rung hard in the man’s dark eyes. Aaron could feel it written in the lines of his face, in the set of his shoulders, in the unwavering scrutiny and their exchange became a standoff without words, a duel where the prize was knowledge, and the weapon would be who asked first.

Whisky drained, Aaron held the glass above his head, swaying to the pulsating rhythm, giving the man a show. The man took the glass from him, discarded it, then watched.

Brazen.

Then, slowly, Aaron lifted his gaze.Game over.He parted his lips, and the question slipped out like a dare: “What’s your name?”

He already knew the answer, of course. Had known it for years. Every syllable carved deep into the recesses of his mind. He wasn’t asking for confirmation, though. This was about seeing if the man knewhim. If he recognised the ghost dancing for him.

Man pushed away from the railing and disappeared within a sea of bodies.

Aaron’s gaze followed him like his mesmerised prey, left wondering why the beast had set him free, now desperate to add Stockholm syndrome to his list of diagnoses. See, rejectiondidsting. Maybe he’d figure out why that was later. Maybe this bloke would help him with that. But his congenital hedonism had him squirming beneath the metal railing, leaping up to the bar level and squeezing through the throng, sliding away from the potential of a healthy courtship with those grappling for him to stay dancing, to follow a man so far out of his comfort zone, he might as well have been a woman.

He wasn’t, though.

Aaron discovered that after all of five minutes.

He followed him. All the way to the winding corridors of the backroom. Which was empty. Perhaps it was still too early for others to seek solace in hands and mouths, and the passageway swallowed him whole, darkness enveloping him like a blanket. He’d always found small, confined spaces comforting. This was exactly that. With sparse bulbs hanging from the low ceiling and the muffled bass throbbing through the floorboards, letting him know there was life outside.

A life he didn’t want to be part of.

He met the man’s gaze, and his heart, usually so guarded, raced. Not with fear, but with a burning connection he’d convinced himself he wouldn’t ever have. He inhaled. The man smelled of cyanide. Ash. Ethanol and regret. And it fizzed on Aaron’s tongue as if he wanted to lick him and die.

With him.

Becauseof him.

It was ridiculous. Because this would be where it all ended. His stupid, unhealthy obsession.

Except, it didn’t.

The man’s first touch had Aaron gasping. He gripped Aaron’s hips, a sigh escaping from honey-whisky breath, and it was as though he might understand the same loss carving hollows in Aaron’s soul too. He might be half a man. Half a thing. Half anothing.

God. He didn’tknow.

He thought Aaron was just a fuck.

The man tightened his grip, digging fingers into Aaron as if he would flip him around. Probably his preferred way of conducting these liaisons. Aaron had watched him once. Come in here with a man, then leave again as if hard, fast, and without eye contact was his MO. But Aaron remained where he was. Facing him with laboured breaths, heightened senses and a deeplonging to beseen. He wanted to ask him who he was again. But that might mean this didn’t happen and,shit, he hadn’t realised until right then how much he wanted it.Neededit.

In his years of waiting for this moment, to look this man in the eye, he hadn’t accounted for this deep, burning attraction to follow.

His bad.

But there was a silent understanding, as they stood breath to breath with the man’s hair falling to hide one side of his face, that neither would seek answers to questions that might tear their tiny worlds apart.

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