Page 6 of Killing Me Softly

Likedhim.

Although, as Kenny knew all too well, there was a soft vulnerability beneath those guarded layers. But control he had. Hecommandedit. Demanded the space like it was his to claim. He wasn’t there to impress, though. No. He was far beyond something as mundane as showing off.Hedanced as if the music had fused with his very essence. As if it poured from his veins and flowed back into him with every beat, sustaining him. Each sensual sway of his hips, each delicate roll of his shoulders, every lithe, flexible cavort was less like a performance and more like a ritual. He wasn’t following a rhythm. He wascreatingit.

Fluid. Intimate. Untouchable.

Yeah. Most definitelyuntouchable.

Kenny watched from the sideline as men circled closer to his infatuation, drawn by the gravity of the performance, but the dancer dismissed them with a flick of his hand or the careless pivot of his body, spinning away as if they weren’t worthy of his orbit. They weren’t. That was for damn sure. And they all recoiled back, as if having hit the electric fence surrounding him, giving him the room he required.Deserved. Kenny sipped on his whisky, gluttony in his gaze, as if he’d paid for the show.

Well, he sort of had.

This time.

Another man entered the throng, all muscles and body-hugging clothes, drifting too close for comfort. Kenny straightened, narrowing his eyes, tightening his grip on his glass until his knuckles blanched. Rage surged, hot and irrational, climbing from his gut to his temples like fire licking at dry kindling. He watched this man who thought he was worthy of such beauty curl into the blond’s space, hovering his mouth dangerously closer to that exquisite neck, and Kenny locked his jaw, entire body strung tight, coiled like a live wire, waiting for this bloke to give him a reason to snap.

He didn’t get the chance.

With a sharp retreat, the man stumbled back, clutching his groin as if stung. The blond remained poised, though. Nothing to suggest he had anything to do with it at all. He just continued his slow, seductive dance with all the innocence of an angel. But Kenny knew better. That man was no angel. Nor was he the devil. But he wasn’t oblivious to the pain he inflicted. Physically.Emotionally.

Every touch he gave washischoice.

Kenny fell back against the bar, sipping his whisky.

Touch him and die indeed.

The music surged, bass-heavy and primal, rattling through the floor and climbing up Kenny’s spine. It thrummed in his chest, a rival to the rapid cadence of his pulse. And after a while, watching wasn’t enough. Fantasy wasn’t enough. It never was.

He wantedin there.

Setting his empty glass down on the bar, the faint clink lost beneath the storm of noise, Kenny set his eyes on the blond, but he spun again, turning his back to Kenny. A perfect, tantalising dismissal. He saw. He knew. That was awareness wrapped in defiance. An unspoken challenge. God, Kenny was obsessed with this. Withhim.

Beautiful. Elusive. Unbound.

Kenny wanted to catch him. Cage him. Keep him. Make him his.

For his eyes, his hands, his mouth. Hiscock. Definitely his cock.

The hunger was no longer a want. It was aneed. A craving stronger than any vice. Obsession twisted in his gut, all-consuming, dragging him forward, and he didn’t even resist it. What would be the point? That man was stronger than any addiction he’d ever fought off and Kenny wove through the mass of bodies, each step driven by a pull he couldn’t deny. Didn’twantto deny. Not anymore.

The crowd shifted, parting like water, ravenous for the spectacle of him reaching for the most untouchable man in the room. They watched, waiting to see him shoved aside like the others.

Watch and learn. Watch. And. Learn.

Kenny closed the distance, moulding his body to the blond’s. A seamless fit. Spooned together as if made to. Or, more accurately, acquired through practice.Lots and lots of practice.And Kenny gyrated his hips in time to the music and in sync with the ones he snuck his hands onto. There, he settled them both into a sensual grind. The blond stilled for all of a heartbeat before surrendering, raising his arms above his head, thin black T-shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of pale skin kissed by just enough sun to glow, and Kenny ghosted his hands over him, around to taut abs honed from core strength workouts, to claim and savour him. The world around blurred, fading into static along with the surprised eyes of strangers wondering howhegot to touch him and still live.

Kenny could touch him, because he washis.

As he had been for a while now.

How long he would live for doing so was yet to be decided.

“You done with the boring stuff, doc?” Aaron drifted his arms back, tangling his fingers through Kenny’s hair, then tugged hard enough to sting, guiding Kenny’s mouth onto his beautifully exposed neck.

Kenny pressed his lips to the familiar tattoo. “All yours, baby.” He then kissed the Mars symbol that had become his obsession. “Take me out of my mind.”

Aaron spun in his arms and before Kenny could so much as catch a breath, or take in the sheer, devastating sight of him bathed in strobe-lit brilliance, Aaron crashed his mouth onto his. Kenny didn’t know how Aaron could make every kiss this wild, all-consuming storm, devouring him with fierce, unapologetic hunger and obliterating every coherent thought Kenny had ever held, but he could. And did. Every time. And they’d kissed a fair bit since Kenny had lifted those rules. Behind closed doors. In secret. In bed. But never like this. Never with people watching.

That in itself was intoxicating.

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