Page 6 of In Step

Soft rain pattered on the roof. The murmurings grew louder, and a strip of light flashed at the bottom of my closed door as footsteps made their way back to Leroy and Fox’s bedroom. A burst of laughter softened as their door clicked shut, followed by the thump of something or someonebeing shoved up against it.

I grinned and snuggled further under the duvet, my hand wrapping around a surprisingly insistent morning wood for a couple of lacklustre tugs. It was tempting, but it felt way too creepy to jack off to the sound of my housemates getting off down the hall, even if I had been in a longish dry spell for reasons I was still unwilling to look at. Judah had warned me that Fox and Leroy had been apart for a few weeks and that things might be...energeticin that quarter. Apparently, they were still firmly entrenched in the honeymoon period.

I chuckled, reached up and pulled my curtains open for a quick look at the still-dark sky. No stars meant cloud cover, and the sound of fat raindrops on the iron roof said the rest. Welcome to winter in New Zealand, wet and cloudy and cool. I fell back and stretched my aching muscles—years of dance had taken their toll on my admittedly slightly less resilient body.

A smile broke over my face as I remembered the laughter-filled evening. I was going to enjoy my time with this crowd. Fox and Leroy made a handsome pair—grumpy Leroy with his brooding dark looks, and tall, good-natured Fox with his shoulder-length sun-tipped locks and brilliant green eyes. They didn’t bother hiding how gone they were for each other, barely able to keep their hands to themselves. So much so that I’d gone to bed with a semi just from the fucking fallout.

Judah and Morgan weren’t much better, but it had been a relief to find my friend happy and in love after the shitshow he’d lived through, even if the handsome Morgan himself had come as somewhat of a surprise. Not Judah’s usual type, although I didn’t know that side of him as well as I did his professional one. We’d never actually lived in the same city at the same time. We’d just clicked as friends when his dance company employed my services. After that, we hung out whenever I worked in the area and exchanged texts in between.

We’d flirted a little back in the day when Judah was relatively unknown, but it never developed into anything more. He was barely pushing twenty at the time and I was seventeen years older. I wasn’t about to bethatguy, although rumour had it the artistic director at Judah’s old ballet hadn’t been quite so prudent with his young star, a fact which angered me intensely. A lot of that went on in the business, and most of it didn’t help anyone. Judah and I were much better as friends. I wasn’t anywhere near as gifted as he was in ballet, finishing my professional dance career fairly early in order to focus on choreography, my real passion.

Judah, on the other hand, was driven, hugely talented, and anything but the settling-down type, especially with someone about as far removed from the dance scene as you could possibly get. And small-town New Zealand? Hell no.

But a lot had changed for him since we last met, and he and Morgan worked well together. I admired what Judah was doing with his dance therapy classes, which was why I’d agreed to help the minute I’d received his email. I’d done something similar before, most recently with a group of US army vets living with various disabilities. We’d flash mobbed in Grand Central Station on that choreography. It was a refreshing change from the professional dance arena with its egos and exacting perfectionism.

The pattering of rain grew heavy on the iron roof and my thoughts ran to the beautiful guy I’d glimpsed in the window above the garage the night before. Kane was his name, apparently. He worked with Fox and Leroy and rented the bedsit. I wondered why Judah had made no mention of him when he’d given me a rundown on virtually the entire town.

Even in the gloom and lit only by the reflected porch light, Kane’s stunning good looks and shoulder-length sun-bleached locks belonged on the cover of a surfing magazine, not manning a boat on a mussel farm. Just the memory had my cock thickening in my hand. Nope. I dropped it with a groan. Way too creepy since I was surely gonna have to talk to the guy at some point.

Get a life, Abraham.

The click of claws on wood made their way up the hall and a black nose pushed my door open. I scooted back and patted the bed. “Come on, gorgeous.”

Mack pushed through and jumped on the bed, quickly settling in a big lump behind my knees. Prue followed soon after, curling her small feline body into a ball between Mack’s front paws.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” I scratched Mack behind the ears. “Why do I sense I’m being played here? Are you normally allowed on the bed?”

They both ignored me.

“Okay, you get a free pass this time, but I’m taking it under advisement. One word from your daddies and this is all over. Now move over, you’re hogging the blankets and there’s a dirty paw print on my damn sheet. I th—” I jumped at the loud knock on the front door right outside my bedroom.

At this hour?I got up on one elbow to peek through the window. Huh.Surfer boy himself. But with no answering footsteps from Leroy and Fox’s bedroom, I figured they were still...occupied.

“Guess I’m it.” I threw back the covers and bounced out of bed, shivering with the sudden wash of cold over my bed-warm skin. “Shit.” I glanced down at my black briefs, then briefly considered my still-unpacked bag before pulling the spare blanket around my waist instead and hotfooting it to the front door. The glacial blast when I hauled it open almost knocked me sideways and instantly pebbled my skin.

“Damn, that’s cold.” I fumbled the blanket up under my armpits but not before I noticed Kane’s eyes bug out of their sockets. “Sorry.” I motioned back down the hall. “It’s just me. Leroy and Fox are...” I snorted in amusement. “Well, they’re likely having a lot more fun than either of us and getting a damn sight warmer in the process. How can I help you? It’s Kane, right?”

Kane nodded, still staring at my naked chest, and for some ridiculous reason, my cheeks warmed.Oh, for fuck’s sake. I was far too old and comfortable in my own skin for that rubbish. I danced for a living and there wasn’t a square inch of my skin that hadn’t come under intense scrutiny at one time or another. Age might’ve frayed me around the edges a bit—I wasn’t as tight or streamlined as I used to be—but I didn’t suck for a forty-four-year-old who was pushing middle age and with a perilous fondness for pasta.

“Kane? Hello?” I sucked in a breath laced with a strong hit of ocean salt.

“Um.” He licked his lips and his gaze shot up as if suddenly aware he’d been staring, and I got a good look at his eyes for the first time. They were the clearest, deepest blue, like those tropical lagoons you drooled over in tourist brochures. Although that’s where the similarity ended as they jackrabbited nervously across my face, making me wonder what the hell I’d done to unnerve the guy.

“I, um, came to drop off the food,” he muttered, still not meeting my eyes. “For Mack.” He dropped the weighty bag of dog food on the deck at my feet, pulled up the waistband of his jeans, and turned to leave.

“Wait.” My hand shot out. “We haven’t met. I’m Abe Tyler. I’m staying with Leroy and Fox while I help Judah out with his class recital.”

Kane stared at my hand for a second like it might bite him, and his grasp when it came was cool, dry, and very short. “Hi. I’m Kane Martin.” He blushed prettily. “But then... you obviously know that.” Once again, those magnetic-blue eyes flitted away, and I realised Kane was older than the whole surfer vibe indicated—closer to thirty than twenty.

“Leroy mentioned your name and that you worked with them. It was you at the window last night, right?” I inclined my head toward the bedsit, prolonging an unnecessary conversation that was turning me into a human popsicle. But the man in front of me was as gorgeous as I remembered, and a man’s balls worked strange magic on his brain that way. “We, ah, waved.” I bit back a smile and he blushed. He fucking blushed.

Kane tugged at his jeans, then glanced up at the bedsit and sighed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be nosy—” He hesitated and the flush deepened. “Yeah, total lie. It’s a small town, you know?” He dropped his gaze and scuffed the sole of his boot on the old plank deck worn smooth with age.

I chuckled. “I get it. I came from a small town too.” I willed him to look at me, wanting another moment with those cobalt eyes and the cut-glass cheekbones with a spray of freckles like someone had thrown chocolate hail and only a few had stuck—a darkly sweet and all-too-inviting constellation.

“Really?” He finally met my gaze. “I thought you hailed from Wellington?”

I shook my head. “We moved to Wellington when I was eight. But I was actually born in Reefton on the South Island. You don’t get much more small-town New Zealand than that. Couldn’t wait to leave, to be honest.”

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