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Despite having partied plenty at college, it was nothing like this. I’d never actually been pawed by several men at once, and it began to scare me a little. I wasn’t a big guy. I was femme and skinny and likely unable to defend myself if a big man truly wanted to have his way with me, but I was in the middle of a crowded dance floor, so how dangerous could it be?
I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy the attention, tried to experience what it was like to play with the big dogs in a big American gay dance club where the music was hot and the men were hotter.
Someone’s hands tweaked my nipples, and someone else’s grabbed my ass. I took a deep breath, reminding myself to relax and just give myself over to the new experience.
I felt coarse beard scruff on my shoulder and then the sharp pain of a bite to my skin. I yelped and jumped, turning to glare at the man grinning behind me. Before I had a chance to tell him where to shove his fucking vampire teeth, he was gone.
They were all gone.
And in their place was Hudson. His arms were wrapped tightly around me, and his face was feral. He eyeballed anyone and everyone who even considered getting near me. At one point, he even growled when someone reached out to grab my hips from behind. By the time he was done marking his territory, I was wrapped up in his arms and legs so tightly, I felt like he was wearing me like a vest.
His lips grazed my ear, causing me to shudder violently.
“Please,” he said into my ear with a hoarse voice. “Please stop. Please don’t let them touch you anymore. Please.”
I felt my eyes smart. The desperation in his voice and his protective physical shell around me nearly brought me to my knees. Who the fuck was this guy who ran so hot and cold with me? One minute he was confessing to wanting to kiss me, the next he was pushing me away. And now here he was begging me not to be with anyone else. I didn’t understand.
“Why?” I asked before tucking my face into his chest and inhaling the smell as comforting as home.
It took him a minute to respond, and I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me over the music. And then it came.
“I told you the reason the first night we met.”
I thought back to what we’d talked about as he sat in the bar that first night. There wasn’t anything about relationships or… wait.
That was the night Hudson had looked at me and said mine.
I pulled back enough to look up at him in confusion. “But, you—”
His lips met mine before I could finish. The kiss wasn’t aggressive and possessive the way his reaction to my dance partners had been. It was tender and slow, the way my dreams of him were. He sipped from my lips as we swayed together to a slower beat than the actual music surrounding us. I lost myself in him for a minute until I remembered his brother and brother-in-law sitting only several yards away.
“Shit,” I yelped, jumping back. My vision darted to the table where West and Nico had been sitting, but I didn’t see them there. “Where’s your brother?”
Hudson seemed to shake himself awake and look around. “There. At the bar. Why?”
I stared at him. “They could have seen us.”
The wheels began turning in his head, and I could tell he was surprised to have acted without thinking first. Knowing Hudson the little I already did, it wasn’t a usual state of affairs for him. He seemed the premeditated sort, the bloke who calculated best practices and chose the most appropriate path. Hudson Wilde wasn’t the man who kissed someone without thinking about it first.
“I’m sorry,” he said without making eye contact. “I shouldn’t have kissed you here.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt in my fist and twisted the fabric to pull him closer with a hard yank until our noses were an inch apart. I’d caught him off guard. “Don’t,” I seethed. “Don’t fucking run me round like that. Make up your damned mind. I don’t deserve to be played with.”
I pushed away from him and made for the bar, finding my way toward West and Nico’s spot in the queue for another drink. As soon as they saw me approach, they smiled and welcomed me in a way that made it clear they’d not seen the stolen kisses on the dance floor.
I wasn’t quite sure if I was relieved or disappointed, but I knew thinking about it overmuch would have me fair pissed by last call.
And so it did.
I switched from pints to shots. Hudson made several attempts to get me alone for a conversation, even trying to drag me to the jacks at one point. I laughed and made a scene about what usually went on in the toilet of a place like that and how I wasn’t sure Hudson was looking for that sort of action from me. Nico and West had laughed well enough at the joke, but I could tell Hudson was losing his composure the more I drank and the louder I became. Somehow I got it into my fool head to find someone and snog the hell out of them in front of him.
