Chapter Four
Sailo led me into the back hallway where we’d crashed into each other in the first place, but when the glowing Exit sign indicated we should go left, he went right. The hallway turned again, as if we were doubling back and going around the club we’d just exited. Halfway down that hall, he stopped at a door marked VIP LOUNGE—PASS REQUIRED.
He went in ahead of me. We took a staircase up to another door where we paused. Keys jingled. The lock clicked. He pushed the door open and gestured for me to go inside.
Behind me, he shut the door, and he wasn’t kidding about this being someplace quieter. The stairway had already diminished some of the noise from the club, and the door cut off most of what was left.
Sunken lights came on above our heads. The room was sleek and posh—red leather booths. A chrome-edged bar. An enormous flat-screen TV. I could just imagine this place full of gorgeous men, clinking martini glasses together and using those plush booths the way they used the ones in the main club.
My spine tingled as the bass from downstairs thumped beneath my feet. What kinds of things happened in here? After all, I knew what kinds of things happened down there. I doubted people had private VIP parties to talk about current events.
A row of tinted windows overlooked the rest of the club. For a moment, we watched in silence, shoulder to shoulder while men below us were bumping, grinding, kissing, groping. Somehow that had all been easier to ignore when we were in the heart of it. Here, at a distance and still watching, I was about as comfortable as if a porno had just started playing on the giant TV.
“Ugh.” Beside me, Sailo wrinkled his nose. “Max always overdoes it on the bass.” Then he rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Don’t know why I worry about it—the guys here would dance to anything. They just need a beat to break the ice so they can dance a bit before they go fuck.”
I blinked. “Really?”
“Well, yeah. Look at them.”
Oh, I am…
He turned to me. “That is why guys come here, isn’t it? To get laid?”
“I…guess they do.”
Sailo studied me for a moment. “Is that why you came here?”
Our eyes locked. My heart was giving the bass a run for its money right then, and my mouth went dry. “To be honest, I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”
“Do you mean you don’t know why you’re here?” He stepped just close enough to make my stomach flutter. “Or you don’t know what to do now that you are?”
I swallowed. “A little of both, I guess?”
He came even closer, moving well into my comfort zone. “Well, let’s narrow it down. I assume you didn’t come here with the express purpose of not hooking up with someone, right?” The upward curl of his lips told me that, yes, it was meant as a lighthearted joke. But laughing meant breathing, and I wasn’t doing much of that at the moment.
Sailo’s smile turned less playful and more friendly, as if he sensed my nerves and wanted me to relax. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
He’d asked a question. He’d…right. Question. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, you are. I don’t think I’d have come here if I didn’t want to get laid.”
As soon as the words were out, my teeth snapped shut, and panic shot through me. Was I really doing this? Did I sound as desperate and scared as I felt? Fuck, I felt like a teenager just then—nervous as hell, certain I was going to screw this up at any moment, and simultaneously almost giddy with arousal as a whole lot of blood rushed south. Gazing into Sailo’s dark eyes made my pulse go haywire. Before tonight, I’d never had a chance to entertain the idea of going beyond looking at someone—at a man—and suddenly there he was, and there I was, and—
And had he really just inched even closer to me?
“Why are you so nervous?” He spoke so softly that, without thinking about it, I leaned in closer to hear him over the bass from downstairs.
“I’m…” I moistened my lips. “This is…” New? Terrifying? Hot? “I’m…”
Sailo reached for me, but his hand didn’t come to rest on my hip or my side. He didn’t touch my arm, didn’t snake his hand around and draw me across that remaining sliver of space between us.
No, he went straight for the front of my pants, and as he slid his fingers and palm over my cock, he grinned.
“That’s what I thought.”
“What you—”
He kissed me.
And the rest of the world just…vanished.
It wasn’t like I’d never been kissed before, but it had been years since a kiss had been anything more than “see you tonight” or “how was your day?” I’d forgotten what it was like for the soft contact of lips on lips to send shudders down my spine, or how my knees could turn to liquid when the tip of a tongue slipped underneath mine.
I curved my hand around the back of his head, my fingers sliding through short, damp hair. His lightly stubbled chin grazed mine. His hand drifted down my back, and when he pulled my hips to his, there was no way he didn’t feel my hard-on just like there was no pretending I didn’t feel his.
Oh. My. God.
There was no mistaking that I was kissing a man this time. For the first time in my life, after years of wondering and fantasizing and thinking this would never happen, it was. I was overwhelmed. Turned on. Disbelieving. I was…I was kissing a man.
Trembling all the way down to my curling toes, I opened to his gently probing tongue and let him explore my mouth. I explored his too, the faint taste of his rum and Coke reminding me of those awkward moments at the bar, of the beautiful man who’d been sitting beside me, fucking with my senses and turning me inside out. The man who was up against me now, touching and kissing me until I couldn’t tell the bass from my heartbeat anymore.
He drew back. Eyes locked on mine, he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, and before I knew what I was doing, I mirrored him, searching for one last taste of his kiss.
He swallowed. “Have I narrowed down why you let me drag you up here?”
You don’t have to drag me anywhere. “Y-yeah. I think you have.”
“Thought so.” He grinned, screwing up my blood pressure all over again.
My heart sped up, and it wasn’t all arousal this time. Sailo didn’t waste any time. He probably knew exactly what he wanted, how to get it, what he expected from me, and I…
I knew nothing.
He started to draw me back in, but I put a hand on his chest and gently stopped him.
“W-wait.”
“What?” His eyebrows shot up, and he backed off a little. “Something wrong?”
“No. I mean…well…” I tried and failed to hold his gaze. “Look, before we go too much further, I should…” Finally, I managed to look him in the eye. “I should probably be, um, honest about something.”
He cocked his head. “What? Are you pos or something?”
“Pos?”
“Yeah. You know, HIV?” He shrugged. “I mean, it’s cool if you are, so—”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “It’s not that. But I, uh…” I steeled myself, not sure what reaction I expected. “I’ve never done this before.”
Sailo’s eyebrow rose. “Which part?”
“All of it.” I swallowed. “With a man, I mean. I’m not a virgin, but I haven’t been with anyone but my wife in twenty-five years, and—”
“Your wife?” He drew back. “You’re married?” He put up his hands. “Because that’s something I won’t—”
“Oh God, no. I’m sorry.” I shook my head, grimacing at how stupid I must’ve sounded. “I’m still getting used to calling her my ex-wife. It hasn’t been that long.”
He lowered his hands, and something softened in his expression. “Recently divorced?”
I nodded. “Very.”
“Oh.” He gulped. “Um. Sorry to hear it.”
I raked a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. I completely killed the mood, didn’t I?”
“Nah.” He came closer again and put his hands on my waist. “Better to tell me now than give me a chance to push you too far. That would be a mood killer.”
“Fair enough. You are right, though. I did come here to get laid.” Renewed heat rushed into my cheeks, not to mention below my belt. “I think I’m just more nervous about it than I thought I was.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “Nervous enough you want to stop?”
I swept my tongue across my lips. “No. Definitely not.”
The creases in his forehead vanished, and his smile came back. “Good.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me again.
As I held on and returned his kiss, I couldn’t help but relax. There was nothing even remotely threatening about Sailo. He’d already backed off once when my nerves had gotten the best of me. If I was going to put myself out there and try to find a man to satisfy my curiosity, I couldn’t ask for a better one to stumble across. Literally.
Sailo broke this kiss again, and his wicked grin tied my tongue even more than his kiss had. “I know your type, by the way.”
“My type?”
He nodded. “Newly single, curious about men, and horny all at once.”
“That’s…that’s me.”
He grinned. “Well, as it happens”—he cupped my hard-on again—“I’m single.” He kneaded me gently, reducing my knees to a wobbling mess. “I know my way around a man.” He pressed a little harder. “And I am seriously horny tonight.”
“Good.” This time, I kissed him, and God, that was liberating. Maybe I didn’t know what the fuck we were doing, but Sailo obviously did, and as he slipped his tongue past my lips, his confidence erased what was left of my nerves. Whatever he had in mind for tonight, I wanted it. As long as we found our way to a flat surface, and these clothes found their way to the floor, I was game for just about anything.
He was out of breath when he spoke again. “We…we should definitely go someplace else.”
“Yeah, we should.”
“We should. But I’m too impatient for that right now.” He pushed me back a step, and a split second after the oh shit, I’m gonna fall!, the wall caught me. And then Sailo was kissing me again, and unzipping my pants, and those lightly callused fingers brushed my very hard cock, and thank God for that wall keeping me upright.
Please don’t be a door this time.
His lips left mine and inched their way to my neck. Without really thinking about it, I tilted my head, and he took full advantage.
Holy. Shit.
Just like that, I understood why women liked this so much. No one had ever kissed my neck before, and the softness of his lips, the warmth of this breath, the ticklish brush of his goatee—fuck. For a few seconds, I even forgot about his hand on my dick, and then he squeezed just right, and suddenly my senses were divided between him stroking my cock and awakening erogenous zones from my throat to my ear.
My back arched off the wall. My fingers dug into his shoulder and the back of his neck. I didn’t have a say in any of it anymore—my body responded to his touch and to my need for balance, and thank God, because my brain was checking out.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “You’re…gonna make me come if you keep doing this.”
“I haven’t even started yet,” he murmured against my throat.
“I think…I think you’re underestimating how long I’ve—” I gasped as he nipped just above my collar, and he had to have felt my cock get even harder in his hand. “How long I’ve wanted…”
His lips curved into a grin, and he kissed the spot he’d bitten. Then he lifted his head and met my gaze. “Well, if you come fast, that just means I can take my time getting you off the second time.”
A second time? Was he—
He dropped to his knees, and my mind went blank.
I’m dead, right? Or hallucinating?
That had to be it. There was no way in hell this gorgeous man was kneeling at my feet, and absolutely no way his perfect, slim lips were around my dick.
“Holy fuck,” I murmured, stroking his hair as I stared down in disbelief. “Holy…”
His eyes flicked up to meet mine right as he ran his tongue around the head.
I gulped. Fuck. Yeah, I was definitely going to come fast. Really fast.
I’d had blowjobs before, and getting one from a man didn’t feel much different from getting one from a woman, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this turned on. Just knowing those lips and fingers around my dick belonged to a man aroused me beyond words. When I looked down at his short hair and broad shoulders, watching my dick sliding between that perfect pair of lips, I could barely breathe.
And we were in public. Something I hadn’t done in years. No one could see us, but when I turned my head and forced my eyes to focus, I could see them, all the men at Wilde’s who were grinding against each other and dancing to the beat of my pounding heart.
“D-don’t stop,” I pleaded. “You’re so…so…good.”
He groaned around my dick, and that was it.
My knees buckled. I flattened my hands against the wall, feebly trying to keep myself upright as my hips thrust into his mouth like they had a mind of their own. He didn’t stop, either—he stroked me with both hands and teased the head of my cock relentlessly with his lips and tongue until I managed a pitiful, “S-stop…”
Sailo kept a hand on my hip, as if he knew how much trouble I was having with the whole “not collapsing on my ass” thing. He looked up at me and grinned as he wiped his lips with the back of his other hand.
“So,” he said, “any chance I can talk you into coming back to my apartment?”
Well, that was a fucking no-brainer.
“You don’t have to talk me into anything.”
He just grinned.
That devilish, narrow-eyed grin that said I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.