“Come on.” He grabbed Gardner’s hand and pulled him out the front door, through a knot of smokers, and across the street, up the stairs of the rain-washed courthouse. They ducked behind a stone pillar, and he pushed Gardner right up against it.

He took a breath.

Gardner looked—he looked almost as if he were drugged, or drunk as fuck, because he was breathing hard and his eyes were hazy, and it seemed like he could pass out at any moment.

Theo frowned. “You all right, Gardner? Did you drink too much, take something?”

Gardner shook his head, eyes sharpening. “One drink.”

Could he really—was he acting like this just because of one dance?

Because of Theo?

“What do you want, Gardner?”

Jack clenched his hands, his teeth, leaned his head back against the pillar.

Fighting himself—and losing.

“You know what I want.”

Theo laughed, bitter. “I know what parts of you want,” and he reached forward as if to run his hand along Gardner’s length, stopping less than an inch away. “I’m not so sure about the rest of you.”

Gardner opened his eyes, head still against stone, looking at him under his thick black lashes. “Please, Theo.”

God, his name on those lips—

He stepped a little closer, put his hands on either side of Gardner, leaning in without touching. The stone was cold and rough, but the heat coming off Gardner was scorching.

“Please what, Jack?” He said his name like broken glass.

“Just fucking touch me.”

“Prove it.” He growled low in his throat. “Prove that you want it.”

Theo closed his eyes against—against Gardner, and his heat, and everything he’d ever wanted. And then he felt strong hands on his hips, and they pulled him tight against that unbelievably hard cock.

“Touch me, Theo.” His voice was too tender. Theo hated it.

So he leaned forward and bit Gardner’s hot neck, hard, the way he had wanted to since seeing him in the bell tower, and Gardner groaned, some animalistic thing he’d never imagined he would provoke but suddenly couldn’t live without, and Gardner was unzipping Theo’s jeans, and he quickly unzipped Gardner’s, and they were both bare in the damp-cool night, and Theo took them both in one hand—

“Little help here, Gardner.”

And he did, he wrapped his firm fingers around them, clasping his hand with Theo’s—

“Fuck, you’re thick.” The words spilled out of Theo’s panting mouth.

Gardner dropped his head down to Theo’s shoulder, his response muffled—“And you’re fucking gorgeous.”

He nearly came from Gardner’s coarse voice, and that wouldn’t do, so he bit him again, and spoke in low tones—

“I can’t wait to have you in me, splitting me open, fuck, I’m going to ride you until you can’t remember your name, ’til the only thing you can remember is—”