“Oh my fucking God.” Gardner froze, then shook out a desperate, “Theo.”

Watching Gardner as he came was like hearing a symphony, all these little parts, little painful broken things, coalescing until he was too beautiful, too suspended in time, and the wetness on their fingers as they nearly held hands was like a benediction, and when Theo came like he’d never come before he thought, Jesus Mary and Joseph, I could love this man.

“God, that was incredible.” Gardner looked so well-fucked and attractively stunned that Theo wondered just how quickly he could get hard again—and wondered what he’d look like when—if—

And yet Gardner had made no move to kiss him.

Theo longed for that, another dam breaking.

He started, painstakingly, to rebuild his walls.

Just sex, then.

“You get what you were looking for?” Theo pulled away, wiping his hand on Gardner’s shirt, zipping himself back up. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tried not to notice his hand shaking as he lit one.

“I—” Fuck, Gardner looked shattered.

He had no right. Not when it was Theo who was—

“It’s been fun, Gardner.”

Turning his back was too hard, almost impossible, but it had to be done before Jack could see how much he hurt. He started to walk down the stairs, back to the club, back to find a stranger who didn’t—who didn’t make him feel—

“Did you mean it?”

Gardner stepped out from behind the column. Theo turned—oh Christ, Gardner was struggling to zip his jeans, and he was covered in come, and yet he looked so earnest, so innocent and unpracticed, how did he manage?

“Mean what, Gardner?”

“What you—” He blushed. “What you said. About...”

Ah. “You fucking me? Putting your cock up my—”

Gardner rubbed the back of his neck, and why he thought that was hot, he did not know. “Yeah. That.”

“You sure you want that?”

He was silent. Theo took one last drag of his cigarette, then dropped it and ground it out with his boot. “I’ll tell you what. You think about that. What you want.”

Gardner looked up, hope and fear battling on his face. Theo took a few steps closer to him.

“Go back to your—wherever you’re staying. Take your come-soaked clothes off.” Gardner blushed again. “Or leave them on, stay nice and wet. Get in bed. Wrap your hand around yourself.”

Theo ran his eyes down Gardner’s body, lingering on his already nearly full cock. God, he wanted more of that. He looked into his eyes and gave him his best smirk. “And then think of me.”

He turned to walk away again, then shouted back over his shoulder, “I’ll be at the university quad at six tomorrow morning. Bring coffee. If you’re brave enough.”