Page 29 of Binding Their Hearts

Jay had yet to take his seat. One hand tapped restlessly against his thigh; he drained half a glass of water.

“The desserts have arrived, if you’d care to partake.” Nothing they couldn’t discern for themselves, yet he felt compelled to offer direction, given Jay’s unexpected nervous energy. What on earth could have happened out there? He’d been watching them intently through the entire song and seen only love and delight. Yet he’d missed something important. “Shall we sit?”

Jay cleared his throat. “I thought maybe—I was hoping—” He extended a trembling right hand, palm up, and despite the subdued lighting, every line etched itself in Henry’s memory. “Could I have this dance?”

The thrum of his pulse whooshed in his ears. Surely he’d stumbled into a fairy realm, the musical fog a magical one that had whisked him away to a world in which Jay acknowledged their relationship and danced with him in public. “Are you certain about this, Jay?”

“I am.” Voice and hand both steadied, and Jay gazed directly at him, his deep brown eyes pools of longing. “Please dance with me, Henry.”

“I would be honored.” Standing, he slipped his fingers into Jay’s as if they’d never in their lives touched. No electric crackle jolted him out of fantasy. A warm, firm grasp greeted him, no different from the hold they shared at home in bed during another kind of dance. Except that this one was visible to the hundred or so people with whom they shared the space.

Alice raised both eyebrows at him as her eyes flashed with delight. Wordlessly, she slid a bite of chocolate torte between her lips and tipped her head toward the dance floor.

Yes. Of course. If he meant to dance with Jay, he ought to take Jay to the place where such things happened.

“This way, my boy.” He barely murmured the words, yet Jay stepped up beside him as if he’d been waiting for nothing else.

The room came stunningly, vibrantly alive, each rich color and edge distinct as he led Jay onto the floor. He’d experienced such heightened vigilance when playing in a new space or before an unknown crowd. The senses attuned to the need to shelter and protect his partner.

With effort, Henry narrowed the hyperawareness to his sweet submissive. The open collar of Jay’s linen shirt hinted at the firm chest beneath. The untucked vee at the bottom guided the eye to his cock, snug behind the fly of desert sand casual slacks. An enticing musky scent rose from his skin from the exertion of his dance with Alice and the heat of the bodies around them. His muscular biceps hid in the shadows of his short sleeves, their deep navy the calming shade of the sky in the minutes before true dark.

Henry catalogued every shifting breath, every gliding step, and the moment when Jay relaxed into his hold and forgot about the couples around them and the judgments they might be making. Jay’s gaze fastened upon him as if he, too, were memorizing every detail of their first public dance.

“I wish I’d done this sooner.” Jay stepped back, his supple movements proving he trusted Henry’s guiding hand to keep him safe from harm. “I wish I’d been stronger.”

“Perhaps the dance could not have been so wondrous before this very moment, and your timing is impeccable.” As they turned, he glimpsed Alice holding her phone steady, her elbows tucked at her sides. Video, then. Trust their girl to think of capturing the scene for him. “I don’t regret the time we’ve spent growing, Jay. There is beauty in the journey as much as the destination.”

A flicker crossed Jay’s face, a tight pull at his lips, a twitch of his eyes. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better about the lost time.”

Henry drew Jay forward, their cheeks grazing for precious heartbeats. “We will do this again, my brave, bold boy,” he whispered. “As often as you want.”

He spun Jay to the end of his reach, then returned them to the proper position.

Jay’s eyes were alight; he mouthed half-formed words. The urge to nudge his submissive tickled at the back of Henry’s mind. Not yet, not yet, best to let him find his voice if he were able—

“Will you come to basketball again sometime?” The words spilled in a rush, almost unintelligible. “I want to lie in the grass with my head in your lap, right beside Alice, and watch the sunlight through the leaves on your face.”

Such a vivid, specific longing, and not one he’d seen in Jay’s wish book. His lover contained multitudes of unexpressed desires, all of the thoughts he held at bay and told himself he shouldn’t want. Their dance was but the first crack in the dam.

“I should like nothing more, dear one.” They would have to fulfill Jay’s wish within the next week or two, before the brilliant leaves became a withered carpet. “A picnic in the park tomorrow after class, perhaps?”

“I’d like that.” Jay, usually so boisterous, spoke in a shy, aching tenor.

“Then you shall have it.”

They danced the rest of the song in comfortably charged silence, the joy of anticipation and agreement still lit as they returned to the table.

Alice mimed discreet clapping, her face pure delight. “You two looked fantastic out there.” She tugged at Jay’s belt loop. “How did it feel?”

“Like floating.” Jay threaded his fingers through his hair and pushed back the strands that would never be tamed, that would always find their way back to being uniquely him. “Like subspace.”

“Marry me.”

The words were out; somehow his lips had uttered them, dear God, months early and out of order and without a plan—yet now two pairs of eyes widened as Jay and Alice gazed at him and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, take back those spontaneous syllables. They’d consumed him night and day for a month.

“Both of you.” In case he’d been unclear, which of course he had; he’d not even laid out his reasons. “I want to marry you.”

Alice, mouth agape, stared at Jay, whose eyes promised he’d no inkling of what their dominant had been about to say. How could he have, when Henry himself hadn’t known?

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