Gorgeous moved like liquid metal, every placement of his arms or legs, every shimmy of his hips made with equal parts precision and grace. The comparison wasn’t a large stretch of the imagination. Along with their mercurial grace, the Urilqii were strong as hell.
Bullets ricocheted off their skin, knives broke instead of penetrated, and one of them could throw a bus three city blocks.
Yeah, they’d been put to the test. The Earth Pure movement hadn’t taken to their presence without a fuss. Liam didn’t fit into that culture, and he thanked God for it, since that tight ass, flexing thighs, the powerful plane of the back and muscular physique was way more interesting than hate speech.
Way more interesting. In fact, he was sweating. It wasn’t because of the temperature or humidity, no. The reason for his sweat was the sexy hitch of that guy’s hips. Beautiful.
Mesmerizing. Fucking intense, man. He stopped there because he didn’t have any more words for it.
Liam twisted off the bottle cap and gulped more water, but that didn’t abate the heat raging in his veins. The truth was it wasn’t water he wanted. The delicious hard body in motion called to him the way a siren’s voice had entranced the ancient mariners.
He considered, took a moment to evaluate the pros and cons, then came to the decision he’d known he’d make all along. The still half-full bottle bounced off the edges of a nearby bin before it settled inside. Sure, an avalanche of seven different types of shit was the probable outcome, but hell’s bells, how often did an opportunity like this come though a guy’s life anyway?
Liam waded into the cluster of Urilqii and came up beside Gorgeous. He tapped one wide shoulder. The dancing man turned to face the interruption. Liam held out a hand as an invitation to dance.
Time stopped, or so it seemed. His heart made two contractions inside his chest as their eyes again met and held. Something electric crackled in the air. Gorgeous offered a half-smile and caught Liam’s hand in his as he accepted the offer. The next thing Liam knew, he was dancing with a mouthwatering alien inside that splendid natural amphitheater.
Liam’s partner’s muscular body shifted in front of him with a smooth, sleek grace and in perfect time to beat of the music and he found himself getting hotter and hotter as they moved in simultaneous abandon. The blood throbbed through his veins, waves of pleasure that echoed the tempos of the neon light show around them.
The live musicians shifted and swayed as the beat played on, but Liam only had eyes for his partner, and his partner only had eyes for him. Those beautiful eyes called to mind the burning fires of a distant star. His warmed cheeks appeared to please the man, if he read the expression correctly.
Christ, I probably look fuck-flushed. His dance partner didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, those amazing eyes darkened as the pupils dilated in the face of Liam’s flushed cheeks and panting breaths.
A blend of cinnamon and musk crept into the air around them to mask the omnipresent smell of sweat and clove cigarettes. He drew it deep into his lungs and shuddered from the pleasure. It seemed to fill his cells, if such was possible.
“God, you smell good,” Liam rasped.
His dance partner looked startled briefly, but then a smile broke across his clean-shaven face. “You like that, huh?”
The low-voiced question was somehow audible above the pounding music without a shout.
“Fuck, yeah,” Liam admitted. “I could drown in it.”
Those starfire eyes flickered with a blaze of heat, but he said nothing more.
I’m such a dickhead, Liam thought to himself. Dancing with the guy, turned on by his cologne, and he didn’t even know his name.
“What’s your name?” he asked, as coolly as he could, considering his exertion. “Mine’s Liam.”
“Mike.”
Liam edged closer, wondering about what he’d heard. “Mike?”
That didn’t sound alien.
“Your people have labeled me ‘Sergeant Mike.’”
The man said nothing more, but he didn’t need to. The sentence said everything. The guy he danced with was similar to humans, but not the same, and Liam didn’t give a shit about that fact. The name seemed familiar, though. Maybe he’d seen this guy in one of the YouTube videos?
He shrugged away the opaque memories since there were other things to think about. The music had changed to a low throb.
Couples everywhere were slow dancing to the beat. He wasn’t the shy type. Liam caught one of Mike’s hands and looped it over his shoulder. With a twist, he was back to front with the man.
The next few seconds would give the answer to his unspoken question.
Mike’s hand flexed against his upper chest, then slid down his torso and wrapped around his stomach. The other hand came to rest on his hip. With a tug, Liam was pulled even tighter against the powerful body. What felt like an impressive erection flared to life against his ass.
Oh hell, yeah… Whispered rumors were true. The Urilqii were not subject to Earth’s heteronormative binary paradigms. They didn’t view male-to-male contact to be repellant or frightening.
They accepted it without question, without shame.
The caress of that aroused body against his snatched all additional thought from Liam. Somehow he remembered how to move his legs to the music and how to move his hands to cup his partner’s.
Sensation stormed him: soft skin; powerful arms; an embrace that was like steel, but non-threatening. He reveled in the sensation, feeling crushed by the weight of energy that flared in the atmosphere. His awareness stirred in a way he’d never before experienced.
But there was no fear, just pleasure.
A low rumble sounded directly behind him. Liam stretched like a pleasured cat and ground his ass against his dance partner’s groin.
Around them, Urilqii closed in. Liam didn’t care. He dropped his hands and tangled his fingers into Mike’s belt loops. He
