It was starting already, he could hear the exclamations, a few squeals, some of the regulars calling his name. The rush. He hit bottom, did a long slow sweep around the pole with legs extended as the bass beat kicked his ass, then swung his legs back in and shimmied up the pole. Hugged it, his mop of blond curls nearly brushing the ceiling. Worked it, all the way down, fucking the long gleaming hard length of it, slowly spinning to make sure every guy on the floor got the view he liked best.

Garrett had never been a gymnast, and though he’d studied dance off and on, it sure wasn’t anything like this. There were probably names for some of the things he did with his body, but he didn’t know what they were, and didn’t care. He made himself happy when he danced, and the fact he made others happy when he did it was just what his Grand’Mere Toinette had called lagniappe. A little something extra, thrown in for free.

A sharp prickle ran down the back of his neck as he hand-over-handed it back up to the driving beat. What the hell? He’d always been intuitive — he hated the word “sensitive,” it was the word his mother used to describe him because she couldn’t make herself say the word “gay”— ever since he could remember, he’d had an acute sixth sense. But why was it acting up now? Someone’s watching me?.