Part Thirteen

New Year's Eve came and went, with the usual wild party. Blaine stayed away, curled up in his room debating for hours whether to call Kurt and ask him to stay on the line until he fell asleep, eventually awaking with a start when a drunken Trent stumbled back inside at close to three in the morning. Seth's beam the next day put the weak winter sunlight to shame and Blaine bore witness to him holding hands or exchanging adoring looks with Quincy more than once, cracking a genuine smile for the first time in so many days when Jeff pouted as he handed over ten dollars, as per their bet.

And so came Valentine's Day, a day of all work and no play for the building as those left single for the holiday booked their expertise so they wouldn't be so alone or couples asked for a toy to spice up their sex life on that most romantic of days. The day was filled with complaints and a constant stream of people drifting in and out of the main doors, only pausing momentarily to eat before they were on their way again. Just before he sank gratefully into bed, thinking that they should really all get the next day off after the sheer exhaustion of the holiday, Blaine typed a text to Kurt of rambling and eventual confession of his feelings, thumb hovering over the send button for a good half-hour before he sighed and deleted the words.

Time passed. Winter became spring. Pale green new leaves grew on previously frost-veiled trees, petals of blossom in delicate pink and white floated from the sky on warming breezes, the skies slowly turning from grey to blue and rain beginning to bring excitement flowing through veins rather than a morose long-suffering acceptance. Spring became summer, bringing with it a baking heat and the promise of a new lease on life, the time to wipe the slate clean and find a fresh start.

It was with that, the true meaning of summer as far as he was concerned, in mind that Blaine knocked softly on the glass-panelled door to Madame's office one hazily hot morning, having already agreed with Trent about another rule of their room and laughed at Wes' disdainful expression when Seth and Quincy had kissed before the girl had headed out for her morning client. "Come in!" came the call in the deceptively sweet voice and Blaine pushed the door open to find the blonde woman with her bare feet tucked childishly beneath her, high heels hooked on her fingers as she spoke into the phone with nothing but business in her expression and tone. "Do you mind if I call you back, Mr. Ryerson?" she asked politely. "There's an issue that needs to be confronted." She placed the phone back onto the hook and looked up at Blaine. "Take a seat, Blaine, dear. That was a potential new client for you, my little star."

"I wanted to talk to you about that, Madame," Blaine said, polite to the extreme. "I've been here for over five years, since I was sixteen. I've had an amazing time here and made such good friends and I know the experience in business you've given me will take me through life, but I think it's time for me to move on." He met Madame's eyes as he said solemnly, "To put it in finer terms: I quit."

"Well, this is an interesting development," Madame intoned quietly, looking at him with steely eyes. "It will be a shame to see you go, Blaine. You are the best worker I have here, and my star. Who will take on all our richest clients now?" There was a slight edge to her voice as she inquired, "Would this happen to happen anything to do with the gossip of you having a special someone that reached my ears?"

"No, no, Madame, this is nothing to do with Kurt," Blaine said, wincing as he saw her eyebrows rise at the mention of a name. "This is my decision and I can't spend the rest of my life here. I'm getting older and, honestly, I want to find that special someone to spend the rest of my life with. I want a relationship, not endless clients." He looked at her equally coldly, boldly saying, "As for who'll take on your best clients, you have plenty of eager workers here who are younger and stronger and more enthusiastic than I am." He couldn't meet her eyes as he mumbled to himself, "I'm tired of whoring myself out just to keep living this way."

"I'm sorry to hear you think that way, Blaine," Madame said carefully, her tone almost dangerous at Blaine's put-down of the way she ran her very lucrative business. "You know, I took you under my wing six years ago and helped you make your mark on this industry. You have talent, my dear, and you could go a long way if this is something you chose to pursue. Won't you reconsider?"

"I'm afraid not, Madame," Blaine stated clearly. "This is my life and this is not the way I want to live it. This work was never supposed to go so far. I only came here to find sanctuary. And now I've found the strength to get out of here and find the life I always dreamed of. I'm tired of being this person, someone I'm not. I have to just be me."

"It's always your decision, my little star," Madame finally conceded. "This strength to leave this lifestyle behind, it wouldn't happen to come from Kurt, would it? You are no longer beneath my care and authority; I see no reason for you to keep secrets from me."

"Half of it is honestly being tired and wanting to find a life beyond clients," Blaine explained, feeling a great weight lifted from his shoulders just from being able to be honest with someone, anyone, even if it was the woman who was now his former boss. "And half of it is because I fell in love. I should have told him, but I never did. And I need to find him and be with him, because God knows enough people told me to just do it and I was such an idiot I couldn't admit to myself he was all I wanted until he was out of reach."

"Things always work out that way, dear," Madame said, her tone warm and cosy all of a sudden. "Don't worry, I'm sure he could never resist your charms. You were my star for many reasons, Blaine. I wish you every luck in your future romantic endeavours, and with this Kurt you're so infatuated with."

"Thank you for that, and for everything, Madame." Blaine resisted the urge to hug the woman, not sure how she'd respond despite her sudden chattiness. "I'll be gone in a week, when I've gotten everything in order and figured out where I go from here." Madame nodded to him in a kind of silent salute and picked up the phone again, already charming the socks off whoever was on the other end as Blaine slid the door shut behind him.

He leant back against the wall, unable to help the smile nearly splitting his face in two, hardly able to believe he had just done that. He was free of the shackles that had held him back for six years, free to love whomever he chose, free to rule over his own life rather than having a set schedule for every moment of the week, free of the prostitution industry. He was free at last, and it was time to spread his wings and learn how to fly.

"Surprise!" he shouted as he walked into the room, finding Seth and Quincy sitting suspiciously close, looking a little dishevelled. "I have to tell you both something: I'm leaving. I'm finally getting out, and the first order of business is to find Kurt and make him mine."

"I met a friend of his the other day," Quincy put in, oh so casually. "The girl who booked you for her and was actually part of a conspiracy to get you for him. We had coffee after I said I knew you and she told me they're back here for a week. That was three days ago. In fact, I think she mentioned something about going clubbing tonight."

"We should celebrate your fresh start by going out and getting completely smashed," Seth added, grinning impishly at his girlfriend, both of them giving Blaine beseeching looks as he considered the offer carefully. The bottom dropped out of his stomach at the thought of seeing Kurt again, his heart already pounding with anticipation.

"Sure, sounds like a whole barrel of laughs," he said with just the faintest hint of sarcasm. "Invite Wes and make him the designated driver, it pisses him off so much and it's so fun to watch."

The evening found them rushing out to Wes' car, having all filled their veins with caffeine to keep them going through the night, Quincy making an early start on the beer in the back of the car, already growing increasingly amorous with Seth. Alcohol always had made her handsy. Blaine just sat beside a scowling Wes, utterly blissful at the thought of seeing Kurt again.

"Get out," Wes spat as he parked outside the club already pulsating with music, the atmosphere pure electricity. Quincy giggled, swaying slightly on her ridiculously high heels as Seth steadied her. Blaine had to chuckle over Wes' sulking, which would likely go on all night as he watched them all get more and more drunk and make numerous stupid mistakes while he sat and sipped water and was expected to round them up and drive them home at the end of the night.

Blaine stumbled over to the bar immediately as he got inside, hands closing gratefully around his beer as soon as the bartender handed it to him, already handing him a tip to keep them coming. His eyes roved involuntarily around the club, searching out the one face he longed desperately to see and drink in.

He spotted Kurt halfway down his third drink, dancing in between two incredibly stunning girls, dressed to impress some anonymous, faceless man Blaine was immediately illogically jealous of and looking to be having the time of his life. His dancing was so mesmerizing, Blaine found himself watching in a stupor for a good five minutes before he shook himself out of a hip-grinding-induced trance and walked purposefully across the crowded dance floor to talk to him, ducking out of every attempt by woman or man to coerce him into a dance.

"Kurt!" he shouted, barely even able to hear himself over the pounding bass. Kurt certainly didn't hear him, his eyes closed and head tilted to the ceiling as he dropped to the floor, running his hand across his own thighs. Blaine unconsciously licked his lips at the sight, admiring the long, unmarked curve of his arched neck and the sinful way material clung to his thighs, enabling him to see the shift of muscle, then berating himself. It seemed positively obscene, to stare perversely at someone in a dark nightclub populated exclusively by the young, beautiful and wicked.

"Kurt!" he yelled again. This time, Kurt's eyes snapped open and he straightened up, whirling around to squint through the darkness. His eyes noticeably lit up like the night sky on the Fourth of July when they alighted on Blaine, then surprised pleasure turned to pure shock.

"Blaine, what are you doing here?" he asked, ducking away from the two girls dancing with him and hurrying over to Blaine, standing far too close and making the temperature in the room rocket to searingly hot, burning into Blaine's skin like the tattoo of Kurt's fingers he still remembered caressing his sides. "Not that it's bad you're here, it's just…unexpected."

"I quit!" Blaine shouted cheerfully, grabbing Kurt's hand to pull him away from the circles of writhing dancers and into a slightly more private part of the club. Even though they still had to yell to be heard, it was so much easier to talk without being periodically bumped by people getting a tad too drunkenly enthusiastic in their hip-thrusting. "I'm leaving prostitution behind and moving on to greener pastures, baby! So we came out to get totally smashed and celebrate!"

"How much have you had to drink?" Kurt asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "You stink of alcohol, Blaine, my God. You're as bad as some of my friends. Don't you ever think about alcohol poisoning?"

"I hardly ever get to drink and we made Wes be designated driver," Blaine answered with a shrug. "Aren't you drunk? You should get drunk, it makes you feel all floaty and bubbly and happy." His gaze dropped to Kurt's lips as he murmured, "I really wanna kiss you right now."

"Well you can't, honey, sorry," Kurt snapped irritably, pushing Blaine away and snapping his fingers at the bartender. "And for your information, I am drunk, I'm just not as much of an overgrown five year old while inebriated as you clearly are. And also for your information, I have a boyfriend now."

Blaine might have been pretty drunk for so early in the evening and chuckling over-enthusiastically at Wes' sour expression as he watched the dancers gyrating and sipped water morosely, but that didn't stop the way he felt his heart leap into his throat and slither down to somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach, adding a dead leaden weight. Kurt had a boyfriend. Right as he made the effort to escape his previous career, made the firm commitment to make something of his life and leave a mark on some industry to be gratefully remembered, as he promised himself to find Kurt and tell him everything about his feelings, Kurt had a boyfriend. Someone who was undoubtedly sweet and loving and warm and tender, who kissed him goodnight and good morning and for no reason at all other than love, who would hold him in the night and listen to his stories and kiss his tears away rather than being the cause of them. Someone like that was what Kurt deserved.

"Oh, that's nice," Blaine said aloud, far more breathily that he'd intended. "I'll pay for a couple of drinks, I have a ton of money to spend and I don't really know what to do with it except party hard."

"Maybe buy yourself a place somewhere and live off it until you manage to find a job that'll pay all your bills," Kurt suggested sarkily, arching an eyebrow. "Do you want me to introduce you to everyone I came with tonight? There's a whole crowd. And I'd love to meet your friends."

"I don't know where my friends are," Blaine admitted. "Wes is the one over there who looks depressingly sober 'cause we made him be designated driver, and Seth and Quincy are very possibly fucking in a bathroom stall. It goes with the territory." He bounced along at Kurt's side, beer spilling over the sides of the red plastic cup.

"Hey, everybody, I want you to meet my friend, Blaine," Kurt yelled over the music to an imposingly large group of people. "Blaine, I think you've met Santana and Puck. Otherwise, there's Quinn, Mike, Finn, Tina, Brittany, Rachel, Matt and Lauren. No one else wanted to come out tonight."

"We're filling the place up and rocking out to my jam!" the girl Kurt had identified as Rachel yelped, waving her arms around haphazardly and nearly knocking out Santana, who smirked suggestively at Blaine when she recognised him.

"D'you wanna hang out with us tonight?" the man identified as Matt asked, a trifle awkwardly. "We've heard quite a bit about you and I'd really like to know you better. Plus we have an awesome designated driver who's paying our way tonight." The group all cheered and Rachel blew Finn, the tallest and clearly most sober of them all, a kiss.

"I'd like that, yeah," Blaine answered immediately, turning to Finn and smiling admiringly up at him. "Wow. You're so tall." Laughter bubbled out of his new companions and Brittany, who Blaine vaguely recognised as one of the girls dancing up against Kurt when he'd first spotted him, the other being Rachel, bore Blaine off to dance, explaining as she showed off shamelessly that Santana was her girlfriend and soon they'd be living together and was he really in love with Kurt because he was her best friend and she would make anyone who hurt him walk the plank and Kurt was a unicorn and special and had to be treated right. Blaine mostly ignored the idiosyncrasies, instead watching Kurt dance alone, commanding all the attention as he flirted almost lazily with his audience, running his hands all over his own body and closing his eyes in apparent ecstasy as his hips swayed slowly, mesmerizingly.

"You can stop staring at him like you want to eat him now," Brittany concluded cheerfully, pushing Blaine away. In his drunken state, he nearly stumbled. "Go have some drinks with the boys, Finn probably wants to lecture you about not hurting Kurt. Kurt's his stepbrother, you know. They have platonic cuddles all the time."

Over the course of the next few hours, Blaine found himself quickly losing a game of I Never with tequila shots, dancing with every single one of his companions and laughing hysterically with everyone else when Rachel cried into Puck's shirt and the man just seemed at a total loss for words, staring beseechingly around the table at everyone, begging them to save him.

"Let's dance!" Rachel yelled as a new beat shook the club. Mike and Tina, who Blaine had quickly learnt were dating when he came across them making out against a wall, were first onto the dance floor, on par with Santana and Brittany on how dirty their dancing was. Rachel, surprisingly if the initiated group's reaction was anything to go on, yanked Quinn up against her and began shamelessly grinding, sending Matt and Puck into peals of slightly hysterical laughter. Puck whirled Lauren onto the floor and Matt happily slipped between Santana and Brittany, leaving Finn, Kurt and Blaine sitting alone. From Finn's scowl, he clearly wasn't going to be receptive to a proposition any time in the next century.

Blaine turned to Kurt. "May I have this dance?" he asked grandly, standing up and offering a hand, imagining himself as a prince. Kurt laughed and slid his hand, warm and somehow deliciously familiar, into Blaine's.

"You may, handsome," he breathed, lips dangerously close to Blaine's ear, making Blaine bite down hard on his lower lip to choke back a soft moan. Kurt's arm wrapped around him, sliding down to his lower back and pulling him tight against him as Kurt's hips began to rock against his in a slow, steady rhythm with the song.

"Get a fucking room, gays!" Blaine heard Quincy's sudden yell from a place very far away, perhaps a radio station with dodgy reception or maybe from dry land when he was deep underwater. All he was conscious of was Kurt's hips rocking against his, making his cock harden against his jeans, Kurt's breath hot against his neck and one of Kurt's hands tracing up and down his sides and across his chest, pausing to flick a hard nipple through the thin fabric of his shirt.

"I'm very very drunk and can't be held responsible for my actions," he murmured, groaning softly as Blaine's lips found his neck, kissing beneath his collar, determined to leave a mark and show that Kurt was his, and no one else's. "You still want me, don't you, Blaine?" Blaine moaned so loudly he would've been embarrassed at any other time when Kurt drew his earlobe between his teeth, the sharp spike of pain nothing to the waves of arousal rushing through him. "You still want me so bad you'd kill to have me up against that wall right now."

"Yes I would, I would, God, Kurt," Blaine groaned unabashedly, his words rough and tremulous as Kurt continued to grind against him, apparently unaffected by how close they were. "Do you want me to, Kurt? I swear I will, I'll push you up against that wall and fuck you right here in front of everyone. You'd love it, you'd love everyone hearing you scream and everyone seeing you're mine. Mine, you're mine, Kurt."

"I'm not a big exhibitionist," Kurt breathed against his neck, making him shudder helplessly in the face of Kurt's seduction routine, pulling out all the stops to have Blaine like putty in his hands. And the strangest thing was, Blaine didn't care in the slightest. He loved it, Kurt controlling him and manipulating him and doing everything in his power to turn him on so much he couldn't see straight.

"I can't stop thinking about you," Blaine continued, fearlessly smoothing his hands over Kurt's shoulders and down his back to grab his ass, rocking them more roughly together so he can feel Kurt's equally hard cock against his, finding perhaps that tiny spark of the friction he truly needed. "All I think about is fucking you, blowing you, you riding me, you fucking me. You look so gorgeous when you come for me, Kurt, so gorgeous, and you're so pretty when you beg for me. I want to take you to bed right now and record it, so I can always listen to those noises you make. I want you so much, fuck."

"Blaine, stop, please, it's too much," Kurt pleaded, his voice shaky and rough and perhaps tinted with desperation. "Please, take me somewhere away from here. I need you, I want you really bad right now. I mean, I always want you, but now it hurts. Please, Blaine."

Blaine didn't need to be told twice. He guided Kurt with the hand on his ass through the dancing throng, out of the door and into a humid night that didn't help how feverish he felt, dizzy with lust as he hailed the first taxi he saw through the hazy surroundings and pushing Kurt into the back.

"I'm a bad boyfriend, I'm a bad boyfriend, I'm a bad boyfriend," Kurt muttered to himself over and over again as they drove to the hotel. Blaine stumbled inside, trying to keep his hands running all over Kurt, relearning every dip and line and curve of his body, even as he groped behind reception to retrieve the keycard for the room he was going to use for the last time and dragged Kurt into the lifts, resisting the urge to pounce until they were in the room with the door shut and bolted tight.

"I can't do this, I have a boyfriend, we shouldn't do this, it isn't right," Kurt babbled as Blaine's fingers flew to unbutton his shirt, sliding the material away from Kurt's shoulders and looking at him with nothing but overwhelming desire, almost drooling at the sight of so much skin for him to hold and sustain and cherish.

"Fuck him," Blaine growled, pulling Kurt towards him by his belt loops and laying a hand possessively over his ass. "Not literally, though. I only wanna fuck you. I'm gonna fuck you right now, make you scream for me and forget all about the stupid boyfriend."

Their mouths clash roughly together in a fierce, long-awaited kiss, Blaine fumbling to wriggle free of his shirt until their bare chests are pressed together, stupidly erotic after so long without this. Blaine backed Kurt up against the door, passion sizzling between them as their tongues duel for dominance and their hands claw at clothing, Kurt's legs tight around Blaine's waist, thrusting with rhyme or rhythm against him as Blaine attempted to reciprocate, knocked sideways by sudden need and want and lust and desperation.

"Naked, now, please, I need to feel you," he whispered against Kurt's lip, unhooking his legs from their vice-like grip on him and reaching between their overheated bodies to unbutton Kurt's jeans, growling in frustration as they prove impossible to push down quickly.

"Let me do it, I'll be quicker," Kurt murmured with a hint of laughter in his voice, wriggling out of the aggravating and simultaneously hot as hell jeans and relieving Blaine of his as well, smirking as he realized Blaine's lack of underwear halfway through unzipping him. "Let me blow you," he murmured as he slid down Blaine's body, taking a nipple between his lips, and fuck, Blaine would say yes to something that would mean the end of life as we know it when Kurt's tongue is laving roughly across sensitive skin.

"Yes please, fuck, please do it, I want you to, I want you to do that so much." His babbling was completely aimless and turned to rapid moaning as soon as Kurt knelt in front of him and took him in his mouth, looking innocently up from under his lashes in a way that only caused another surge of arousal to pulse through Blaine's veins, his hands clenching around thin air as he fought to keep from thrusting into the tight, wet heat of Kurt's mouth.

"Do it, I know you want to," Kurt whispered, briefly pulling away to look up at Blaine, positively debauched, hair dishevelled and mouth swollen, a trickle of spit running down his chin. "Fuck my mouth." Groaning wildly as Kurt sank down around him again, Blaine began experimental jerks of his hips. From the way Kurt moaned and hummed around his cock and his eyes slid slowly shut, he loved it, loved taking Blaine in his mouth.

It was with reckless abandon that Blaine began to thrust, his cock gliding in and out of Kurt's mouth, hopelessly hot and already making the heat in his stomach twist almost painfully. "Kurt, s-stop," he choked out as what was meant to be a concise order but came out a garbled plea. "Too close, don't wanna come now, wanna come with my cock in you."

At those words Kurt stood up, grabbed him around the waist and pushed him across the room until the back of his knees hit the bed and they collapsed onto it, a messy, sweaty tangle of limbs and desperate want after waiting so long without seeing each other, electricity sparking between them as Kurt dived for the top drawer and found the bottle of lube Blaine had kept there for convenience's sake. "Shit, there aren't any condoms left in there," he muttered. "Don't suppose you're the type of guy who carries the thing around in his wallet?"

"Can we not?" Blaine asked, though again it came out more like begging. "I just want to…feel you." Kurt chewed on his lip nervously, his eyebrows knitting together in worry.

"Is it safe?" he asked doubtfully. "We've both been with other people and I don't know how to explain an STD to my boyfriend." Blaine shook his head frantically at the mention of the anonymous boyfriend, the promise to drive all thoughts of him out of Kurt's driving him on.

"I was clear last week and I haven't done anything without protection since," he promised. "Are you clear? The type of things you can pick up from NYC guys are truly horrible."

"Rachel bullied me into a check last month, I was perfectly clear, and I haven't…my boyfriend hasn't wanted to have sex with me since," Kurt admitted softly. "We're kind of in a rough patch at the moment."

"I can't imagine anyone not wanting to have sex with you," Blaine purred. "Give me the lube, I can't wait to be inside you again. It's been too long, sweetheart." Kurt smiled at him dazedly, lowering his head to kiss him, slow and deep and a little dirty.

Within what could be seconds or several sunlit days, the time didn't matter as long as he was entwined with this beautiful man, Blaine was slowly thrusting three slick fingers in and out of Kurt, a constant stream of Ohfuckyes-Blaineplease-rightthere falling from Kurt's lips as he brushed constantly over his prostate. "Do it now, oh fuck, please," Kurt begged, catching Blaine's lower lip between his teeth and biting down roughly.

Even though they're both drunk, both on actual alcohol and pent-up want, and uncoordinated, Blaine quickly built up a steady teasing rhythm, feeling with every slow thrust and drag how perfect Kurt felt around him, how it seemed as if they were made to fit each other like this. When he thrust sharply forward, the head of his cock pressing against Kurt's prostate, Kurt cried out and near-sobbed, "Oh fuck, right there, baby, harder, oh my god, Blaine."

Blaine's hands were wrapped tight around Kurt's hips as he fucked him with reckless abandon, Kurt's limp body, taking it as he was, sliding up the bed with every thrust, the headboard clattering hard against the wall, no doubt the banging loud enough to wake up the entire hotel if their cries and groans and shouts haven't done that already. Nothing had ever felt so right, so raw, so real as Kurt stilled and came with a shout of Blaine's name and a sob, real tears rolling down his cheeks as Blaine thrust once, twice more and came inside Kurt, so close and intimate and perfect as he collapsed on top of him.

Both of them were panting and covered in sweat and come as Blaine eased out of Kurt and padded over to the bathroom, returning with a wet washcloth and carefully wiping Kurt clean, love swelling in his chest as Kurt watched him with trusting eyes, still blissful and dizzy with the aftermath of what Blaine could safely say was the best damn orgasm he'd ever had.

"That was incredible," Kurt breathed as Blaine slid under the duvet beside him, pulling Kurt's feverishly hot body against his, holding him tightly so his chest was flush against Kurt's back. "Thank you so much."

"I just missed you," Blaine whispered, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the back of Kurt's neck before curling himself up in this man and this bed and this night and surrendering to the embrace of slumber.