Chapter 12
Landen
Landen came down to the archive mid-morning looking for the original bound Calloway manuscript.
A contradiction had been turning in his mind since yesterday; something in chapter four pulling against the revised third act. He needed to check Author’s first instinct before he made the call.
The archive was quiet, as it always was. Narrow rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves, low overhead lighting, the smell of old paper and dust. He moved through it with purpose, folder tucked under one arm, mind already turning over the problem.
He stepped into the third row from the door and stopped dead.
Adriel.
Back to the door, reaching for something on a mid-level shelf. Stretched up on his toes, one hand braced against the shelf for balance, the other reaching. His sweater had ridden up slightly at the back.
Landen looked at him.
The curve of his waist. The soft width of his hips. The pale skin where his sweater had pulled away, a small stretch mark running across his hip, visible in the low light.
His mouth watered.
He wanted to touch it. Wanted to press his mouth there, to feel that skin against his lips, to know if it was as soft as it looked. As soft as Adriel's cheek had felt under his fingers. Softer.
He wanted to bite it.
The wanting hit him with the flat force it always did now. Every time. Without warning, without permission, whenever Adriel was in his line of sight.
Adriel turned and jumped slightly as he noticed him. Went pink instantly, the color flooding his cheeks, spreading down his neck. He pulled his sweater down, quick, automatic, tugging it over the skin Landen had been staring at.
"Oh, hi." A small step back. "Sorry. Am I in your way?"
Landen shook his head. Stepped forward. His throat tight as he said, "Calloway manuscript." Wow, eloquent…
Adriel nodded, cheeks still pink, and turned slightly, reaching up. Landen followed the movement; saw the manuscript sitting on the high shelf, just out of reach. Adriel's fingers brushed the spine but couldn't grip it.
Without thinking, Landen stepped in behind him and reached up, a strong of Déjà vu hitting him as he did so.
They were closer than ever before. Adriel's back against his chest, pressed into him by the narrowness of the row. He went still beneath Landen, frozen, barely breathing.
Landen could smell his hair. Something clean, fruity.
He could feel the warmth of his body through their clothes, could feel the shape of him, the give of him.
Could feel his cock pressed against Adriel's ass; that fucking ass, the one he'd imagined a hundred times, the one he wanted to bury himself into until neither of them remembered their own names.
He held a manuscript he no longer cared about in the slightest.
He didn't step back.
Even as he felt himself harden, thicken, press harder against the fabric of his trousers and into the soft curve of Adriel's body.
He looked down at Adriel's face.
The color. The parted lips. The eyes coming up to find his; wide, so wide, the irises darker than Landen had ever seen them. Dark with something. Want. Fear. Both. Neither. He couldn't tell.
Something in his chest pulled so tight it was almost painful.
He wanted to put his mouth on him. Wanted to press him into the shelf, strip him naked and take him apart so slowly that neither of them remembered anything except this. Except the way they fit together in this narrow space.
The manuscript slipped out of his hands. It hit the floor with a soft thud, unnoticed, uncared about.
He grabbed Adriel's face. Turned him around, and kissed him.
Adriel made a sound against his mouth.
A sigh. A moan. Something broken and beautiful that Landen felt everywhere; in his chest, in his gut, in the hard pulse of his cock. The sound went through him like a current, like a live wire, like everything he'd been holding back for months finally snapping free.
Adriel's hands came up and gripped his jacket.
And he kissed back.
He kissed back like he meant it, like he'd been waiting for this, like he'd been starving and Landen was the first taste of food. His lips parted, opened, let Landen in, and Landen went. Drank him down. Took everything he offered and demanded more.
He walked him back into the shelf.
Adriel's back hit the rows of bindings, a small sound escaping him as Landen pinned him there with his body.
Chest to chest. Hips to hips. The hard line of him pressed into the soft heat of Adriel's stomach.
He could feel everything; the warmth, the give, the way Adriel's breath came in short sharp gasps against his mouth.
His hands moved.
From Adriel's face into his hair, fingers curling into the soft strands, tugging just enough to tilt his head back.
Then down to his jaw, holding him there, keeping him exactly where Landen wanted him.
Then to his throat, palm pressing flat against the pulse hammering there, fast and wild and alive beneath his touch.
Adriel tipped his head back further. Gave him access. Surrendered.
Landen took it.
His mouth moved lower. To the curve of his neck, to the place where his shoulder began, to the skin his sweater had covered moments ago. He wanted to taste all of it. Every inch.
He wanted to worship him whole.
His hands slid down from Adriel's throat, over his chest, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breathing. Lower. To his waist, his hips, gripping the softness there, fingers digging in because he needed to hold on, needed to feel the reality of this beneath his hands.
Adriel gasped. His hips jerked forward, searching for friction, for more, for anything Landen would give him.
Landen pressed back. Rolled his hips into him, let him feel exactly what he did to him, the hard length of him, the want that had been building since the moment they met. Adriel's head fell back against the shelf, his mouth falling open, a sound escaping that was almost a whimper.
Landen swallowed it.
Kissed him again, deeper this time, wetter, messier. His tongue slid into Adriel's mouth, found his tongue, tangled with it. Adriel tasted like coffee and something sweet, something that was just him, and Landen couldn't get enough. He licked into him, drank from him, took and took and took.
Adriel's hands were everywhere now. In his hair, on his neck, gripping his shoulders, pulling him closer.
His body pressed up into Landen's, soft and yielding and desperate all at once.
He was making sounds between kisses; small, helpless sounds, sounds that went straight to Landen's cock and made it ache.
Landen broke the kiss just long enough to look at him.
Adriel's lips were wet, swollen, parted. His cheeks were flushed dark, the pink spreading down his neck, disappearing beneath his sweater. His eyes were heavy-lidded, dark, focused entirely on Landen's mouth.
Landen kissed him again.
Harder this time. More urgent. His hands found the hem of Adriel's sweater, slid beneath it, found skin.
Warm. Soft. So fucking soft. His palms smoothed up over his stomach, over his ribs, feeling the give of him, the realness of him.
Adriel shuddered against him, made a sound that was almost a sob.
Landen's mouth left his lips, trailed down his jaw, down his throat, lower still. He mouthed at the skin above his collarbone, licked into the hollow there, felt Adriel's pulse racing beneath his tongue. His hands kept moving, exploring, learning the shape of him.
He wanted more. Wanted all of it. Wanted to strip this sweater off him, lay him out on the archive floor, take him apart piece by piece until there was nothing left but this, them, the way they fit together.
He put his mouth on Adriel's throat again.
On the pulse. On the warm skin stretched over it, soft and salt-tinged and perfect. He could feel it beating under his lips, fast and wild, a rhythm that matched the pounding in his own chest.
He licked there. Tasted him.
Adriel's whole body shuddered in response. A tremor that ran through him from head to toe, that made his breath catch and his hands grip tighter at Landen's jacket. The sound he made was small, broken, barely there, but Landen heard it. Felt it against his lips.
He pressed his mouth to the spot and groaned.
"Fuck." Muffled against his skin. "So pretty."
Landen felt it before he saw it; Adriel’s body going from open and warm and pressed into him to stiff and withdrawn in a single second. Like a door slamming shut. Like light switching off.
He lifted his head.
Adriel's face was closed. His hands had released Landen's jacket and hung at his sides, limp. He was looking at Landen's chest, not his face.
"I… I'm sorry." The words tripped over themselves. His voice was thin. "I can't… I have to…"
He didn't finish. He bent, quick and jerky, grabbing for his bag where it had fallen against the shelf. Papers slipped out, scattered across the floor. He didn't stop to gather them. Just shoved what he could reach inside, left the rest, kept moving.
"I'm sorry," he said again, backing away. One step, then another. Eyes still not meeting Landen's. "I'm sorry, I just… I have to go."
Landen didn't stop him.
Didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't reach out, though every part of him wanted to, though his hands were still lifted slightly, still shaped like they were holding something that was no longer there.
Then Adriel turned and fled. His footsteps were loud in the narrow corridor. Then the door at the end banged open, banged shut, and he was gone.
Silence rushed back in to fill the space.
Landen’s heart was pounding. Hard enough to feel in his throat, in his temples, in the places where his mouth had just been pressed to Adriel's skin.
He could still taste him; salt and warmth and something underneath that was just Adriel.
Could still feel the shape of him, the way he'd shuddered and held on.
He knew he'd crossed a line. He was the boss.
Adriel was his employee. There were rules, boundaries, reasons things like this weren't supposed to happen.
He'd ignored all of them, walked into this room and ended up with his mouth on his employee's throat, his body pressed against his, his hands in his hair.
But Adriel had pulled away. Whatever Landen had felt in that moment, Adriel hadn't felt the same. Or had felt it and then thought better of it.
He stood in the empty room and waited for the regret to hit. For the cold realization of what he'd done, what he'd risked, what he'd possibly destroyed. For his better judgment to reassert itself.
It didn't come.
He didn't regret it. Not any of it. The only thing he regretted was the look on Adriel's face when he'd pulled away. The shuttered windows. The fear.
He lowered his hands. Let them fall to his sides.
The manuscript was still on the floor where it had slipped from his grip. He bent and gathered it, stacked the pages, straightened the binding.
The corridor was empty too as he slowly walked to the elevator.
But with every step he felt the ghost of Adriel's pulse under his lips. The taste of his skin. The small broken sound he'd made before everything went wrong.
He didn't regret it.
But did Adriel?