Chapter 17
Adriel
The apartment had never felt smaller.
Adriel moved through it restlessly. The book he'd been trying to read for an hour sat open on the coffee table, the same page it had been on since morning. His laptop was open on the desk, a manuscript pulled up, the cursor blinking at the end of a half-finished note he had no memory of starting.
Outside, the city was doing its Saturday things. He could hear it distantly; traffic, someone's music from a window above. It had been raining earlier. The light through the blinds was grey and flat and doing nothing to help.
He made tea he didn't drink. He stood at the kitchen window for a while, looking at nothing and then went back to the sofa.
His body kept remembering things without his permission.
The weight of Landen's hands on him. The warmth of his mouth.
The low, unhurried voice close to his ear, the particular words in the particular tone, good boy, and the way those two words had done something to him he still didn't entirely have language for; something that had gone down into him like heat, like water finding its level.
He pressed his face into the sofa cushion.
He hadn't heard from Landen since yesterday. Their last interaction had been two minutes at his desk, the file changing hands, that fraction of a second of contact. And then nothing. No message. No call.
He knew what he was doing. He'd been here before, had stood at this exact threshold a hundred times, and he knew, he knew, that the next step was the one where he started to dismantle everything.
Where he took what had happened and held it up to the light and found all the ways it could mean nothing.
He tried not to go there.
The thoughts arrived anyway, the way they always did. ]
He's had time to think.
That was it. Landen had gone home the other morning, and then he'd had a day and a half to think about it. To think about what he'd done. Who he'd done it with.
Plenty of time to realize it had been a mistake.
Adriel pressed the heel of his hand against his sternum.
He reached for the book. Read the same paragraph four times. Put it down.
He turned the television on. Found something on Netflix that required no attention whatsoever, a show he'd seen before, and pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa, wrapped it around himself and told himself that this was fine.
That this was just a Saturday. That whatever had happened or hadn't happened or was about to stop happening was something he was not going to spend the entire day catastrophizing about.
He spent approximately forty minutes catastrophizing about it.
His phone buzzed in the early afternoon.
He was reaching for it before he'd consciously decided to. The movement was embarrassingly fast, his hand shooting out from under the blanket to snatch it off the coffee table with a speed that would have been humiliating if anyone had been there to see it.
Landen.
He stared at the name for a second. Long enough for his heart to do several things in rapid succession. Then he opened the message.
Are you free tonight?
Adriel's hands were shaking.
He was aware of this as he typed. His thumbs moved over the screen and he told himself to be to be cool, to take a breath before he responded and not reply with the immediate, unguarded yes that was already forming…
He sent the immediate, unguarded yes.
Stared at it. Felt the flush climbing his neck. Cursed himself under his breath.
The response came back before he'd finished cursing.
I'll come around at 7.
Adriel read it. Read it again. Then he lowered the phone slowly onto his chest, tipped his head back into the sofa cushions, and made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a laugh; something helpless and involuntary that came from somewhere in the vicinity of his solar plexus and echoed in the empty apartment.
Outside, the rain had started again, soft and steady against the window.
∞∞∞
The knock came at seven-ten.
Adriel had been sitting on the sofa for the last twenty minutes pretending to watch television. The show had been playing, characters talking, plot moving, and he'd absorbed exactly none of it. His mind had been elsewhere.
So when the knock finally came, he was on his feet and at the door in approximately two seconds.
Which was embarrassing.
He didn't care.
He pulled the door open, heart already hammering, and there he was.
Landen.
Slightly breathless from the stairs. His hair wind-tousled, dark strands falling across his forehead. His coat half open, revealing the collar of his shirt.
"Traffic," Landen said.
"It's fine," Adriel said.
"Sorry I'm late."
"You're not… it's fine."
Landen looked at him for one second.
Then he stepped forward.
His hand went straight to Adriel's jaw; warm, sure, familiar now in a way that made Adriel's chest ache. He tilted his face up, and kissed him.
His mouth opened over Adriel's immediately. Warm and sure and demanding in the best way. His tongue slid against Adriel's in a slow, deliberate stroke that made Adriel's knees go jelly on the spot.
He made a sound, surprised, and felt Landen's hand tighten against his jaw in response, felt the subtle shift in the kiss; hungrier now.
He tasted of coffee. Of cold air from outside. Of something underneath that was just him, that particular flavor Adriel had been dreaming about for days.
They made it inside.
Somehow. Adriel wasn't sure of the mechanics, just that they were moving, stumbling, the door closing behind them with a soft click.
Landen kissed him the whole way down the hall.
Unhurried. Thorough. His hands moved; one still on Adriel's jaw, the other finding his waist, pulling him closer as they walked. They bumped against the wall once, twice, and Landen used it, pressed him there for a moment just to kiss him deeper, his thigh sliding between Adriel's.
Adriel gasped into his mouth.
Landen swallowed the sound and kept kissing him. His hand slid up under the hem of Adriel's sweater, palm spreading warm against his bare skin. The contact was electric; it made Adriel's whole body jerk, made him press harder against Landen, made him want more.
Landen's palm moved slowly up his side. Tracing the shape of his ribs, his stomach, the curve of his waist. Each inch of skin he touched seemed to light up, to tingle, to demand more.
Adriel's head tipped back against the wall.
"Fuck, I missed you," Landen said against his throat. He pulled away from the wall, guided Adriel forward, and they moved into the bedroom.
The room was warm. Soft light from the lamp on the nightstand painted everything gold. The bed was made; Adriel had made it three times today, obsessively, unable to stop adjusting the pillows.
Landen turned to him, reached for the hem of his sweater. Lifted it slowly, watching Adriel's face as he did it.
Adriel let him. Raised his arms. Let the sweater be pulled over his head and tossed aside.
And then he stood there, bare-chested in the warm lamplight, and fought every instinct he had.
The urge to fold his arms over himself. To cover his stomach.
To make himself smaller, less visible, easier to overlook.
He was acutely aware of every inch of himself in a way that made his skin feel too tight.
Then Landen took his own shirt off and Adriel forgot to breathe.
Forgot to think at all, really.
Landen was… Adriel didn't have the right words.
Lean. Lightly muscled. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. The flat plane of his stomach, the sharp line of his collarbone, the way the lamplight caught the hollow of his throat.
Beautiful.
The word was inadequate, but it was the only one Adriel had. Landen was beautiful in a way that should have made the comparison worse. Should have highlighted every difference between them, every inch of softness on Adriel's body, every reason why this didn't make sense.
It would have, if Landen hadn't been looking at Adriel the way he was looking at him.
Like he was the only thing worth looking at in the room. Like Adriel was exactly what he wanted. Like he'd just taken off his shirt and revealed perfection, while Adriel was standing there in his old sweatpants, and Landen was looking at him like he was the beautiful one.
Adriel's throat tightened.
Landen stepped forward. Put his hands on Adriel's hips, thumbs pressing against the soft curve just above his waistband as he pulled Adriel in and kissed him again.
Slow. Deep. His tongue moving against Adriel's in long, deliberate strokes that made thinking difficult.
His hands slid around to Adriel's lower back.
Then lower. Over the curve of his ass, squeezing gently, pulling him flush against him.
And Adriel felt him, hard, already, pressed against his hip, and the sound that came out of him then was louder than he intended.
A moan that seemed to come from somewhere deep, somewhere he hadn't known existed.
Landen broke the kiss just enough to speak against his mouth.
"Okay?" His voice was rough. Lower than usual.
"Yes," Adriel said. The word came out broken. "Yes."
Landen kissed the corner of his mouth. His jaw. The soft skin just below his ear.
Adriel shivered. His hands, which had been hanging useless at his sides, came up and gripped the back of Landen's shoulders. The skin there was warm, smooth, the muscles shifting under his palms as Landen moved.
Landen's mouth opened against his neck. His teeth grazed the skin just enough to make Adriel's breath stutter, to make his whole body tense. Then he sucked; gently at first, then harder, drawing the skin into his mouth.
Adriel's hips pushed forward involuntarily. Pressed harder against him, against the hardness he could feel through their clothes.
Landen made a low sound of approval against his throat. It vibrated through Adriel's whole chest. Settled somewhere deep and warm and made him want more.
They fell onto the bed in stages.