Chapter 17 #4
Landen's hand stilled on his back for just a fraction of a second. Then it started moving again, slower now.
"I know," Landen said quietly.
Adriel waited.
"It wasn't because I didn't want to," Landen continued. His voice was low, careful. "It was the opposite."
Adriel turned slightly, trying to see his face in the dark. "What do you mean?"
Landen was quiet for a long moment. "I couldn't look at you because I knew if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop."
Adriel's breath caught.
"I spent the whole day fighting myself," Landen said.
"Every time I heard your voice in the hallway.
Every time I caught a glimpse of you at your desk.
Every time I walked past and smelled your shampoo or saw the way you bit your pen when you were concentrating.
" He paused. "I wanted you so badly it was physically painful.
And I knew, I knew, that if I let myself look at you, really look, I'd lose it. "
Adriel's heart was pounding again.
"I was afraid," Landen continued, "that if I let myself get close to you, I'd drag you into my office and fuck you against my desk and not care who saw or heard."
Adriel's cheeks were flaming. He could feel the heat of them, could feel it spreading down his neck, across his chest. His cock, which had been soft and spent, was stirring again; responding to the sound of Landen's voice, to the want in it, to the image he'd painted.
Landen noticed.
Of course he noticed. His hand had stilled on Adriel's back, and Adriel could feel him shift slightly, could feel the way his body reacted to the change in Adriel's.
"Adriel," Landen said. His voice was lower now. Rougher.
Adriel could just make out the shape of him, the gleam of his eyes, the way his breathing had changed.
"You have no idea," Landen murmured, "what you do to me."
Adriel's answer was lost. Lost in the press of Landen's mouth against his, in the sudden heat of the kiss, in the way Landen's hand came up to grip his jaw and hold him in place.
Adriel kissed him back just as desperately.
His hands found Landen's shoulders, gripped them, pulled him closer.
Landen made a sound against his mouth, low and rough, and then he was moving, turning them, shifting so that he was atop Adriel, his weight settling over him, his thighs bracketing Adriel's hips.
He broke the kiss just long enough to look down at him. The dark hid details, but Adriel could feel his gaze. Could feel the heat of it, the want.
"I'm not holding back tonight," Landen said. His voice was wrecked. "I can't."
Adriel pulled him down. Kissed him again. Let his body say what words couldn't.
∞∞∞
2 years ago
The film had been playing for twenty minutes and neither of them were watching it.
The screen cast shifting light across the room. Some action film Zach had picked, something loud and full of explosions that Adriel couldn't have named the plot of if his life depended on it.
Then Zach's hand was at his jaw. And he was kissing him; fast, immediate, his mouth opening over Adriel's before Adriel had fully registered the movement.
He kissed back. Tried to. His hands came up and found Zach's shoulders and held on. Zach made a low sound of approval against his mouth and pulled him closer, closer than Adriel had expected, hard and demanding and fast.
It had always been like that with Zach. The wanting was Zach's and it swept Adriel up inside it like a current; exhilarating and disorienting all at once. Like being chosen so forcefully there was no room to think about whether you'd chosen back.
They ended up in the bedroom.
Adriel wasn't entirely sure of the mechanics of it, the same way he was never entirely sure with Zach, just that they were moving, and then they were there, and Zach was pulling his shirt off with practiced ease, his mouth already at Adriel's throat.
Adriel's hands hovered for a moment over Zach's back.
Not quite landing. He wasn't sure where they were supposed to go, wasn't sure of the rhythm yet, wasn't sure how to slot himself into the momentum Zach had already built without interrupting it.
He set them down eventually, found a place, kept them there.
Zach's hands moved over him quickly; impatient, purposeful, the touches of someone who knew what they wanted and was already reaching for it. When his fingers dug into the soft of Adriel's hip, gripping hard, Adriel's breath caught.
Slower, the thought said.
He swallowed it.
He pressed closer instead, matched the pace, told himself this was what it felt like.
Told himself the breathlessness was arousal and the tightness in his chest was desire and not the particular ache of feeling like he was always half a step behind, always slightly off the beat, always trying to be enough.
He told himself not to ruin it.
Zach pushed his jeans down his hips and Adriel lifted to help. Zach's clothes followed, efficiently, no ceremony. Then his hands were back, moving over Adriel's body with that same purposeful speed, and Adriel lay beneath them and tried to feel chosen rather than used.
He did feel chosen. That was the thing. Zach wanted him, visibly, physically, and Adriel knew, in some clear-eyed part of himself, how much he'd needed that. How hungry he'd been for it. How long he'd gone without anyone reaching for him at all.
So when Zach's mouth moved down his chest and his hands gripped and pulled, Adriel let him, let himself be grateful for it, and if his body was slightly behind his mind or his mind slightly behind his body he told himself that was just nerves.