Chapter 14 #4
Landen's mouth found his. Lips pressing, tongue sliding in, kissing him deep and desperate. His hand never stopped moving; faster, harder, perfect. And then he pulled back just enough to whisper against Adriel's lips:
"Cum for me baby."
His teeth caught Adriel's bottom lip. Bit down, just hard enough to sting.
Adriel came. It tore through him like a wave. His body arched off the bed, a cry ripping from his throat that was swallowed by Landen's mouth. His cock pulsed in Landen's grip, once, twice, again and again, cum spilling hot over Landen's fingers, over his own stomach, painting them both.
Landen kept stroking him through it, drawing it out, making it last. His tongue slid against Adriel's, lazy and satisfied, like he was tasting the sounds Adriel was making. His hand gentled as the waves subsided, became soft, soothing, until finally, finally, he let go.
Adriel lay there, gasping.
His body was boneless. Spent. Wrecked in the best possible way.
Landen pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark, full of something that looked terrifyingly like tenderness. His thumb came up, wiped a streak of cum from Adriel's stomach, brought it to his mouth. Licked it clean.
Adriel's cock twitched in interest despite having just spent itself completely.
"Beautiful." Landen murmured. "Every single part of you."
Adriel stared at him.
No one had ever looked at him like that. No one had ever touched him like that. No one had ever spoken to him like that.
He didn't know what to do with it.
The words sat in his chest, warm and strange and almost painful. They didn't fit. There was no room in him for something like this, no place prepared for the possibility that someone might mean it.
The aftershocks were still rolling through him. Small tremors that made his muscles twitch, made his breath catch, made his spent cock pulse weakly against his thigh. His body felt boneless, wrung out, like he'd been taken apart and put back together in a shape he didn't recognize.
He needed…
He didn't know what he needed.
He moved before he could think about it. Turned into Landen's chest, curled against him, pressed his face into the warmth of his shoulder.
Landen's arm came around him immediately. Pulled him closer. Held him tight. His hand found Adriel's hair, stroked through it gently, fingers combing through the sweaty strands.
"Shh," he murmured. "I've got you."
Adriel shook against him. Tears pricked at his eyes, hot and sudden and confusing. He wasn't sad. He didn't think he was sad. But something was happening in his chest, something cracking open, something he couldn't name.
Landen's lips pressed to his forehead. His thumb kept stroking through Adriel's hair.
"I…" Adriel started before his voice broke.
Landen shushed him again. Pressed another kiss to his forehead. Then to his cheek, soft and tender. Then to the corner of his lips, just barely there, a whisper of contact. Then to his other cheek. His temple. The bridge of his nose. Each kiss tiny, featherlight. A benediction.
Adriel's eyes closed. The tears escaped anyway. Just a few, absorbed by Landen's skin where they pressed together. He hoped Landen didn't notice. Hoped the darkness hid them. Hoped…
Landen's lips found them. Kissed each path where the tears had fallen.
Eventually, the tremors faded to occasional shivers, then to nothing.
His breathing evened out, slowed, matched the rhythm of Landen's chest rising and falling beneath his cheek.
His hand, still pressed between them, uncurled from the fist it had made and lay flat against Landen's heart.
He could feel it beating. Steady and strong.
Landen's hand never stopped moving in his hair. Slow strokes, gentle and constant, like he'd do it all night if Adriel let him.
The room was quiet. The streetlamp outside cast its pale gold stripes through the blinds, painting them both in bars of light and shadow. Somewhere in the building, a door opened and closed. Footsteps in the hallway, fading.
Through it all, Adriel lay in Landen's arms, pressed against his chest, and tried to understand what had just happened. Tried to make sense of the last hour. Tried to find the lie, the trick, the moment where it would all be revealed as something other than what it seemed.
He couldn't find it.
"You should sleep," Landen murmured against his hair.
Adriel didn’t want to, but soon, his eyes grew heavy. His body was so tired, so spent, so wrung out from the hours of panic and the intensity of what had come after. Landen's heartbeat was a lullaby beneath his ear, his hand in his hair a comfort he hadn't known he needed.
He fought it for a while.
Fought the pull of sleep, afraid of what he might find when he woke. Afraid this might disappear. Afraid Landen might be gone.
But his body betrayed him. His breathing slowed. His muscles relaxed. His mind, finally quiet for the first time in what felt like forever, began to drift.
The last thing he felt was Landen's lips pressing one more kiss to his forehead.
The last thing he heard was a whisper, so soft he might have imagined it:
"I'm not going anywhere."
Then sleep pulled him under, warm and deep and safe in a way he'd never known before.