The way Damon kissed Rian left him soft and so weak he could barely stand up, clutching at the front of Damon’s shirt to keep himself in one piece as he leaned into the touch of firm, heated lips. Slow—so slow, Damon took his time kissing Rian as if bringing each part of his lips, his mouth to life with his touch; making him aware of the texture of his own lips, the shape of the upper, the lower, each point and curve, each tingling nerve from corner to corner, until his mouth throbbed and centered every point of sensation on the need for the next touch, the next taste, the next wet-hot tease of Damon’s tongue tracing over his mouth and then stealing past to coax Rian open with a lazy intimacy that made him tremble.
As if Damon was saying let me in.
Let me in...and let me have control.
Rian was accustomed to dominance coming with force. With insistence. With pushy aggression that overwhelmed him...but Damon overwhelmed him with gentleness, the slick glide of his tongue not demanding Rian’s surrender—but making him want so deeply to give it that he couldn’t help but melt, parting his lips, giving up everything to those slow strokes and the suggestive, feinting penetration of each sweet thrust past his lips. He tried to kiss Damon back; he tried, but with his mouth so sensitized and his entire body turning into needy prickles, every touch shook through him until he gave in helplessly and let Damon have...
Whatever he wanted.
Rian would give Damon whatever he wanted, right now.
Even if it meant all of him.
And he stole his fingers into Damon’s hair, coiling the slick, cool strands around his fingers as if they were a lifeline, asking with every touch of his fingertips stroking down to Damon’s scalp: Do you feel it?
Do you feel this, too?
This quiet need. This empty loneliness. This sense of being adrift without an anchor...and the only thing keeping them afloat was each other. The way they clung to each other; the way their mouths met again and again in breathless, light-teasing strokes, stealing taste after taste after taste. The way Damon’s hands slid up Rian’s back to pull him into the hard breadth of Damon’s body...and the way Rian couldn’t help yielding to mold himself against Damon, letting that sensitivity spread from his lips out to his fingertips until he could enjoy the sheer sensuous pleasure of feeling Damon with every inch of him.
Kissing Damon shouldn’t feel this good. Shouldn’t fill the empty hollows inside him; shouldn’t sand away the raw edges of everything that hurt. But he didn’t want to think right now. Didn’t want to wonder. Didn’t want to worry. Didn’t want to ache.
Didn’t want anything but to want, and as he nipped at Damon’s lower lip in tentative question, stroked his fingers down his back...
The way Damon groaned “Rian” with whispered, aching desperation said that yes.
Yes, Damon felt it too.
And Rian felt Damon as that hard body tensed and shuddered under his questing fingertips, shoulder blades stark against his palms; as the heat of Damon’s thickly corded musculature nearly burned through both their clothing, imprinting on Rian and letting him feel every shape of him. The tight flex of his pectorals; the hard cut underneath leading down to his rib cage; the ridges of his abdominals.
The heavy, stiff outline of his cock against his jeans, an insistent pressure against Rian’s hips and stomach.
Rian caught his breath, his own cock pulsing almost painfully in response, and he bit harder at Damon’s lower lip as he moved against him—dragging hips to hips, his fingers digging into Damon’s back as the rush of fabric and flesh gliding together nearly turned his bones to air, wisping and insubstantial and refusing to support him. He clutched at Damon as Damon fell back to lean against the kitchen counter as if breaking beneath their combined weight, groaning low and deep and thunderous, digging his fingers into Rian’s waist until the throbbing points pressing into his sides matched the rhythm of his bloodstream surging through his growing erection.
With a rough sound, Damon broke the gasping lock of their lips and dipped his head to press his mouth to Rian’s throat, his arms winding around Rian’s waist until Rian felt deliciously caged, enveloped...sheltered. And much too sensitive, the slightest graze of Damon’s teeth against his neck sending shocks through him until he rose up on his toes, whimpering softly and hiding his face against Damon’s shoulder.
“Tell me,” Damon whispered raggedly, his voice a thing of living fire burning harsh against Rian’s skin, over the vulnerable point of his pulse. “Tell me what you want.”
Rian stilled, his heart thundering as he pressed his mouth against Damon’s shoulder, struggling to think. Struggling to pull himself together enough to ask himself what he wanted—from Damon, from this moment, from the hard grip of Damon’s hands on his body and the inescapable evidence of mutual need captured hard between them, the pressure a constant and dizzying thing that stole his thoughts and his breath.
You, he wanted to cry, and yet he was afraid if he did...
If he did, Damon might let go.
Might say I could give you my body, but someone like you?
I could never give you me.
He turned his face into Damon’s throat, pressing his cheek over the rapid timpani moving so strongly against Damon’s neck.
“I want...” He licked dry lips, and caught a taste of the salt of Damon’s taut, heated skin. “... I want to not be alone right now. I want... I want to not be just me.”
The shudder that went through Damon felt like being at the heart of a seismic rift, shifting raw and powerful against Rian’s body, so much caged-up energy on the verge of releasing in a massive quake. Yes, he thought as he waited, trembling—to be thrust away, to be drawn closer, he never knew when he wasn’t sure if this man despised or desired him. Please...take that energy out on me.
Let me have all your force and your fury.
Let me have all the feelings you can’t let out anywhere else.
Damon drew back, parting them enough that dark brown eyes could fix on Rian; in those depths dwelled a hesitation, an uncertainty Rian would never have expected from a man as stubborn and firm as Damon. As unexpected as the softness of his touch, as Damon let go of his death grip on Rian enough to lift one hand and curl it underneath his chin, gripping gently, his thumb grazing beneath Rian’s lower lip with the rough callus teasing and electrifying his skin.
“You sure?” Damon asked, hoarse as if his voice had been singed to ash. “You want that with me?”
More than Rian could explain. More than he could account for with reason, with sense. Too much—overcoming him with a rush of something desperate and wild, something lonely and needy, something almost frightening in its intensity. He shouldn’t—he couldn’t.
But for right now...he would.
He relaxed his tight handful of the back of Damon’s shirt, slipping his hands down over his shoulders to rest against the rise and fall of Damon’s chest; Rian couldn’t look at him right now, not when every deep-penetrating glance shot through him so hard and left his body tight and trembling.