He couldn’t speak.
So he only nodded slow, biting his lip as he curled his fingers in Damon’s T-shirt again, wrinkling the Albin Academy logo across the tight-stretched heather gray fabric.
He couldn’t explain this pull Damon had on him—gravitational, astronomical.
But right now, he didn’t have the strength to deny the way it yearned.
Nor did he have the strength to deny himself as, with a wordless rumble, Damon swept him in close again; swept him in close and caught Rian’s mouth more swiftly, more fiercely, as if that nod had let loose some tight restraint holding Damon in check until he kissed Rian hotter, harder, subsuming him in a rush of spark-wild desire and leaving him nearly limp in Damon’s arms. Rian rose up on his toes again, draping his body against Damon’s, pressing his mouth to Damon’s just to feel that pressure, that burn, taking the luscious awareness of his mouth and driving it to new heights until it felt as if Damon was kissing his entire body.
Yet no phantom rush of sensation could match the very real wash of sudden pleasure vibrating through him in high, singing notes as Damon’s hands slipped under his caftan to bring bare skin to bare skin; those rough fingertips marked Rian as if changing him, transforming his flesh everywhere Damon touched as broad hands slid one inch at a time up Rian’s back. Between the deep, deliberate, heady penetration of a teasing tongue and the touch of those hands marking Rian like a brand, Rian barely noticed the pressure of Damon’s body pushing him backward, one tangled step at a time; barely noticed anything other than that Damon tasted like warm nights hovering just on that cusp between summer and fall, full of calm and brightness and a sense of home.
Until his thighs hit the edge of the bed; until abruptly he was weightless as that strong arm around his waist lifted him up, hefting him so that his feet left the ground, until Damon set him down on the edge of that tall-piled bed with its layered quilts and futon padding atop the mattress; so high that Rian’s feet didn’t touch the floor and, sitting like this, he was actually taller than Damon, tilting his head down to meet his mouth as Rian wound his arms around Damon’s neck and held on to that kiss for dearest life. This time it was his turn to taste, to search deep, to explore that captured space between them until he knew Damon’s mouth inside and out; until he knew what could make Damon clutch hard at his waist with the faintest flick of Rian’s tongue, what could make him growl as Rian gathered up handfuls of Damon’s hair, palms cupping his jaw, and drew him in so Rian could nip and nibble and tease at his lower lip.
Nothing else mattered, right now.
Nothing mattered but this closeness, this sense of wondering discovery, this entwined ache that forgot time, forgot trouble, forgot anything but this craving not to be alone.
And when Damon’s hands caught Rian’s caftan and dragged it upward, Rian barely drew back long enough to lift his arms and let Damon throw the sapphire blue garment aside before he was winding his arms around Damon’s neck again, kissing him with a lazy fever even as he knotted his fingers in Damon’s shirt and tugged. Until they were grasping hands and needy pulls everywhere; until Damon’s shirt was a gray puddle on the floor and Rian’s hips lifted off the bed as his linen trousers waterfalled down the side of the stacked mattresses; until Damon’s zipper lowered with a rasp and denim bagged around his sinewy thighs and Rian kicked his sandals off to send them tumbling across the room and there was nothing left between them except for Damon’s clinging, tight-fit gray boxer-briefs and the thin white scrap of fabric the packaging on Rian’s underwear had described as Men’s Bikini Briefs, but that right now just felt like too much in the way of himself and this hunger to be with Damon, to connect with him, until the touch of flesh was only secondary.
So Rian didn’t resist when Damon laid him back against the pillowy, plush layers of the bed; didn’t resist when Damon’s weight sank the mattress down around him, then sank into him, resting atop him until he knew every inch of Damon with every inch of himself, shuddering and sighing out sounds as those hard-edged, perfectly contoured muscles practically cut into him as Damon’s thick bulk covered him and Rian just felt...
Enveloped.
Enveloped, sheltered, safe...and so very content, as he slipped his arms around Damon’s neck again and moved against him skin to skin, leaning up to feather kisses over his mouth. He could do this for hours, melting into each other’s body heat, trading exploratory, tentative touches as Rian let his fingertips follow the dips and ridges and hollows of Damon’s body with a skimming touch, while Damon buried his fingers in Rian’s hair and stroked through it luxuriantly, the backs of his knuckles following the strands down to outline Rian’s shape in brushes that contrasted the heat of Damon’s skin with the coolness of Rian’s hair to leave him shivering.
No one had ever touched him so softly—as if he was glass, spun in fine threads and meant to be handled with care. As if his every nerve ending was wired not just to his senses, but to his heart, and Damon made both tremble with shocks of potently deep sensitivity as he skimmed his fingers over Rian’s stomach, his ribs; as his mouth descended to kiss, velvet-lush and wet, over Rian’s jaw, his throat; as they met in the middle to leave thick fingertips toying with one nipple, the other caught between careful teeth and a lashing tongue, and Rian dragging his fingers down Damon’s back and gasping out sounds that never fully came out when they stuck in a throat that closed each time pleasure shot through him in delicate ribbons, pulling and tangling everywhere inside him.
While the entire time they moved against each other in long, lingering rhythm, letting their bodies speak and touch where words and lips weren’t needed, the deep-grinding friction of flesh to flesh building something unnamed between them to a point of screaming tension, molten desire, jolting rushes of something that felt so pure and intoxicating and good that Rian’s toes curled against the sheets every time his cock dragged against Damon’s through near-intangible layers of fabric. Every thrust burned deeper than the last; every tug of Damon’s teeth and flick of his tongue shot Rian’s nerves into more and more jagged fragments, until he was whimpering as he tangled his legs with Damon’s and lifted himself against him, fighting against that weight atop him just to feel how glorious it was when Damon’s bulk pressed him back down.
And he almost cried out in protest as Damon lifted off him, weight rolling to the side; he opened his eyes, a question on his lips—only to catch Damon leaning over the side of the bed to nudge the nightstand drawer open with his fingertips, stretching them out to reach from the stacked height of the mattresses as he rummaged inside and came up with a little bottle of clear oil.
When he drew back with it, though, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at Rian, Damon blinked. His brows drew together, concern darkening his eyes as he dropped the bottle of lube on the pillow and ran his fingers along Rian’s cheek. “Hey—hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’re about to cry.”
“I...” Rian’s face burned, and he swallowed, reaching up to toy a lock of Damon’s hair around his fingers. “I thought...you were about to stop.”