Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
It hadn’t been easy. Not when deep fatigue left Chris with only limited hours in the day to catch up on his schoolwork or risk falling even further behind—but things had taken an infinitely more positive turn when Chris had shaken the last of his fears of punishment after word got around about Gordon Drew getting dragged out of his own bar in handcuffs and handed over to the county sheriff.
And when Chris’s parents had finally responded, flown into town, and hired a private tutor to work with him in the infirmary until he was ready to return to class on his own terms.
Rian had never known he could feel so proud of another person as he did of Chris.
Or of Damon, when Rian doubted Chris ever would have found his way out of his mess if Damon hadn’t been so persistent in caring for him, and for all the boys in the school.
More than once, Rian caught himself drifting off just thinking of how much he admired Damon—his effortless roguish charm, his blunt honesty, his fiercely kind heart, the strength that was born less of his finely-crafted body and more of his finely-crafted sense of empathy. And Rian realized he was drifting off now, lingering in the fourth-floor hallway just past the stairwell, a box of his books—and several of Damon’s mixed in, their collections intermingling, the Reluctant Royals covers peeking past the half-closed flaps of the box—propped on the windowsill while Rian gazed out the window at the late December snowfall, watching the flakes drift down on the mostly empty campus.
Most of the boys had gone home for Christmas. Damon and Rian had both considered it, but realized that this year...
This year, they’d rather spend it together, nurturing this quiet pocket of warmth they’d built around themselves and taking advantage of the post-semester room shifts to move in together. They could navigate the mess of crashing their families together another year.
And Rian hoped there would be many, many years to come.
Many years together.
“Falling asleep on me already?” came from over his shoulder, rumbling and soft, right before heavy arms slid around his waist, squeezing briefly...right before Damon stole the box from him, lifting it over Rian’s head and away, hefting it easily. “Not fair, Ri. We’ve still got like, fifteen boxes of your art shit to go.”
“It’s not art shit,” Rian spluttered, trying to sound offended and failing; laughing, he turned to trail after Damon, skipping to catch up to him as he treaded down the hall toward the open door of their suite. “It’s art supplies. I was just resting for a second. It’s heavy.” He reached up to tug at the box. “Give it. I can carry it.”
“I already got it.” Damon bent to brush his lips to Rian’s cheek, the spill of his hair washing against Rian’s jaw, before Damon straightened with a rakish grin. “Can’t have you messing up them delicate artist hands.”
“You’re so considerate.” Chuckling, Rian followed Damon into the whirlwind of their suite—boxes everywhere, so many of Rian’s unfinished canvases from the art room and his makeshift studio...including the unfinished painting of the lightning-struck tree, waiting for him to put the final touches on it and decide what to do with it.
He stopped, then, lingering on it...and, propped next to it, Chris’s completed semester art project, the delicately painted wisteria almost lifelike in its intricate details. Rian smiled, brushing his fingers over the fired and glazed leaves and petals, then drifted to the canvas. Almost done, he thought...and he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.
And it wasn’t going in any gallery.
He didn’t need to paint for other people.
He was happy painting for himself...and teaching others who just might find that same joy in the scratch of the pencil, the smell of fresh paint.
Happy here.
Right where he belonged.
As Damon hauled the box of books into their bedroom, Rian lifted his head, watching him until he disappeared past the door frame. “Do you want me to start unpacking? You’d be faster at bringing the rest up anyway.”
“You just want me to do all the heavy lifting.” Damon’s thunderous laughter emerged from the bedroom. “But if you need a break we can swap out, sure.”
“Maybe we could both take a break.”
“...when you say that, I know we’re about to end up naked,” drifted through the door, rough-edged with a needy growl.
Rian flushed. “Behave. I’m still sore from last night.”
Damon’s only answer was another laugh, wicked and promising he’d only behave for so long, when he only ever behaved for so long—and kisses turned into touches, touches turned into more, and then they were breathless and locked together and moving in that tandem that stopped Rian’s heart and then taught it how to beat again.
Fingers laced, bodies twined...
And love on every breath, in every thrust.