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)
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.