Just Like This (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  “Cruel,” he whispered, and that half smile turned downright wicked.

  “Nah,” Damon practically purred. “I’m about to be real nice to you.”

  That cockiness, that arrogance felt like a façade laid over the stripped-bare, painful emotions twisting between both of them—but Rian hardly had time to even think about it when Damon caught his briefs and dragged them down his legs, twisting his own body out of the way to pull them free and leaving Rian completely naked. Like this, there was nothing to shield how aroused he was; how much Damon affected him, when Rian’s cock stood so hard and needy it almost teased against his navel, his own pre-come leaking against his skin in bright, hot little droplets that felt like lava dripped on his flesh, when everything was so heightened the smallest sensation felt too real; too much.

  Yet more so still was the intensity of being looked at the way Damon did, gaze raking hotly over Rian as if he’d strip him not just of his clothing, but the last layer of defenses he had left; the last attempt he could ever make to deny how much he wanted Damon; how much the man got under his skin, slipped inside him, made himself at home in all those secret places Rian couldn’t stand to look at because they made him feel so weak.

  And he was weak for Damon now as—still pinning Rian’s wrists to the bed—Damon grazed a hand along Rian’s inner thigh, coaxing him further open, sliding upward with that rough, scorching touch to curl a hand under Rian’s ass and squeeze, making Rian gasp and lift his hips. More; he wanted more of what that touch promised, a wild throbbing building inside and begging for it...and Damon gave him more, pulling away only long enough to flick the cap off the bottle of lube and tilt it to slick over his fingers before he thumbed it closed. Dropped it on the pillow.

  And slid those gleaming fingers between Rian’s thighs, tormenting him with the slightest brush over the base of his overheated, achingly hard cock before slipping lower, stroking silk-oil wetness along the cleft of his ass, making Rian’s entire body clench in anticipation. One finger delved deeper, parting him, spreading him open, finding the sensitive tight point of his entrance; he sucked in rapid breaths, tugging at his captured arms, arching underneath Damon as that single rough fingertip circled and massaged, teased and stroked, working against tight muscle and coaxing Rian’s body looser and looser.

  The entire time Damon’s gaze never left him, pinning him as thoroughly as those hands on his wrists, as if Damon wouldn’t let a single of Rian’s reactions escape his scrutiny; as if he would drink Rian into himself. Rian tossed his head from side to side, eyes closing, but he could escape the pressure of those dark, heated brown eyes no more than he could escape the pressure of that thick, blunt finger as it began to press inside.

  Even with the slickness of the lube, Damon’s fingers were so rough, so hard, all softness chiseled out of even the finger-pads by hard work and callusing until everything inside Rian was stretching and friction and just enough pain to make him need more. He let out a hard, broken cry, kicking his feet against the quilts and lifting himself up as that finger slipped deeper and deeper, rousing every nerve ending inside him to awareness until he could feel the tiniest intimate detail of curling knuckles and a stroking fingertip and the raspy-wet glide of weathered skin. God, just one finger felt so good...and then a second joined it and Rian nearly screamed, the fullness of it so unbearable, so wonderful.

  “Hey,” Damon coaxed softly, brushing his lips over Rian’s, his harsh, short breaths mingling with Rian’s panting gasps. “Relax for me a little. Let me in.”

  As if he hadn’t already.

  As if he hadn’t somehow let this man get so deep inside him that it drove him to distraction and left him frustrated and angry and wanting all the damned time.

  And he wanted this so much that he couldn’t even deny, couldn’t even protest as a third finger slowly worked inside and left him keening softly, completely helpless, his body taken over by that feeling thrusting and twisting and searching inside him, making him feel every touch as Damon worked his body so thoroughly. Over and over again Damon slid inside him, each stroke gliding in just a little easier even as Rian’s needy body clenched and tightened, trying to hold on to that sensation, trying to hold on to...to...

  Everything.

  But even if he didn’t want to let this go...he needed Damon more.

  When those fingers slipped out of him, then, leaving his body feeling so bereft, so alone, he opened his eyes—and found Damon watching him with that handsome face almost lost, dark eyes dilated to nearly black and his lips parted on shallow breaths, the early twilight light falling through the windows to paint soft surreal shades of gold and violet against the bronze of his naked shoulders, catching in the highlights of his glossy black hair to give it the richness and iridescence of black diamond. Damon’s thumb stroked along the underside of Rian’s captured wrists, as if trying to smooth the wild and violent beat of Rian’s pulse.

  “This okay?” Damon asked, and the gentleness in it made a lie of every arrogant tease, every smirk, when Damon looked at Rian as if he would rather die than break him; as if Damon might break himself, under the weight of this crushing feeling. “You okay, Rian?”

  Rian’s breaths caught when he tried to answer, strangling his voice; but he managed to nod, before forcing out words. “Yes,” he whispered. “I am. Are you? Are...are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” Damon said, the single syllable catching subtly, roughening around the edges. “I’m sure.”

  He lowered himself to kiss Rian again, then—kissing him as if he were precious, as if he were delicate, as if he were a sweet thing to be savored in tiny licks and nibbles, and Rian wondered when he’d started trembling; when Damon’s body had begun to shiver in answer, as if they were plucked strings sounding out the same heart-rending, sighing note. And that note rose up from inside Rian’s chest as Damon shifted their bodies, lifted him up, fit them together, touched Rian in soft brushes with the curl of his knuckles as the snap-pop of the lube bottle’s cap came again...before the slickened head of Damon’s cock pressed hot to Rian’s already sore, stretched entrance.

  And Rian was glad when Damon let go of his wrists to instead stroke along his thigh, gripping under his knee and lifting him up.

  Because he needed something to grasp on to, as that heated, firm cock-head pressed into him, spread him wider, wider, wider, until he thought he must be coming apart at the seams and dying...

  Before Damon slowly slipped inside.

  Rian grasped on to Damon’s shoulders and pressed his mouth hard to Damon’s lips as inch by inch, Damon showed him how it felt to be taken: to have his body so thoroughly overwhelmed, within and without, that Rian was completely swept away in the feeling of Damon’s body hovering over his, Damon’s mouth kissing him in dirty-sweet, plunging thrusts, Damon’s cock sinking deeper and deeper and deeper until Rian couldn’t breathe, everything forced out of him to make room for the sensation of hard, hot flesh and the swelling, throbbing bursts of emotion rocking so forcefully through him. As if he couldn’t separate his flesh from his heart, and couldn’t tell touch apart from the knotting in his chest, the tightness in his throat.

  He could only tell that he wanted this, needed this.

  And fell into it so fully, as Damon held him fast and twined their tongues together and began to move.

  Damon’s body rolled like the movement of mountains, a slow and patient thing that let Rian feel every flexion of muscle pouring down his back and under Rian’s palms, down to the controlled drive of his hips as he stroked inside Rian, making each tightening and bunching of Damon’s shoulders into a whisper of gut-clenching anticipation when Rian knew it would end in that hard surge of hips to hips. Unhurried, languid, giving Rian no choice but to savor every clutch and pull of muscle gripping against muscle; every sensation that felt like a hot burst of pressure releasing inside to flood through his entire body; every shivering implosion of pain that couldn�
�t seem to stop, to silence the pleasure.

  And every bright drop of emotion lighting the heavy shadows inside Rian, chasing away the dark of his pensive thoughts until he...he...

  He wasn’t alone.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, when the fury burst between them. Soft and slow and sweet, rending at him not with gnashing tooth and furious claw but with the grasping touch of gentle, needy fingers stroking their way into his aching heart. He couldn’t stand it, but he couldn’t let go, tasting Damon’s mouth again and again and sounding out the syllables of his name even if Rian couldn’t quite bring himself to say it aloud; couldn’t quite bring himself to break this silence that was only liquid breaths and sliding skin and the rushing, pounding beat of his heart.

  He didn’t want this to end.

  Didn’t want to ruin it with clumsy words; with the harsh things they threw at each other when everything they said went wrong and there was nothing between them but anger and frustration.

  When right now there was something more in the silence, in the slow steady rhythm of their movements together, in Rian’s gasps of pleasure echoed in tandem with Damon’s as they met and came apart and met again, pushing and pulling each other until they gave and took with every delicious rush of friction that their bodies made together; every tight lock of flesh as Damon sank in deep and gave Rian all of him until he could barely take any more.

  He could have stayed like this for hours, for days, for an endless eternity of breathing in Damon’s kisses and breathing out his pleasure...but Rian’s body wasn’t strong enough. Rian wasn’t strong enough, when he felt like this intense thing storming inside him was battering him to pieces, tearing him apart in silent ravages, and he held fast to Damon to keep himself together, to try to hold on even as Damon teased him toward breaking with rough fingers that found Rian’s cock and stole in lazy, teasing strokes along his length. Rhythm and counter-rhythm, fingers slicking over him, Damon’s cock sinking inside him, Damon’s tongue electrifying his mouth and capturing Rian’s every moan until they no longer belonged to him.

  Nothing belonged to him anymore, not his will, not his body, not his self-control, and he lost that control as Damon jolted his hips just a little harder, crashed into Rian just right, and he felt that throbbing, that swelling as Damon arched his back and went stiff and caught a growl in his throat...

  While Rian collapsed, inside and out.

  He collapsed, his foundations crumbling out from under him to leave him helpless to the force of pleasure that crashed over him so violently it hurt, a rough ripping sensation seeming to drag his climax from him until he thrashed against Damon and it was only that heavy weight keeping him still, keeping him close, keeping him safe.

  And holding him together, as Rian came down from something so dizzying and crushing he could hardly catch his breath, clinging to Damon as he tried to pull himself together.

  Tried to pull himself together, and tried to figure out what had just wrenched inside him until suddenly the map of himself pointed in wholly new directions, and he no longer knew which way to turn to find journey’s end, only that the path was marked with breadcrumbs made out of the pieces of a heart that felt as if it could only be breaking. Especially when night was sinking, for him, as his eyelids fell, leaden in an instant as the last of his energy bled out.

  “Rian...?”

  He barely heard his name in a hoarse rasp, barely managed to whisper back something that felt far too honest, to kiss Damon when he couldn’t find better words, before he went under.

  But Rian thought, even as he sank into the dark, even as he lost himself in the aftermath of a shattering that felt as if it had smashed him apart and remade him anew from the pieces...

  He had made a mistake.

  And in a moment of needy impulse, he had started something that could, in the end, only hurt them both.

  * * *

  Damon didn’t know why he was surprised Rian slept like the dead.

  His heart had nearly stopped, when he’d gently pried their bodies apart and touched his fingers to Rian’s cheek...and realized he was crying. Tears streaking down his face in wet glimmers, and Damon had felt like a complete and utter shithead, panic rising inside him...only for Rian to smile at him, sweet and sad, and kiss him—lingering, warm, his palm cupping to Damon’s cheek.

  It’s okay, he’d whispered against Damon’s lips. I’m okay. Thank you.

  Before Rian had been gone almost in an instant, snuggled trustingly into Damon’s chest and caged between Damon’s body and the wall, when it was pretty much the only way they could both fit on the narrow twin bed without one of them falling off in their sleep. And as his breaths had evened out and calmed, Rian had turned still and quiet, loose and lax against Damon, his hair a leviathan ensnaring Damon’s limbs and keeping him close.

  Not that Damon would have gotten up if he could; he was still caught, wrapped up in that moment when a slow, soft, hurting kiss had turned into something more. More than comfort; more than a distraction; more than...anything Damon had ever felt with every man he’d dated or casual fuck he’d thrown himself into to let off steam for a night.

  That sense of isolation had always been there, even when he told himself he was trying to fall in love or even just trip over a little lust for a night or two. That sense of being separate, of not belonging, but it was always his walls they murmured about when they regretfully shook their heads and said this wasn’t going to work.

  His walls, instead of the ones he felt like he saw everywhere, shutting him out.

  But there had been no walls between him and Rian, tonight. Nothing but shared pain, shared need, shared hope, shared warmth.

  That hadn’t felt like just sex.

  It had felt like...

  Too much.

  Not enough.

  Everything.

  Something that left Damon breathless, as he watched Rian sleep and wondered when he’d stopped seeing a skinny, pale, snotty, meddling pain in Damon’s ass.

  And started seeing this beautiful fey thing who was just as lost as he was, so unsure of his place in the world, but goddammit... Rian was trying.

  Trying until he wore himself out, and slept as deeply as an exhausted child, tangled so closely with Damon and trusting Damon to keep him safe while he escaped from their mutual troubles in sleep.

  I will, Damon thought, even if he wasn’t quite sure what he was promising. He gathered Rian closer, resting his head atop that messy crown of rippling hair, and told himself even if this was just for tonight, even if it broke in the morning...

  I’ll hold you close. I’ll keep you safe.

  If you’ll let me...

  I will.

  God, his head was going all fucked—and maybe Damon had been wrong from the start, when his chest was a hollow drum reverberating with the echoes of these frustrating feelings he couldn’t name.

  He’d fucked up, all right.

  Because it was looking like he’d let someone like Rian Falwell break his heart after all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rian wasn’t in his own bed.

  That was the first thing that struck him, as he straggled awake.

  The second was that he was nearly drowning in a deep, plush mattress that wasn’t his own, sinking into it so far he felt like he was being swallowed.

  The third was that he was sore inside in ways he hadn’t been in quite some time, when his last sexually intimate relationship had been a boyfriend with a gambling addiction who had pawned several of the expensive bits of jewelry Rian had brought from home, then blamed Rian for trying to take over his life and “fix” him when he didn’t need fixing. Douglas hadn’t been particularly good in bed, anyway, rather selfish—and he’d never left Rian so deliciously worn out he’d passed out seconds after finishing, only to wake up sore and stretching and feeling like a very satisfied cat.r />
  While the fourth thing that struck him, as he shifted and settled deeper into that lush mattress and stre-e-eeetched his legs out until his ankles popped and his toes curled?

  Was that he was trapped against the cool wooden wall of a room that wasn’t his own by the body that was the exact reason why he was waking up feeling so wonderfully, throbbingly used.

  He opened his eyes drowsily, for a moment disoriented that the light coming through the windows on the opposite wall and behind the bed was so bright until he remembered it was Saturday; no bells to wake him just as dawn crested the horizon. No bells to tell him he had to leave this, now, when right now...

  He felt at peace, as he watched Damon sleep.

  This was the first time he’d felt safe really letting himself look at Damon fully, taking him in without needing to hide his interest or worry he’d get caught and have to explain himself in a mortified mess. He so often thought of Damon’s face as something just as hard-cut as his body...but Rian realized now it was the tension he carried with him so often, the thoughts always weighing on him, when sleep softened his features to smooth away years and add gentle, peaceful contours around his brows and cheeks, framed by the dark slashes of tangled, unbound hair falling everywhere. He must worry so much, Rian thought, about so many things—and some tiny aching part of him wanted to kiss the furrows in Damon’s brow each morning to ease them away before the day’s aggravation could crease them in deep again.

  What am I thinking?

  He didn’t know.

  He only knew that waking up with Damon like this, quiet and lazy with Damon’s arm draped over his waist, so heavy and warm....

  It lifted something inside Rian. Calmed the nonstop storm of quietly fussing thoughts that only let him be when he absorbed himself in a painting of some other piece of art, up to his elbows in clay and wearing thick, wet gray gloves of it or making a complete disaster of himself with smears of gouache or chalky pastel powder everywhere. That same calm filled him as he traced his fingertips over the curve of Damon’s shoulder, watching how the morning sunlight turned dusky, rich brown to gold at Damon’s starkest edges, and just...let himself be at rest.