“You okay?” Malik asked.
Lincoln turned, eyes raw. “No. But that’s not new.”
Realizing this was a good time to escape, Malik pushed his chair back.
“Come with me.”
Lincoln stood to follow him, only to stop when he realized they were heading away from the conference rooms.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere quiet,” Malik replied as he kept walking toward a lessor used part of the building.
“If anyone comes in now...” Lincoln whispered.
“No one will.”
Malik nodded toward a partition at the back. A graveyard of extra chairs and tables. He tugged Lincoln up and around the divider into a pocket of near-privacy. The alcove was isolated, the window high and frosted with winter grime.
Malik stepped closer, bracketing Lincoln against the wall. The plaster was cold through Lincoln’s shirt, but the heat coming off him was a physical force. Lincoln didn’t resist. He leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall.
Malik claimed his mouth, gentler than before. Lincoln’s hands landed on Malik’s hips, gripping through the fabric of his pants. Malik pulled away just far enough to murmur, “I want you.”
Lincoln’s eyes closed. “Here?”
“Right now.”
Malik slid his hands up under Lincoln’s shirt. He dragged his palms over Lincoln’s ribs, mapping the body he’d memorized from a distance for a decade. Lincoln reached for Malik’s belt, his hands shaking, fumbling with the buckle and zipper. He shoved the jeans down enough to free Malik, his fingers trembling as he wrapped a hand around him.
Malik shook his head. He wanted to see Lincoln break. He guided Lincoln to sit on the edge of a battered, low-slung table. Malik dropped to his knees between Lincoln’s legs. The floor was hard, the smell of industrial wax and old paper thick in the air.
He unbuttoned Lincoln’s trousers, pulling them down with his briefs. Lincoln was already hard, a sharp contrast to his usually controlled exterior. Malik took him into his mouth, the heat and taste of him filling his senses. Lincoln let out a choked sound, his fingers tangling in Malik’s hair.
Malik worked him with a desperate, rhythmic focus. He wanted to erase the symposium, erase Emmy, erase every distraction.” He wanted only this. Lincoln’s head fell back against the wall, his breathing turning into jagged gasps.
“Malik,” Lincoln whispered, a plea.
Malik increased the pressure, his tongue tracing the ridge of him. He looked up, seeing Lincoln’s face. Flushed, eyes wet, the mask of the tenured professor completely gone. Lincoln’s grip on Malik’s hair tightened as he reached the edge. He came with a muffled cry, his body shuddering. Malik stayed with him until the last of the tremors faded.
Malik stood up, wiping his mouth. Lincoln sat on the edge of a low table, chest heaving. Malik cleaned himself with a tissue as Lincoln tucked himself back into his clothes.
Malik reached for Lincoln’s face, cupping it. He stroked Lincoln’s cheekbones, mapping the heat that still burned there. Lincoln closed his eyes, his shoulders dropping.
“Thank you,” Lincoln whispered.
Outside the room, the world carried on. But here, the connecting door separating them had finally swung open, far from the prying eyes of Lincoln’s family or the faculty.
Chapter 5
February 14th | 7:00 AM
Lincoln
Lincoln woke to the muffled, heavy silence that only a house buried in deep snow can produce. It was a silence that felt thick, as if the white drifts outside had pressed against the Victorian’s wooden bones, insulating the world within from the world without.
The light pressing through the thin lace curtains of his bedroom was a flat, bruised gray, a winter dawn that offered no warmth. A white slab of accumulation rimmed the window ledge, rounding off the hard edges of the frame and obscuring the view of the street where Lincoln had once played as a boy.
The room was cold. The old radiator in the corner was a temperamental beast, clanking and hissing in a rhythmic metallic heartbeat that always seemed to lag three hours behind the actual temperature. But beneath the heavy patchwork quilt that Lincoln’s grandmother had stitched decades ago the world was a different climate entirely.
