22
Darren
Something stirred Darren awake.He found himself lying on his stomach as his eyes opened slowly, first registering the dim ambience of the room and then the pile of clothes on the floor. His and Aiden’s… which meant that he must’ve fallen asleep after they’d had sex and he’d wiped the mess off their bodies.
A full-body shiver passed through him, heightening all his other senses. His heart beat faster and his cock gave a twitch under him. The smell of fruits and musk tickled his nostrils as he inhaled deeply and the heat from Aiden’s body next to him seeped into him. Toes digging into the sheets, Darren turned his head and came face to face with Aiden’s thigh. He frowned at in and looked up, his heart jumping in his throat.
Aiden was propped against the pillows with his chin in his hand, watching him. The covers were partially draped over Aiden’s lap, but he was otherwise naked, exposing that ivory skin which now bore Darren’s marks all over. Subdued want was pouring off him as his eyes traveled up and down Darren’s sprawled form, unaware that he was awake. Darren grew harder,couldn’t help it, not when the unguarded way Aiden was looking at him couldn’t lie. He could feel them, those complicated feelings and thoughts that lived inside the man, and he wished with his entire being, that one day he could claim them as his.
The thought, the possibility, lit him on fire and that bittersweet hum from earlier settled back into his bones, uplifting and scary at the same time because he had no way to stop it. Just like the crushing yearning.
“You are awake,” Darren said as something primal and possessive stirred in his chest.
Those captivating hazel eyes snapped to his, laser-focused and unwavering even as a troubled expression displaced the tranquil peacefulness of Aiden’s face. There was still heat in his gaze though, and it grew stronger as Darren sat up and brushed his knuckles along the curve of one shoulder.
Aiden shuddered, his eyes fluttering closed. Darren’s heart rate spiked and the ball of selfish need that lived in him burst, taking charge of him with its ugly demands.
“Say it, Aiden. Say that you want me like I want you,” he whispered, desperate to hear it. To have Aiden acknowledge it not just with his body, but with his mind too now that they weren’t high on arousal.
Aiden opened his eyes, the gold flecks in them gleaming. “Please, don’t make me.”
Darren shuffled closer, dropping his arm to the side. “Why? Why do you fight this so much?”
Darren knew the answer because he could see those warring emotions play out on Aiden’s face every time their gazes met. The want, the guilt. Still, he couldn’t give up Aiden, wasn’t willing to, not when he’d found in Aiden so much more than a man plagued by the same ghosts that haunted him.
Aiden looked anywhere but at Darren. He didn’t speak immediately and Darren half-expected him to simply leave. Tosay that this had been a mistake. But he didn’t. He remained next to Darren, close but currently untouchable like a deity weighing their options. One was to accept Darren while the other was to crush him, and he couldn’t do anything but wait for the result.
“If I didn’t,” Aiden started, his hand shooting up to his bruised shoulder. “If I allowed myself to want the one man I should never want, what does that make me? Who would I be?”
An empty shell, a husk of the man Aiden had been since fiancée’s death. A traitor sleeping with the enemy. He’d lose what little he retained of his purpose entirely. Darren understood. But just like Aiden had been there to catch him, to rearrange the pieces and start putting them back together, so was Darren. He craved that chance, he was willing to do anything to have it, so he could help Aiden move on.So he could carve a place for himself in Aiden’s heart.
“Someone who’s finally able to move on,” Darren said, but didn’t elaborate. He simply let the words hang in the air between them, giving Aiden time to feel them out. To taste them.
Aiden let his arm fall to his side. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
“It can be if you let it.” Darren reached for Aiden’s hand and squeezed it, intertwining their fingers. “Just like I did. Because of you.”
The visit to the Valrais mansion hadn’t fixed everything. But it was a start, one that Darren hadn’t thought could ever come. Aiden was the only person he’d told those things to, the only one he’d shown that part of him he kept subdued in hopes he would forget it. But it was there all the same and despite his efforts, and Aiden… Aiden had been the one to pull it to the surface, to force Darren to face it and survive.
“I can’t change what I did,” Darren said, keeping his voice as steady as he could. “I can’t change that you loved her and Itook her away from you. But I’ll do anything in my power to help you move on.” Darren couldn’t erase Claudia, he didn’t want to, but he hoped he could fill the void she’d left. Because despite the lies, Aiden had loved her. “Even if all you’ll ever want is to punish me or hurt me, I don’t care as long as you let me be by your side.”
Aiden inhaled sharply, but continued holding Darren’s gaze. He was scared, Darren could see it, of what he felt and wanted. Of what these truths meant for the things that had kept him going until Darren had turned his world upside down again.
“I’m scared. I loved her and I hated you. I wanted to avenge her. That’s all that mattered to me. But that’s… not true anymore. Since I found out the truth, since you gave it to me, it has all been crumbling down, piece by piece.” Aiden slipped his hand out of Darren’s and sprawled it across the middle of Darren’s chest. “And now I can’t go back to how I was before because despite everything, despite how wrong it might be, I can’t help but want you, Darren Howe.”
The way Aiden looked at him then, the way every heartbeat, every intake of air was skewed by want aimed athimhad Darren’s whole being quake with need so fundamental for the man, he wasn’t sure he could contain it ever again.
He wanted—heneeded—all the pain, the hate, the grief, the sorrow and the want and the lust and the yearning and craving, everything that Aiden Kesley was.Aiden,whose hazel eyes were still boring into him, still seeing all of him and still not looking away.
“Aiden, I—”
The words died unspoken in Darren’s throat as Aiden’s mouth crashed into his. He moaned and that gave Aiden’s tongue an opening to force its way inside. For a moment, the sensation was too much, sudden and robbing him of everything.Destroying him.But in the next, it rebuilt him from nothing between one breath and another.
There was no grace in the chase of their tongues, which devoured and ravaged and swallowed grunts and groans and moans as Aiden’s hand dug into Darren’s arm and pushed down. Straddling his thighs, Aiden attacked his jaw and neck, raining ravenous, bruising kisses all over his skin. The aggression and the desperation in Aiden’s every touch fueled Darren’s arousal, taking him from semi-hard to fully erect in the matter of seconds.
“Fuck,” Aiden groaned when he shifted and their dicks came into contact.
Tiny electric shocks sparkled down Darren’s spine, and he couldn’t help his hips from moving. Aiden made another sexy noise as they started rutting, both chasing more friction. He nipped his way up Darren’s neck and claimed his mouth again in a greedy and dominant kiss, like a beast staking its claim. Darren couldn’t think, couldn’t do more than surrender and let Aiden consume him, powerless against the unhinged desire that seemed to have gotten hold of them both.
