By the time he reached the stairs leading down to the station, by the time he pulled his metro card from his pocket and swiped through the turnstile, by the time he stood on the platformwith the cold wind tunneling through and the lights of the approaching train visible in the distance…
By then, he had already, quietly and completely, stopped believing it.
Chapter 12
Landen
Landen came down to the archive mid-morning looking for the original bound Calloway manuscript.
A contradiction had been turning in his mind since yesterday; something in chapter four pulling against the revised third act. He needed to check Author’s first instinct before he made the call.
The archive was quiet, as it always was. Narrow rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves, low overhead lighting, the smell of old paper and dust. He moved through it with purpose, folder tucked under one arm, mind already turning over the problem.
He stepped into the third row from the door and stopped dead.
Adriel.
Back to the door, reaching for something on a mid-level shelf. Stretched up on his toes, one hand braced against the shelf for balance, the other reaching. His sweater had ridden up slightly at the back.
Landen looked at him.
The curve of his waist. The soft width of his hips. The pale skin where his sweater had pulled away, a small stretch mark running across his hip, visible in the low light.
His mouth watered.
He wanted to touch it. Wanted to press his mouth there, to feel that skin against his lips, to know if it was as soft as it looked. As soft as Adriel's cheek had felt under his fingers. Softer.
He wanted to bite it.
The wanting hit him with the flat force it always did now. Every time. Without warning, without permission, whenever Adriel was in his line of sight.
Adriel turned and jumped slightly as he noticed him. Went pink instantly, the color flooding his cheeks, spreading down his neck. He pulled his sweater down, quick, automatic, tugging it over the skin Landen had been staring at.
"Oh, hi." A small step back. "Sorry. Am I in your way?"
Landen shook his head. Stepped forward. His throat tight as he said, "Calloway manuscript."Wow, eloquent…
Adriel nodded, cheeks still pink, and turned slightly, reaching up. Landen followed the movement; saw the manuscript sitting on the high shelf, just out of reach. Adriel's fingers brushed the spine but couldn't grip it.
Without thinking, Landen stepped in behind him and reached up, a strong of Déjà vu hitting him as he did so.
They were closer than ever before. Adriel's back against his chest, pressed into him by the narrowness of the row. He went still beneath Landen, frozen, barely breathing.
Landen could smell his hair. Something clean, fruity. He could feel the warmth of his body through their clothes, could feel the shape of him, the give of him. Could feel his cock pressed against Adriel's ass; that fucking ass, the one he'd imagined a hundred times, the one he wanted to bury himself into until neither of them remembered their own names.
He held a manuscript he no longer cared about in the slightest.
He didn't step back.
Even as he felt himself harden, thicken, press harder against the fabric of his trousers and into the soft curve of Adriel's body.
He looked down at Adriel's face.
The color. The parted lips. The eyes coming up to find his; wide, so wide, the irises darker than Landen had ever seen them. Dark with something.Want. Fear. Both. Neither. He couldn't tell.
Something in his chest pulled so tight it was almost painful.
He wanted to put his mouth on him. Wanted to press him into the shelf, strip him naked and take him apart so slowly that neither of them remembered anything except this. Except the way they fit together in this narrow space.
