What Adriel needed was to stop thinking.
Landen rose from the floor slowly. He brought himself to Adriel's eye level on the sofa, and reached out to cup Adriel's face in both hands. His thumbs brushed the tears away.
"Hey," he said softly. "Come here."
Adriel blinked at him, eyes red, lips parted. Landen didn't wait for him to answer. He leaned in and kissed him.
He felt Adriel tense for a moment, a hiccup of breath caught between their mouths, and then, degree by degree, soften. Adriel's hands came up, uncertain at first, then gripping Landen's wrists where his hands cradled his face, holding on.
Landen deepened the kiss slowly. He could feel the shift happening under his hands; the tension in Adriel's jaw releasing, the breathing slowing, the thoughts quieting.
He pulled back just enough to see Adriel's eyes. They were still wet, but the panic was receding. In its place was something softer, something dazed and wanting.
"I'm going to take you to bed," Landen murmured. "And I'm going to show you exactly what you are to me." He pressed his lips to Adriel's forehead, then the bridge of his nose, then the corner of his mouth. "Is that okay?"
Adriel nodded.
Landen stood. Took Adriel's hand, and pulled him gently to his feet. Adriel came willingly, if a bit unsteadily, and when he swayed slightly Landen steadied him with a hand on his hip, and guided him toward the bedroom.
In the bedroom, Landen undressed him slowly.
His sweater first, lifted over his head with hands that lingered at the hem, fingertips brushing the soft skin of his sides. Then his undershirt, peeled away to bare his chest, his stomach, the warm flush already spreading across his skin.
Adriel stood and let him.
Landen could see the old tension still present; the slight flinch when his sweater came off, the reflexive pull of his stomach inward, the way his hands twitched toward covering himself. But it was quieter tonight. Muted.
Landen's hands returned immediately, palm flat against Adriel's sternum, feeling the heartbeat thundering there. He let his fingers drag downward, tracing the line of soft hair that trailed from chest to navel, watching Adriel's eyes flutter.
His jeans next. Landen knelt to undo them, pulled them down his legs, watched him step out of them. His underwear followed, sliding down his thighs, baring him completely.
Once Adriel was bare, Landen stepped back.
Looked at him.
He let himself look the way he always wanted to and rarely allowed himself in full. The pale stretch marks at his hips, silver lines against warm skin. The flush spreading down his chest, staining his neck, his ears, the tops of his shoulders. His cock, half-hard already, thickening as Landen watched.
He let his face show what he felt, because Adriel needed to see it and Landen was done being careful about this.
Then he undressed himself.
Shirt first. He pulled it over his head, and watched Adriel watch him. Saw the way Adriel's breath caught, the way his eyes tracked over Landen's body with that particular mixture of want and self-consciousness that Landen had started to love.
His belt next. The slide of leather through loops, the soft sound of it falling to the floor. His trousers, pushed down and stepped out of. His underwear, hooked and pulled, freeing his cock, already hard and aching.
Then he stood there, bare in the lamplight, and let Adriel look at him too.
The comparison was there behind Adriel's eyes. Landen could see it forming, sharp and lean against soft and wide. The conclusion Adriel always drew from it, thewrong one, the one Landen intended to dismantle.
He guided Adriel onto the bed. Positioned him on his back. Moved him until he was exactly where Landen wanted him, exactly how Landen wanted him.
Then he leaned over and kissed him. His mouth first, slow and deep. He parted Adriel's lips with his own, slid his tongue inside, tasted him. His tongue stroked against Adriel's, explored the heat of him, mapped the shape of his mouth.
Adriel made a small sound against his lips. Landen swallowed it and kissed him deeper.
Then his jaw. Landen's lips trailed along the sharp line of it, kissing down to the soft skin beneath his ear. He nipped there lightly, felt Adriel's breath stutter, then soothed it with his tongue.
The hollow of his throat. That warm place where his pulse beat close to the surface. Landen pressed his mouth to it, felt the thrum of it against his lips, the quick flutter of Adriel's heartbeat. He licked there, tasting salt and skin, and Adriel's hips twitched beneath him.
