Page 52 of The Art of Drowning

I rolled my eyes. Humor and awkward fumbling would only get me so far. “Okay, fuck this,” I said.

Before he could think of what I might mean by that, I threw myself at him. Grabbed him by the shirt and tugged him close. Our mouths met with a clack of teeth and a sigh, and everything was suddenly better.

The past ten years fell away. So did the distance between us, the separation, and the absence of him. Underneath it all was the same raw want that I’d felt in the beginning. The kiss was incandescent and his hands were everywhere. Sliding up my chest, clutching my face. Thrusting into my hair. His fingers brushed through the short hairs at the back of my neck.

My body throbbed to the beat of my heart. I managed to remember how to kiss and breathe and how to drive Damien crazy. I slowed the kiss as if we had all the time in the world. I skimmed my hands down his back. His shirt was crazy soft but not as soft as his skin. I slid my hands under his shirt and along his waist with a featherlight touch that had him sighing, his body swaying into me, backing me up.

“Show me your room,” Damien whispered.

I couldn’t make myself stop touching him, so I backed up slowly, letting muscle memory steer me down the hallway. Damien reached behind me and opened my door and only then did I turn around.

My bed wasn’t made because I’d been tossing and turning when he’d shown up. But the room was tidy otherwise. There was a pile of clean laundry on the chair that Crudinski had already laid on and got his hair all over. Thankfully, at the moment, he was making himself scarce.

“I always wondered what adult Callum’s room looked like.” Damien plastered himself against my back. His lips brushed against my neck, and I didn’t try to hide the way I shivered. Or that I tilted my head and let my body ask for more.

“I hope it doesn’t disappoint.”

“It’s cleaner than I thought it would be.” Damien laughed and kissed me again. His hands rested on my waist, but they traveled lower, gently inching my pajama bottoms down.

“Oh, fuck off,” I said, as breathless as if we’d still been kissing.

God, I’d forgotten how intense it could be sometimes to be near him. To let him touch me. How it made me want him with an intensity that only seemed to have grown over time. Like it was a monster that had feasted on his absence and only grown stronger and wilder without him and was now thrashing, trying to break free.

Damien’s hand slid under the waist of my pants and I nearly collapsed when his knuckles brushed against my rigid cock. Then his hand flipped over and he palmed my erection. At the same time, his other arm had wrapped around me and he held me against him, squeezing my pec. His lips glided over my neck, hot breath ghosted over my flesh. I was too close and too far away and wearing too many clothes and entirely too exposed. My heart fluttered like a hummingbird, and I couldn’t think of anything else except how fucking right this felt.

He touched me like no time had passed between us. Like he was an expert in my body still and clearly he was, because the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. And the simple truth was that no one had ever made me feel a fraction of what I felt when I was with him.

No one had ever made me feel like my body wanted to fly apart just so he could put me back together.

I turned my head, and Damien was there to capture my mouth in a kiss. Our tongues battled and our ragged breathing roared in my ears like a storm blowing in. The hair on my arms stood on end when Damien turned me in his embrace so he could kiss me properly, sealing his mouth over mine, delving his tongue deep inside like he could taste my longing.

I’d fucking ached for him. I’d tried not to. I’d tried to forget about him and put the past behind me. It felt juvenile to let myself be hung up on someone I’d fallen for in high school, but I never learned how to let go.

I never learned how to stop loving him.

“Damien, please.” I tugged at the bottom of his shirt and then it was gone. In one smooth motion, he pulled it off over his head and tossed it aside somewhere and then his mouth was on me again, attacking me. And then it was on my neck again. My throat. My clavicle. His hands roamed my body, touching me everywhere with a reverence that I could feel in my bones. It was like neither of us were convinced this was real. Both of us were in this hallucination and were expecting it to end at any moment.

But it didn’t. And as the seconds sped past, it became increasingly apparent that this was real.

Damien was here.

In my house.

In my bedroom.

For a second, I remembered what had to happen to make this possible, and then I quickly shoved that thought aside. I’d address it later. Right now there was only me and him and my hummingbird heart trying to fly out of my chest.

Damien went to his knees in front of me and buried his face in my groin. I sank my hands into his hair and tipped my head back, unable to look down at him for fear that I’d come at the sight of a dream come true.

He eased my pants down the rest of the way and let them pool at my feet. I let them stay there, unwilling or unable to move in case I broke the spell. I’d dreamed of this. Of having him here. Of being able to touch him again. Hold him again and kiss him again.

Able to love him again.

I looked down, unable to stop myself and saw him looking up at me.

I’d never stopped wanting him and missing him, and now he was here, and despite the circumstances that led to this, I was obscenely happy. I was happy in a way that didn’t feel entirely appropriate, and I realized that I didn’t care.

Not even a little.