Page 58 of Our Radiant Embers

In the corridor that led to the loos, dim lighting and Adam pressed up against me. My reaction delayed by a momentary flicker of surprise before I’d grabbed his shoulders, and then it had been heat and open mouths, my blood buzzing with a mix of alcohol and Adam. So fucking hot.

“I remember,” I said flatly, and in trying to conceal just how well I remembered, I might have overshot and come off as dismissive.

Adam ducked his head, voice subdued. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t come into it with a ton of practice, so…”

I needed a second to make sense of it, mostly because it didn’t. Make sense, that was.

Then I started laughing.

“Oh, fuck you.” Adam pulled his arm away and made to get up, face averted. I reached for him, caught his belt, and pulled him back down. He crashed on top of my thighs, already struggling to get away again and knocking a few clothes off the bed in the process. I held on.

“Adam. For fuck’s sake, I’m not laughing at you.”

It took a moment, and then he stopped fighting. His chest rose on a deep breath, eyes still narrowed to thin, distrustful slits as he twisted around to look at me. We hadn’t been this close a minute ago.

“Who are you laughing at, then?” he asked tightly.

I pointed a thumb at myself. “This guy.”

His brow wrinkled in confusion or maybe disbelief. Christ, he was just about sitting in my lap, wasn’t he? But maybe if I didn’t draw attention to it and he didn’t either, we could pretend it wasn’t happening. Right. Solid plan.

“I don’t get it,” he said, still in that tightly controlled tone.

“You apologised,” I told him. “That’s…Adam, I wanked off to that memory for months. I mean, more the part in the car, I guess—don’t get me wrong, the kissing was nice, yeah? But getting my cock into your mouth was really fucking nice. And I usually skipped the whole aftermath where you kicked me out with my trousers still around my ankles. But, yeah. Months.”

He stared at me for several beats, the tension around his mouth slowly melting away. Somewhere else in the house, Jack or Laurie were blasting their usual blend of pop and hip hop, but in the space between Adam and me, it was quiet.

“But,” Adam began slowly, a murmur, “you blamed it on the alcohol. It blurs vision and standards, isn’t that what you said?”

“Well, yeah.” I lifted one shoulder in a miniature shrug. “I was being a prick though, wasn’t I? In my defence, so were you.”

Faint amusement glinted in Adam’s eyes. I was close enough that I spotted flecks of brighter green among the hazel hues, like sunlight in an autumn forest, and Jesus, my mind was tripping headfirst into cliches. This wasn’t what I did—I didn’t get hung up on guys. My fingers were still loosely hooked around Adam’s belt.

“Yeah, maybe I was being a prick,” Adam said softly. “But I hated how much I wanted you.”

I dragged in a sharp breath, my centre of gravity nudged sideways and towards him. “Past tense?”

His lips parted as his gaze focused on me with dark intensity. “Present tense, too.”

Did I move first? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was Adam who leaned closer—a dizzy moment and the room tilting on its axis as I fell back, drawing him down with me, further upsetting the piles of clothes. The floral whiff of freshly laundered sheets blended with his cologne, a warm, woodsy scent that made it hard to think. So I didn’t. Tipped up my chin to meet Adam’s eyes, breathless as though I’d come right off a sprint.

No space left between us.

I closed my eyes as our lips met in a soft, gentle brush, the contact so light it might have been a figment of my imagination. Adam’s weight on top of me was real, though. I parted my thighs to bring him closer. One of his hands curved around my jaw, and then we were kissing, actually kissing, mouths open, coming together and apart and together again. Behind my lids, shadows sparked with gold. When I slid my eyes open just enough to catch a glimpse, the glow around Adam was interspersed with gold as well. Beautiful. Beautiful. I tangled a hand in his hair and lost track of time.

Minutes? Probably. Soft, wet sounds of kissing and the rustle of sheets, distant music somewhere outside the room because the rest of the world still existed. I just didn’t care.

Adam’s fingertips danced along my cheek and down my throat. A light tug on the collar of my T-shirt, the warm press of his knuckles against the dip between my collarbones. I finally released his belt, but only to ruck up the back of his shirt and flatten my hand against warm skin, tracing the ripples of his spine. Sunlight brushed against the nape of my neck.

Sunlight?

I broke our kiss and reached for the spot. Tendrils of warmth twined around my fingers. I brought my hand back, blinked, and found Adam’s magic clinging to my skin like stardust.

“You felt that?” he asked in a whisper, eyes on me.

“Yeah. Holy shit, Adam. That’s…” I cleared my throat. “Bloody hot, really.”

“Yeah?” His face brightened with a smile, and then warmth touched the insides of my thighs like liquid gold. Jesus. I drew him down for another burning kiss, nudged my tongue into his mouth, flickers of heat touching my throat and chest.

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