Page 23 of A Series of Rooms
“I have something for you.” He drew Jonah in closer and leaned forward to whisper it against his ear, making him shudder at the heightened sensation. Everything felt so muchmorelike this, so much better, and he didn’t ever want it to ever stop.
A finger tapped twice on his bottom lip and Jonah opened his eyes. There was a tiny pill pinched between Dom’s fingers, presented inches from his face. Jonah had to blink a few times to bring it into focus.
“One for each of us,” Dom said. He popped one into his mouth from his other hand and swallowed it dry, then gestured for Jonah to take the other. For the briefest moment, a sharp peck of claritytapped the foggy glass of Jonah’s intoxication, some buried-deep instinct trying to call attention to a bad idea. An old, familiar guilt roiled in his stomach. Conviction, his pastor would have called it.
But that wasn’t who Jonah was anymore. He had left that life behind, or it had left him behind. Either way, he wasn’t bound by the laws that had dictated most of his life.
But if Jonah had already crossed about a thousand lines he never thought he would, this particular temptation felt like a line too far.
“I don’t know,” Jonah said, leaning in close so Dom could hear him.
He was already having fun. It was perfect. He would have liked to have stayed just how he was, but Dom was smiling so close to him, little kisses peppering his jaw, his neck, and it felt so nice.Domwas so nice.
He wouldn’t do anything to bring Jonah harm. He had been the one to take him in. He had been the one to bring him home and clean him up, give him a place to sleep for a few nights that had turned into weeks. Dominic gave him clothes to wear and the first sense of trust he had been able to feel since climbing onto the night bus just outside of Indianapolis almost a month earlier.
Besides, Dom had taken the pill, too. It couldn’t be that bad.
“Please?” Dom purred against his skin. Jonah could feel the vibration more than he could hear the word. “I don’t want to come down yet. I want to feel like this with you for as long as I can.”
Somehow, in the moment, Jonah couldn’t argue. He opened his mouth.
A finger pushed gently between his lips, placing the pill on his tongue. Dom closed his mouth over Jonah’s and kissed him, hard and deep, until he swallowed.
The night got harder to track after that.
Time was fragmented, jumping and skipping like a broken tape, moving in slow motion one moment and careening into freefall the next.
At some point, the scene changed around him. They were still at the club, the bass pounding in muffled staccato on the other side of a wall, but it was quieter. Emptier. He could tell, even without opening his eyes, that it was darker, too.
“They’re looking at you.” It took a moment to realize the voice came from Dominic, who was pressed against his back. Jonah was sprawled on his lap, a sticky, vinyl sofa beneath them.
“Who?” The word slipped out of him, dazed and slow.
“Everyone.”
Jonah opened his eyes and saw that Dominic was right. Eyes peered at him from the darkness, a silent audience washed in the glow of a single strip of red light from above. The men from the dance floor—or were these different men? He couldn’t tell.
“You could have anyone you wanted tonight,” Dominic told him.
“I wantyou.” It came without thought, without reservation, but Dominic was laughing. The sound was easier to hear away from the crowd.
“I get you for free,” he said. “They’re just easy money.”
Jonah didn’t understand. Not at first. The connection clicked when he remembered the sparse details of Dominic’s past that hehad shared. The way he had gotten by in the city when he was Jonah’s age. He started to sit up, sobered slightly by the suggestion, but Dominic shushed him with a flat hand against his stomach, gently pulling him back.
“Shh, it’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said, and Jonah relaxed, mollified by the promise. “But you haven’t had much luck with work, and you’re good at this. I know from experience,” he added with a kiss to his cheek.
Jonah laughed, heady and charmed. “I don’t know,” he said for the second time that night. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. He was beginning to realize there was a lot he didn’t know about the world.
“Isn’t it illegal?” Jonah asked, feeling younger than he was.
Dominic smiled against his neck. “Do they look like cops to you?”
Jonah thought—but did not say—wouldn’t that be the point?“Do you want me to?” he asked.
“I don’t mind sharing.”
“But do youwantme to?”
