Page 17 of Counterpoint
A glimpse told him that Adrian seemed to enjoy greens and blues and golds, because those were the colors that caught Dom’s eye through the open doors. Calming. Soothing. God, he liked this guy.
Adrian rounded the hallway to another set of stairs. “The movers hated me for the next bit. All those boxes of books.”
Even though he steeled himself, when they reached the third floor, Dom exhaled in wonder. “Oh my god.”
The whole third floor of the house had been converted into a library. There was a comfortable reading bench that looked like it might double for a daybed, and a small desk with a chair on the far side, but other than that, there were only shelves and books. And not just along the walls, either. Half-bookcases were situated into little rows, and there were even books stacked on top. Some of the tomes looked old, others new. Dom took one step and then another into the space, and drank it all in.
“I had to have the floor reinforced, but I’ve always wanted a space like this. My own haven.” There was a wistfulness to Adrian’s voice. “Some of these are my great-grandfather’s books.”
“I could live here.” The thought came out of Dom’s lips, unbidden and unstoppable. “You have no idea.”
And there was the laugh Dom was finding heated his bones like no other sound. “I do now,” Adrian said.
Dom stared at Adrian, at the suit he wore so well, the cut, the color. The tiny smile he had. Yeah, he could fall so hard for this man. Hell, he was already zooming down the tracks, screaming his head off in terror, and they’d not even gotten anywhere near a bed.
That smile deepened. “Would it help if I told you I could cook?”
“Can you?”
Adrian nodded. “Though I’ve never tried to make lemon meringue pie.”
Dom didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “If you’re as good in bed as out of it, I’m doomed.”
That smile turned sharp and Adrian stalked forward. “Then Dominic, my dear man...” He caught Dom’s neck with both hands and stroked down to his shoulders. “You’re so utterly doomed.”
This time, Adrian’s kiss was hard and deep and didn’t stop. It devoured and claimed, and Dom could only hold on to those strong arms and groan. It was a kiss that would end one way—with Dom completely stripped and undone. With every inhibition removed and with his soul laid bare.
He wanted every single second of that.
Adrian’s fingers pressed into his shoulders, his grip like iron. Not painful, but commanding. He spoke against Dom’s lips. “I’m going to take every stitch of clothing off you, Dominic. Then you’re going to kneel for me and wrap those beautiful lips of yours around my cock.” Teeth scraped Dom’s lower lip. “Yes?”
He couldn’t breathe for how fucking turned on he was. Bones hot, mind whirling. Cock so hard in his jeans it was painful. “Please. Yes.” The books. The sound of Adrian’s voice. The color of those eyes burning into him.
The tie went first, of course, deftly undone by Adrian’s fingers. Lips followed, grazing Dom’s neck as each button of his shirt was undone. He swayed under Adrian’s touch and mouth.
When his shirt was opened, a caress of breath blew across his shoulder. “Now, this I wasn’t expecting. You’re full of layers, Dominic.”
His tattoos. Of course. He kind of forgot about them when he was buttoned up in his button-downs. “Yeah. I...have a lot of ink.”
“So I see.” Adrian tugged the shirt from the waist of Dom’s jeans, then pushed it off his shoulders. It caught at the cuffs, trapping his hands. Adrian took a step back, his eyes roaming across Dom’s chest and belly. There was still bare skin, but Dom knew what else Adrian saw—ink that dipped down past the waistband of his jeans.
He’d never felt more exposed, more naked, despite still wearing his pants. He’d gone shirtless onstage, of course, but rarely took off all his clothes for hookups. Didn’t have to, not when it was meant to be a quick fuck and release before never seeing the dude again. And most of the guys he met found it hot to fuck without much thought about the other person.
Maybe that’s why Adrian scared him so. He noticed things. Asked questions. Wanted to know about Dom. Thank god he wasn’t much of a rock fan, though. There was no sense of recognition of Dom’s tattoos in Adrian’s appreciative and lust-filled appraisal. No sign that he’d seen them on another, very different man.
“They’re masterful.” Adrian feathered fingers down the cardinal wing that covered Dom’s right pec. “Must have taken hour and hours.”
Countless. The heat from Adrian’s fingers on his skin only highlighted just how much of his flesh was covered in ink. “I started when I was eighteen and—I couldn’t get enough.” They werehis, too. Dom’s, not Domino’s—despite them being one of Domino’s better known features, and despite him covering them up when he went about his life as Dominic.
“I don’t have any. Never could settle on a design.” Adrian traced his hand up to Adrian’s shoulder, where a circle of Celtic knot-work capped the end. “The Irish in me quite likes this one.”
He brushed his lips against it, and Dom whimpered.
“Turn around, please,” Adrian said.
Dom did, exposing his back and the ink that stretched across his flesh there, too.
“Oh, good god,” Adrian whispered. “I want to devour you.”
