Page 89 of Hold On

Dominic picked up another. “Mmm.”

“That was the biggest one.”

“I know.” Dominic’s heart jumped. The way Ren was staring at him without blinking made him feel…powerful. Dominic slowed down. He drew the tip of his tongue up the chocolate, then licked his lips. Ren was holding a strawberry to his lips but he’d not bitten it. A shiver of lust danced slowly all the way down Dominic’s spine, then zipped back up again.

Ren grabbed the three remaining strawberries and ate them one after the other, stuffing them between his lips, and Dominic laughed.

When Ren had finally emptied his mouth, he licked his lips and groaned. “Any more of you doing that and I’d have come in my jeans.”

“That’s your excuse for being greedy?”

“I’m always greedy for things I like.”

As Dominic rose to take the dish away, Ren slipped after him. When Dominic turned at the sink, Ren was right behind him.

“Your eyes are so beautiful,” Ren whispered.

Oh God, no.

“What did I say?” Ren frowned.

“I… I have my father’s eyes.”

Ren put his hand on Dominic’s cheek. “But I didn’t say that. You haveyoureyes and I think they’re amazing. Warm and beautiful. You’re pretty amazing yourself. What you’ve endured…” Ren swallowed hard. “And I can’t fucking even get my head…”

He moved back but Dominic reached for him and tugged him closer. “When I came out of prison, I closed a door on the past. I thought that was all I needed to do and of course it wasn’t. But if we let what happened in our past spoil our present and our future, then those who hurt us have won. I won’t let what my parents did define me. I am more than that. We both survived. We’re allowed to falter every now and again but we keep going. And you’re right. They’re my eyes, not my father’s. I should have realised that a long while ago.”

“I’m…frightened,” Ren whispered. “Not of people who might want to hurt us, I’m frightened of me! I don’t know if I can…”

“Nor do I.” Dominic ran his fingers over Ren’s face. “Neither of us is going to have to do anything we don’t want to do. We can take this slow or we can take it fast or we can choose not to go down some particular path at all. As long as we’re both into it, that’s all that matters, right?”

The strength of feeling that rushed through Ren was so intense, he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. He pulled Dominic in by his hips, then their lips were together, their tongues slipping and sliding. Dominic dropped his hands to Ren’s arse, dragging him in, and Ren wondered why this guy made him feel so desperate.Why him?

There was a bed not far away but Ren couldn’t move. The kiss was sweet, then hard, deep then soft, the taste of chocolate and ripe strawberries shared between them. There had to be a hundred ways to kiss and Ren wanted to explore all of them with Dominic. Maybe he couldn’t go as far as he wanted, not yet, but everything was going to be all right. That knowledge, that belief, lifted him up, pulled him out of the pit.

It was different with Dominic. Ren had never felt this…compulsion, as if every cell in his body needed the man he was currently welded to. Until Ren had come into contact with Levan, his sexual history had been so different to Dominic’s. Friends with benefits, one-offs with cabin crew, male and female. He’d also picked up one-night-stands—mostly men—in bars, but no-one had ever turned him on like this, made him feel like this. As if he were on the edge, teetering on the brink of something mind-alteringly important.

He felt drunk, wild, high. Yet he’d not had a drink tonight, nor had he touched drugs since his time with Levan. Taking them then hadn’t ever been done voluntarily, though he’d had to pretend he was fine with it.

Dominic’s hands had slid up to the back of Ren’s head and he was digging his fingertips into Ren’s scalp, pressing in to the point of pain, but the sort of pain that set every pleasure neuron firing.

It was an awkward, slow stumble to the bedroom because neither of them would let the other go. They were clutching wherever they could reach, thighs between the other’s legs, hands sliding under T-shirts, into the waist of jeans, stroking skin and kissing at the same time. Always kissing. Laughing too when they banged heads or hands slipped or feet tripped, and Ren’s heart felt as if it was going to burst out of his chest.

They fell hard before they reached the bed. Whose fault it was, Ren didn’t know but Dominic went down and took him with him. When Dominic twisted to make sure he cushioned Ren’s fall, his stupid heart jammed in his throat. It wasn’t as if Dominic was without bruises.

“You okay?” Dominic asked.

“We missed the bed.”

He could feel the hard jut of Dominic’s cock against his thigh as Dominic arched up into him. Their mouths met and Dominic tasted so good, Ren’s head swam.

“You want to fuck me?” Dominic whispered.

Ren sucked in a breath. “I… I…”Fuck! Really?

“Use words.”

“Trying to.”

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