Shades of Darkness (Trials of Fear Book 2)

by Nicky James

  When I went as far as Bottoms Up, all the good sense I’d been running away from caught up with me. Peering at the tinted-out windows from across the street, I knew I could never force myself to go inside and look for him. It was as foolish a decision as when I’d tried out for my high school soccer team. The results were bound to be similar.

  Besides, what if he wasn’t there? What if he was? What if Krew was clung to him, kissing him, or doing something else equally obscene? I think my soul would be crushed.

  Deciding my impromptu journey was idiotic, I spun, prepared to bolt back the way I’d come, when I smashed into a hard chest I was surprisingly—and shamefully—familiar with. The scent of cigarettes on denim aroused my brain in a way I didn’t expect.

  Rory.

  “Woah, where are you flying off to?”

  The instinct to run was mixed up with my body’s desire to cling. While those two conflicting feelings battled for control, I didn’t move and remained pressed to Rory’s chest where he’d caught me, eyes wide and pulse frantic.

  “Where are your glasses?” His fingers trailed down the side of my face with his question, and my knees almost gave out. The fluttering in my belly was overwhelming in a way I’d never experienced, and my brain went completely offline.

  “They’re broken.”

  “Broken how? What happened to them?”

  I opened my mouth to answer and slammed it shut as the vivid dream I’d been having just before the entire incident had occurred resurfaced.

  “I crushed them under my hand by accident.”

  He studied me. Skepticism ruled his features as though he could see through me to the truth I desperately wanted to hide.

  “I’m wearing contacts, but I tend to react to them. My doctor feels it is probably an underlying ocular or systemic condition such as my seasonal allergies causing it, but they can’t rule out that I might have a biochemical reaction when the material of the contact lens comes in contact with the tear film on my…” I trailed off, knowing I sounded like an idiot and was babbling. “Nevermind. Anyhow, that’s why I’m not at work.” But that didn’t explain why I was there, outside Bottoms Up, clearly gawking and looking undecided about entering.

  “Did you come for a drink?”

  I glanced at the bar and back at Rory. He hadn’t loosened his hold in the slightest, our bodies touched in a few places and sizzled my nerve-endings to life.

  “Yes. No. Umm… I was just…” I shrugged. Because even if I wanted to, I couldn’t explain my sudden urge to seek him out. There was nothing rational about my decision at all. Logic had failed me.

  His hand on my hip tightened a fraction and pulled me closer until our bodies were fully aligned. I didn’t offer any resistance; my actions were no longer my own. He leaned his head closer, so his mouth was by my ear before he spoke. The heat of his body was having a dizzying effect.

  “Why are you here, Adrian?”

  “I…” Again, nothing. I had no answer that made any sense.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he continued, his moist breath fanning across my ear, successfully raising the hairs over my body to attention. “There is only one solution to our predicament.”

  I pulled back enough I could look him in the eyes. He wasn’t wearing his shades, and the green of his irises glimmered in the streetlight. His hand on my hip slid around my waist and rested at the small of my back, keeping me close.

  “What predicament?” I was fully aware of what he meant but was unprepared to give it voice, because, in my mind, there was no solution.

  He leaned his face closer, grazing his lips over my mouth. The force of the shudder that rippled through my system came from years and years of longing and need.

  When I spoke, I hated every word that fell past my lips. “Rory, we can’t.”

  “Yes, we can.” Another light caress, issuing the promise of a kiss but not quite delivering.

  “How?” I breathed.

  “You’re fired. I don’t want you as my counselor. I don’t want anyone as my counselor. I don’t need your services or your help. What I need, is this.”

  He sealed his mouth over mine and took my breath away. It was everything I wanted and more than I’d dreamed. There weren’t enough adequate words in the English language to describe the sheer bliss of feeling a man’s touch in that way. And not just any man, but Rory.

  It was demanding, yet gentle. Soft, yet hard enough I knew I’d feel the memory of Rory’s touch for days after it ended. It took us to be connected for a full minute for my self-perceived inadequacies to surface. Was I kissing right? I’d never done this before. What if I was a bad kisser and we’d taken this step for nothing? Would Rory change his mind?

  His tongue teased at the seam of my mouth and brought me back into the moment. When I opened and received my first true taste, I was sure I was going to come in my pants like a twelve-year-old kid. It was sensation overload. The rasp of his scruff grazing against my chin as he kissed was exuberant. I found the courage to cup his face and feel it under my fingers too.

  There, in the middle of the street in downtown Dewhurst Point, I was no longer the twenty-four-year-old man who’d never been kissed. Although that was not where I expected my first kiss to happen, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

  It ended too soon yet had gone on long enough my lips were swollen and chin bore evidence of scruff-burn. We were both breathless and focused solely on each other. It was only then when his words caught up with me, and the lust-filled fog cleared enough I could think again.

  He’d fired me. Quit the center altogether. Made claims he didn’t need help all because of the growing bond we’d been unable to ignore. I couldn’t let him do that.

  “Come back to my place.”

  I slid my hands to the back of his head, loving the feel of the shaved sides under my fingers. I held him in place even though I should have been pulling away.

  “You can’t fire me. You need this.”

  “Afraid I already did. I called the center this afternoon and told them I wanted to close my file. If you’d gone to work, you’d have probably been making that happen right now.”

  “Rory—”

  “I’ve been doing this for six years without help. I’ll figure it out.”

  His lips brushed my cheek again, weakening my resolve even more. “Come on.”

  His hand found mine, and then he dragged me down the street toward where I knew he lived. The probability of what could happen when we got there spiked my adrenaline and thrummed the blood more intensely through my veins. The fact that he’d dropped therapy remained only a distant worry in the faraway reaches of my mind. It should have been the more pressing issue, but I couldn’t bring myself to force its importance.

  The entire journey, my brain scrambled over every detail of what I was up against. Everything I knew about gay sex blasted to the forefront of my mind, from the endless porn I’d watched to the countless articles I’d read. The mechanics of the act were ingrained in my mind. Because, yes, I was a nerd and needed to thoroughly examine every angle of something before I put it to practice.

  Shit, as much as I’d longed for this day since I was fourteen, I didn’t feel remotely ready.

  We entered at the back of his building into the stairwell, and Rory guided me ahead. I vaguely remembered conquering those ten stories recently and in a much more impaired state. It was more difficult sober. Especially with a throbbing erection I couldn’t hide and a steady tremble in my legs.

  Once we reached his apartment, and he closed the door behind us, we were awash in complete darkness. Finding a light was not Rory’s concern as it would be most people’s. He immediately pressed me against the back of the door and claimed my mouth with higher frenzy than he’d shown on the street. Lips, tongues, and teeth collided, and I quickly learned, there was no rhyme or rhythm to kissing. There were no rules to follow or proper practices to adhere to. Kissing was simply a tangle of lust between two people as they broke down any
barriers in their way to come together in a union. It was desperate and hungry, an ongoing battle to get closer and a greediness to have more.

  Rory’s hands found their way under my shirt, but mine were too nervous to do anything more than cling to his sides. Our bodies melded together, his arousal as evident as my own where it pressed eagerly into my thigh. I feared if he ground too readily against my own, it would all be over. For all the times I’d embarrassed myself in my life, that was the time I prayed to any higher being there might be that I wouldn’t come in my pants.

  Where I was normally good at maneuvering multiple thought patterns at once, Rory rendered me useless. Between the overwhelming sensation of our shared kiss, the mind-numbing tingle riveting my body when his hands met bare flesh, and the prospect of where we might end up, I couldn’t think straight at all.

  Then, I ruined it by opening my stupid mouth.

  “Rory,” I panted as he released my lips and moved his attack to my neck. That hot tongue of his licked the sensitive flesh by my collar, sending a shudder through my entire system. “I’ve… I’ve never done this before.”

  He froze. Every part of him just stopped moving like someone had hit the pause button. Then, he lifted his face to meet my eyes, the moisture on my neck turned cold from being abandoned. With his forehead creased and lips parted and swollen from abuse, he stared at me like I’d spoken a language he didn’t understand. Embarrassment flamed my cheeks, and I wanted to run away faster than I’d ever run in my life.

  “What… What do you mean?” he finally asked, breathing hitched and uncertainty clear in his tone. “Are… Are you a virgin?”

  With my humility at an all-time high, all I could do was nod.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rory

  Well, shit!

  In the grand scheme of things, it made no difference that Adrian was a virgin. None at all. Except it made a world of difference when my intention was to drag him into my bedroom and fuck him good and hard just to break the surface tension that had been growing between us for weeks. Only after the heat was moderately simmered did I plan on having the boyfriend talk with him. In my fucked-up mind, that order of operations was acceptable.

  That could no longer happen.

  “I’m sorry. Oh, God, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Adrian squirmed from my hold and tried to make a run for it. I caught his arm and pulled him back, realizing too late my reaction had given him the wrong impression.

  “Woah, stop.”

  He struggled to break free, but I pinned him back against the door, holding his face in my hands.

  “Do not be ashamed of that.”

  “But you stopped. I’m such an idiot. Just… can I go? Please.”

  “No. And you aren’t an idiot. Knock that shit off. You… you’re really a virgin?”

  He dropped his gaze as the surface of his eyes glistened in the moonlight coming in from the balcony window. “Yeah, all right. Go ahead and make fun of me. I get it.”

  “Shut up.”

  I kissed away another protest before it spilled from his lips, doing all I could to show him I wasn’t turned off. It took less than a second for him to melt back against me and return to the heavenly place we’d left only a minute before. Adrian and all his innocence would be the death of me.

  When we finally parted, I kept him close. “I stopped because you shocked me. That’s all. I’m not turned off in the least. Believe me. But…” I hesitated, hoping he wouldn’t take my next statement the wrong way. “My plans for the evening did change.”

  His brow scrunched as he studied my face, his hands fisting my shirt tighter as though bracing himself for impending doom. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  I unpeeled his hands from my shirt and guided him into the living room. We’d always sat on different pieces of furniture, him in my chair and me on the couch, but that time, I pulled him down beside me. He watched with enough weariness, guilt snuck in and kicked me in the balls. I wasn’t the kind of guy who made a proper impression in the bedroom—even though I wanted to with Adrian. It had nothing to do with performance. However, my focus was always on the task and never on the emotions, because if there were emotions, I was doing it wrong.

  Krew understood. Adrian wouldn’t.

  Nor did I want him to when I thought about it. I wanted to be all those things I’d never thought myself capable of.

  There were already more emotions tumbling around inside me than I could explain when it came to him. My “fuck now, figure them out later” approach wasn’t going to work. I wouldn’t be that guy who made someone else’s first time less than memorable. Adrian wouldn’t be just another notch in my headboard who I wouldn’t remember by the following week. He was already on my mind twenty-four seven which was how we’d ended up there to begin with.

  Adrian squirmed, and I realized I was lost in my head again, staring into space. I needed to do something before I lost him, and he flew out the door never to be seen again.

  Leaning closer, I turned his face with a soft touch to his chin and claimed his mouth. Kissing I could do. Funny, because it was something I’d mostly rejected in bed partners in the past. But Adrian… He was incredibly responsive, and the tiny noises he made behind our connection made my heart flutter.

  I needed to figure out how to go slow, be attentive, and build a relationship. It was new territory for me, and the last thing I wanted to do was fuck it up. Adrian wasn’t just anybody. He was innocent to a fault, and someone like me could ruin him too easily.

  Adrian showed more confidence each time our mouths met. He took everything I offered and soon gave back with equal fervor. A little kissing and exploring wouldn’t hurt, so long as I didn’t allow things to go too far. That was what a respectable boyfriend did. Or, at least that was what I told myself.

  It was easier said than done.

  Adrian didn’t resist when I guided him down on the couch with me lying on top of him. Without thought, I ran a hand under his shirt, savoring his soft skin underneath my fingers. His body’s definition was hidden under his preppy clothes. I couldn’t get enough. The more I touched him, the more I wanted.

  The halting moment came when Adrian became brave enough to reciprocate the action. His fingers danced for so long at my waist that when he dipped them inside my shirt and began moving his flattened palms up my back, I jerked away from the connection like he’d electrocuted me.

  With my sudden reaction, he tore his hands out of my shirt and tried to pull away. If I hadn’t been pressing him into the couch, I had no doubt he’d have been across the room.

  Fuck! How… What… I can’t… Not… Dammit!

  My brain stuttered, and I didn’t know what to say or how to react.

  “What did I do?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped, hearing the harshness in my tone and wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.

  I sat back and moved away from him, which directly contradicted my statement. He sat too, but his posture told me I’d hurt his feelings. Could I fuck this up more?

  “Look, Adrian.” I shifted and forced myself to meet his eyes. “I had every intention of bringing you back here tonight and fucking you senseless.”

  Krew’s berating words echoed in my mind telling me I was being an insensitive prick. I didn’t know how to be anything else. Blunt, harsh, and a little cruel was the only thing I was anymore.

  “I’m okay with that,” Adrian murmured.

  “What?”

  “I said, I’m okay with that. Being fucked senseless. I’ve been waiting for a long time for this day, and I’m on board. Let’s do it.”

  I gaped, hearing him but not understanding him.

  “Well, I’m not.” He flinched, so I kept going. “I like you, Adrian.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Because I’m a virgin? Who cares.”

  “I care. I’m not going to let your first time be me throwing you on my bed and pounding your ass until you can’t walk just to temper the heat betwe
en us.”

  He cringed, and I didn’t need Krew’s reprimanding voice that time. I mentally slapped myself for my choice of words. If that wasn’t evidence enough I was incapable of intimacy and sensitivity, I didn’t know what was.

  “Your first time should be… I don’t know… with someone who will go slow and ensure it’s really good. You know… share the moment.” Fuck I sounded so stupid trying to express myself.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head before glancing around the dark living room. I should have really turned a light on for him.

  “And let me guess,” he said. “You’re not that guy.”

  I wanted to be so fucking badly. For Adrian. But I didn’t think I could open myself up like that. It required tenderness and honesty, two things I couldn’t handle. For all my life, I’d worked to stay closed off. The one time I’d chanced putting my trust in people I called friends, they’d destroyed me. I just didn’t know how to let myself be vulnerable anymore. And for whatever reason, it seemed ten times harder to open up to Adrian than it ever had when it came to Krew. I needed to learn how to be a whole different person, and for Adrian, I’d certainly try, but I didn’t know where to start. Transparency about my past was probably the obvious first step, but it wasn’t easy.

  I knew I’d mulled too long when Adrian stood and moved to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  I sprung from the couch and went after him, even though him leaving was the best course of action. “Adrian, wait.”

  “Why, Rory? You know, I consider myself to be a pretty smart guy, but you have my head in such a knot right now. I don’t get it. You quit therapy, you bring me here, you insinuate things are moving in that,” he motioned to the hallway leading to the bedroom, “direction, and then you grind to a halt when you find out I’m a virgin.” After his spiel, he looked into a distant place inside his head where his wheels turned. Then he snapped his attention back to the present. “You know what, never mind, I’m not confused at all. I get it.”