Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Didn’t taste better because perhaps, just perhaps, he’d enjoyed those little moments with Damon, even if it wasn’t hard to tell he’d been exasperating the man to hell and back with his clumsiness and apparent inability to resist teasing him.
Damon.
He hadn’t meant anything by the way he liked to capture Damon’s name between his lips and tongue, sucking on it like an overripe cherry.
Sometimes Rian couldn’t help flirting. It was just as shallow as his smiles, just another way to keep people slightly at one remove with that flippant teasing where every coy little sally was less come hither and more stay just that far away.
But when he’d purred Damon in that moment when Damon’s body had been a wall of heat at his back and Damon’s arms had been bars of steel walling him in...
There’d been a moment.
A moment when Damon’s eyes had widened, when the fierce sinew in his arms had rippled and tightened, a moment when that fire that sometimes melted the ice in Damon’s eyes was something other than anger, frustration, exasperation.
And Rian couldn’t stop replaying that moment again and again, his skin alive with the feeling of Damon’s body heat imprinted on him.
He needed...something. Not to sit here trying to talk himself into taking the plate he’d so brazenly stolen back tonight. Not to be alone in this suite, when either Walden had turned in early—silent behind his locked door—or was once again not even coming back tonight. Not to twist himself out of his own skin with questioning, confusion, wondering why the hell he couldn’t stop thinking about a man who made him want to rip his own hair out...and who had been a near-stranger to him just yesterday morning, a vaguely familiar face recognized in the halls as another faculty member.
Air.
He needed air, a walk beneath the golden September trees, the crisp scent of descending autumn on the night.
In a restless movement, he catapulted himself off the window seat and slipped through the dark-shadowed living room, pausing only to lock the door before pocketing his keys and slipping down the chilly, slightly drafty hall to the stairwell. Every stair in Albin Academy creaked, it seemed, but from his very first day Rian had made something of a game of seeing if he could walk light enough, will himself feather-drift enough, to flit down the spiraling corner staircases without making a sound.
He didn’t quite make it this time, soft groans and whines rising under his steps until he felt like a ghost haunting the dark and rattling his bones to frighten the students. The whimsical thought made him smile, lifted the heaviness pushing down on his brow, and he already felt better by the time he spilled out into the empty first-floor hallway.
He’d meant to cut out through the adjacent door and into the main entry hall; the front doors would be locked at this time of night, but being faculty did have its perks—and one of those perks was the security code to unlock the main door and the front gates.
But before Rian could make that detour, he paused as motion down the hall caught his attention. Several doors down, Summer Iseya was just stepping out of the office adjacent to his husband’s, his short, wild black hair a mess, his button-down and slacks a bit limp with the droop that came from a long day not even starch could hold up against.
“Summer,” Rian called, and raised his hand.
Summer lifted his head and broke into a warm smile. “Rian. Hi,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets and stepping closer. “I was just closing up.”
Rian settled to lean against the wall next to the stairs. “Stayed late?”
“A little. One of the seniors is trying to figure out how to tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to college, and he’s more interested in trade schools.” Summer stopped a few feet away from him, studying him with bright, cheerful blue eyes. “Mechanics, electricians, that sort of thing.”
“That’s unusual, for this school.”
“Everyone’s got to have a dream.” Summer cocked his head. “Were you looking for me?”
“Oh! No, I—I was going to head out for a walk, but I just saw you and...” Rian shrugged. “Thought I’d say hello.”
“Really?” Summer was entirely disarming, practically like a puppy—but that was what made it so easy for him to catch people off guard. Just as he caught Rian off guard as, after barely a moment of looking Rian over, he said carefully, “Seems like you could use someone to talk to, though.”
Rian winced, folding his arms over his stomach. “Am I that obvious?”
“Sneaking out for walks after curfew?”
“Please. I’m a moon baby. An indigo child,” Rian lilted with mock hauteur, tossing his hair. “I wilt if I don’t walk beneath the autumn sky at least once a month.”