The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(79)

Noam had just started in on the buttons of his shirt when the bathroom door opened.

He spun around. His head pounded with too much blood, skin hot.

Dara stood in the open doorway, a watercolor painting with clothes plastered to his skin like streaked paint, the blur of his eyes beneath wet lashes. He was—angry, Noam thought, because why else would his mouth knot like that, or his pupils glint so brightly.

“What is it now?” he snapped.

Dara didn’t answer. He stepped forward, water dripping in his wake, closer and closer until Noam moved back—but nowhere to go, nothing but the window glass pressing against his spine, freezing through his thin shirt.

When Dara touched him, his cold fingertips sliding over Noam’s damp cheek, Noam shivered.

“Dara,” he started.

Dara kissed him.

It—Dara’s mouth, that was Dara’s mouth, Dara’s teeth catching his lower lip, Dara’s hands twining in his hair, Dara’s body, Dara’s heartbeat against his chest.

The shape of him was both familiar and new. Familiar because he’d studied it in sidelong glances, in fantasies. New because none of Noam’s fantasies did justice to the topography of Dara’s ribs beneath his palms or the smooth plane at the small of his back, his body shifting muscle and shallow breathing, short nails digging into Noam’s skull.

“Wait,” Noam said—gasped, really, against Dara’s open mouth, because what if this—he wanted Dara to mean it, for this to mean something, not just . . . not . . .

Dara drew back a fraction of an inch, just enough that Noam could see him properly. A bead of water cut a quick path down Dara’s cheek. “You don’t want me to wait,” he said.

He was right.

This time Noam kissed him, surging forward and clasping Dara’s perfect face between both hands, keeping him there where Noam could feel every part of him—including that part of him, which was hard and pressing against Noam’s hip. Jesus.

Dara’s fingers found the last of Noam’s shirt buttons, pushing them free with expert efficiency. The cotton fabric stuck to Noam’s skin—Dara had to peel it off him.

This was happening. This was really happening.

The window latch dug into Noam’s back. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but the way Dara touched him like he couldn’t get enough, his mouth at Noam’s neck and kissing its way toward his collarbone. Noam dragged the hem of Dara’s shirt up, off, over his head. Dara’s hair was a mess now, looked like he’d already had someone twist their fingers into the curls, like he’d already done unspeakable things.

Noam made a soft, desperate sound, and Dara smiled, a sharp little expression that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Come on,” Dara murmured. His thumbs hooked into Noam’s belt loops, tugging him forward one step, another.

Belatedly, Noam locked the door. It was a distracted, careless bit of magic that probably melted the latch. Whatever. That was a problem for later, when Dara wasn’t half-naked in front of him saying things like come on and pushing Noam back onto one of the beds and shoving down his trousers and, and . . .

“The light?” Noam murmured against Dara’s mouth, once Dara crawled onto the bed after him and straddled his hips. He held Noam there with his hand on his chest, thumb pressing into the hollow of Noam’s throat. It was ever-so-slightly uncomfortable, each breath pushing back against the weight of Dara’s hand.

“No,” Dara said and nipped at Noam’s lip before he drew back, hands finding Noam’s belt buckle.

“What?” Noam smirked. “Are you afraid of the dark?”

Dara glanced up, raised a brow. “Something like that.”

Any other day, Noam would never let him live that down. Today, he had Dara’s bare skin beneath his palms. He wasn’t saying anything to put that in jeopardy.

Noam grasped him by the hips and pushed him over onto his back instead.

Dara was born to lie on mussed bedsheets with wet hair spilling like an ink stain onto white pillows, flush cheeked. Noam could use his power to undo Dara’s fly, but he didn’t want to, wanted to use his hands, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the brass buttons and pressing his palm against what was underneath that fabric.

“I don’t want you to think I’m just like all the others,” Noam said, hesitating there with his hand in Dara’s lap and Dara frowning expectantly up at him, Dara’s fingers loosely curled round Noam’s wrist.

“I know you’re not,” Dara said.

“I’m not going to fuck you and then just—”

“I know.”

“I like you, and I want . . . I need to make sure you know that, because—”

“Noam.”

Noam stopped talking.

Dara arched up to kiss his chest, and Noam pushed the last button free on his fly. He tugged Dara’s trousers down, then off, and smoothed his hands over Dara’s skin. He kissed the inside of Dara’s knee, the dusky bruises on his thigh where some other lover held him a little too hard—Dara shivered when Noam did that—his hip bone, the flat plane beneath his navel. Dara was warm, still rain-damp, and smelled like bourbon and boy.

“Just fucking do it,” Dara gasped, and it was the first time Noam had ever heard Dara say the word fuck, and he didn’t have it in him to disobey.