“Just open your mouth and let your tongue do the walking, Damie boy,” Sionn encouraged him, rubbing at his spine with long, skillful fingers. “We’ll figure out the damage from that.”
“Edie’s going to be coming back here and… I can’t dodge the shitstorm that’s going to hit me.” He couldn’t look at Sionn. Damien couldn’t risk seeing an emptiness in the man’s silvery-blue eyes, so instead, he glanced out at the city, hoping to anchor himself against its horizon, but he reached for Sionn, seeking out his warmth to chase away the cold of his thoughts. “I guess I want to tell you… to ask you….”
“Ask me what, love?”
“Where you stand… I guess.” Damien winced, hearing the wavering panic from his soul pouring out into his words. The doubts whispered into his ear over the years now screamed, reminding him of the emptiness he’d always found when he needed someone around him. Only Miki’d been there. Through the dark times. Through it all. But now, he wanted Sionn there too. He needed the man’s solidity. His warmth. Even if he had to beg for it, Damien would. He’d decided he wasn’t too proud to beg, not even if he was begging to be loved. “I mean, if you’re going to stick around through this. I know that—”
“I stand next to you, Damie boy,” Sionn murmured, and pulled Damien back against him and savaged his mouth with a fierce kiss. Leaving the man breathless, he rubbed his nose against Damie’s and whispered, “I’m standing next to you, you fecking git. Because, damn me to hell for it, you’ll not walk away now. I won’t let you.”
Chapter 14
Every day
I am one step closer to the box
Every moment
I am one step farther away from you
Every breath
Is one we will never share again
Every night
There’s a darkness of one instead of two
—Every Darkness Follows
THE stairwell down to the second floor was too slender for Sionn’s tastes. He was sure of it after he’d banged his elbow on the railing at least three times when they tried to get to their room. If he’d been rational, he would have reminded himself that most stairwells weren’t made wide enough for two men stumbling down their steps with their tongues deep in each other’s throats, but rational wasn’t at the top of his brain functions at the time.
Still, the stinging echoes numbing his left arm promised to turn into a shitload of bruises, but the feel of Damien’s naked body on his was worth it.
Their clothes mostly made it to the room, although Sionn was certain his shirt was someplace on the stairs. Since they’d long since given up making the bed, Sionn didn’t have to waste any time stripping down the spread, the freshly laundered cotton crinkling beneath them. Damien was casual about laundry at best, although he’d made his best effort at picking up his dirty clothes from the floor, but bed linens seemed to have fallen under Sionn’s responsibilities. After seeing the bleach patterns on a pair of Damie’s old jeans, Sionn was fine with washing the sheets, especially if it meant they were crispy and smelling of lavender when he pushed the long-legged guitarist back onto the mattress.
Damien’s breath left him, whooshing into Sionn’s face, and the younger man grinned widely. He slid his hands up Sionn’s sides and hooked his arms around his lover’s neck, arching himself to capture Sionn’s mouth. Lowering himself down onto Damien’s body, Sionn parted his knees and trapped Damie’s legs between his.
Framing the guitarist’s face with his fingers, Sionn took small sips of the man’s mouth, savoring the taste of cloves on his tongue. He licked at the seam of Damie’s lips and slid his tongue through the tiny gap when Damien gasped in response to Sionn’s thigh rubbing up against his crotch.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” Sionn whispered into Damien’s mouth.
The man was beautiful.
His body was scarred from a life made harder by a man who should have loved him and another who cared nothing about the consequences of his own indulgence. The scar down Damie’s chest flushed pink, still tender in spots and dotted with pockmarks from needles and stitches. He wore it as he wore his tattoo, an effortless part of his body despite the pain it represented. Sionn knew from experience the edges were numb to the touch, Damien feeling nothing but a slight buzz of sensation when Sionn put his hands on the area, but he liked to stroke the healing rip in Damie’s body. It grounded them both, anchoring them to one another.
The nearly smooth, white lines across Damie’s thighs and back were another story, striping his skin in a feral anger that made Sionn’s heart ache. The scars themselves were nothing, subsided down under Damie’s pale skin until they were merely glossy streaks against Damie’s matte ivory flesh. No, Sionn’s heartbreak came from the knowledge there was a man who should have been the first one to love the man Sionn treasured. Instead, that man chose to try to break his son, tearing him apart into pieces too small to stitch back together.