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Eric didn’t even bother zipping up his coat before he pushed his door open and hopped out. He emerged to the cold brush of snowflakes against his cheeks and in his hair, a curtain of white made visible by the car’s twin cones of brightness. Adrian met him at the hood, framed by the lights, and maybe it was madness or maybe it was inspiration—either way, Eric blinked snow out of his eyes before he reached out and gripped the front of Adrian’s jacket. Pulled him in.
Adrian made a gentle noise of surprise. Anything else got lost when Eric covered Adrian’s mouth with his own.
Cold cheeks and warm lips. Surprise delayed Adrian’s reaction by a second. Then he moved—dug his fingers into Eric’s waist and used the other hand to bring him closer, a sure touch on the back of Eric’s neck to move him how Adrian wanted. Eric sank into it, the storm in his head quiet for once.
Propped against the hood of the car, Adrian was a firm weight against Eric’s front. Snow melted in his hair and on his skin, cold air filling his lungs each time he gasped in a breath. He barely noticed. It didn’t matter. What mattered was Adrian and the shivers travelling down Eric’s spine each time their tongues brushed, nothing at all to do with the winter night that snaked icy tendrils under Eric’s clothes.
“Fuck,” Adrian muttered, drawing back enough for a proper intake of air.
Yes, Eric thought, then remembered that he didn’t do this. He didn’t hand over control, trusting someone else with that kind of power over him. He didn’t just blindly fall into a kiss and let the other person lead him anywhere they wanted. And yet he’d follow Adrian to the edge of the fucking world right now.
Maybe it was the aftertaste of his teenage infatuation—he’d seen Adrian lead and be led dozens of times, and so he knew it’d be good.Sogood. And yeah, okay, it had been acting, but somehow Eric’s body failed to grasp that distinction.
He sucked in a breath that carried the raw, fresh immediacy of winter.Gentle longing, the taste of you. Adrian was close enough for his features to blur, bright only where the lights of the car caught his face.
“Take me home?” Eric had meant to sound confident and didn’t, his treacherous voice adding the lilt of a question.
“When you say home…” Adrian let his lips catch against the corner of Eric’s mouth, voice hardly above a murmur. “Please tell me you mean my bed?”
Eric inhaled. “What do youthink?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Why?”
One side of Adrian’s mouth lifted. “Consent is sexy.”
“You just want to hear me ask for it.”
The other side of Adrian’s mouth lifted as well. “That too.”
Bloody hell, Eric didn’t want to ask. But if he chickened out now, he’d wake up regretting it. And maybe he didn’t know Adrian all that well just yet, but he trusted him not to play games. At least not cruel ones that would end in a surprise rejection.
He forced himself to meet Adrian’s eyes. “Take me to your bed, please.”
“With pleasure.” Rather than make a move back towards the car, though, Adrian pressed close for another kiss, their hair and faces damp with melting snow. Eric barely even felt the cold.
7
They didn’t speak much on the drive home. It was a good thing the way was etched into Adrian’s memory because with Eric’s hand inching up his thigh, close but not quite where Adrian wanted it, his focus was not where it should be—on a dark, winding road with snow obscuring the view. The Gletscherhaus appeared once they rounded the last corner, a few windows lit to signal that Adrian’s parents had made it home before them.
Behind the hotel, Eric got out to open the gate so Adrian could drive down into a space that had once held carriages, updated by his grandparents to instead fit five cars. It complemented the bigger car park outside, hidden behind the hotel so as not to tarnish the illusion of its historic facade. Adrian slotted into the space next to the car his parents shared. By the time he got out, Eric was already there, smiling, the stark overhead light at odds with the happy glow in Adrian’s chest.
“First step done,” Adrian said. “I took you home. Do I get a reward?”
“Does that line usually work for you?” Eric asked.
“You tell me.” Adrian shrugged. “I don’t usually bring guys home. That’s what club toilets are for.”
“What about Berlin?”
”Eh. I shared a flat with three guys, so no, not really.”
Eric grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, colour me flattered. Not that there’s anywhere else you could have taken me, what with how I sleep one floor below you.”
“True.” Adrian aimed for a smarmy tone. “But you haven’t seen my etchings.”
“You had me at ‘haven’t seen’.”
