Whirlwind, Bailey Bradford [surface ebook reader TXT] 📗

Dishonesty didn’t occur to him. “You were hit, by my brother Steven.”

“Why?”

That wasn’t as easily answered, not because Adal was evasive, but because it was complicated. The truth was going to make Steven, and himself, look like the worst sort of people. Adal just hoped Dorso would let him explain it all, eventually.

“Do you want some water?” Adal asked, reaching for the glass he’d sat beside the bed. “You’ve been out of it for a full day and night, well mostly out of it. You should keep hydrated.”

Dorso watched him for a long moment, and Adal tried not to shiver. While he managed to keep it inside, more of an internal quivering, Adal’s discomfiture seemed to make the words spill out uncensored. “Your eyes are so oddly colored.” Heat flared over his face as he heard himself speak. “I mean—I didn’t mean that bad. They’re very…nice…” He tapered off, wishing he could just melt away from the embarrassment.

He couldn’t avert his gaze. Dorso’s eyes weren’t just a pale green, they were kind of grayish, too, and ringed in a shade of smoky blue. “Mine are just brown,” Adal babbled, nervousness giving the words wings even though he’d rather that not have happened. “Plain brown, not gray and blue and green like yours.”

Dorso’s lips twitched. Adal’s head actually buzzed with dizziness when he saw them stretch into a lazy smile.

Dorso was devastating, handsome in a rough, real way that Adal hadn’t quite grasped until that moment. There was nothing pretty about Dorso. He didn’t have any softness at all when it came to the shape of his features. His eyes were wide, but they were topped with bushy brown eyebrows that leant him a rather harsh air. His nose was a little too large, with a bump that bespoke of a break or two, and he had a wide jaw with a squared chin that gave him a stubborn look.

And he had stubble, lots of it, something Adal never had. Body hair was just that for him—body hair, it didn’t extend up to his neck or face. He didn’t have much of it, either, and could never grow a beard.

“Just brown,” he said again, then shook himself literally, because if he didn’t get his act together, Dorso was going to think Adal had taken a hard blow to the head, too. “I’m Adal. Just Adal. I don’t have a last name. I— Sorry. I’ll… Water. Here.”

Well, that wasn’t a whole lot better, but at least he didn’t start trying to make up poems about Dorso’s eyes. Adal lifted the glass and brought it to Dorso’s lips.

Dorso quirked a brow at him and Adal blushed again. He’d been foolish not to think about a man’s pride. Of course Dorso would want to hold the glass himself, even if his hands were shaking.

Adal waited until Dorso had a grip on the glass. Their fingers more than brushed together—Dorso closed his hand around half of Adal’s. Adal started to pull his hand back, then couldn’t figure out how without causing Dorso to drop the whole thing.

And Dorso just kept giving him that amused look.

Adal’s cock grew erect while he watched as Dorso tipped the glass and took a sip. It shouldn’t have been erotic, watching a man drink, yet Adal was suddenly and fiercely aroused. His pulse raced and he wanted things he didn’t even know how to wish for. It was Dorso, just Dorso, and whatever he’d do with Adal, to him, that Adal craved.

Dorso’s eyes went darker as his pupils expanded. He moved the glass away from his mouth, then licked the moisture from his lips.

The moan slipped free before Adal could censor it. He barely caught the glass in his grip when Dorso suddenly released it.

Adal was fast. He had a shifter’s superb senses, except for when he was ill. Usually. His brain must have been addled by the hyper-arousal he was feeling because he didn’t even see Dorso reach for him. One second Adal was fumbling the glass, the next he was grabbed by the shirtfront and jerked down.

The glass went flying, Adal dropping it and letting it fall to the floor. He didn’t resist at all as Dorso brought him down. Adal could only stare at those wet, parted lips and yearn for something he’d never thought he’d have.

A kiss. Just one, to know what it was like to be wanted.

Dorso, even injured, clearly wanted him. Adal could smell it, could see the flush of it rising up to color Dorso’s cheeks.

Adal’s breath shortened to nothing more than a pant as he waited, wanting to prove his willingness to please.

Dorso cupped the back of his head and brought them together. Adal closed his eyes as his vision blurred. He sank into the sensation of lips moving beneath his and moaned happily.

The slick glide of tongue made his knees weak and he lowered himself to the bed. Oh, the feeling of Dorso’s body alongside his!

Adal wiggled closer, seeking more of the heat rolling off Dorso’s form. Dorso gripped his head tighter and pushed his tongue in deeper, sweeping it through the depths of Adal’s mouth.

Adal was being marked, claimed, tasted and devoured. He had to touch Dorso, hang onto him and feel the hard planes of his chest beneath Adal’s palms.

It was the most beautiful moment in Adal’s life. He had a second of stark terror wherein fear welled up that he’d disappoint Dorso with the kiss. Adal had never kissed anyone, not even a brotherly peck to Steven, not once in his life.

But he followed Dorso’s lead, moved his tongue and suckled gently while Dorso did both with more force.

Adal had followed Steven’s lead forever, and following was what he felt most comfortable doing. Having Dorso take command relieved Adal of his fears and doubts in regards to the kiss. He let himself melt against Dorso, opened his mouth wider and whimpered, hoping the sound bled into Dorso and told him how much Adal needed him to stay in