Allegiance: A Dublin Novella by Heather Domin Page B

hall. Adam did not budge and William stumbled, tilting sideways, his side of the crate slipping down until he braced against the wall to stop it from crashing. Adam lurched forward at the change in angle and William could smell the wine on his breath, the dried sweat on his neck and moist warmth creeping up from the collar of his shirt. Vertigo washed over him, lights spinning across his vision – the corridor closed around them; he felt trapped, suffocated, the lights shrinking and blotted out by gray eyes glittering far too close to his face.
    “Adam —”
    “Don’t,” Adam said, and his mouth was on William’s before the crate could hit the floor.
    William’s eyes closed and his mouth opened. He was very, very drunk; the world tilted and swayed and ran together until he couldn’t feel which way was up. Adam’s tongue was bitter with alcohol and cigarettes, as hot as he knew it would be, as he’d imagined when he lay on his back at night and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom with one hand on his chest and the other buried beneath the sheets. His stomach dropped at the memory and his eyes snapped open – he put his hands on Adam’s shoulders to draw away while he still could, but Adam’s eyes had closed and he sighed against William’s mouth, and William cracked like the glass crunching beneath their feet and pushed them both across the corridor until Adam’s back hit the wall with a heavy smack.
    They inhaled each other, desperate and uncoordinated in their frantic greed. William felt his shirttail ripped from his trousers by fumbling fingers; he pulled with both hands and heard Adam’s shirt buttons hit the floor in a scatter of tiny sounds. Adam’s braces slipped from his shoulders at the same moment William’s knee pushed his thighs apart. His teeth closed on William’s earlobe, his breath harsh and scraping behind the sound of roaring blood. William could no longer tell which limbs were his and which were Adam’s, only sharp elbows and awkward angles and clumsy, mashing kisses. It was not enough – they needed more, faster, harder, now, and then Adam’s fingers slid inside William’s trousers and they fell in a tangle of limbs on the basement floor.
    William landed on top; he yanked Adam’s shirt apart and groped for his trousers. The stubborn wool refused to cooperate until there was a sudden ripping sound and Adam sprang into his hands, impossibly hard and twitching with his racing pulse. Adam grunted and clutched at William’s back, grabbed a handful of his arse to pull him closer while William got his own trousers open and thrust forward to meet him, tight and sliding and perfect.
    They tore at each other with drunken urgency, unable to get close enough no matter how hard they pushed or how fiercely they clung. It was skin and salt and heat, the thick smell of sex rising until William couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond his need to move faster and harder until Adam cried out and went taught beneath him, their bellies wet with sudden, burning moisture. He grew pliant in William’s arms, and the sound he made sent William over the edge, yelling between his teeth as his body shuddered with the force of it. He gave a final thrust, sticky skin squelching obscenely, and then his arms gave out and he collapsed in a heap on Adam’s chest.
    He waited until he could breathe, until the mad spinning in his brain began to slow, and then he lifted his head. Adam’s lower lip was already darkening with a purple bruise, his sweaty hair sticking out at ridiculous angles when he looked up at William as they lay in tatters on the chilly basement floor – and then his eyes flashed and his mouth turned up into a smug, victorious grin.
    William felt sick. Abruptly he drew back and separated their bodies with a sticky, peeling sound. Adam’s grin disappeared, but William was already scrambling to his feet; his shins hit the crate and he tripped, skidding through broken glass before sitting down