The Fire We Asked For
DOWN THE HALL – PART VI
In the last installment of Down the Hall…
R. Adrian Thorne
The kiss wasn’t sweet.
It wasn’t angry either.
It was hungry.
The kind of kiss that says I’m sorry I ran and I need you to shut me up in the same breath.
Wes moved like he’d been holding it in for weeks—and maybe he had. His hand came up, thumb brushing my jaw, tilting my face just slightly until he could deepen the kiss. And when I opened my mouth for him, he groaned into it like he didn’t mean to.
We backed toward the bed, clumsy in that way you get when neither person wants to stop touching long enough to look where they’re going.
I hit the mattress first.
He came down over me, one knee between my legs, his weight balanced, not too much—but enough to make me feel it.
I’d spent so long imagining how this might go. In the dark. In the shower. In the silence between text messages.
But nothing I imagined was this warm. Or this slow.
Wes kissed like someone trying to memorize. Like someone afraid the moment might be taken from him.
And when his hands slid up beneath my shirt, fingertips dragging against my ribs, he didn’t rush. He felt me. Every inch.
Then he pulled back, just enough to breathe.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded.
“No,” I said. “But I don’t want you to stop.”
That did something to him. His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Just something knowing.
He leaned in again, lips at my neck now. Open-mouthed. Heat and tongue and just enough teeth to make me arch.
Then he did it—pressed his hand flat against my chest and held me there.
Firm. Still.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t want to.
There was something about being touched like that—
like my body wasn’t up for negotiation.
He tugged my shirt off with one hand, eyes skimming every line of skin he uncovered like he was collecting evidence.
And then he whispered—low, rough, right against my collarbone:
“You looked so fucking good that night.”
My breath caught.
“In the shower,” he clarified.
He dragged his knuckles down my stomach, slow and deliberate, until they reached the waistband of my sweats.
“I couldn’t stop watching you.”
“Wes…”
“Couldn’t stop thinking what it would feel like…”
I shivered.
“Top drawer,” I said, voice barely there. “Lotion.”
He reached across me, still half-straddling my thighs, popped the drawer, grabbed the bottle. Didn’t ask questions. Didn’t say anything at all.
Then he looked down at me. His hand curled around the waistband of my shorts.
“You trust me?”
I nodded.
His fingers slipped beneath the elastic and he pulled them down slowly, eyes never leaving mine. The cool air hit me first, then the heat of his gaze, and I flushed all over.
He didn’t strip me like I was fragile.
He undressed me like I was his.
When he sat back on his knees, I saw it—hard and heavy beneath his shorts, the outline impossible to miss.
I bit my lip, breath hitching.
He saw me see it.
And he smirked.
“Wes,” I whispered.
He slicked his hand, then wrapped it around me—and the world fell away.
My body jerked, hips arching up to meet his palm. His strokes were slow and practiced, his grip tight enough to make me whimper.
Then his mouth was at my ear.
“You like that?”
I nodded, but it wasn’t enough. My head lolled back on the pillow. I moaned—soft, cracked open.
“This what you needed?” he asked, his tone darker now, rougher.
Every pass of his hand made my abs tighten. My thighs shook. My toes curled.
I couldn’t speak.
Could barely breathe.
“Let me see you fall apart.”
That broke something.
The tension snapped like a live wire. Pressure surged up my spine and detonated just beneath my skin.
The first rope hit my chest—hot, sticky, sudden.
The second came harder, thicker, painting across my stomach and his knuckles with another choked, broken cry from me.
And then I kept going—spurting helplessly, twitching in his hand, moaning like the world had disappeared and all that remained was the fire under my skin.
I gasped his name—ragged, half-wrecked—and grabbed for him.
He kept stroking through it, slower now, drawing every pulse out of me until my entire body trembled and I collapsed beneath him, boneless.
Spent.
Sticky.
Breathless.
He let go and lay beside me, one arm across my stomach, his thumb lazily stroking my skin like none of it needed to be explained.
I stared at the ceiling, dazed.
“Good?” he asked, voice soft.
I laughed—barely.
“I don’t think I’ll ever walk the same.”
We lay there for a long moment, heat still radiating between us. I thought about saying something—about asking what now—but then:
A knock.
Followed by the unmistakable voice of our underpaid sophomore RA.
“Miles?”
“Why is the door locked? I’ve got your roommate with me.”
The silence that followed was louder than the knock.
Wes looked at me.
I looked at the ceiling.
And whatever spell we’d been under—
just like that—
was broken.
THE END.
