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“Oh, fuck, do it,” Adam growled, spreading wide.

Paul got the message. Adam gave a low moan when Paul sank his finger slowly into him, all the while licking and kissing the length of his cock. He groaned when Paul took his dick as deep as he could, while simultaneously rubbing over his prostate. Adam rocked between mouth and finger, pushing down hard to feel more of it inside him, and thrusting up into wet heaven. Paul stroked in and out of him, moving faster, and it wasn’t long before Adam couldn’t hold it off any longer. He tightened his grip on Paul’s head, grabbing hold of his hair, and grunted, hips gaining momentum, rolling up off the mattress.

Paul whimpered around his dick, increasing the suction and tightening his lips each time he neared the head. God, it felt good.

Too fucking good.

Adam bellowed as he emptied his balls, filling Paul’s mouth with come, his body gripping Paul’s finger. He held tight onto him, shuddering with each pulse down Paul’s throat, until he was spent. Adam took shallow breaths while his pulse returned to normal, shivers rippling through his body sporadically. His muscles relaxed and Paul slid from Adam’s body. Adam grabbed Paul under his armpits and tugged him up from beneath the sheet, cupping his nape and pulling him in to kiss that talented mouth. He tasted his come on Paul’s lips and licked up every trace, before taking Paul’s mouth in a slow, sensual kiss, intended to make his toes curl.

When Paul fed soft cries and moans into Adam’s mouth, he figured he’d done his job right.

Adam broke the kiss and Paul settled on his chest, his breathing uneven. “Good morning.” Paul’s voice was hoarse.

Adam ran his fingers through Paul’s short layers. “It is now,” he said with a grin. “Nice to know you can take the initiative.”

Paul snorted. “Oh, come on. I woke up to find your cock tenting the sheet. It was an opportunity not to be missed.” He rolled off Adam and collapsed onto his side of the bed with a contented sigh. “Besides, it was about time I got to taste your dinodick.”

Adam turned his head in Paul’s direction, his eyebrows arched. “Again with the bloody dinosaurs. I’m beginning to think you’re obsessed with them.” He relaxed his features and snickered. “I was beginning to think you were averse to giving blow-jobs. Whereas the reality is you’re bloody good at them.” Adam was surprised by a warm hand slipping under his still half-hard cock, Paul’s fingers gentle as they stroked his length.

“Thank you, kind sir.” Adam caught his breath when the mattress dipped and Paul’s lips pressed against the head of his dick in a soft, brief kiss. Paul dropped back onto the mattress beside him, his body close enough that Adam could feel its warmth.

Adam was in no hurry to get up. His sleep had been fitful, but now his body was sated, his mind at rest. And thanks to Paul’s oral skills, he was totally relaxed.

“I could get used to this.” It was only as he uttered the words that Adam realized the truth of his statement. Having Paul there felt good.

“What’s that sound?”

Adam suppressed his sigh. Apparently Paul didn’t share his view. It took a second or two for it to register that he’d
wanted
to hear Paul express similar feelings. “That,” he said, sitting up in bed and scraping his fingers across his scalp, “is a dripping shower. That is what kept me awake half the night, while
you,
” he said, stretching out to prod the nearest part of Paul’s anatomy, which happened to be his thigh, “snored your little head off the entire night.”

Paul guffawed. “Geez, I wonder why I slept so well. Ooh,
could
be because someone not a million miles away fucked me. Hard.”

“You’d better not be complaining, boy, not if you want it to happen again. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Adam pushed aside his momentary disappointment in Paul’s lack of reaction to spending the night in his bed. He loved that Paul felt comfortable—and confident—enough to participate in verbal banter.

“D’you want me to call a plumber?” Paul asked. Adam frowned and Paul snickered. “The dripping shower? Yes? Earth calling Adam, come in, Adam.”

Adam moved swiftly to deliver a slap to Paul’s leg, but the little shit slid out of bed, laughing. “Unfair,” he growled. “Taking advantage of a poor, blind guy.”

From the other side of the room came Paul’s wry chuckle. “Not my fault if you don’t move fast enough. But I guess a brontosaurus can’t move too fast anyway.” Another chuckle.

Adam laughed. “I know a mouthy little shit who’s got a spanking in his future if he keeps this up.” He got out of bed and crossed the room to open the wardrobe which contained his gear. “Now, where did I put that paddle?” He paused, grinning when he caught the hitch in Paul’s breathing.

Damn, he was in a good mood.

Adam closed the door. “This can wait. Although we’re talking a postponement, not a cancellation, you got that?” One of these days he was going to get Paul across his knee for real.

“Got it. Now, do you want me to call a plumber?”

Adam shook his head. “Phone my sister. Dean is the one who deals with stuff like this. Any excuse to get him off his fat arse and do something, the lazy git. It’s probably only a matter of a worn washer that needs changing, or maybe the shower head jets are blocked.”

There was a moment’s silence. “I thought you didn’t like having him here.”

“I don’t. This was Caroline’s idea, to use Dean as a first recourse, and then if he couldn’t fix something, we get the professionals in. I agreed in the forlorn hope that it might actually stir him to doing something.” He huffed. “Well, at least I’m trying.”

“I’ll call her after breakfast then. Speaking of which, I’ll go and put the coffee on.
Someone’s
messed up my routine this morning.” Adam heard the barely suppressed giggle before Paul exited the room.

He smiled to himself: it had all the signs of being a good day. His agenda was already mapped out. He intended listening to Radio 4 for a while to catch up on world events, a habit he’d practiced religiously before his diagnosis but had let slip away from him in recent months. It was Adam’s way of keeping abreast of the world political situation, looking for inspiration for his books. Next was to get Paul started on the book. Adam also wanted to spend more time on his laptop, familiarizing himself with the new software and…

He halted in mid-action, reaching into a drawer to pull out a clean T-shirt. What overwhelmed him was the difference in him, in the space of a couple of weeks. He wasn’t the same man who’d sat in the library, berating what had become of his life. He hadn’t thought it possible for things to turn around the way they had, but the proof was stacking up. He had a sex life again. He’d spent the night with a wonderful young man in his arms, who’d taken it upon himself to wake Adam up with a blow-job. Said young man was going to work on his next book. Adam was contemplating writing again. The house no longer felt like a cage.

He was getting his life back.

Adam was under no illusions. He knew the catalyst for all this change was Paul. The more time he spent with him, the more Adam learned about what made Paul tick, and the more he liked what he discovered. Outside of the bedroom Paul was a thoughtful, considerate, generous young man with a good sense of humor and good instincts. Moreover, he had balls. He didn’t take whatever Adam slung at him, but stood his ground, returning Adam’s slingshots in kind. He could’ve slung his hook that first day, walked away like the others had, but instead he’d persevered, though Heaven knew why.

Adam liked that.

In bed Paul was responsive, intuitive and eager, unafraid to push his boundaries. His sexual appetite showed every sign of being as rampant as Adam’s. Fuck, he was
twenty-three
, with the capacity to come several times a day, and he sucked cock like a dream.

Adam
loved
that. He only hoped Paul was getting as much out of the situation as he was.

It was as he pulled the T-shirt over his head that a cynical thought crossed his mind.

Of course Paul’s getting a lot out of this. Think about it. He’s living in a beautiful house above Steephill Cove, when he could still be living in Binstead.
Adam was well acquainted with the island—he’d grown up there, after all—and he knew what Binstead was like: mostly council housing, impoverished in places—in other words, nothing remotely like Steephill.

Adam pushed the thought aside. He knew that wasn’t Paul’s motive for applying for the job.
Where did that come from?

He smoothed down his hair with his hand. It still took some getting used to, after having his long hair for so many months. He preferred it short and neat.

Not that he was about to tell Paul that.

Adam stepped into his jeans and pulled them over his hips, his mind distracted by the previous moment of cynicism. That wasn’t like him. Adam was not a cynical man by nature. He associated such a trait with a whole slew of negative emotions, none of which had been prevalent in his life before diagnosis. But in the months that followed losing his vision, he’d often found himself ensnared in a vicious circle of frustration, skepticism, anxiety and doubt. Each day had been worse than the one before. It was as if he was descending a spiral staircase into depression, and with each step the darkness increased around him until he arrived at the bottom. Inky blackness surrounded him. Nowhere else to go but up. Yet above him was all the shit, pain and anguish he’d passed through on the way down. He couldn’t go through all that again.

So why am I thinking this way?
It was a moment of discordance in an otherwise positive morning. Such cynicism was beneath him. Why would he doubt Paul’s motives, after everything the young man had done for him?

Because it all feels too good to be true?

That brought him up short.

Paul isn’t like the others. He’s nothing like that lazy shit, Dean. Paul works hard.

But it was also true that Paul’s job wasn’t particularly demanding, and the more independent Adam became, the less he’d have to do.

Adam sat on the bed, his stomach roiling, breathing deeply. It was as if some self-destructive part of him couldn’t bear to be happy and was leaking pus into his soul, seeping from a partially healed wound, spreading its corruption. He clenched his hands into fists, as though this would stop the venomous flow, and forced himself to think about the two of them the previous night.

Paul’s reactions had been honest, even raw. Adam had been honest, too, when he’d shared his liking for sex. If Paul hadn’t wanted them to continue having sex, he could always have declined.

He’s a horny twenty-three year old whose boss wants to have sex with him on a regular basis.
That was like giving a kid the keys to the sweet shop. And to cap it all, Paul had shown a fascination for BDSM and lo and behold, said boss turns out to be a Dom.
How freaking perfect for him.

Adam’s heartbeat raced, panic clawing at this throat. He put his head in his hands, elbows on his knees.
I need to stop this, now.
He’d realized it wasn’t going to be easy—one didn’t sink as far as he had, simply to throw off the layers in one swift action—but he’d really thought he was past this.

It was never going to be that easy, coming back up into the light.

Adam took a deep, cleansing breath. It had taken Paul’s arrival to show him the way out, to make him realize he need not climb the staircase, he had only to find the door that was hidden from him, obscured by the overwhelming sense of loss that had permeated his life.

Paul had brought something vital into his life, something Adam had let slip away from him, in the belief that it could never be his again: hope.

“Coffee’s made,” Paul said from the doorway. “And—” His voice broke off. “Adam, are you all right?”

Adam swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. “I’m fine.” He prided himself that there was only the tiniest trace of a crack in his voice. “I think I need some this morning.” He gave a half smile.

“You sure you’re okay?” Paul’s voice softened. “I know this is huge, dealing with all these changes, but you can do this. And I’ll be there with you.” Adam heard genuine warmth. “Don’t worry, yeah?”

That hand around his heart unclenched. Paul had guessed incorrectly, but there was no doubting his intent: he sensed something was wrong.

“Just having a bad moment.” Adam gave a shrug. “It’ll pass.”

“Well, I’m sure this will make your day,” Paul said with a snicker. “Dean can’t come today.” There was a pause. “He’s busy.”

Adam gave a hiccup and promptly burst out laughing. “You were right,” he said, grinning. “I needed a laugh.” He struggled to regain his composure. “Did His Majesty give any indication of when he would be
less
busy?” The nerve of that jerk.

“Apparently, tomorrow morning,” Paul told him.

Adam groaned. “Great. That’s all I need to spoil my birthday—a visit from Dean.”

There followed a moment of silence. “It’s your birthday tomorrow?”

Shit
. Adam had hoped to let it pass without fanfare. “It’s just a day,” he said. “Leave it.”

Paul chuckled. “Yeah, right, like I’m gonna do that.” Another pause. “Will Mrs. Lambton be visiting, too?”

“Not if I can help it,” Adam growled. When Paul laughed hard, Adam let out a sigh. “It’s been great these last few weeks, not having her coming here all the time. Maybe she finally took the hint that everything was fine and she didn’t need to keep checking up on me, now you’re here. I shouldn’t be like this, I know, but it’s not like we were ever close. She was fifteen when I was born. I was the annoying, bratty little brother.”

Paul smothered a snort. “No. Really? I don’t believe that for one minute.”

Adam stared in his direction. “You might need to work on your delivery, because you were
this
far from sincerity.” He held thumb and forefinger slightly apart, a distance of no more than the thickness of a cigarette paper. His belly chose that moment to grumble. Adam groused when Paul laughed yet again. “Of course I’m hungry. I was rather active last night, remember?” He lifted his eyebrows.

“In which case, I’ll go start the breakfast.”