He stopped at the foot of the stairs. Kim went past him first, in silence. Will followed, and they rounded the bend of the stairs and were out of anyone’s view, and then Kim was in his arms and they stumbled and crashed down and rolled onto the landing, kissing with a frightening urgency. Kim’s fingers were digging in; Will had handfuls of his hair; it wasn’t clear whose legs were where for a minute until Kim ended up on top. The pair of them half on the landing, half off, Will wedging his heel on a step for balance and uncomfortably aware of the extremely cheap hessian stair-carpet, so unlike Kim’s deep pile that a man could fuck on without severe grazing. Mouths, lips, tongues, biting and devouring, feast after famine.

And Will wanted to make love to him properly, slowly, all night in a bed rather than a quick one on a brutal floor, but he also needed to ride this wild wave. He fumbled with buttons, feeling Kim doing the same. Kim’s fingers pushing between bodies, wrapping round Will’s rigid cock and pressing Kim’s against it. His gasp into Kim’s mouth.

Kim reared back and stared down in the dimness of the unlit stair. Will looked up at him, hopelessly lost. The moment stretched out and as it did, the bookshop clock began to strike. They both waited for the tenth chime, poised and still as it lingered in the air. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Kim started to move his hand, working them both, and Will lay back on the hard floor and gave himself up to the sensation—ridged skin, tense fingers, satin-slippery fluid, and the feel of Kim’s strokes, in time with his sharp, harsh breaths. The world contracted to Kim over him, around him, taking him away, and he came like that, bucking on the floor. Kim shifted like a rider to keep his balance and his grip, then doubled over and cried out his own release with what sounded like pain.

Will let his head clunk back against the floorboards and gasped for air. Kim swayed forwards, resting his head on Will’s shoulder, and they stayed like that for a few moments. The silence felt too precious to break.

“Will,” Kim said at last. “Christ, I missed you. You needn’t say that’s my own fault.”

“I was just about to ’phone again when you turned up.”

“Great minds. Ugh. I had slightly more elaborate plans than this, but now I don’t want to move.”

“I don’t either, but there’s a stair rod in my back.”

“In that case, I will admit my knees are raising objections to this hair shirt of a stair-covering. I must be getting old.”

“Antiquarian,” Will suggested.