Adam swallowed hard, his throat suddenly, impossibly dry. Beneath his clothes his skin felt flush, the passage of James' hands marked by a persistent and unrelenting tingling. Some measure of his friend's expression seemed to bleed into his own, for wholly different reasons; the vulnerability Adam saw in him now was as surprising as it was sincere. It contrasted sharply with the image of him Adam had always held. More, it felt like something private, something to which he should perhaps not play the voyeur. But he had not asked to come here, and he could not now dictate what happened in this hidden realm.
He drew a deep breath, shaking his head. For a brief moment, seeing that look, feeling the tenderness he had never expected from this particular quarter, Adam wished he had any answer but this. "I'm sorry, James." Then, as if to soften the blow, he moved closer still, pressing a kiss to the swell of his lower lip. His hand moved to James' waist, sliding up beneath his clothes, pale fingers seeking out the hard, hot line of his hip. His touch moved as it might have with Alex; the same uncertainty was in the pass of his fingers, the same sense of careful exploration.