Out of the Blackness (32 page)

“Is this okay?” I whisper against his back.

“More than,” he answers huskily.

Emboldened, I slide my hands further, feeling the heat increase as the texture of his hair changes slightly. Our breaths come fast and shallow and I can’t decide which of us is more aroused. I’m painfully hard and can feel him pulse against the thin material of his shorts. Pressing a kiss to his spine again, I move my fingers outward to brush against his shorts so I don’t accidentally poke him with my fingernails.

My hands move on and I finally feel him against my fingertips, so soft and so rigid all at once. It’s magnificent. Noah gasps again as my fingers close around his thickness, groans my name as they slide toward the head of his shaft. My mind is awash in emotion. I’m scared and elated and so incredibly turned on.

I allow my other hand to continue on, to find Noah’s balls, even as I gently stroke my thumb over the wet tip of his throbbing erection. I’ve handled mine more times than I can count but it’s never felt like this. One hand slides slowly up and down Noah’s shaft as the other one finally cups and caresses his testicles.

Without warning, Noah moves quickly to shove his shorts down to past his knees, giving me freedom to work—and to look. His arms go to the tops of the still open refrigerator doors and I feel his stance change slightly as he leans against them. I move to look around his ribs and shudder at the sight of my hand caressing his manhood. “Oh, Noah,” I moan, my own husky voice surprising me. “So beautiful.”

“So good, baby,” he whispers back. “Please don’t stop.”

Encouraged, I grip him more firmly and stroke a little bit faster, only slightly embarrassed to realize my hips are mimicking the motion, thrusting my denim-covered erection against his thigh. The hand caressing his sack moves up his torso in search of those sensitive nipples. I can’t look away from my hand on him. It’s the most incredible sight I’ve ever seen. I increase my speed, just because I can, because suddenly nothing is more important in this moment than making Noah happy.

The quiet, erotic noises he makes as I change grip, angle and speed turn me on in ways I can’t even comprehend. As my fingers close around his nipple in a slight squeeze, I lick another stripe up his spine. Noah’s head falls back and he moans loudly as his orgasm overtakes him. I feel his shaft swell in my hand and I move to watch as ribbons of cum fly powerfully from his long, thick cock. The sight triggers my own release and I whimper against him as I come in my jeans.

We both sag in relief for a moment before I’m overcome with embarrassment. I move swiftly to disentangle from him but Noah’s quicker. He grabs my hands, stilling me, then turns in the circle of my arms, which promptly drop to my sides. He takes my face in both his hands and tilts it up to look at him. I search the hazel eyes and find a mix of emotions that darkens the green and highlights the flecks of brown.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, unable to hold his gaze.

“Please don’t be. That’s exactly how I want you to touch me,” he rumbles huskily, closing the distance to kiss me slowly, searchingly. My arms come around his shoulders and his go to my waist. Swiftly, he moves forward, lifting me so I’m only barely sitting on the counter. Noah's kiss turns tender, almost teasing, and I moan into his mouth. He breaks the kiss to smile sexily down at me. Slowly he brings my hand to his mouth and gently but thoroughly cleans his spend from my fingers, watching me watch him do it. My eyes roll back in my head at the sensation of his tongue on my skin and the knowledge of just what he’s doing.

“Kiss me?” he queries.

Painfully hard again in the wetness of my boxers, I press my lips to his. When his tongue invades my mouth, I groan at the incredible new taste. Noah pulls me to him and I wrap my legs around his hips, my arms around his neck, unwilling to break the most erotic kiss of my life.

When finally we break for oxygen, I bury my face in his chest, panting like a marathon runner. I feel his lips in my hair as he says, “That was incredible and completely unexpected. Thank you. Are you okay?”

I have no idea how to respond. I don’t have the first clue if I’m okay or not. That was the most awesome experience of my life but I have no idea if I want to repeat it or not. I don’t even know how it happened. One minute I was going to goose him, the next he’s coming in my hand—and I’m coming in my jeans.

“It’s okay to be a little bit shaken, you know. I don’t think you expected that any more than I did.”

“No,” I admit, cringing at the tremor in my voice.

“Do you regret it?” he asks.

I chuckle and look up at him. “No, do you? I thought I would, but—wow.”

He laughs. “Wow is exactly right.”

My erection has subsided enough again that I’m wet, sticky and uncomfortable. I laugh lightly to myself: my first orgasm with another man present and I come in my jeans. Neither smooth nor bright. I’m right on par with half the teenage male population. “I gotta go get cleaned up,” I say.

For a moment he look startled. “Did you…?”

I flush furiously and nod, refusing to look at him.

“Damn, that’s sexy,” he growls, swooping in for another deep, hungry kiss. He lifts me from the counter. “Go get something to wear from Luke’s room. We’ll throw your stuff in the washer. Oops,” he laughs, pausing to pull up his shorts.

The sight of his resurgent erection causes me to flush furiously. I head for the door to hide that tell-tale redness in my cheeks when a thought stops me. “Noah?”

He looks at me, “Yeah, babe?”

I gesture to the refrigerator, still standing wide open. “You’re gonna have to clean the fridge.”

He grimaces and laughs. “Well worth it. Go get changed. Then we’ll talk.”

When I come back a few minutes later, dressed in a pair of Luke’s board shorts and t-shirt, Noah is wiping down the vegetable drawers in the refrigerator. I can’t stop the idiotic smile that creases my face.

Seeing me standing in the doorway, he laughs again and gestures at the table. “Sit down, little one. It’s time we have a talk.” He asks over his shoulder, “Would you like some water? Gatorade?”

I slowly lower myself into a chair and stare at his naked back. “Uh, green tea, please.”

“Honey, you do my grocery shopping. I don’t have green tea.”

“Yes you do. Bottom shelf, right corner in the back. I brought some from home the other day.” I cringe. “I’m sorry. I should have asked first.”

Noah casts me an exasperated look over his shoulder. “What is this place, Avery?”

“Huh?” I’m so eloquent when I’m confused. How could he possibly
not
fall for me?

“This apartment. What is it?”

Oh! I flush furiously, finally following his lead. “My second home.”

“Exactly. So why would I be mad if you brought stuff here?” He reaches into the fridge and extracts a Gatorade for himself and the giant can of green tea for me.

“I—because it’s your
first
home.”

He laughs, shaking his head and sits across from me, scooting the can to me across the small table. “You’re silly. I want you to feel at home here. Bring over anything you want: spices, books, music, clothes. Anything. Everything.”

I color again and stare holes through my can. “Okay.”

Noah takes a couple of long pulls from his drink and I follow the way his Adam’s apple bobs with each swallow. My mouth dries with a sudden rush of desire, even after what we’ve just done. He has a long, sexy neck. I’ve admired it before, but something about watching the man swallow has blood rushing to my groin again.

He puts the bottle on the table and winks at me with a crooked smile, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. And knowing Noah, of course he does. I pointedly look down, opening my can as he relaxes back in his chair. He waits for me to swallow a sip before speaking.

“I think we’re comfortable enough around each other now that I can just say this and you won’t try to run away from me.” I look into his hazel eyes wondering if I should prepare to flee. Probably, but he has ever so cleverly put me in a corner, literally. Or maybe I did that. Either way, I don’t really feel the need to run yet.

“If my little display over there didn’t make it obvious, I want nothing more than to take you to bed and make love to you.” I start to stutter a protest but he presses on. “I know you’re not ready for that and that’s okay. I told you we’d take this at your pace and I still plan to do that. I won’t rush you and I won’t hurt you. I think you know that by now or we wouldn’t be here like this.”

I can’t look away. It’s like he’s a traffic accident I can’t help rubbernecking. “Why?” I hear myself ask.

“Why what? Why do I want to make love to you?” He continues with a smile when I bob a nod. “Because you’re irresistibly beautiful and crazy sexy and I know when we get it right, we'll make the planets align.”

I stare at him, wide-eyed, fifty shades of red. For the life of me, I can’t string two words together to make a sentence. Even one seems out of reach. Crazy sexy? He thinks I’m sexy? Wait. “I can’t, Noah.”

He nods. “I know.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to.” Once the words start, I can’t stop them. “I do. I really do. I think about it.
A lot
. You’re so beautiful and perfect and sexy, how could I not want to…do that with you? But—I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“I can’t let you—” The sobs come from nowhere and overtake me. Harsh, ragged sobs of despair. “Fire station,” I finally gasp out between them, knowing they make no sense to Noah but trying anyway.

“Fire station?” he repeats quizzically. “Oh, Jesus!” Suddenly I hear the screech of his chair and I feel the steel bands of his arms wrap around me, pulling me onto his lap as I continue to bawl like a lunatic. “No, baby, no. No fire stations. Never again.” He presses kisses into my hair. “Don’t you know by now? I’m never going to let you go. You’re mine, for keeps, forever. You’re my little one. Oh, Aves.” And then he’s crying too. My Mt. Man-Everest holds me in his strong arms, rocking us both, crying with me. I know he understands and I feel my love for him explode. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and sob into his neck. With each heaving, wrenching sob we share, I feel the poison slowly drain away.

Eventually we both quiet down and just hold on to each other for dear life, shuddering breaths and all. I’m not a pretty crier, but when he turns and sweeps my mouth into a slow, desperately passionate kiss, I’m glad I’m not one of those snot-nosed criers. Ugly crying is okay, but snot-filled kisses are just too gross for words. And what he’s doing to my mouth is anything but gross. When I break away for breath, I bury my face in his neck. He holds me tighter and I’ve never felt so close to another human being. Not Joey, not Sam. I feel safe and cared for. It’s disconcerting, but I’m too tired, too drained to fight it, so I just settle more comfortably against him and bask in the feeling.

What seems like hours later, Noah lifts me from his lap to stand before him. He groans as he climbs to his feet, mumbling something about hard, wooden floors. He takes my hand, smiles, and asks, “Do you trust me?”

A lump forms in my throat so I just nod silently.

He swoops down to press a quick kiss to my lips. “We need to recover from this conversation before we have dinner, don’t you think?” I nod again and smile slightly, whole-heartedly agreed. “Okay, right now I need to hold you and I think you need to be held. Am I right?” A shudder of longing, of gratitude passes through me and I nod again. I feel like a bobble-head doll, but I can’t speak around the obstruction of emotion in my throat. “Holding and sleeping, that’s all, okay?”

This time I find my voice. “Okay.” Well it’s somebody’s really husky, very quivery voice.

Noah presses my hand to his lips. “Let’s go lay down on the bed where it’s comfortable. Please?”

Nothing he could have said would make me say no. He’s right. I need to be held by him, to recover and to rest. No other place but his bed would suit that purpose. I step out of the way and let him lead me down the hall and to his bedroom.

He lets me get settled in the middle of his big bed, on my left side with my back to the door—the first time since I was a small child, before the beatings began. He climbs in behind me, pulls a blanket up to our waists and spoons up against me, his arm around me. I lace our fingers together and bring them up under my chin, just as he did when he was so sick.

As I drift off, safe and secure in his arms, in his bed, I hear him whisper, “Forever and for always, little one. I promise.” The small smile on my lips says I want to believe him.

***

I awaken with a start and scamper off the bed, looking back at it frantically. I heave a great sight of relief that the bed is empty. As comforting as it was to fall asleep in the circle of Noah's arms, I’m grateful for the few moments alone to compose myself now. The scene from the kitchen floods over me and I collapse onto the bed with a groan.

I can’t believe how brazen I was, first to begin to tease him like that, then to actually jerk him off in front of the refrigerator like … like I knew what I was doing. But oh, he had felt so good in my hands, so strong and powerful and all mine. Seeing my hands on him, hearing and feeling how much he liked what I did to him was worth everything. The heady sense of power at being able to bring him to such an explosive climax was enough to make my head spin even now.

But as great as my very first sexual experience was, I’m lost now. I have no idea what to do next. I groan again and drop my face to my hands. If I’m going to pretend to be a fully-functioning grown up, then I have to act like one. And the first step in that direction is out the bedroom door toward Noah, wherever he is.

After finger brushing the cotton from my mouth with some of Noah's minty fresh toothpaste and wetting down my hair so it doesn’t look as slept in as I feel, I mentally brace myself and open the bedroom door. The unexpected aroma of bacon and maple syrup greets me and my stomach growls in response, reminding me we took a nap instead of having dinner. A quick glance at the clock on my iPhone confirms that it’s late, almost ten. We—or I, anyway—slept for three hours. I dash off a quick text to Sam telling him not to worry, that I’ll be home late. After confirming for him that I’m with Noah, I receive his maddening answer: “No rush then. Have a great time.”