But it's okay, because to be together and work together, we have to be able to turn off the playfulness a little. That’s what he’s doing. Focus on work. I take his cue going forward, and trust that he knows how to steer us.
By the timeFriday afternoon arrives, I’m buzzing with anticipation. Noah has a long run planned, and I’m joining him, to hell with my half-marathon training plan. Running with Noah is its own kind of foreplay—watching the way his powerful body moves, the sheen of sweat on his skin,the way he glances back at me with encouragement when I start to lag. I’m fast when I’m alone, but with him, my focus isn’t great. Sweaty Noah makes me think of sexy, naked Noah.
We meet at the trailhead near the edge of campus, the late afternoon sun making the magnolia trees look golden. He’s in running shorts and a tight compression shirt that should be illegal.
“Ready?” he asks, after verifying that everyone else flaked.
I nod, and we set off at an easy pace. The trail winds through the science buildings and campus garden, and conversation flows effortlessly between us. We talk about our classes, a ridiculous email from Dr. Pratt about the symposium being moved up a week, the new faculty job posting, and the latest on-campus student gossip. When conversation breaks, we run in companionable silence, and I’m glad everyone else flaked.
When we finally circle back to campus, Noah suggests that we go back to his place, since we’ve spent a few nights at mine recently. We’re both flushed and breathing hard when he asks, and my mind goes to Noah’s bed, messy sheets, clothes everywhere, and him, naked, strewn amidst it all.
“Your place sounds great.”
Noah’s eyesdarken as he keys us inside. “Shower?” he suggests, voice lined with alternative, dirty desires. Mine, too, so I don’t even pretend to hesitate. “Yes. Together.”
The moment the bathroom door closes, his mouth is on mine. Our kisses are deep, hungry, tasting of sweat and want. We strip each other between kisses, hands mapping familiar territory with new urgency, new need. Noah’s body is a masterpiece I’m still learning—broad shoulders, defined chest tapering to narrow hips, the trail of dark hair leading down. I trace it with my fingers and love that when I do, he shudders.
Under the spray of hot water, he presses me against the cool tile and drops to his knees. The sight of him like this—water streaming down his back, looking up at me with wide, amber eyes—nearly undoes me.
“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs against my thigh, kissing, nipping, making my eyes sting with the tenderness of his affection. I nod and thread my fingers through his wet hair as he takes me into his mouth, slow and worshipful. My head tips against the shower wall, a broken sound escaping from somewhere deep in my chest.
“Oh, Noah.” The hot water, his hot mouth, looking down amidst the spray to see his thick, aching cock. “Fuck. That feels so–you’re so good.”
He works me slowly, humming around my length with hollowed cheeks, one hand steadying my hip while the other explores. Noah reaches around, dipping fingers into my ass, the same way he played with me that one night.
God I still come to that on the nights he isn’t with me. Ithink of how he told me the ways in which he’d prepare my body for his, and made me come.
Noah’s fingers graze my ass as he sucks me deep, and my vision goes fuzzy, and my balls pull tight, and I come embarrassingly fast, gasping his name, nearly choking on it.
We’re in the shower, but Noah still swallows me as I come, abandoning my ass at some point to stroke himself once, then twice. After I’m spent and trembling under the hot stray, Noah rises and kisses me, letting me taste myself on his tongue. I reach for him, wrapping my hand around his bobbing pink cock, teasing him with a stroking rhythm that makes his breath catch.
“Like this?” I whisper, stroking him the way he showed me last week.
“Fuck, yes. Just like that.” His forehead rests against mine, eyes half-closed in pleasure. I watch every flicker across his face, memorizing what makes him moan, what makes his hips jerk. When he comes a few seconds after me, it’s with my name on his lips, and something fierce and protective blooms in my chest.
The way he’s taking it so slow with me, being so careful for us. I’m glad we’re in the shower and he can’t see the stinging in my eyes.
We clean each other gently, passing the washcloth back and forth beneath the spray, adding soap at some point. This is what I never knew I needed—sex that feels like connection, not performance. Noah’s patience with myinexperience has been a revelation. He never rushes me. Never makes me feel like I’m behind or lacking.
Later that evening,we end up back at my place, on my couch grading papers side by side. My place is smaller than his, cozier, with shelves of books climbing every wall. Noah sits with his legs draped over my lap, red pen flying across student essays while I try to focus on my own stack. Every so often he reads a particularly ridiculous sentence aloud and we dissolve into laughter.
“You know,” he says during one such moment, setting his papers aside, “I’ve wanted this for so long. Just… existing with you.”
I set my own work down and run my hand along his calf. “I’m sorry it took me so long to catch up.”
“Hey.” He sits up, cupping my face. “None of that. You got here. That’s what matters.”
His kiss is sweet at first, then deepens. Papers get pushed aside and we make out for a long time, hands roaming, unhurried, exploratory. When we finally move to the bedroom, it’s slow and pious, like always.
Noah stretches out beneath me, guiding my hands, my mouth. He guides me down his length, and I suck him hard, fast, needing to please him and hear his pleasednoises so bad. As bad as I need to breathe. “That’s it… God, Cade, you’re so good for me.”
A few minutes of sucking and slurping and Noah is tapping on my shoulders, warning me, but I double down, my lips to his groin holding tight. He comes, forcefully and somewhat violently, and my eyes water as I accept it, swallowing and gagging. Noah wipes my eyes with the end of his shirt and replaces my glasses, tugging me to the head of the bed with him.
“I love watching you like this,” he confesses breathlessly.
“And I love making you feel good.”
We lie tangled together, his head on my chest as I stroke his back. The doubt still creeps in sometimes—the old voice that whispers I’m broken, that the asexual label I once clung to will return and ruin everything. But here, with Noah’s warm weight against me and his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin, the fear feels distant. Manageable.
