Page 48 of The Lipstick Flip

The light glowed in his hair. And I could smell something now—a familiar scent, one he’d liked back when we’d been together. Floral. Roses. But with a hint of his body, too, because he’d worked hard preparing the meal, and because he was warm and alive and pressed up against me.

Noah turned his head and pressed his face into my neck. His skin was hot—or maybe that was me—like one of us was running a fever.

“I miss you,” he whispered. His fingers ran over my hair.

I closed my eyes, and we kept dancing.

“Howie,” he said, and his voice broke. When he tried again, the words came out small. “I think I made a mistake.”

I opened my eyes. My hands came up to cup his face. And I kissed him.

His mouth was as soft as I remembered, and he still tasted like Noah.

When I pulled back, his eyes were wet. He didn’t say anything. And then he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and stepped back, and held out his hand.

And I took it.

15

Noah led me down one of the long hallways. The lights were off, but he moved like he knew every inch of the place. The whisper of his steps on the rug. The click of a latch. And then he pulled me through a doorway, into a dark room. Not entirely dark, though, because the curtains were open, and the light reflected off the snow outside, just enough to let me get a sense of the space: a dresser, a bed, a nightstand.

I closed the door behind me, and when I turned back, Noah kissed me. One kiss turned into another, and then his mouth was on my neck, his hands yanking on my sweater and then sliding up under my shirt to run across my stomach, over my chest. I walked him backward toward the bed. His sweater came off easily enough, but then I got stuck trying to undo the buttons on his shirt. They were small and smooth and kept slipping out from between my fingers.

“Rip it,” Noah said, breaking a kiss to my neck long enough to say, “Just get it off, I don’t care.”

Well, I could do that.

The buttons popped free, and then I was pushing the shirt over Noah’s shoulders. The snow-light made him look even paler than usual, with black stripes of shadow: along his shoulder, following his collar bone, between his ribs. He was so soft, too. He shivered when I ran my thumbs over his nipples, and they stiffened in response.

“Take this off,” he said, giving my sweater a tug; he’d already gotten it halfway there, and as I started to turn myself out of it, Noah dropped to his knees. He snaked my belt free like he was doing a magic trick, and then he undid the button on my waistband and pushed my trousers down.

Then he groaned.

“What?” I asked with the sweater still over my head.

“Halloween?” Noah said and he snapped the waistband of my trunks. “Good God, Howie, I didn’t think I was going to be running into Frankenweenie.”

I finally managed to get free of the sweater. “Well, I didn’t know—”

But Noah just shushed me and, before I could finish my sentence, shoved the trunks down and took the head of my dick in his mouth.

I forgot whatever I’d been trying to say.

Warm. Wet. The texture of his tongue as he swirled it experimentally once, as though checking everything out, and then—apparently satisfied—rubbed against that sensitive spot just below the head.

“Shit,” I breathed, and I grabbed his head in both hands.

Noah used to like it when I did that—if his feelings had changed, he didn’t give any sign. He let me pull him forward, not quite fucking his face, but filling his mouth until I started worrying about hitting the back of his throat. I pulled him off, then forward again, and he let me. One of his hands played with my balls. The other hand was between his legs, rubbing himself through his trousers.

For a few minutes, Noah let me use him like a fuck-sleeve. And then he wrapped his hands around my wrists, and I let him go. Instead of pulling off, though, Noah leaned forward. He took my dick as deep as I’d pushed him, and then glancing up at me from under long lashes, he took me into his throat.

I grunted as he swallowed me inch by inch. His eyes stayed locked on mine, even as he started to tear up, and the tears glittered in his lashes.

Then he gagged, pulled back, coughed, shook his head.

“You okay?” I ran my hand over his hair.

“Been a while,” Noah said. His voice—well, it wasn’t wrecked. But it did sound a little scratchy. And when he looked up at me again, there were still tears in his lashes, and his lips had that puffy rawness I remembered. He leaned forward and licked the tip. “Need more practice.”