by Hamel, B. B.
“Hey, check this out,” he said, breaking the silence.
I scooted over closer to him and peered over his shoulder. He was holding an old faded photograph of a young, beautiful girl in makeup. It looked like an old headshot.
“Who is that?”
“It’s Miss H. She can’t be older than 20 here.”
I looked at the picture again and gaped. Miss H had been an absolute knock-out. Her lips were full and pouty and her hair was thick and luxurious. I was a little shocked at how different she looked.
“She’s pretty hot, isn’t she?” Noah said.
“Oh stop, perv.”
“What, I’m just saying. Not as hot as you are, but still, pretty good for the 60s.”
I felt myself blush at his compliment. “Okay, yeah, she is pretty hot.”
“Alright, put it back in your pants, dots.”
He snapped the picture away as if I were about to grab it from him. I laughed and pushed his back lightly. He turned part way toward me, grinning, and grabbed me by my hips, pulling me forward into his lap. I was surprised as a jolt of excitement ran through my core and I landed smoothly in his lap, my arms grabbing onto his shoulders. His strong arms were able to easily pull me onto him plus support my weight. I felt small in his lap, looking at him with my lips slightly parted.
“Hey, careful,” I managed to get out.
“You started it,” he said.
His face was inches away from mine, and I thought I felt the hard press of his cock against my ass. I couldn’t be sure, though, and wasn’t about to check, no matter how badly I wanted to. His full lips were so close to mine, and the memory of his sweet taste came rushing back to me. I tightened my grip on his shoulders, smiling, and tried pushing him back, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Too weak, sorry, dots,” he said.
“We both know I’m stronger than you are.”
He laughed. “I could throw you around if I wanted to.”
My pulse began to hammer in my throat and I wanted him to show me how easily he could handle me.
“What are you staring at?” he asked, still grinning at me.
I looked away. I wanted to tell him exactly what I was thinking about, how he made my body feel when he was around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I turned back and started to say something, but my phone began to ring, cutting me off.
“Better get that,” he said softly.
I nodded and climbed off his lap, walking across the room and into the kitchen where my phone was plugged in. I picked it up and saw that it was Chris. I swiped right and answered.
“Hey, Chris,” I said.
“What’s up?”
“Not much. I’m at the apartment with Noah.” I looked back out into the living room and watched as he went back to sorting the pictures.
“You’re home alone with him?”
I made a face, not sure what she meant. “Yeah, we’re working on the movie.”
“Yeah, I figured. I just mean, is that a great idea?”
“Why not?”
She let out an exasperated breath. “Never mind. I’m sorry I said anything.”
“No, what did you mean?”
“It’s just that, he fucked you over, remember? I don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all.”
I turned my back to Noah, speaking softly. “It’s okay, Chris. Don’t worry about it.”
“I know you’re a big girl. I just worry.”
“We’re keeping it PG, I promise.”
“Hey, if you wanted to film a porno with him right now, I wouldn’t be mad at you. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“I’m fine. Really. But thanks for checking in.”
“Okay, sure. I’ll be home in like an hour.”
“Sounds good.”
“Bye.”
We hung up. I stood there in the kitchen for a second, breathing deeply. If she hadn’t called right at that moment, I don’t know what I would have done. I still felt flustered from the easy way he flirted with me, and from the physical contact. I wanted to climb back into his lap and run my fingers through his hair, but it was too soon.
“Hey, you okay?”
I practically jumped. I turned around and he was standing in the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall. His face looked concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, just seemed like you were upset.”
I took a deep breath and plastered a smile on my face. “Nope. Now back to work, slave boy.”
He grinned. “Yes mistress.”
He turned and walked back out into the living room, sitting back down in his spot. I followed, my mind a mess of conflicting emotions. I was surprised that he was able to read my emotions so easily from across the apartment, but I shouldn’t have been. Noah seemed to be incredibly intuitive about me, even if he seemed to make all the wrong decisions anyway.
We went back to work, sorting box after box, but I kept my distance. I didn’t want to risk getting pulled back against his body. I didn’t trust myself enough to touch him again; I had no clue what I would do. He hadn’t done enough to earn back my trust yet.
But he had definitely earned back my desire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The weeks seemed to fly by. Between class, work, and the movie, I was the busiest I had ever been. More than that, I was the happiest, and I looked forward to every hour I spent shooting the movie, interviewing people, and editing the footage with Noah. In just three weeks, we shot ten hours of interviews with Miss H, plus another ten split between a few of her life long acquaintances. I had gone through and catalogued hundreds of photographs, plus loose pieces of paper, ticket stubs, Playbills, and other souvenirs from her years in show business.
I kept my distance when I was around him, but only with a lot of effort. He was magnetic, the way he effortlessly made me laugh and made my heart pound with excitement. Noah had come back to work at the theater two weeks after we started the movie, and we were around each other more or less all day every day, minus class time.
Even Chris began to come around on him. She was skeptical, but he showed no signs of flaking out again, and things were healthier than ever between us. She wasn’t happy about it, but she eventually stopped asking if I knew what I was doing and accepted that he would be around.
But things couldn’t keep going that way, even if I wanted them to.
I looked over his shoulder at Miss H’s smiling face as he replayed the same clip over and over again, frowning.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I don’t know, the cut seems too abrupt.”
He played the clip for me, which featured a long panning shot of a photograph of Miss H as a young child. The shot cut to the primary interview with her, smiling and saying something about her mother. I had to admit, it looked a lot like a Ken Burns documentary, which was what we were going for.
I shrugged. “Seemed okay to me.”
He gave me a look. “Maybe to the untrained eye.”
“Don’t start with me.”
I collapsed into a heavily padded black armchair and crossed one leg underneath me. Noah bit his lip, which was a look that I knew meant he was frustrated. It was one of my favorite looks of his, one among the many of the enigmatic Noah Carterson. I looked around at the room and shook my head, still amazed at how strange it felt to be in his apartment for the first time.
He lived a few blocks to the north of campus, but still close to the athletic fields, in a totally renovated brick-fronted building. His place was a duplex, with two bedrooms upstairs, and a kitchen and a living room downstairs. His whole first floor was the size of my entire apartment, not to mention it was all modern architecture and clean lines, plus brand new stainless steel appliances. It was comfortably furnished but still tasteful, and when I asked him about it, he laughed and admitted that he had a decorator.
We were working in his second bedroom, which he ha
d converted into an office with a nice, large black desk, multiple expensive computers and monitors, plus a nice leather couch and the armchair I was sitting on. Usually we met in the computer center on campus, but it had been packed earlier, and we decided just to work at his place.
And I’m glad we did. I was learning so much about him just by being around his stuff. Apparently, he had a thing for the movie Blade Runner, based on the huge poster on the wall. There were a few pictures from his childhood scattered around the place, too, which I had never seen before. I wanted to explore his place so badly, but I didn’t want to violate his privacy, either.
“This isn’t happening,” he grunted, frustrated.
“We’ve been at it for two hours, maybe we should take a break.”
He swiveled around in his chair and looked at me, sighing. “Yeah, okay. Break time. Shall we adjoin to the bedroom?”
I grinned. “No thanks. How about you ply me with alcohol instead.”
“Gladly.”
He stood and walked toward the door, and I followed. We descended down his spiral staircase onto the first floor, and he walked into the kitchen. I followed, softly padding along his hardwood floors. He pulled out two wine glasses and grabbed a bottle of red from a full wine rack mounted on the wall. He popped the cork, poured two glasses, and held his up for a toast.
“To making movies,” he said.
I clinked his glass and we drank. It was really good wine, surprisingly delicious, especially considering I was more of a white wine girl.
“I’m surprised that toast was so tame,” I said.
He shrugged. “After a glass or two, it’ll get dirtier.” I gave him a look and he smiled, sheepishly. “I’m just kidding, I’m not getting wasted.”
I sighed and shrugged. “How long have you been here?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Since freshman year. My dad more or less forced me into this place when I first moved out here.”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Why?”
“He thought I would get robbed and murdered if I lived in Philly, so he wanted me to at least have a nice apartment.”
“That’s nice, in a weird way.”
“Not really,” he said, following me. He sat down on the couch, stretching his legs out onto the glass coffee table. “Back then, he was just trying to protect his investment in me. It wasn’t paternal affection.”
“Have you guys always hated each other?”
“No, not always. He took my mom’s death pretty hard, at first, and I guess he just wasn’t equipped to take care of a kid. That’s why Miss H stepped in.”
“So what happened?”
He shook his head, sipping his drink. “I’m not sure, honestly. He started dating again, which I hated and didn’t understand when I was little. And then he threw himself into his work, and I became an afterthought. I guess it all happened slowly.”
“I’m sorry, Noah,” I said softly, sitting down next to him.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, honestly.”
We drank together in silence then, and I curled my legs up underneath me. The wine was delicious, and left a warm, comfortable glow in my stomach as I finished my glass. He grinned at me when he noticed I was done, and knocked his back.
“Want another?” he asked, standing and taking my glass.
I cocked my head at him. “Should you even be drinking?”
“Alcohol isn’t my problem,” he said, then stopped and looked at me. “But I won’t drink if you don’t want me to.”
I let that linger in the air between us for a second. “Maybe let’s stop at one.”
He nodded. “Okay, that’s fine with me”
I watched him walk out into the kitchen, rinse the glasses off, and place them in his dishwasher. He corked the bottle, put it on his kitchen counter, and then walked out toward me.
“Come here, I want to show you something.”
I stood up and followed him as he climbed the spiral staircase. This time, instead of going directly into the office like we had earlier, he pushed open the door to his bedroom and walked in. I followed, looking around the room like I was entering a secret, holy place.
The room was dominated by a large bed. The sheets and comforter were grey, and it looked a lot like his room had back at his dad’s place in the suburbs. There were more bookcases, and a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall, with a long case filled with movie DVDs. Noah walked over to a bookcase and pulled out a photo album.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing at the bed.
I sat down on the edge and he sat next to me. The album he was holding was old and browning, obviously a cheap drug store book, but he held it as if it were worth millions. He opened it to the first page.
“This is my mom,” he said.
He pointed at a picture that featured a beautiful brunette woman smiling huge, holding the hand of a cute little boy.
“Is that you?” I asked
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Your mom is really pretty.”
“Yeah, she was.”
He began to turn the pages, showing me more pictures. They were mostly of him as a kid doing things with his mom; going to the park, visiting the zoo, birthday parties, beach trips, the usual, normal stuff kids did with their parents. His mother looked like she was full of light and joy, an easygoing, lovely woman with a huge smile. Toward the end of the album, though, it became clear that she was getting sick. She was thinner, and her hair had completely fallen out by the end, probably due to the chemo. The last picture in the book was of his mother smiling huge in a hospital bed. Noah and his father were sitting on either side of her, laughing.
“This is all I have left of her,” he said softly.
“Do you remember what she was like?”
“She laughed a lot. She made everyone around her feel better.”
“I can get that from the pictures.”
“I don’t really remember much of the cancer stuff. I remember the hospitals, but I don’t think I really understood what was happening, even though my dad tried to explain it to me. Then one day, she was gone.”
I reached out and took his hand. He looked at me and smiled sadly, squeezing.
“Here, look at this,” he said. He turned back through the album and pointed out a particular picture. In it, he was wearing a Ninja Turtles costume, but he looked really upset. It looked like they were standing in someone’s backyard. His mom was next to him, and she looked like she was laughing really hard at something.
“This is my favorite picture of her. I remember this, actually. It was Halloween, and I really wanted to be a Ninja Turtle, but she got me the wrong one. I wanted to be Leonardo, but she got me Donatello, and I guess that really upset me. She was laughing so hard at how angry I was.”
I smiled sadly, looking at the angry little Noah. He looked like such a brat, and I could only imagine how much of a handful he was. He grinned at me.
“I was a great kid,” he said.
“You look like you were really easy.”
He shut the album, stood up, and slipped it back into the bookcase. I watched him, confused about the moment, confused why he was showing it to me. He sat back down next to me and took my hand.
“Noah...” I said, looking away.
“Just listen. I wanted to show that to you. I don’t care what happens from here on out, but it felt important that you saw her. It feels important that you’re making this movie about Miss H. And I just wanted to thank you for doing that.”
I looked back at him, surprised by his sincerity and the intensity in his gaze. He smiled back sadly and shrugged.
“I know you’re trying to help me, dots,” he said.
Before he could go on, I squeezed his hand hard and leaned forward, crushing his mouth with mine. It was impulsive and stupid but I wanted him more than anything in that moment, and couldn’t stop myself. For half a second, he didn’t react, but quickly his arms were wrapped around my body and his clean, grassy taste flood
ed my mouth. We kissed like that for a few minutes, until he softly pushed me back onto the bed.
“Noah,” I gasped. His body covered mine, heavy and strong, as he began to kiss my neck. I felt the rush of excitement hit me, and his hard dick pressed against my crotch as he ground himself against me. I left out a soft moan as his soft, practiced lips kissed along my neck and ear, then found my lips again, filling my mouth with his tongue.
I knew what I wanted in that moment, and didn’t care about what had happened before. Everything dropped from my mind, the drama between our parents, his disappearance, his drugs, my insecurity, everything. There was only his perfect, sculpted body and my pent-up need for him.
His lean body slipped back and upwards, and he pulled his shirt off, revealing this tattooed chest and sculpted abs. He grinned down at me as I stared at him, and then I shifted my weight, moving him off of me. He sat back, supporting himself with is arms, as I got up and onto my knees, pulling my own shirt off.
“Fuck, Linda, I missed you,” he grunted at me. I crawled toward him and smothered his mouth with mine, kissing him hard. I bit his lip and he grunted, pulling my hair softly as an answer. Smiling, I began to kiss down his muscled chest, lingering on his abs, as I unbuttoned his pants.
He helped me slide them down and I pulled them off his feet, tossing them onto the floor. His dick was pressing hard against his thin white cotton briefs, and I leaned back over him, rubbing his length with one hand.
“I’ve been thinking about your body for weeks,” he groaned.
“Oh yeah?” I whispered in his ear. “What do you want to do to it?”
Before he could respond, I pulled back, slipping his underwear down, revealing his nice, thick cock. I grabbed its base and slipped it into my mouth, eliciting a long moan from him.
“Fuck, Linda,” he grunted. “I want to lick your sweet clit until your legs shake.”
I sucked his tip hard, letting saliva soak his skin, as I slowly slid him into my mouth and throat. I sucked tight and rough, running it in and out of my mouth, my full lips wrapped firm, my tongue working along his length.