by Chris T. Kat
“Thank God, you’re still alive! Geez, you’re heavy!”
I bent forward, pressed my lips to his throat, and sucked—hard. Noah squealed in protest and his hands scrabbled for my chest in a vain attempt to shove me off him. When I was certain I had left a visible mark, I relented.
“You fucking Neanderthal,” Noah groused.
I raised an eyebrow and smirked at him. He looked all flustered and deliciously well-fucked. In slow motion, I licked my lips and bent down, blowing a raspberry on the hickey.
“Paul!” Noah shouted, slightly panicked. “Not another one! I’ll never live it down at work. You know how much the others like to tease me about those things.”
I hovered an inch above the hickey and said, “What’s in it for me if I comply?”
“What’s in it for you? What’s in it for you?”
“Yeah, what’s in it for me?” I replied patiently.
Noah looked at me, his cheeks deeply flushed, strands of his light-brown hair plastered to his forehead. He rolled his eyes before he whined, “I don’t know. How can you expect me to think after what you just did to me? Come to think of it—why aren’t you asleep yet?”
“Wrong answer.”
“No!” Noah shrieked.
He thrashed his head from one side to the other as he struggled to keep me from leaving another mark. I blamed my recent climax for the fact that he was able to fend me off for a whole minute. He was by no means a weak person—far from it—but I could usually overpower him in seconds.
“Did fucking me drain you so much? My poor old Caveman,” Noah panted, his arms starting to tremble from the effort of holding me back.
“Oh, now that calls for unfair tactics,” I growled in my best fake-caveman voice.
Noah gave up on pushing my face off his throat and instead squirmed over on his stomach, seemingly intent on crawling away from me. I thwarted his attempt easily enough, what with all his laughter. Tickling whatever body part I could reach, I laughed too.
“Stop! Paul, please stop! I call for a truce!”
“Do you, now?”
Noah convulsed underneath me, a fine sheen of sweat covering his back. Gasping, he said, “Yes! Please!”
“You’re saying ‘please’ an awful lot today,” I mused as I lowered myself onto him. “I kinda like that.”
Noah turned his head to the left side, his breaths still coming in little puffs. “Could you please not smother me? It would make breathing so much easier.”
“Devil.”
“Noah—nice to meet you.”
I climbed off him, pulled the condom off, and threw it in the vague direction of the wastebasket, then lay down next to Noah and interlaced our fingers. For a few minutes, neither of us said anything as we both tried to calm our breathing. Closing my eyes, I thanked Noah’s guardian angel for a job well done today.
“I knew you’d fall asleep,” Noah grumbled.
“I’m still awake.”
“Not for long.”
I opened one eye to peer at Noah. He smiled at me while he combed through the hair on my chest with his free hand.
“Are you getting up or did you want anything?” I asked.
Noah huffed, got on his knees and hands, and crawled to the foot of the bed, retrieving the duvet. I whistled at the sight of Noah’s firm buttocks, how his ass muscles flexed with each movement.
He winked at me and shook his ass. After I told him to come back, he clambered back toward me, then eyed my sticky abdomen. Sighing, he said, “One of us should probably get a washcloth.”
He flopped down next to me, pulled the comforter up to his neck, and closed his eyes. “And it’s not going to be me.”
“It’s never you.”
“My legs are jelly, for which you are responsible. You wouldn’t want me to fall or anything and hurt myself, would you?”
“Wipe that innocent smile off your face.”
Eyes still closed, Noah blew me a kiss. I scooted closer to him while shaking my head. Once I was close enough, I wound my arms underneath his body and lifted him on me, with the duvet as a barrier between us.
“I’m not washing the duvet,” Noah declared.
“We’ll take it to the dry cleaner.”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“If you say so.”
Noah must have been incredibly tired not to fight me on that. He hated those chores with a passion that had surprised me in the beginning. Not that we went to the dry cleaner all that often since neither of us had much use for it, but he also loathed the mundane task of grocery shopping. After a few trips to the store with him, I loathed it too. We had agreed that I would do the shopping.
Surprisingly enough, Noah didn’t hate cooking, which had resulted in my gaining one or two pounds. Okay, maybe more than one or two, but hey, I was doing physically exerting work; I needed to eat properly. Noah never missed a chance to tease me about the extra pounds.
Shortly before sleep claimed me, Noah wiggled and squirmed until he could pull the duvet out from between us. I sighed in contentment when Noah’s warm skin came to a rest on me, the puckered lines of his scars oh-so-familiar to me. I spread the duvet over him, then slipped my arms under the fabric to wrap Noah in a loose embrace. A tremor ran through Noah’s body, and he pressed a gentle kiss to my right nipple before sleep finally came to both of us.
Chapter Six
HIGH-PITCHED mewls interrupted my sleep. Annoyed, I scrunched my eyelids tighter together, hoping the disturbing sounds would stop soon. I don’t know how long I dropped in and out of sleep before my eyes flew wide open. The cubs!
“Noah!”
He didn’t move. I carded my hands through his hair as I called him again. His only reaction was a sharp intake of breath.
“Hey, Noah, the cubs are crying,” I tried again.
Still no reaction. As much as Noah liked to tease me about falling asleep right after sex, he was the one who was dead to the world for hours after a serious pounding. Interestingly enough, blowjobs didn’t have the same effect on him; on the contrary, they rejuvenated him.
After shaking his shoulder gently, I didn’t get more than an annoyed grunt. I lifted him off me, positioned him on his side, and made sure he was covered with the duvet. Noah frowned in his sleep but didn’t wake up. I donned a pair of sweatpants and a shirt and padded out of our bedroom.
The cubs were inspecting the interior of their crate, searching for an exit while whining all the time. I went to them and patted both of them quickly before walking into the kitchen to prepare their bottles. The cubs’ wailing increased in intensity while I left them to their own devices. One of them would be pissed in a few minutes, because I couldn’t feed them both simultaneously. I had never taken care of two cubs at the same time, and I wouldn’t have agreed to it without Noah.
While I stood in the kitchen and waited for the water to heat up, I relived the sex Noah and I had enjoyed, amazed as always at how well we fit together. Sometimes I wondered about the way fate worked, but I damn well wasn’t complaining.
As I screwed the suckers on the bottles, I became aware that the mewling and whining had become much more subdued. Either the cubs had found something else to occupy themselves with, or…. Actually, I couldn’t think of anything else.
I hastened to screw the suckers on the finished bottles, took them, and entered the living room. I stopped in the middle of it, my eyes opening wide. Noah was sitting on the sofa, curled up in one corner with both cubs on his lap.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was, but these two here screamed so loudly I couldn’t stay asleep. Also, you were already up, and you know how much I hate it when you get up without waking me.”
A fond smile tugged at my lips and I walked toward the sofa, handed Noah one bottle, and in return received one of the cubs. The getting up without waking him part was an old argument between Noah and me, so I didn’t bother replying.
The cub in my arms latche
d onto the nipple eagerly. For a long time, the only sound in the room was the cubs smacking as they downed their bottles. I wondered whether it would be playtime after the feeding, but the cubs fell asleep again while suckling.
Noah yawned, set the bottle aside, and said, “How very domestic.”
I watched him slouch down farther on the sofa until his head touched the armrest. He stroked the cub’s belly with his eyes closed, then cradled the small bundle securely against his chest.
All the while I rubbed the cub’s belly in my arms as well. My rumbling stomach reminded me that Noah and I had skipped dinner. I stood up with the cub in my arms to put it back into the crate. Walking back to Noah, I reached out for the other cub. Noah opened his tired eyes to glare at me. “No.”
“Huh?”
“I said no. I want to hold her a bit longer, and no, I’m not hungry.”
I straightened up, put my hands on my hips, and glowered at him. “You are hungry—you just don’t want to get up.”
“I’m going back to sleep now,” Noah announced, not the least bit fazed by my words or the fact that I loomed above him.
“You will not allow the cub to sleep in our bed.”
“I was talking about sleeping here.”
Exasperated, I turned and walked back into the kitchen. After washing my hands, I started preparing some sandwiches. Mine stayed whole while I cut Noah’s into smaller portions. For whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to bite into a sandwich; instead, he preferred to pick up neatly cut cubes or triangles. He couldn’t explain why he only liked to eat his sandwiches that way, and I had simply gotten used to the habit.
After putting everything on two plates, I carried them into the living room. I asked Noah to lift his legs so I could sit as close to him as possible. He did as he was told, and I set one plate next to me and the other one on his legs. In between taking bites of my own sandwich, I fed Noah his.
When we were done, I cleared the plates, brought out two large glasses with water, and gently pried the cub from Noah’s hands. We both drank our water, and then Noah stuffed the empty glass in my hand. He immediately curled himself into a small ball in the corner of the sofa, shivering slightly.
I carried the cub to the crate, mindful of not waking her. I laid her next to her sister and watched as both cubs sought closer contact even in their sleep. They draped paws and limbs over each other, which made it impossible to see where one body ended and the other one started. I already knew this would be one of those images I’d remember when I was old. I couldn’t help but smile down at the cubs.
I turned back to Noah and saw he had his legs tucked up even more. After walking back to him, I slid one arm under his neck and the other one under his knees. He wound his arms around my neck and brushed his lips over my throat in what probably should have been a kiss but registered as a light tickle with me.
“You could walk, you know.”
“My legs might not hold me up.”
“How did you get here if your legs are that wobbly?” I asked while carrying him to the bathroom.
Noah shrugged. “Adrenaline?”
“Adrenaline?” I repeated. I put him on his feet in front of the sink, pushed his toothbrush into his hand, and grabbed my own.
“Yeah, a short spike of adrenaline in my blood because of the cubs crying.”
I looked at Noah, whose gaze remained fixed on the sink. “Sometimes I seriously consider believing you.”
Noah’s gaze flickered up to me, a cheeky grin on his face. “I know.”
After cleaning our teeth, I left Noah to finish up in the bathroom. I locked up the apartment, looked in on the soundly sleeping cubs, and did my thing in the bathroom as well.
I entered our bedroom, chuckling when I found Noah still dressed, sprawled sideways on the bed. “And how, exactly, am I supposed to fit?”
“I don’t know. You just have to make yourself small.”
“Right. Or I could coax you into making room for me.”
Noah squinted at me. “Coax me, eh?”
I nodded earnestly but couldn’t keep my expression serious for more than ten seconds. Laughing, I walked to the bed, shedding my clothes along the way. Noah hastily scooted up on the mattress, making room for me. I helped him undress before we arranged ourselves in our usual sleeping position with me spooned around him.
You’d think we’d let go of each other during the night because it got uncomfortable, but we usually woke up exactly the same way we fell asleep. I had never thought I’d like that. Then again, I couldn’t imagine a lot of things before meeting and loving Noah.
Noah snuggled closer, craned his head backward so we could kiss, then sighed. “Night, Caveman.”
“Night, Devil.”
Chapter Seven
BOTH of us looked like death warmed over the next morning. First, the cubs demanded to be fed during the night. Then, between one and two, they decided it was playtime, and nothing we did could convince them to sleep. So we ended up chasing two little lion cubs through the living room and rolling around on the floor with them. Of course we had to consider our neighbors and keep our playtime as silent as possible—a feat in itself when the cubs didn’t care about anything but having fun. Despite the late hour and the need to keep it quiet, we had laughed a lot.
But now that it was morning, Noah could only stare blearily into his mug, his eyes half-lidded. I wasn’t faring any better. Putting two slices of toast on his plate in front of him, I urged, “Eat.”
“One-word sentences? Didn’t get enough sleep, huh?”
I stooped to press a firm kiss to his tousled hair. Clasping my hand around his neck, I gave it a light squeeze. Noah looked up at me, his eyes brimming with tears. Shocked, I exclaimed, “Christ! Noah, what’s wrong?”
I had never seen him that close to tears. I had never seen him seriously tearful, period. Subdued or chastised, maybe, but never this scared.
He wrapped his arms around my neck and hid his face against my chest—all without saying a single word. I lifted him in my arms, then sat down on his chair and pulled him onto my lap. His trembling body felt unfamiliar and for a short moment I had absolutely no clue what to do. What had happened to my Noah?
“Noah?”
He didn’t answer, merely clutched me tighter. I cupped the back of his head with one hand and stroked his rapidly heaving back with the other.
Very softly, I asked, “Noah? Come on, tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”
“I’m scared. What if they fire me?” he choked out.
They’d be doing their job.
At least I had enough common sense left to keep that thought to myself. Taking a deep breath, I replied, “I’ll put in a good word for you, and, despite your lack of common sense sometimes, you are a good worker. I don’t think you have to fear more than a written warning.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
A flash of annoyance shot through me. I didn’t want Noah to jeopardize his health and safety, and what had he done? I appeased myself with the fact that Noah’s heart was in the right place—that he never intended to worry me.
Noah lifted his head from my chest and gazed at me with red-rimmed eyes. He searched my face—for what, I didn’t know—then spoke. “You’re still angry with me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I confessed.
I’ve never been good at pretending, so why start now? Noah swallowed convulsively and averted his eyes. I waited as he stared at my chest and fiddled with the buttons of my shirt.
“I’m sorry, Paul. I really am.”
He looked at me but seemed unable to keep eye contact for more than a few seconds. I reached out, laid one finger under his chin, and turned his face back to me. Noah frowned but held his tongue. I suppressed a smile. I could only imagine what went on in that pretty head of his, but I was sure he didn’t like that particular gesture.
“I know you’re
sorry, and we’ll make sure you can’t bring yourself into a dangerous situation again. Now stop the guilt-trip—this isn’t like you.”
Noah’s lips curved up in a tentative smile. He slumped against me, his head on my shoulder, and I enveloped him in a fierce embrace. My chest hurt from too many emotions—fear and love, to name only a few among them.
After kissing the tip of his nose, I whispered, “You scared the living hell out of me yesterday, and yes, I’m still angry, but I’ll get over it.”
“I don’t like when you’re mad at me,” Noah whined. “I feel like I let you down.”
“You did.”
Noah let out a surprised gasp and tried to pull away from me but I kept him close with practiced ease. Choosing a deliberately controlled tone, I said, “You could be dead or injured now. How did you think I’d feel? I know you don’t like me to be mad at you, but I believe I have all the justification in the world to be angry about your little stunt.”
Noah gnawed on his lower lip, his whole body taut and ready to jump and run. I was proud of him for not following his first instinct, namely to flee, because the conversation was highly unpleasant for him.
“I still love you. Very much,” I continued, smiling when some of the tension left Noah’s body as my words sunk in.
“Ditto. I… I mean, I love you too.”
Noah didn’t say it very often. Neither did I. It was still a huge thing for us to say how we felt about each other. The words remained special, and a warm tingle spread out from my spine, traveling up until it expanded in my chest.
Noah scooted closer and we kissed. It was a slow, sensual kiss without heat but with a lot of unspoken feelings behind it. When the kiss ended, I pressed our foreheads together.
“Just for the record, I still don’t like when you’re mad at me.”
I smiled, “Just for the record, I’m quite aware of that.”
Noah blew out a breath before rubbing his cheek against mine.
“You’re scratchy,” he muttered.
“And you’re impossible.”