A Younger Man (7 page)

Ram had lots of characteristics Noah wanted in a potential partner: roughly the same age, he was thirty-nine; came from a similar background of a tight-knit family, although Ram had come out to his family in his early twenties. The man had a white-collar job, opposed to Noah’s blue, but Noah suspected they had a similar annual income. Most important, though, Ram had said he was looking for someone to build a life with too. And hell, Ram was even very handsome, so bonus points that he wouldn’t be hard to look at across a table or in bed every night. Yet with everything Ram had going for him, Noah couldn’t deny the sense of relief that had overcome him the moment Janice had asked him to come fix her sink.

While having a drink before dinner and during their conversation while eating, Noah had checked item after item off his list of things he wanted in a mate in regard to Ram. And with everything positive about Ram, Noah had felt certain that with this second date Ram would probably want something more than the brief kiss they’d shared at the end of their first date. Hell, Noah had even spent a lot of time thinking about those next steps, and even looking forward to them a bit.

Noah’s one experience with a guy in college, something he’d allowed himself during a brief breakup with Janice, had involved him kissing another boy like there was no tomorrow. Then they’d sucked each other’s dicks, fallen into bed, and ground their cocks together until they’d both come. But then the boy had immediately wanted to get some condoms and have sex, and had very aggressively talked about everything they could do together and with other guys. Noah had instantly gone cold and withdrawn from the situation. A few days later, Noah had missed everything he’d had with Janice so much he’d pleaded with her to take him back. Shortly thereafter, they’d gotten engaged and married.

Now Noah was looking to pursue those sexual feelings he’d briefly unleashed more than twenty years ago—only this time paired with a deep meaningful relationship. Ram could fill both of those needs in Noah. Noah knew it, yet he continued to hesitate. Ram had been in a handful of same-sex relationships; he’d talked of them a bit during their two dates. The man clearly had already had sex with other men; he knew what to do and already knew what he liked, while Noah had done nothing but force down thoughts of sex with other men for the entirety of his life. Noah didn’t know what the hell to do, or the right ways to do it, or if he had any kind of natural inclinations or qualifications that would make him good at having sex with another man.

Cringing inside, knowing it didn’t make a damn bit of rational sense, Noah reached for the remote, turned on the TV, and searched through the adult pay-per-view options. He selected a gay film he hadn’t seen before, clicked on the icon that said he agreed to pay the fee, and the movie began. Moments into the flick two buff, beautiful men filled the screen, already naked and in bed, kissing and rubbing against one another, with pleas from the man on the bottom for the other to suck his cock.

It was stupid as hell but Noah tried to watch the movie, as he’d done many others, with an eye toward learning some technique—or at the very least to find a pattern of things most men did when going down on a guy, or penetrating a guy, or even where and how to touch another male body to give the most pleasure. Before long, though, as was always the case, Noah’s dick stirred and his skin started to heat.

For once Noah wanted to prolong the inevitable release that would rush through him in a firestorm. Quick orgasms left him satiated and weak afterward but still pining for more. He watched the more compact, dark-haired man swipe his tongue all the way around the other guy’s shaft, and Noah groaned where he sat. He rubbed his length through his jeans, allowing the fabric to mute the sharp sensation of contact against his cock. With each lick or suck from the guy in the movie, Noah stroked his shaft in time, attempting to mimic what that man’s tongue would feel like on his prick.

Soon the man went to town swallowing half his partner’s length, to his partner’s shouts of delight, and Noah could not hold back touching himself fully any longer. After fumbling to get his belt and zipper open, Noah shoved his jeans to his hips and his erection quickly pushed toward his belly.
Good Christ.
He was so fucking hard already.

Noah told himself to go slowly, but the guy on the TV already had his face in his partner’s crack, licking his asshole as if it were a sweet piece of candy. And good God, Noah craved intimacy with someone like that so much he couldn’t control his responses. Noah’s balls rolled in his sac; early beads of creamy cum pearled across his fat slit, as if his body begged him to increase the level of sensation and make him come.

Unable to ignore his needs, Noah smeared the pre-ejaculate over his length, spit in his palm to lube himself up some more, and began jerking himself off in unison with the dark-haired porn star now sucking his partner’s dick in earnest. The more Noah stared at the TV, the more he could envision the very man on the screen kneeling between his thighs, his lush lips wrapped around Noah’s shaft, sucking him with every ounce of power in his body.

The image became so real Noah broke his stare from the TV and glanced down at his lap. He swore the three-dimensional likeness of that dark-haired guy bobbed up and down on his shaft for real, his sweet mouth taking as much of Noah’s length as he could, again and again. Moaning, Noah spread his legs even wider and tentatively touched this incredible man’s hair. Silken tresses threaded through his fingers, so very real. Noah ran his fingertips over the slightly wavy stuff. The man made a needful little noise in response, then looked up at Noah with the most innocent, yet sultry, pure blue stare he’d ever seen.

Noah gasped, but with just a light hold the young man, already much too familiar, he held him in place. The guy dug one hand into Noah’s hip and slid the other between Noah’s thighs to fondle his ultrasensitive balls. Noah instantly jerked again, but this time a hoarse shout followed. He punched his hips upward, hungry for more of this man’s suddenly seductive mouth.
Jesus God
. Noah slipped further into this wonderful yet terrible fantasy, and he silently willed this innocent person to understand his recently unearthed desires.
Please help me come
.

More insane, powerful suction surrounded Noah’s cock, and gentle pressure kept his balls on the edge of exploding. The man seemed to have no gag reflex, and his pretty eyes encouraged Noah to let go of his inhibitions.
Please. No.
Slipping under the tide, Noah buried his fingers in that luscious dark hair, held the guy in place, and began to drive his cock up into that welcoming mouth again and again and again, fucking the man well past his throat. The sight of those full lips wrapped around his dick pushed at Noah’s sanity equally as much as the feel of that tongue and mouth licking and sucking every nerve ending in Noah’s shaft did. Then that ocean gaze locked on Noah, held him prisoner, and invited Noah inside his world as well as his mouth. Noah cried out as he flew headfirst into an unknown abyss at rocket speed.

Noah arced his entire body, shoved his cock straight down the throat of the first honest home he’d ever known, and whispered gutturally, “Zane … Oh Christ, Zane … Zane…” and rode the wave of the sharpest orgasm he’d ever experienced, spewing seed with a vengeance. “Zane, please…” Noah lost himself completely in the younger man’s sincere eyes and sexy mouth, and he cried, “Zane, Zane,” repeatedly, with every spurt of semen he had to give.

For long minutes afterward, Noah stared down between his legs and just grinned at the guy smiling back at him, sharing in the glow of an experience more real and honest than any in his life.
Zane.
Noah could have run his fingers through the younger man’s hair forever, but just then two other shared cries of delight filled the room and slammed Noah back into reality. In a flash, the image of Zane kneeling between Noah’s legs disappeared. Noah looked up just in time to see the dark-haired man in the adult film, his legs parted and up against his chest, spray cum all over his stomach as the other guy pounded away in his ass, clearly in the throes of his orgasm too. Noah grimaced. When the two men lovingly kissed before the scene ended, Noah wanted to throw up.

You can’t have Zane. Stop pretending like you can.
Those two guys in the movie might only be fucking each other because they were being paid to, but what they’d done together in that scene was more real than what Noah had experienced on his living room couch. And it was for damn sure more a reality than anything Noah could ever share with the real, flesh and blood Zane Halliday.

Disgusted with himself, Noah turned off the TV. He couldn’t bear to watch another scene with two men fucking as if they loved every second of the encounter. Deep down Noah feared that no matter how much he ached for a man, he would never find someone he could equally love, desire, and respect, who would feel the same about him. Especially when he kept thinking about a young man who was not gay and could never be his.

Noah went to take a shower, determined to imagine a certain redhead with a very nice body—a man who seemed to find Noah interesting. In a way Noah hadn’t been able to do in years, he stroked his shaft a half dozen times, immediately grew hard again, and coated his shower wall with ejaculate as he came a second time in minutes.

It was not Ram consuming Noah’s thoughts and heart as he lost it, though. Once again, it was Zane.

Fuck.
Noah punched the shower wall. The impact didn’t batter his knuckles enough to make him understand the unhealthy ramifications of his desires, so he did it again. And again.

Only when his hand was bleeding did Noah relent.

Chapter 4

Four days later, as Noah pulled his truck to a stop in front of his old house he tried to keep his thoughts from wandering forward a few hours to what seeing Zane again would do to him. He hadn’t seen the younger man since the night he’d jerked off to the fantasy of a lust-filled Zane giving him a blowjob. And then, while in the shower shortly thereafter, losing his shit again to the even rawer vision of Zane crying out with pleasure as Noah pounded his cock into the man’s ass.

Stop it!
Noah reminded himself that even though he would see Zane in a few hours, he would have his son with him and Zane would have his brother and sister too. It was inappropriate to have such full-bodied sexual fantasies about Zane at all; to allow them to fester in his consciousness while in the presence of three children was unacceptable.
Beyond that
, Noah reminded himself,
you have another date with Ram next week. You need to start thinking of ways to make that evening a success, not ways to sabotage it before it starts.

Noah had given Ram such a detailed description of his evening fixing a sink and cleaning a kitchen that at a certain point the man had barked with laughter through the phone and said,
“Okay, all right, enough. I believe you. You weren’t trying to ditch me on our date.”
After Noah had promised,
“No, I wasn’t,”
Ram had murmured,
“So, would you like to try again?”
Noah had said he would, and they’d agreed to a night and time to get together. Noah just had to keep his focus on next Friday evening and steer clear of daydreams and porn featuring young, dark-haired men. He needed no more reminders of Zane Halliday than necessary, if for no other reason than that Noah craved a return to his usual relaxed state of living. He’d had such while married and living with his family, but it was something he feared he would never get back in this new life.

Just then the best possible cure for Noah’s mood swings burst out of the front door and ran toward him at the speed of light, shouting, “Dad! You’re here!” and then barreled into Noah and wrapped his arms around his waist.

Joy and light instantly filled Noah, practically lifting him off the ground. “Hey, Matthew.” He squeezed his kid and pressed a kiss to the top of his blond locks. “How’s my boy?”

After drawing back, Matthew said, “It’s Matt now, Dad. I don’t like Matthew anymore.”

Noah crossed his arms and studied his son with a deadly serious eye. “Matt it is,” he replied. “I like it. It makes you sound at least seventeen.”

Mimicking Noah, Matt crossed his arms against his chest too. “Daaaadddd.”

“Okay,” with a critical stare, Noah pretended to reconsider, “at least fifteen and a half.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He gave Noah one more quick hug. “I’ll go wait in the car.”

“In the truck, kiddo,” Noah corrected, watching his son as the boy—still all arms and legs—ran toward the sidewalk. “It’s unlocked. Strap yourself in the front seat.”

As Noah watched Matt climb in the passenger side, a slender, familiar presence appeared at his right.

“Where’s the Accord?” Janice asked.

“Hey, honey.” Biting his tongue as soon as the endearment left his lips, Noah muttered, “Sorry. Hard habit to break.”

“It’s all right.” With a nudge against Noah’s arm, Janice then jerked her shoulder toward the street. “What’s with the truck? Did something happen to the car?”

The image of a very distressed Zane on the sidewalk outside his former apartment filled Noah’s mind. “Someone was in a tight spot and needed transportation for a while.” An uptick in Noah’s heartbeat and somersaults in his stomach increased the grit already in his voice. “I lent him the Accord.”

“Him?” Janice’s eyebrows shot up so fast they almost looked like they’d changed zip codes. “Someone new?”

“New, yes,” Noah conceded, but then added, “But not like that. Just someone who needed help.” The crazy idea that Zane might hear Noah’s explanation of him, and think Noah viewed him as a charity case, poisoned the jitters in Noah’s belly and propelled him forward recklessly. “He’s a young man with responsibility for his younger brother and sister. I came across him when he was in a tough spot, and did what I could. But he’s clearly resourceful and will be on his feet and thriving again soon.”

Janice continued to study Noah closely. In her green eyes, Noah could see the thirty years of friendship and knowledge they shared.
Shit.
He’d known the woman since they were both eleven-year-old kids.