Shapeshifter - 9. Strummin' Joe's

I awoke to a blaring voice coming from the drive-through speaker. I couldn’t have slept through our stint to the drive through, that speaker system was loud enough to make my teeth rattle. It was dark outside the car, and the seats beneath me smelled like Pop-Tarts and kids’ sweat, very mundane and non-threatening. I was wrapped in my blanket and I still felt very hungry, but my nerves had thankfully calmed down. I felt serene and safe.

Even better, as soon as we reached the second drive-through window, Noom’s arm appeared in my line of vision, offering a fat-dripping paper bag. I snatched it out of his hand and dug in, spitting paper pieces here and there whenever I found the time between biting and swallowing. Someone was laughing at me, but I didn’t care. I was so damn hungry, my stomach hurt like it was digesting itself.

I was halfway through my third burger when Mike and Noom picked up their discussion again.

“So, that information you wanted me to get? I found something,” Mike offered, his eyes fixed on the dark road. He was a very careful driver, that one.

Noom chewed his fries, mumbling, “So you found somethin’ fishy in the Flatlands books?”

“More like a note in a note in a calendar, but yes,” Mike replied. “The old DeLargo appears to have had some court troubles three months ago, enough to rake up quite a hefty sum in lawyer’s fees. The only entry I found explaining those fees was ‘family court’, and since his only living family is your cat back there, it got me interested.”

Noom shot me a questioning look, but I just shrugged around a good third of my last burger. I had no idea what that might be about. My father hadn’t told me anything, and I hadn’t been to court in my life.

Noom seemed to understand my shrug well enough without words. He turned back around and picked up where they had left off. “And what did you find?”

“Nothing. I couldn't get into the court archives because of some bullshit clause about fresh cases, but your cat might. The whole thing is in his family name, so there’s a chance they’d be willing to grant him a look,” Mike explained, keeping his eyes steadfastly on the road.

As soon as I was finished licking fat and cheese from my fingers, I sank back onto the backseats and tried to remember the last three months. Had anything worth mentioning happened? The only difference had been an increase in visits by my father, who usually tried to stay away from me except for family holidays or those checkups on my college progress parents had to do if they didn’t want to look creepy.

Theodore had been at my place three times in that time span without a good reason, and every time he had sifted through my computer, my phone and my mail as he bombarded me with questions about school, friends and my coping with my ‘problem’. His questions had kept me off-kilter enough not to wonder why he had been there, but now I did. Now I wondered. I didn’t tell Noom about it, but the thought sat there in the back of my mind, nagging at me.

I sniffed. “We could go tomorrow,” I offered in an attempt to hide my own curiosity behind theirs, and both of them gave that little jump, like I had caught them doing something naughty. Mike even threw me a shrewd glance in the rear view mirror, but he didn’t hold eye-contact for long and he shuddered when he looked away. Poor man.

“I don’t know,” Noom grumbled, then he stuck his finger into the leftovers of ketchup and sucked them clean. “It’s quite a risk bringing you out into the open, in day light no less,” he explained as soon as the digits left his mouth. “If anyone sees you—”

Mike made an obscene sound. “Oh come on, Noom. They already know he’s still alive, and I’ve got the contract for now. As long as they don’t see us together, you still got another thirty-six hours left before they’d try something desperate.”

That didn’t seem to console my anger-ridden mercenary, if the expression on his face was any indication. His brows were furrowed and grooves surrounded his nose. For a second, I had the intense desire to lick his face until he felt better.

“I don’t like it,” he proclaimed grumpily and turned his head to stare out the side window.

Mike sighed. “Well, you don’t have to like it, but we’ll need him to get to those files. Either he comes with us, or you’ll have to empty your pockets for someone to steal them.”

At this point, I tuned out their conversation and let myself fall back onto the cushions drenched in kiddy-smell. All three burgers were gone, and I still felt hungry, which was unusual even for me. I always ate way more than anyone else while still staying willowy thin, but this was ridiculous. At least I didn’t feel like dying anymore, which was good enough for now. I wasn’t tired anymore, but the movement of the car still lulled me into a light nap filled with strange, disconcerting visions of Noom, alwaysThanks to the prominent lines of Noom’s lower jaw, I was sporting a quite visible hard-on when a hand finally shook me awake.

“Is there anything on your mind besides sex, food, and safety?” an all too well-known voice rasped above me and made me smile languidly. Noom’s personal scent wafted down on me like a spring breeze, first there, then not, then there again and I pushed my upper body up to follow it.

I reached his lips before he knew what I was planning. His scent filled my mind and the soft brush of his lips against mine elicited a hungry, drowsy moan from both of us. It was all it took to make him forget everything else, and just a breath later his tongue and teeth demanded entrance into my mouth. Noom’s mouth was even more incredible than his scent, hot and moist and oh-so-sure of himself as he conquered every square inch of mine, pinning me down with the weight of his muscled body. I knew what he wanted there and then, and although a small voice at the back of my head tried to get my attention, Noom drowned it out more surely than any drug could ever do.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, making room for his rump and getting him closer to my throbbing cock at the same time. I wanted to touch him, too, but he wouldn’t let me. As soon as my cold fingers brushed his back, he shifted to balance on one arm and used the free hand to grab my wrists and pin them above my head. I tugged at his tight grip, frustrated with the tightness of my pants and incredibly aroused by being controlled in such a way.

At one point, Noom ended the kiss with an annoyed hiss and looked over his shoulder, which gave me a front row view of his throbbing aorta.

My head whipped up before I knew what was going on, targeting that pulsing, live piece of flesh. As my head moved, my inner voice already screamed with panic, afraid what my instinct was trying to get me to do, afraid I would hurt Noom, like I had hurt the other people, but it was too late now anyway.

My teeth scraped his neck, but the angle wasn’t right to get a grip, and Noom shoved me down as soon as he felt it.

“Down, scrap,” he snarled, not even bothering to look at me. My body relaxed, following the order without me having to actively try, just like I had done all those times before. And the best thing was: Noom had obviously not realized what I had tried to do. I bit down a sigh of utter relief.

Mike was clearing his throat, something he must have done a few times already by the volume he was using. It probably was what had caught Noom’s attention in the first place, I just hadn’t heard it. Probably been too preoccupied with being horny.

“You’re not doing it in my car. Get out,” Mike hissed. He probably would have yelled, were it not for the people passing by every so often, but I could hear the anger well enough.

Noom did too. He ground his teeth and disentangled from me in a heartbeat.

I couldn’t read his feelings on his face, but I myself didn’t feel ashamed or flustered, which was strange enough. I usually didn’t do well in conflicts or when criticized, but this didn’t feel personal and left me cold. Still, I crawled out of the car, stomach growling softly with leftover hunger.

Noom closed the car door behind me, and I stepped close to his side, all but hiding in his shadow. I also didn’t do well in strange places and would have hidden in one of the side streets where I could safely have a look around without being spotted, but Noom’s presence was enough to make me feel braver than usual.

The sidewalk was paved with big, well-worn cobblestones that had sunk and slipped with the weight of years. Most of the buildings around us had either plaster walls or those wooden panels that made them look like a tourist street in the old part of London, a little dirty, a little discolored, but still charming and cozy. Flower pots big enough to hold olive trees stood here and there, spaced between the small fenced-off areas in front of pubs and restaurants, and there were almost no cars. A few passed by, a few sat in the parking lots between the garden areas, but most of the people seemed to prefer their feet to modern amenities.

It was hard not to realize on the first glance where we were: Cat’s Cradle Peninsula, home of the hipsters and most of the luckless artists and musicians Babylon City had to offer. It was a cheap, dirty and impoverished area, but it would have been worse if not for its inhabitants renovating and cleaning the area all by themselves. If there ever had been a working hippy community anywhere on the planet, it would have looked bleak next to this place.

And right in front of us was our destination. ‘Strummin’ Joe’s’ said a hand painted sign above the entrance of the smallish looking pub with lead-glass windows. It looked like a puzzle piece cut out of another century and fit into this spot, squashed between tired looking residential buildings, like it was being constantly pushed deeper into the ground.

“I already called ahead, you’ve got one room reserved in my name,” Mike snarled and pointed at the entrance. “You’ll get the key in there, but the room is out back with an extra entrance, I’ve made sure of that. We’ll meet tomorrow in front of the court archives, nine A.M., and don’t you dare be late!”

Mike turned without another word, and Noom didn’t stop him. He just stared after what I assumed was his one and only friend with a thoughtful glance, turning only when the car pulled out of the parking space.

I looked at Noom’s face, feeling guilty.

Noom stared back for a few seconds, then he turned to the entrance. “He’s got ailurophobia,” he stated like it was nothing to bother with and started walking.

I followed quickly, keeping close to Noom’s calming scent as we entered the pub and the crowd of drunk humans it contained. Mike was afraid of cats? Well, that explained a thing or two.

~*~

The pub wasn’t full, but still moderately loud. A cloud of old smoke, beer belches and stale sweat hung in the air like a ghost, but the floors and the tables were clean enough to make me wonder where that smell was coming from. Most of the patrons were in their mid-thirties to mid-forties, with the few drunk exceptions at the bar. In every pub, there is at least one old guy who comes in at noon and only leaves when kicked out, but here, three or four of the guys looked to fit that description. The crowd had an after-hours vibe to them, people coming from a hard day’s work to have a nice evening, but the atmosphere had a taste of frustration and broken dreams to it. A nice evening probably meant getting a bit drunk, smoking a few cigarettes and complaining about their jobs, with a slight possibility for crime later on.

As I followed Noom to the bar, I had a sudden vision of a bar fight like I had seen in the movies. Guys come in, the people at the pool table don’t like their faces, they fight. I cautiously looked around, but found no pool table, only a checkers board in a corner and a dart game in the other. Eyes were following us here and there, but nobody seemed to want to go through the trouble to get up and hassle us. I didn’t like the stares, but I preferred them over outright violence.

Noom got the room key easily enough, although the bartender— Joe, I presumed— threw me puzzled glances every few seconds because I stuck to Noom’s side like a frightened damsel, or a lover, which both fit me in some way I guess. Or maybe he stared at both of us, since Noom’s bandages were showing and my face probably still was black and blue from where the mobster had hit me with his gun. At least he didn’t comment on it, which was a good start.

“We don’t have breakfast around here, but the room is meant for working guests, so it’s got a kitchenette and everything,” he explained to Noom with a drawl in his voice not unlike my mercenary’s. “You pay by day and you do your own room service, washer and dryer are in the cellar. And if you bring any trouble with you, you’re out the door faster than the police can arrive.”

Noom jiggled the keys, looping the key ring around his finger. “We won’t give you any troubles as long as you don’t give us away to anyone,” he drawled back, “if you ain’t seen us, nothin’ll happen.”

I was fascinated by the way his pronunciation changed, depending on who he was talking to, and I hugged his arm tighter, trying to watch his lips form those dragged-out sounds. Maybe he was trying to sound like a mean drunk or a junkie, something to make them underestimate him. Drunks and junkies had a tendency to get sloppy and careless, but Noom was damn near straight-edge and had senses so sharp he was able to best me in some aspects. Having people think he was weak probably meant he had an even bigger advantage over them if bad came to worse. But was it an act, or was it just a remnant of his youth, a ghost of times past? I was too afraid to ask, so I kept quiet.

Joe, if that was his name, showed us the way around to the back of the building and left us to our own devices at the bottom of the stairs leading up to our temporary home.

We stood there, staring at it like boys in front of a haunted house as the curiously dry, temperamental spring wind pushed at our backs and tugged at my hair.

“It will rain soon,” I said, sounding more solemn than I felt. My voice had a muted quality to it, robbed of any echo by the wind and the changing air pressure.

Noom nodded. He had hooked one thumb into the rim of his pants as we were standing and staring, and I could feel his other hand moving restlessly, tightening to a fist, relaxing, moving closer to me, moving away, like he wanted to touch me and didn’t at the same time. He was nervous, but not overtly so. I had no idea why.

Finally, he finished the gesture he had started to make so many times and hooked his fingers into the back of my pants, holding, guiding and shoving at the same time as he moved me towards the stairs. As I stumbled up the steps, I almost didn’t hear him mumble, “I’d be very unhappy if I had to kill you,” beneath the creak of wood and linoleum.

I managed to finish the climb up the stairs instead of jumping into his arms, but it was a close thing.

~*~

The door to our new haven was a deep, healthy red, although the lacquer could have used some brushwork. It was brittle and at some places the cheap wood showed, but it matched the remainder of the building. Noom unlocked it one-handed, his other hand still holding on to my pants. Maybe he was afraid I’d run, but I had no intention to do so. That room— or rooms— was the safest place for me right now, and I was antsy to get inside.

The floor was old, sun-bleached and uneven hardwood that creaked beneath our feet as we stepped inside. A small hallway leading into a kitchenette held two doors--one to the left and one to the right. The left one was open and contained a tiny, all-white bathroom, and Noom opened the right one before we walked past it, cautiously glimpsing inside.

“Walk-in closet,” he whispered and twitched as I kicked the entrance door closed behind us. Huddling together like king penguins on a particularly cold night, we slowly crept into the kitchenette with Noom having a look in every nook and cranny he could find, and me walking with him with a slightly bemused expression on my face. Only when his first look-around didn’t provide him with anything to attack or run from did he finally let go of me and pulled the curtains closed.

“Turn on the lights and check the kitchen. I’ll have a look at the closet and the bathroom. Look for a med kit, I don’t want to have to run to a pharmacy to get fresh bandages,” he ordered, and off he went.

My heart was beating harder and faster than it should, although I couldn’t think of a reason why.

I walked through the small room like a frightened child, huddled into myself until I reached the light switch. The lights came on blazing, leaving me blind and blinking for a moment, but I instantly felt better.

The room matched the front door in its age and simplicity. The floor was hardwood planks nailed to a wooden foundation so that gaps showed between the boards, and they had to have been cut from one single tree trunk because most of them ran from wall to wall. The wood had been stripped and waxed enough times to give it that shiny, used gleam and a slight vertical curve, but they had a homey feel to them. There was a couch with a coffee table that obviously could be pulled out to form a bed, an extra sofa seat next to the window, a TV on a small commode and a dining table with four seats next to the tiny kitchen area. None of the furniture matched, not even the chairs at the table, and it reminded me of Noom’s home. He would probably like it here, but I was used to a better living standard and the mismatches itched at the back of my brain.

Sighing, I walked from storage space to storage space, opening every drawer and door to examine the contents just as Noom had ordered, but I came up with nothing but a package of pre-baked buns, peanut butter, jam and something that resembled canned breakfast meats.

“There’s no first-aid-kit out here,” I finally called, staring hungrily at the buns. I probably could eat all of them with PB and J to help me get through the night, but that would leave nothing to nibble on in the morning. It was a hard decision to make; either be a little hungry when going to bed and be able to quench that hunger in the morning, or go to bed sated and be hungry when I woke up.

I only then realized there was no answer from the bathroom.

“Noom?” I asked, but got no reply.

My fingertips started to itch right where my claws had broken through the skin the last time I changed, and I balled both hands into fists. No, I would not change. I would go to the bathroom, look inside and find out what he was doing, and I would not change. My constant state of panic had already cost me too much time and energy, and I’d had enough of being too frightened to move, damn it!

My heavy breath sounded way too loud in the silent room, my steps too heavy and clumsy, and I had trouble swallowing through the dryness in my mouth as I reached the bathroom door and found it open, and the room behind it still dark.

I hugged myself as my eyes got used to the darkness, and my own fingers felt small, strange and hard against my hypersensitive skin. This was stupid. Noom had to be there, and I would have heard the door or windows opening. He just had to be there—

And there he was, a dark scheme in a dark room, standing next to the window and staring outside intently. I wanted to step forward and shout at him for scaring me so, but the glint of his Beretta made me stumble and shut my mouth before I made a peep. He had drawn back and he was watching the other side of the street, hidden by a flimsy, threadbare curtain and the simple darkness of the room.

Shivers crept up my back as my body went into instant alarm mode. All those new clothes would be drenched in fear sweat and I would once more need a new set of garments, and all because of…

I tried to finish that thought, but I couldn’t. Usually, I found more than enough fuck-ups if I just thought hard enough, but this time, I was at a loss as to what I possibly could have done to justify this much danger and trouble. The stupid idea that maybe whatever Noom saw out there might hold the answer gripped my head and made me creep forward. I didn’t stop, once I had started walking, even though Noom would hate me interfering. Was I getting braver, or just more stupid? I didn’t care.

A smallish sink blocked the space left of the window, and Noom stood to the right side of it, so there was no space for me. I could have pressed against his side, but that would have pinned his weapon’s arm against his side. If I was getting dumber, I hadn’t yet reached the point where I risked both our safety for a small glance. Good to know.

Noom tensed when he felt my presence, tensed enough to make the gun handle creak a little bit, but he didn’t take his eyes off whatever he was looking at. I carefully stuffed myself between his left shoulder and the wall behind him, peeking around him to search the back street below us.

It was a ratty street, as far as back streets go, but unusually void of garbage containers. The walls of the surrounding buildings were crumbling and wet, graffiti covered the few feet of intact plaster, and the concrete surface itself was full of holes that had filled up with dust, rotting leaves and old papers. A lone man stood down there, leaning against one of the corners, almost out of sight, but not quite. He was just a little taller than me, just a little shorter than Noom, and wore a thin trench coat that hid all other details of his body. It was a normal dress-up for the weather coming in, but he stood out somehow just by how mediocre he tried to appear. He didn’t look up as he smoked his cigarette, pulling his flimsy hat down against the first drops of rain. It conveniently also hid his face from us. It may have been a coincidence, but Noom’s behavior made me more nervous than usual. I kind of got why he was watching that guy like a hawk.

Still, I had to ask.

“What is wrong?” I whispered quietly.

Noom didn’t react, but his cheek twitched with what I knew by now was annoyance. Instead of answering, he tilted his head forward just enough to get a better line of sight. I followed his lead and went back to watching the man.

The embers had almost reached the filter, and with a last drag and puff he threw down the stump, stepped on it and walked back towards the point where I knew the bar’s back door was.

With a sigh, Noom put up the gun and shoved it back into the back waist band of his pants. “I so hope I’m wrong about that guy,” he drawled, his street-slur creeping back into his voice for a moment. Then he turned around, gave me a strange look that was somewhere between anger and desire and lasted longer than I was perfectly comfortable with, and wrapped an arm around me.

“Come on, scrap. The day has been long enough,” he huffed and pulled me to his side and towards the main room. His pulse was utterly calm and his divine smell held just a small trace of fear that could have been there all along, drenched by the much stronger scent of pain. He hadn’t showered yet, so I couldn’t trust my nose at this. If he was faking this unperturbed behavior, it was an act well done.

I was so busy burying my face in his neck to scent him, I only realized where he had dragged me when I bumped into the edge of the couch and suddenly was airborne. I fell onto the couch with a small eep sound I was not proud of, and Noom looked down at me for a heartbeat, then he fell too, forward, onto me, sighing and almost boneless. We both twitched when our bodies met and it wasn’t for lust alone; he was wounded and I was just as hurt, and the hard contact reminded both of us that we’d better have a care.

I could feel the lines of his athletic body press into me, and I felt soft and wimpy by comparison. I was nowhere near flabby or even well fed, but I felt like skin and bones beneath him. There was a vitality to him that filled me with envy, even as he nudged my legs apart to wiggle between them and press his crotch against mine. No amount of blood, dirt or sweat could diminish Noom’s presence; he was a force of nature, like a storm cloud ready to go off and rain thunder, lightning and hail down on anyone stupid enough to step into his path.

How could someone like him ever feel more than fleeting lust for a scrawny wimp like me?

Noom suddenly went still above me, his hard length still pressed against mine. It was more than distracting, but maybe distraction was exactly what I needed to come out of this self-hating gloom.

The tip of his Mohawk was starting to lose its cohesion and it tickled my forehead, drooping down like a decorative feather. In this artificial light, it looked very yellow, not as bleached as in broad daylight. His eyes hovered over mine, vibrant blue from this short a distance, but still hard, still sharp, like he was trying to scrape out my thoughts with a simple glare.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a voice so neutral, it held no emotion whatsoever.

It was a good question. “I don’t know,” I answered, although that was a lie. It made me uncomfortable how good he had gotten at reading me in such a short amount of time. Usually, I was the one impressing people with my empathy, but he beat me even at that.

“You’re suddenly tense,” he stated and pushed up onto his elbows to get a better look at my face.

I blinked up at him and touched his cheek without thinking. With all his scars and bruises and rough edges, he still filled me with envy of his success. Okay, so he was a criminal, there was that, but he was good at it. Really good. He seemed so in control of his life, so free and self-sufficient, and still he had thrown all of that away for me. What did I have to offer in return, except for my body? Compensating with sex had been well and fine until now, but suddenly, it just didn’t seem fair.

I had to know what he saw in me that I didn’t.

“Why are you helping me?”

The little scar on his brow twitched as Noom threw me a hard glance. “Because I want to,” he replied impatiently and went up to his knees between my legs, obviously not that interested in sharing my moment of doubt.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t that quick to let go of my train of thought. “Why do you want to help me?” I pressed, grabbing his wrist as he started to fiddle with the cord holding up my sweatpants.

Noom stared at my fingers around his wrist with an expression that should have melted steel, but I didn’t let go. Something had changed between us in that underground station, and it had finally rid me of that gnawing helplessness and fear. Yes, Noom was still the same intentionally cruel and short-tempered mercenary he had been before, but we were a team now. Partners, for better or for worse.

He ground his teeth and the sound went right into my bones, making me shudder. “That’s a stupid question,” he snarled, then tore his arm out of my grip and pulled down my pants with a swift motion. I suddenly lay there with a bare lower body and the beginnings of a glorious boner.

Noom grabbed my hard flesh triumphantly.

I shuddered as a wave of lust rushed through my body. His deft fingers always felt so perfect, no matter where he touched me, but this was getting right to the point, no scenic routes necessary. One touch of his could wipe all rational thought from my mind, even when I didn’t want to be distracted.

“Don’t distract me, I really want to know,” I mumbled with a voice gone breathy in a heartbeat. My body was already betraying me, writhing and twitching with over-excitement, trying to rub my hard length through his tight fingers as every hair on my body stood on end.

Noom grinned evilly and swept his thumb over my swollen, damp tip, making me gasp and groan as my hips snapped upward to follow his finger. “And I say, I don’t have a reason. I want you for myself to have fun with, so I kept you,” he growled with a low, heated voice. “There’s nothin’ more to this than that, so stop askin’.”

Still, there was a twitch in his eyes, very small and almost unnoticeable, that told me he was lying just as much as I had been before. His drawl had come back too, a sure sign he was getting annoyed with me, and just then, as his fingers tightened and stroked my cock from root to tip, I decided my doubts could wait until later. Much later, if I interpreted the look in Noom’s eyes correctly. Fine with me.

“Fuck me,” I husked, relishing the expression of surprise and glee on Noom’s face. His grin broadened until he looked like Alice’s Cheshire Cat, complete with crinkles around his eyes.

And then he let go of me, stood up and walked away, just like that, without a word.

For a few seconds, I just lay there and stared after him, stunned. What the fuck? Was he actually going to just let me lie there half-finished and fully aroused? I sat up with a jerk, grabbed the first thing I could— my pants— and threw them after him just as he vanished into the bathroom. “Come back here right now or I’ll make you wish you’d never met me!” I barked after him, not caring how indignant I sounded.

All I got for my troubles was a dirty snicker echoing from the bathroom. I fell back onto the couch and puffed up my cheeks. My cock was weeping, fully erect like a sad flag pole in a desert of need, and Noom was tinkering around in the bathroom. Sniffing, I looked down at my protesting manhood and weighed my options. I knew if I touched myself, Noom would probably view it as a challenge and do something torturous to me. On the other hand, Noom was taking too freaking long and I had never been good at patience.

My traitorous hand grabbed my cock before I could finish my pondering, and it felt so damn good, every other thought was blown out of my mind. I’m not big, never have been, but I’m adequate. My fingertips easily touched as I tightened my grip and slowly tugged towards the crown, forcing out a drop of clear pre-come. I liked that edge of pain, that point of pleasure that was almost too much, almost too intense to endure, although I’d never manage to pass it and keep on going, like Noom could make me do. When my fingers reached the crown of my cock, I rubbed my thumb over my weeping tip just like Noom had done before, then I let go to grab it at the root again, shuddering and hissing through the mixture of conflicting emotions I brought myself.

I only used three fingers as I kept on stroking and milking my cock, just to prolong each stroke and the pleasure it brought me, and somewhere along the line I closed my eyes and forgot all about Noom. I had years of experience all by myself, and not much of anything to show in the sex-with-someone-else-department. Oh, I had fucked. Quickies, one-night-stands, sometimes trysts over a few days or weeks, but nothing that demanded more than carnal lust from both of us. With Noom, it was different. Totally different, even though he fought tooth and nail against me. I shivered and my cock twitched, getting ready to shoot. I bowed up my rump with just the shoulders touching the couch, trying to drag out the moment before I came just a little bit more, just a few more seconds,—

A strange hand wrapped around the root of my cock, a rough pinky finger brushed my sac, and a thumb and forefinger tightened around my quivering length like a clamp. What had started as an unstoppable rush with a soon-to-come happy end, suddenly was held back by pitiless strength, and it hurt in the most luscious way imaginable.

“Bad, bad scrap,” Noom growled, and his face was so close to my ear, I felt his breath wafting against my temple. He knelt next to the couch, one hand blocking my orgasm as the other one clutched a pack of lube. I had a short moment to think, ‘oh, that’s what he was looking for,’ then he put the lube onto my chest and slapped my hand away from my cock.

“You started without me, and you planned to finish without me?” he hissed with a rough purr in his voice that sounded both aggressive and aroused. And just to drive his words home, he lowered his head that last inch and first bit, then sucked my earlobe. It felt incredible, almost like his mouth was rewiring my body to connect my dick to my ear, and I gasped harshly.

Still holding my dick tight enough to keep me from coming, he crawled between my already spread legs, leaned over my prone body and whispered, “use your hands for something I approve of and get my cock out.”

I did what he asked, but just like last time my fingers shook with excitement, and it took me longer than it should have. Before Noom, I would have called myself suave in the sexual department, but he proved me wrong every damn time.

I touched his hard flesh, bathing in its heat and the small twitches that told me he secretly had liked my display way more than he let on. Then I showed him, let him feel what I had done to myself, working his length just like I had worked my own just moments before. The soft gasp, the slight waver in his breathing was gratifying to hear.

After a few moments of pleasure, he finally let go of my cock, but my own excitement had simmered down just enough so I wouldn’t shoot the second his fingers loosened. “That’s better,” he whispered and grabbed the pack of lube, unperturbed by my constant and concentrated work on his throbbing dick. With reversed roles, I wouldn’t have been able to even stay on my knees, but his self-control was iron. Or at least strong enough to endure a few more moments of sticky petting, if it meant getting inside me. It had to be the thing most important to him, considering he didn’t bother to undress more than he needed.

For a few seconds, I had the urge to ask why he didn’t get naked with me, but his fingers were already leaving a sticky, wet trail between my cheeks, searching and finding the sensitive skin around my entrance. One touch, one finger was enough to leave me breathless and tingling with excitement. Lust swept my questions away, and with them any need for talking I might have had left.

“Don’t tighten up,” he mumbled, and his voice sounded deeper, rougher than before, more intimate somehow.

Although I couldn’t not react to the increasing pressure against my entrance, when his finger finally breached me, I shivered with the sensation of it delving into the heat that was me. He found all those little spots that made me twitch, gasp, and finally loosen up to the building pleasure in my lower body.

I didn’t notice my eyes rolling into the back of my head, until Noom kissed me. He kissed me like he was trying to drink down the sounds I made, like he was trying to do with his tongue what he did with his fingers. This time I shoved my fingers into his hair, feeling the brittleness of hair spray and gel crumble beneath my grip and leave nothing but soft, silky strands behind.

I held him to my mouth, forced him to keep kissing me, even as he added a second finger to get a better angle, to stretch me more. Only when I almost came, making a keening, muffled sound against his forceful lips, did he pull out his fingers to replace them with his hard, hot length.

He said something as he sank into me, burrowing himself inside me to his pubes, and I think it was “I won’t last.” I couldn’t be sure, though, because after that my mind went on a blank. There were hands, tongues, skin against skin in mankind’s oldest dance, but there was no thought, no plan, no space to analyze, nothing but him and me.

Where the last few times had been rough, quick and angry, this time his slow, luxurious movements were almost lazy. I could feel his length, his girth stroke against all those small and big spots inside me, that made my body tingle with arousal and whenever he found that one spot, I shivered, clinging to him like a drowning man.

As the stimulus built like a deep, hot weight inside me, I heard him hiss and then groan with the effort to keep his rythm, to keep moving slowly and in a controlled fashion. Muscles in his body twitched where I hadn’t known they could, like a horse trying to shake off flies. I didn’t think he would last much longer, but he did. Three, four of those careful thrusts he managed, then the twitching turned into a full-body shudder.

When he came, I had a short moment, a split second, to watch his pupils blow out to such an extent, it turned his irises almost black. He gave a low, almost pained shout of ecstasy and finally lost his control. Three more times he thrust into me hard, then I came too, screaming my orgasm against his shoulder as I flailed and clung to him at the same time. My vision went, I think, for a few heartbeats. I just lay there, sticky and fighting for breath, with him as an exhausted weight above me.

I heard his voice almost through a haze as he leaned down, kissed me breathless and then muttered: “I wish I could hate you.” He would have said more, I was sure of it, but he couldn’t seem to keep himself upright any longer. With a soft burst of laughter, he sagged to the side, slipped out of me and wrapped me in his arms.

We fell asleep then, sticky and too tired to bother pulling out the couch, a jumble of limbs and clothes and exhausted satisfaction. My last thought was, so, what does he see in me?, but this time I couldn’t get myself to worry about it. Whatever made him stay with me, love me, care for me, it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It would be stupid to poke at something so good.