Page 39 of The Lipstick Flip

I remembered the water that was so blue it was unreal. And the sun coming into the honeymoon suite until it seemed like we were floating in light. And I remembered—

“You picked me up,” Noah said, “and you fucked me against the wall. While you were holding me. Remember that?”

God help me, I did. His legs, soft and smooth, hooked over my arms. Pinning him against the wall. How easily he took me, because by then he’d been taking me for months. How he screamed until, for the first time, I thought I’d hurt him, and he had to tell me, panting, that it was the angle, it was just the angle, don’t stop.

I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t make a single sound. At that point, I would have been happy with a cough.

Noah reached down and touched himself through the panties. A wet spot showed darker on the blue, and it was impossible not to make out his hard-on.

“You really haven’t been hooking up?” Noah asked, running his fingers lightly over his dick.

“Noah,” I said. What I was trying to say was, What the fuck is happening? But that was too far out of reach.

He was so slim through the shoulders and chest. His belly was flat. Some twinkie guys, when they got older, started to look too thin, and while I wished Noah had been eating more, he still had that faint hint of definition in his arms and upper body that made him, well, fucking perfect. As he ran one hand down his stomach—the other hand was still playing with his dick through the silk—he said, “Not at all?”

I shrugged. But Noah just kept staring at me until finally I said, “No.”

A wave of embarrassment washed over me, and I waited for something from Noah. Some throwaway line about how I was still a closet case, or about internalized homophobia, or what was wrong with me. But it was the truth; I hadn’t hooked up with anyone. Not since the divorce. And I was, apparently, too stupid to lie.

“God,” Noah breathed. “Do you have any idea how hot that is?”

I tried a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know—”

He put one arm behind his head. He always kept his armpits shaved, but a hint of blond stubble showed tonight. His other hand pushed down the front of the panties to expose the root of his dick. “I’m so hard right now.”

And me, being a motherfucking genius, I said, “I see that.”

A grin crooked across Noah’s face. “Are you hard?”

Was I hard? God, my dick was pulsing, trapped under the joggers.

My face must have been answer enough, because Noah slid the panties off. He was shaved there, too—he always was. He had such a nice dick. Small, pink, pretty.

“Noah,” I said. And I had the strangest sense that the ground was crumbling out from under me. I needed to be the reasonable one. I needed to be the responsible one. Sure, this was hot, and God, it had been so long, but—

But what?

We were adults.

We obviously cranked each other’s motors.

Fuck, we were still married, so even the Jesus-bangers didn’t have anything to complain about.

“Can I see?” Noah asked.

If there’s a record time for a man getting out of a sweatshirt and joggers, I probably broke it. On the other end of the call, Noah was getting himself settled on the bed, the phone propped somewhere between his knees to give me a view of him from the dick up. I tried to copy him, but I had to prop the phone against a couple of pillows and move everything around a few times before I finally settled back. My dick wasn’t bothered at all; it was hard as ever, poking me, leaving a line of pre just below my belly button.

“Oh my God,” Noah moaned. He was cupping his balls, but not playing with himself. Not yet. His other hand tickled his chest and stomach. “How are you so hot? It’s not fair.”

“You’re hot too,” I said. Which was, yeah, the worst fucking response ever, but it made Noah smile.

“I’ve been going crazy since this morning. I have been so fucking horny.” His hand started to move now—light strokes, gliding along the shaft, his thumb brushing the head of his cock to gather the little bead of pre there and then spread it along the shaft as his hand moved back down. His other hand moved to play with one of those small pink nipples. “I wish you were here.”

The cough happened again, only this time it sounded like my tongue was stuck in my throat. Somehow, though, I managed to say, “Me too.”

Noah’s head rolled back. He had a beautiful neck, which was one of those weird things I’d never thought before I went full homo. I liked the faint bulge of his Adam’s apple. I was feral about the line of his jaw.

When he brought his head up again, his eyes seemed even darker, and his nipples were stiff. He was still stroking himself with those delicate touches. “What would you do if you were here with me?”