I’m positive I read once that food bridged the gap between two friends who fucked around. Or so I hoped as I balanced the hot dish in my arms, so I could safely kick my announcement on Noah’s door.

The smell of cheese and red sauce was enough of a distraction for my jittering nerves. I knew he was home, he told me so when I let him know I was bringing dinner as promised. My Ziti is my favorite dish, and it’s the last thing I want to eat, my tongue is like sand in my mouth.

I’m so fucking nervous I might hurl on the penthouse doorstep.

It’s an odd sensation, this is just Noah, after all. But it’s the Noah I had text-sex with last night.

I also heard the way to a queer heart was through his stomach.

Or was it his dick? I’m getting mixed up, I think.

Fuck my raging thoughts. The sound of his footsteps reared my brain back to reality. I took a deep breath and braced my smile.

Quit being so dramatic, Sena.

Swallowing, the door pulled open and there he was. His brow arched. Not sure what I expected him to look like. Judgement, maybe. He must have worked out recently because his face is slightly flush with sweat and he wore a form-fitted white muscle shirt with the sleeves cut off.

Every line of his body was hard all over, from the way his shoulders muscles bunched down to his forearms. His eyes haven’t left me as I shuffled in.

I have an amazing plan of action; go on as normal. It’s brilliant as my momma would say. It happened, let’s not drink from the pond and dwell on it.

I grinned at him. “You look tired, lion. Didn’t you sleep?”

He grunted and walked behind me.

Har har, we turned each other on, how has your day been, buddy-pal-friend? I so got this.

“I hope you’re hungry.” I called out behind me. After a week I finally made it to the kitchen and dumped my cargo on the counter before it burned a hole through my palm. I sucked my index finger.

“Yeah, I am.” He came up behind me as I unwrapped the foil, Italian scented steam billowed up to the ceiling. “It looks good, Sena.” It should. It had enough cheese to satisfy anyone. His hand touched the middle of my back and a million butterflies attacked my abdomen in what I could only describe as their mating dance. 

“I know, right?” I have yet to turn to look at him. I figured we could totally hold an entire conversation like this. “Watch out Gordon Ramsay.” Some of my nerves began to settle when he moved to grab bottles of water from the fridge. It’s not like I’m not thinking of last night, it’s all I can think about.

Do I bring it up first? Hells nah.

Do I keep my mouth shut? Hells yah.

Ultra-aware of Noah’s every move I slyly watched him from the corner of my eye as he moved around the kitchen fetching plates. If I needed proof my attachment to him was alive and strong as ever it took one brush against my forearm to feel every hormone sit up and bark. It’s sexual longing, sure. But my heart has always been involved with Noah on some level. Only now I think I’ve reached the summit and I’m left wondering what to do now.

Like any southern woman would do. I choose to bury my feelings in carbs. There’s no problem carbs cannot fix.

I can be my awkward, unsophisticated, tongue-tied self, but by god I’ll do it with cheesy carbs in my blood stream.

Anything to stop from replaying the sex talk with Noah.

As I listened to him drinking I stole a glance, his throat worked his Adam’s apple and just like that, a punch of nerves plagued my mind like termites biting away at my skull. Not because I’m regressing, but the thought of fucking up what was the best relationship in my life is terrifying.

Wanting to puke was a real emotion, because if I lost Noah, if he ever suggested we shouldn’t be friends anymore, because I’ve essentially told him I wanted to climb on his monster cock, then I don’t know what I’ll do.

Dig a hole and die is an option.

Breaking his fucking neck is another.

Even the idea of not being in his life was a big enough pain to steal my breath.

Maybe he heard my harsh inhale because his hand appeared on my waist and he turned me.

It’s impossible to look away from the blue stare. His lips were wet from the water and he licked them. I swallowed my groan because hello, not the fucking time for lustful thoughts, Sena.

“Kitten…” that’s all he rasped. And it seemed to say a thousand things because suddenly I understand.

I know. That one word and we’re on the same page.

Eyes holding, he moved in and I moved forward and suddenly we’re flush together and he cupped my face, tipping my head back and it felt natural.

I know what he tasted like now, it’s less than twenty-four hours ago his tongue thrust down my throat licking my kidneys giving me tiny pleasure bombs in my belly, so my lips anticipated it, wanting it, I ached for that taste in my mouth again. His masculinity, his strength, his overpowering aura that is all Noah.

I want it all.

I was transfixed with the side glance concentration on his face. A mix between curiosity and unconcealed lust. The reveal made me sway. As though he’s equally mesmerized he outlined along my cheek, his long fingers deft and gentle.

And when it came to it, what do you know, I wasn’t hesitant at all. Didn’t question it. My body took over, it knew what it wanted, and it wouldn’t let a little thing called misunderstanding get in the way.

I loved my body.

There’s nothing in my field of vision, only his handsome, unreadable face. With a ruddy flush on the high points of his cheekbones Noah breathed heavier than usual through parted lips.

I reached up, testing by touching the side of his neck where his pulse was noticeably hammering. He sort-of angled down since he is so much taller than me and I licked that curve between shoulder and neck where it’s tanned muscle exposed, that place always drove me nuts to know how it felt under my tongue and it was better than all my dreams combined.

He grunted—a breathy sound that brushed over me.

A hot, sexual pulsing sound that pushed longing between my legs.  

His grip on my waist tightened a fraction, drawing me in until I came up against his hard groin.

“Sena. Jesus. I can’t—”

He can’t? I frowned and if not for the countertop pressing into my spine I would have backed away from him, only he guessed my thoughts and gripped my hips tighter, keeping me right there.

“—I can’t wait another second.” His tone of voice grave, his expression earnest. But there was something else in the husky-smoke notes I’m immediately addicted to, a quality from his throat I’d never heard before. Obviously because I’d never been the one on the receiving end of his desire before.

It’s all so fucking new to me I leaned into him, my hands on his chest, my head tipped back, silently begging and he didn’t leave me hanging. There’s nothing to say in that moment, our lips knew what to do.

His mouth found me, and I was lost.

That first touch of his tongue on mine, the hot brush, he didn’t thrust it, instead he tempted my lips open to accept his and it became a sonic blast of sensation, all too much all at once, I gasped into his lips.

A tortured sound escaped him, his broad chest lifted. I felt how hard his heart was beating, the only thing keeping me standing was my hands braced to that hard rock of his torso.

We kissed and learned each other’s lips all over again.

His flavor exploded in my head like an atom bomb, incinerating everything in its path like a do-over making the land whole and clean again, it spread as a forest fire would, taking me down one lick of a flame at a time.

I was done for.

Destroyed.

Made whole again.

I felt it in my spine, my thighs shaking, I was already wet at the apex, no point in pretending I wasn’t when my body quaked against Noah’s. If he sensed how he affected me he made a low keening hum and the kiss deepened. we didn’t even part for air, just sort-of switched sides, gulped a breath then started all over again.

Savage. Frantic. Consuming.

Noah kissed me many times in our history. Soft warm lip-to-friendly-lip kisses lasting no longer than a second. He didn’t kiss everyone, so I knew it was because of our closeness, but his tongue darting in and out of my mouth, I was seeing double vision. Or I would be if I could peel my eyelids open, heavy and lethargic, I heard a pleasured moan and knew it was came out of me.

I was a beast with a broken chain. Christ, short sharp flicks of his tongue, tempting me to hell and I happily walked into the inferno.

Making out with Noah was considerable the best decision I’d made today.

It’s no big deal, I suppose. I’m sure queer men kiss women all the time, but what is fathomless in questions for me is this is Noah. My Noah. We don’t … or never used to do these things, so is it any surprise my body was pure gasoline while my brain shut down, so I can’t yell all the WTF’s.

I want him so fricking badly, that’s all I need to know.

His kisses turned messy, more demanding, he gripped the side of my head to turn me at will, to control how deep I opened my mouth while he fucked with his tongue.

I should have rallied a token protest, checked to see if we wanted to do this, but no one on Earth turned me on the way he did, and those words didn’t come.

This could be the most colossal mistake of my life, of our friendship, and I’d still risk it, because part of my brain ceased working, I’m relying solely on instinct to take my fucking wheel, to kiss him deeper, to go with the tempo of his lips slanting against mine.

Was he enjoying my mouth? Did he like my taste? Is that why he was groaning in his throat? I’m so emotionally invested I’m willing to believe anything, to accept a kiss that had no reason.

Don’t care. I want it. Science project me all he wanted. I’d be teacher’s pet.

Noah’s kisses aren’t rough or unsure, they’re deep and intense, as if he’d been given air after so much rebuttal. And I’m no better, everything trembled.

With a rough noise he established a rhythm, feeding me his tongue.

I died. I died. I died.

His consumption of me was perfect.

The resonance of my name cut a path through the ringing in my rampant thoughts. Even now as he drew me away, large hands cupped my cheeks, I was lost in that fantasy. I was six climaxes in by that point, feeling him pound inside me, taking what I’d give, and didn’t I feel foolish when I eventually managed to peel open my lids because it became evident my eyes showed more than I was willing to.

Unguarded I moved a step back, breathing hard. Avoiding his face altogether, I focused somewhere over his wide shoulder. “If that’s how you react to my bringing over a baked Ziti, I now question the poor pizza boy, you know he’s all of eighteen, right? You can’t be accosting that boy, Noah, doesn’t matter how grateful you are he brings you a cheese pie.”

“Sena…” Pure smoke timber.

My body continued its illicit internal tremble. Nipples grew hard and stayed that way until I felt my bra chafing. Under my hands his heart thudded out of sorts.

Keeping it casual. God. I was dying.

“Fuck the Ziti—”

“Hey, now!”

“—I want to fuck.” His gaze was slumberous and hot.

My top-secret fantasy alive and well, apparently and pooling wetness into my underwear.

And what does my tongue-tied stupid self say? “Oh. I can come back later if you have someone coming over…”

Yeah. I was that woman. Not so bright after all.

Seemed when hormones were rife, my dumb levels got real fucking high. To be fair to me I’m usually not the person he wanted to fuck so it sounded reasonable to my own ears. I know, I know, he had his tongue in my throat a second ago. I can only reason his mouth sucked out all my intellect.

I found myself pressed against the island, a thick pipe dug into my belly, fingers curled around my nape forcing my head to tip back.

His oceanic eyes flamed bright and gave my heart a little stutter. “Don’t be obtuse, Sena.”

“I wasn’t—” I was. A little.

But hello, wet underwear. I could barely string a coherent thought together.

“Now what did you say about my legend cock?”