Noah glanced at the makeshift wooden easel stowed away in the corner of his room as anticipation spread through him. He bit on his lower lip and his cock started filling. His paintings were under his bed, hidden in that compartment he’d attached to the underside of the frame, but he didn’t need them tonight either, just like he hadn’t needed them for the past couple of years.Indeed—Noah swallowed and sat down on the bed, his gaze still trained on his naked body—he could imaginehimwell enough on his own.
The man from his fantasies.
Hewas something Noah’s own mind had created, and he was also the subject of Noah’s dreams and paintings for over ten years. It had started as nothing more than a blurry reflection in the window of a passing car when his parents had been driving him to the cinema for his fifteenth birthday. A blob of red with eyes of a slightly darkerhue. At least at first. Gradually, the features had started to pop out, the blob changing into a more refined shape that had eventually become the red-skinned man Noah was obsessed with.
Noah scooted back, leaned against the wall and spread his legs. Everything had started with infatuation, he supposed, an episode he’d been sure would dissipate once he got bored with drawing the mysterious blob-turned-man. So Noah had drawn and drawn and then drawn him some more, but no matter how many paintings he’d completed, his obsession hadn’t dwindled away. Instead, it had only grown, settling into him like it was a part of him rather than some compulsion he couldn’t stop. The more Noah had seen of the otherworldly man—the more time he spent thinking about him—the more prominent his features had become. And then, at some point… Noah had startedwantinghim, wishing for the fantasy to be more than a wild trip his brain was conjuring.
Noah wrapped his fingers around the base of his cock, stroking up the shaft in slow, deliberate motions while he got hold of the lube with his free hand. That man… he wanted that man to be real. And the more he acknowledged that wish, the more ‘alive’ the fantasy felt, the glimpses of it no longer just that, but nowadays a fully-fledged imaginary visitor Noah could summon whenever arousal got hold of him.
Like now, even if the man was yet to pop into existence while heat quickly spread through Noah like a wildfire, claiming him inch by inch and bringing with it the tingling anticipation of more than a hand around his dick as his other one dipped between his legs. Stifling a moan,he dragged a finger over his hole, rubbing along the rim as he envisioned the man of his fantasies.
There was no part of him Noah hadn’t memorized, from the seductiveness that lived in his garnet eyes, to the carefully sculpted lips, cheekbones, the Roman nose and the beauty mark above the left corner of his mouth. His face was a mix of delicate and masculine, his mahogany hair reached past his waist… and Noah wanted to explore them both with his fingers. Just like those scars that marred the man’s lean body and the black spikes that protruded out of his spine. He did… share so much withthem, including his tail, but unlike those fallen angels depicted in the tome under Noah’s pillow, he didn’t have scars on his back where his wings would’ve once been. The black tattoos—or maybe they were markings—were different too, just like the color of his skin, which was red like faded blood instead of a hue of gray.
Noah grunted, working his dick faster. His visitor, he always observed in silence, never interacted, a demonic creature born from Noah’s own mind that didn’t seem to exist outside of Noah’s imagination.
Noah envisioned him perched on the edge of the desk across the room, his glowing red eyes following the motions of Noah’s hands. One stroking, the other one about to push inside him, to bring him the kind of pleasure his body wanted but couldn’t have.
A sigh turned into a half-snort.How truly pitiful Teresa was to yearn for Noah when Noah’s body craved the forbidden touch of another man.
Noah’s toes curled as he slowly slid one finger inside. His body accepted it, the intrusion welcomed without resistance. His eyes wanted to flutter closed, but he didn’t letthem, needing to look at his demonic visitor, to show that secret part of him he couldn’t show anyone else.
Pleasure mounting higher, Noah teased his hole with a second finger, gently applying pressure that sent delicious sparks down his spine. He threw his head back, not needing to stare at the empty desk anymore in order to maintain the fantasy.
A scraping sound, like a sharp object dragging across a wooden surface, jolted his attention right back to it. His room was still as empty as moments ago, so perhaps the sound had come from outside, drifting in through the open window to the left of Noah’s head. Pulling on his bottom lip with his teeth, he closed his eyes and continued where he’d left off with the imaginary demon perching on the desk.
He got interrupted again, this time when the footboard side of the mattress sank slightly under the added weight of something.
Or someone…
Noah’s heart lurched, climbing up his throat. It was a crazy thought, but he couldn’t help it, not when he could feel with every fiber of his being the presence of someone else here in his room with him. Despite the locked front door and the fact that he lived on the nineteenth floor.
Fear and arousal held Noah hostage, sweat beading across his forehead and body. His hands froze mid-motion, command of them impossible as his brain scrambled to rationalize the situation, as he willed himself to keep his eyes squeezed shut.
Because he didn’t dare to open them.Because there couldn’t be anyone here with him.
It was simply impossible without Noah noticing it, the silence too absolute for him to miss the frontdoor creaking open. Yet he could feel it, that sensation urging him to flee because he was in danger, a prey to the predatory presence currently keeping him company, approaching him, looming over him from the side ready to strike, the tips of its red hair grazing Noah’s shoulder.
Red hair?
Noah snapped his eyes open and whipped his head to the side, adrenaline rushing into his bloodstream as his breathing turned loud and sporadic, as arousal surged through him again, lighting up his body. But he found nothing. Just the footboard side of his bed, the dresser, the open window and the beige wall. Goosebumps subsiding, he scoped the rest of his room. Everything was as it should be, including no red-haired intruders in sight.
Great.Were frustration, stress and his rather unpleasant encounter with Teresa today making his hallucinations worse?
Taking a cleansing inhale, Noah recentered himself. It was fine. Six more years, maybe five if he was lucky, and he could be somewhere far away where the Holy Empire couldn’t reach him. Okay, maybe more like ten years, if he was being realistic, but he liked to think he could make it in less if he worked hard enough. But anyway—he frowned at his still very present hard-on—he had more immediate matters to tend to right now.
Noah ran a hand through his damp bangs and settled comfortably on the bed, envisioning the demon-man again. There, sitting on the desk with a sultry smirk on his face and his garnet eyes locked on Noah’s hands while they guided him back toward the edge he’d been chasing.
As Noah palmed himself lazily and watched his visitor watch him, he wondered. What would the demon’s voice sound like? That was not something Noah had pinpointed, for some reason. What would his touch feel like?That too, how the man’s hands would feel on him, he couldn’t exactly imagine.What would he taste like?
That last one spurred Noah’s fingers on, his moans too, if stifled. He drank in his observer, feeling even more turned on because he was masturbating in front of someone, imaginary or not.Ah, but he did want more than just an audience.He wanted to touch a man, tobetouched by a man, and not by a fantasy one at that… but with the Empire’s strict laws, it simply wasn’t going to happen. Those like him were too afraid of the barbaric correctional facilities, of the punishment that awaited anyone the Church deemed a deviant.
Noah chased the thought away. He wasn’t going to think about such terrors now. He wanted to cum, to show his untouchable and unreal demon just how starved he was.How desperate.
Noah lost his rhythm as he chased his orgasm, not daring to take his eyes off the demon perched on his desk for fear he would dissipate into the figments of Noah’s imagination he had originated from. The height of ecstasy didn’t disappoint just like it never had since he’d started conjuring up his one-person audience, crashing into him in a wave of carnal sensation that robbed him of thought and shook him to his very core while those entrancing red eyes devoured him whole.
Rosetta was yelling at Bernard again when Noah made it to the office at ten twenty a.m. the next day, the poor guy having it just as bad even if he wasn’t her designated scapegoat.
“Noah!” she screeched as soon as she saw him, narrowing her eyes.
