He Faked a Romance, Noah Gave Him One Real Chance novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Not Fully Closed

Noah walks in on Cassian in the bath and thinks it is a prank; the misunderstanding ends with Noah's hands and mouth on him, and Cassian realizes Noah is nothing like what Norman said.

Cassian took out one earbud, and the bees went tinny in his hand.

"I didn't hear you knock," he said.

"I didn't knock." Noah took the toothbrush out of his mouth. "Your door was open."

"It doesn't latch."

"Your mother said that at the table, and you said sure."

"I know. I forgot."

The water was cloudy and pink, because his mother had given him a bath bomb for Christmas and it was the only thing between him and the whole conversation.

Noah did not leave.

He leaned on the doorframe with his shirt hanging open over a thin chest and looked at Cassian's wet shoulders with no expression at all.

"Is this a joke?" he said.

"No."

"Because I've been on the other end of a few. Open the door, wait for the scholarship kid, take a picture. Your friends seem like the type."

"There is no picture. I'm washing my hair."

"With the door open."

"With a door that is broken, in my own bathroom, that you walked into."

Noah considered this.

"That's a good answer," he said. "Hold still. You've got soap running into your eye."

He crossed the tile in three steps, sat on the edge of the tub, and cupped his hand under the faucet.

Warm water ran over Cassian's forehead.

Noah's fingers pushed the foam back out of his hair, slow and thorough, and then stayed at the nape of his neck.

"That's a touch," Cassian said. His voice came out lower than he meant. "You said no touching the tutor."

"I said no touching the tutor. You're the student."

"That's a loophole."

"It's a rule I wrote this morning. I'm allowed to read it however I want."

His thumb moved once up the back of Cassian's neck.

Cassian's whole body noticed. Under the cloudy water, his cock noticed first.

Noah's eyes went down. They came back up.

"Is this the part where you say sure?" Noah asked.

"I don't know what the question is."

"Do you want me to keep going?"

"Sure," Cassian said, and the word came out of him before he could stop it.

Noah took his hand away.

"One dollar," he said. "Why?"

"Because." Cassian swallowed. "Because I can't think."

"That counts."

Noah slid his wet hand down Cassian's throat, over his collarbone, across his chest, and stopped just under the water.

"Tell me if this is wrong."

"It's not wrong."

"Then say what it is."

"It's very good," Cassian said, and then, because he was already past caring, "Please."

Noah's hand closed around his cock.

Cassian's head fell back against the tile. The water slapped over the edge of the tub.

Noah stroked him slowly, thumb dragging over the head on every upstroke, and watched his face the whole time.

"You're loud," Noah said.

"I'm not."

"You are. You've got your mouth open."

"Then do something about it."

For the first time that night Noah laughed, one short breath through his nose, and then he leaned over the tub and kissed him.

It was a hard kiss, with toothpaste in it.

Cassian grabbed his wet shirt in both fists and kissed him back with a groan, and the hand around his cock sped up.

"Noah."

"Hold on to the edge."

Cassian held on.

Noah pulled his shirt off over his head, dropped it on the mat, and knelt on the floor beside the tub, his chest bare and his curls already damp from the steam.

He bent and put his mouth on Cassian's hip.

He licked up the line of the bone, bit it once, and then slid his mouth over the head of Cassian's cock.

Cassian made a sound he had never made in front of another person.

It was hot and wet and slow, and Noah took him deeper on every pass, one hand keeping his hips down against the porcelain.

Water ran down Noah's arm and into the tub in a thin line.

In his one earbud, the lecturer said that the drone's only mating flight was also his last.

"Don't," Cassian gasped. "Don't stop, I'm going to."

Noah looked up at him with his mouth stretched around him and did not stop.

Cassian came with his whole back arched off the tile and Noah's name in his mouth, spilling hot on his tongue.

Noah swallowed, sat back on his heels, and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

The bees went on talking.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment.

"That's the second dollar I'm putting on your account," Noah said at last, a little roughly. "For the loophole."

"That's not a reason."

"It's my rule, so it counts."

He stood up, picked his shirt off the mat, wrung it over the sink, and put it on wet.

In the doorway he stopped.

"Close the door all the way tomorrow," he said, without turning around. "Or mean it."

The guest-room door shut quietly behind him.

Cassian slid down in the water until it reached his chin.

Norman had said that Noah would fall for anything nice. That he was a sad little snitch who had never been given a thing in his life.

Noah had not asked for one thing.

He had not asked for money or a favor or a name.

He had sat on the edge of the tub and rinsed the soap out of Cassian's eye.

The phone on the bath mat lit up with a text.

Norman: Phase 2 starts tonight, Cass. Kiss him by Friday.

Cassian read it twice, and for the first time in his life he did not type anything back.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend