Free Icecapade by Josh Lanyon

Noel.
    There you are out on a ledge again. You scare the hell out of me.”
    But it was Robert who made the first move.

    ***
    It was safe in the darkness.
    They could hold each other and kiss and pretend that the tenderness was as invisible as the dark silhouettes of rocking chair and mirrored armoire and antique bird cage. It was there all the same.
    “I swear I never meant to hurt you,” Noel whispered as Robert’s mouth trailed down his ribcage. “I’m sorry, Robbie.”
    Robert didn’t answer, but at least this time Noel knew the words had been heard. And in time 88
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    they would be believed. That felt more important than forgiveness, assuming forgiveness was his—
    it felt like it was his in this sheltering velvety gloom.
    The tenderness was what had been missing the first time, that first and last night. It had been a game back then—and they’d both been high on the rush—he’d never had a more exciting night.
    Never, before or since, had sex been that good.
    This was better.
    Tonight Noel was high, too, intoxicated with desire, but what he desired was something very different. Almost shocking in its simplicity. He wanted Robert to be happy.
    He wanted Robert to fuck him. Was glad to have it that way. He didn’t need Robert’s power under him and harnessed, he wanted it inside, filling him, warming him, ending the winter that had haunted him for so long. Maybe for a decade.
    He liked Robert’s gentleness, though it wasn’t something he’d ever required from a bedmate before. He liked the caresses, liked being stroked and petted, liked the fact that Robert’s hands were moving over him, slipping inside him, in a silent of assertion of ownership.
    He wriggled agilely to accommodate the larger body lowering itself onto him. Robert, braced on his hands, stared down. His face was in shadow, his eyes a gleam, but Noel smiled up at him.
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    “Anything you want,” he promised.
    “I used to dream about this.”
    Elation flooded Noel’s veins at that rough admission. He was acutely aware of the softness of the flannel sheets, the warmth of Robert’s skin, the quick, hard beats of his heart. His heart or Robert’s? He wasn’t sure which was which. He couldn’t ever recall feeling so alive. He could almost feel the moonlight brushing his skin. His own heart thrummed beneath his collarbone with something very like joy.
    They shifted, resettled, and Robert’s slippery fingers slid inside Noel, scissored, turned this way and that, loosening the quivering muscle. His touch was careful and attentive. There was nothing there of settling old scores or one-upmanship.
    Noel reached out and they linked hands, laced fingers. Noel liked the strength that met his own, the fierce grip that held him—no chance of falling with a grip like that. He closed his eyes, focusing only on the feel of Robert pushing into his body.
    “Okay?” Robert asked thickly.
    “God. Yes .”
    Robert began to thrust into him. Long, slow strokes at first, and Noel rose to meet them, shoving back. But almost immediately they seemed to lose the rhythm, disintegrating into mutual desperation, and the long, slow thrusts 90
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    gave way to short, hard punches. Somehow they recovered the tempo, their bodies once more moving in unison, pacing each other, learning each other. It wouldn’t take long, for all they’d waited ten years for it.
    Noel freed his hands and pulled Robert closer, holding him tight, not wanting to forget one moment of this, committing every second to memory: the harsh wounded sounds of Robert’s breath, the damp heat of his skin, the human, musky scent that was Robert and no one else.
    When Robert’s hot mouth covered his own, he opened to him, kissing him back with the same hunger, turned on by the idea that Robert’s tongue was fucking his mouth even as his cock fucked Noel’s ass. His own cock was trapped between them, rubbing hard along the silky rough line of belly hair tickling him