Noaz (Van Doren #2)

20. Noaz

20

NOAZ

I carefully swipe up on the screen for the next video to play before turning my attention back to my toes. It’s really a pain in the ass to paint my toes once I did my nails, but I hadn’t had the urge to do my toes until after I saw how pretty my nails came out. So here I am, contorting myself in a strange position so I can watch my screen and try not to paint down my foot and not screw up my fingernails.

I’m tired of seeing the colored poppers. With a sigh, I scroll up for the next video. Honey Bee was a little disappointed when the baby registry we gave her was all gender-neutral. Yes, we know what the sex is.

But that’s the thing. I think I’m having a difficult time sharing it because gender means something different to me. Gender isn’t something inherent from birth. It’s a social assignment intended to keep the world divided into roles and expectations. It’s reinforced to maintain a status quo.

I don’t fit into that. I refuse either gender and am somewhere between. I don’t want my child to feel the pressure to be something based on what the world dictates they become based on what’s in their diaper.

However, I’m also very aware of what happens when you raise a child that way. I will never forget the kid in Voss’ class whose parents never taught him boy and girl. He was confused and miserable and picked on relentlessly by his peers. The teachers didn’t do any better because not only did they not know how to handle the situation, but some outright refused to learn.

I won’t let my child be in that position either.

So where’s the fine line where my kids will know they can cross barriers should they feel the need or want, but also educate them on how the world works without making them feel like they need to conform? How do I tell our family and friends this is what’s in my kid’s pants, but I don’t want them to automatically lump them into a block because that will inadvertently make my baby feel like they need to fill that block appropriately?

I want my child to feel the freedom to play with dolls or race cars. I want them to wear pink or blue. I want them to grow their hair long or buzz it off. I want them to wear makeup and nail polish or get their fingernails dirty. I want them to feel confident in expressing themselves.

This is why I’m having such a hard time telling everyone what our baby’s sex is. We don’t know what our baby is. We know what society assigns them.

Sighing, I swipe up again. They’re all the same at this point. Nothing is striking excitement in me.

The door opens and I look up. A smile immediately stretches across my face as my husband walks in the front door with an armload of bags. I thought he was just going to the big house.

“Where did you go?” I ask .

Briar chuckles, shaking his head. “I never found Jalon because I ran into Honey Bee right away and she needed help. By help, she meant we were going shopping for baby and because I wasn’t cooperating by telling her what we were having, we have all sorts of colors.” He lifts the bags to emphasize and then sets them down again.

I sigh. “I’m sorry.”

Briar shakes his head. He leaves the bags at the door and joins me in the sitting room. He sits on the coffee table and takes my foot in his lap and the nail polish brush from me. I watch, surprised, as he continues to paint my nails. My heart races. No one I’ve been in a relationship with has ever done this for me.

Forcing my eyes back to my screen, I try to push away the emotion this tiny gesture provokes in me.

“What’re you watching?” Briar asks.

Sighing, I pick up my phone and close the app. “I was looking at gender reveals. But there’s basically like three different ways people do it—cake, smoke poppers, or something to do with balloons.”

“We don’t need to do anything at all. We really don’t even need to tell anyone. They can wait until we bring our little one home.”

I watch him, studying his handsome face. “We could,” I agree. “But what do we tell Honey Bee?”

“That she can continue to buy both and our baby will wear everything.”

My shoulders relax. “Yeah?”

“I know we have a while until we need to really discuss how to raise our baby on the matter of gender. We don’t need to have had a conversation for me to see you’re struggling with this,” he says, glancing up to meet my eyes. I love how he sees me. Truly sees me. “I think there’s going to be a fine line between right and reality. We just need to think of a sustainable, healthy way to approach it.”

“That’s the thing,” I say, then tell them about the little kid in Voss’ class growing up. “I don’t want our baby to go through that. But I also don’t want them to feel bound to something because the world expects them to be.”

“I’m afraid this might be a trial and error,” Briar says as he finishes up my second foot. “There’s not going to be a right way. You can’t put kids in bubbles and protect them from the horrors of the world, pretending like they live in a utopia and nothing will touch them. That’s not protection because eventually they’re going to be thrust into that world whether you like it or not. There’s a choice between educating them and giving them the tools to face those struggles, or throwing them out there as a newborn puppy, completely unable to defend themselves with no idea what’s actually happening around them.”

“I hate all of that.”

Briar laughs. “The fact of the matter is that the world is ugly. Every single part of the world has ugliness in it. Some places have more and some have less. We can’t protect them from it because no matter what we do, they will grow up and move away, and they will face that ugliness.”

I nod, watching Briar blow gently on my toes. When he’s done, he gently sets my foot down and then sits next to me, pulling me onto his lap. I think my fingernails are probably dry, but I keep them away from us just in case.

His mouth moves over my neck and shoulder, giving me soft kisses. His arms move around my torso, hugging me. Keeping me close. Loving me .

I’m shocked when Briar’s hand moves down to my dick, cupping my crotch. My breath catches.

Briar is a voracious lover with stamina for days. He’s been very happily enthusiastic about our bedroom life, but so far, he hasn’t touched my cock. His hands stay just out of reach, even as he rubs me all over. As he touches me almost everywhere. Everywhere except there. Until now.

It’s no mistake, either. Not with the way he’s rubbing me, clearly intending for me to get hard. Encouraging my arousal. I’m both conscious of my toes and reflexively trying to push into his hand more. Especially once he reaches into my pants and wraps his hand around my dick.

I groan, grinding my ass against his hardness.

“So,” Briar murmurs, voice husky. “While I was out, I got the results back from my doctor’s office.”

My brain is swimming right now. Results? When did he even go to the doctor’s? Is he sick, and I forgot?

“I’m negative across the board.”

“Oh, good,” I breathe out, feeling like that’s probably a positive thing. It’s really unfair he’s trying to have a conversation with me when he’s touching my cock for the first time.

Briar’s chuckle is deep and sexy. I feel it throughout my body. Heating my blood. Making my cock throb.

“My STI test, Noaz. I’m negative. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Oh.” Okay, I remember that visit. We went together. Mine came back two days earlier than his.

“So… how do you feel about me coming in your ass without a condom? Let me breed my beautiful wife, my sweet, sexy husband. ”

Briar almost always uses wife and husband together. I’m not sure I can recall a time when he uses one and doesn’t use the other in these moments. It doesn’t feel like he does it for any reason but reflex. Like he means them. I’m both. I’m neither.

“Yes,” I rasp.

He reaches into the side table drawer and pulls out a tube of lube. I’m not even sure when it got in there. I didn’t put it there.

“Lift your hips, my love,” he says, his lips at my ear. His voice is low and deep, hitting a tenor I can feel in my bones.

I dig my heels into the floor and the back of my shoulders against Briar’s chest to brace myself and lift my hips. He pushes my pants down to my knees and then shoves his down as well.

“That’s it. Stay there a minute,” he practically purrs.

His wet fingers glide along my ass crack and press into my hole. Because I’m using my glutes to hold myself up, it’s tighter than normal, and Briar has to push with a little more force.

But he doesn’t go further than a couple fingers and a few thrusts into my body before he’s bringing me down. “Easy. Slowly, Noaz. Get on my dick, but we’re going to need more lube, so be slow.”

Slow. Pfft. My leg muscles are already shaking.

I feel his cockhead right away when I lower a little. So fat and ready. Because my weight and gravity are the forces working here, all I have to do is control the fall. Thankfully, Briar’s hand rests on my ass cheek, helping to hold my weight as his cockhead slips inside me.

I grunt, my muscles tensing at the same time my legs twitch and I fall a little harder than I intend. I get a couple inches right away and groan. Briar pushes me back up and off him .

“No,” I whine.

He grins, his lips pressing against my neck. The feeling of his teeth grazing my skin makes me shudder. It’s doing nothing to help me remain up.

“More lube, love. Okay, back down. Slowly.”

“I’m not as in shape as you,” I complain.

I love the way he chuckles. But his quiet laughter stops when I practically drop onto his dick—not intentionally. The sound of his sexy laugh in my ear and against my skin combined with keeping my body suspended as long as I could had me giving in to my weakness. Maybe I ought to work out a little. Hip thrusts are an exercise, right?

But thoughts skid to a halt as his cock fills me. Then his slick hand is wrapped around my dick again, and he jerks me with purpose.

Wet nails forgotten, I reach behind me and grip his hair, giving myself leverage to ride his dick. His hand doesn’t stop. He strokes my cock as if he’s been doing it his entire life. I suppose he has, he’s had his own dick to practice on.

My blood goes from fifteen to a hundred immediately. My thrusts on him are more reflexive than intentional. His hand on my dick has me moving, thrusting up into his fist and then slamming back onto his cock.

The wet slurping of the lube, the slap of our bodies, and the loud, unfiltered moans fill the room. Fill my head. My orgasm is already so close in part because he’s actually touching me and he seems to really like it.

“I’m going to come,” I warn.

I feel his teeth sink into my skin. Not hard. Not enough to break my skin. Just enough to send a jolt of pleasure through my body .

“Come,” he grunts. “Come on my dick, husband.”

I do. It shudders through me like an earthquake, shaking my body and making the world rock. I’m barely finished when Briar rolls us to the side. His hand is still curled around my dick but not cupping my balls as he fucks me into the couch. We’re twisted in a strange way. My hips are pressed flat to the couch, but my torso is sideways.

My head continues to spin. Little jolts of pleasure streak through my body as he continues fucking into me. His grunts are sexy. His sweaty palm against my spent cock is hot. He shoves in deep and comes with a long, low, deep groan. I can feel his cock throb in my hole, and I shiver.

He pulls out and I feel extra wet as his release tries to follow. Briar shoves back in, keeping it locked inside me as he continues to spill. To fill me.

“Beautiful wife,” he murmurs.

Then we’re laying there panting. I think I’m gasping.

“You touched my dick,” I say breathlessly.

His laughter is quiet, filled with pants. “Yeah. That okay?”

“Yes. You just haven’t before.”

Briar sighs, pressing his face into the back of my neck. “If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d freak out or not.” My breath catches. “I was pretty confident I wouldn’t. Like… 95% confident I wouldn’t. But the little voice in my head saying I might had me hesitating, and I didn’t want to ruin our first nights together in case I needed to work through that.”

“Are you freaking out now?”

“No,” he murmurs, sucking on my earlobe. “You’ve got a very nice dick. I’m looking forward to getting to know it better. ”

I giggle because I can’t help it.

“I’m sorry,” Briar says after a minute. “I should have been honest and told you I was nervous, but I didn’t want you to question this. I’ve known since we met that you are the person I’m going to spend my life with. Including your dick.”

Yep, I laugh again.

“I meant what I said when I said I was completely fine with your dick, Noaz. I was. I am. I like your dick a lot.”

“Stop,” I say, covering my face.

“It’s a very nice dick. Respectable length. Fantastic girth. So responsive to touch.”

“Briar,” I grumble, laughing.

He kisses me softly. “I mean it,” he whispers, now more serious. “I am looking forward to getting to know your dick. Because it’s part of you and I’m so damn in love with you, Noaz.”

The cool air of the room brushes my skin, and I shiver. I twist to look at him. “I love you, too. And I’m glad you like my dick.”

Briar grins. “Very much.”

“No more secrets, okay?”

“No more.” He kisses my lips at this awkward angle. “Know what else I really like?”

“What?”

“Feeling my cum in your ass. Fuck, that’s hot.”

I laugh, my cheeks heating. “We’re going to be a lot messier now, aren’t we?”

“Oh, hell yeah. At least until baby’s here. Plan to be very, very messy, my love. I’m going to fill you with my cum as often as possible.”

Yep, my dick twitches in excited anticipation.