Ned isn't sure why it is that those tiny touches to his cheek feel so particularly intimate. By all the rules of logic, they shouldn't be moreso than having another man's cock in his mouth, but apparently his brain isn't operating on logic right now. They send a shiver down his spine, and he has to close his eyes once more, to keep focused on what he's doing.

He loses himself in the rhythm of it, but never quite stops paying attention to Ginsberg: to the noises he's making, the movements - voluntary and involuntary - of his body, what in particular seems to make his breath catch and his legs tremble. Ned waits patiently for all those little signs that Ginsberg is getting closer to the edge, and when he starts to notice them he pulls off - not out of any desire to be a tease but to ask, rather breathlessly, "You want me to keep going?"