Chapter 8 #2
“I hired you in under five minutes.” He drinks his eggnog, encourages me to drink mine, then takes both mugs and sets them on the nightstand beside the photo. “It didn’t take the past two months for me to know I want to keep you, Beau. I think it barely took one.”
He returns to me, and with his hands now free, he tugs me toward him by my hips. “Now, about me not paying you for certain things.” He grins.
He is… so good. “Think you’re getting lucky, do you?”
“Why do you think I gave you your bonus early?”
I laugh. Does this count as having talked through things? I suppose it does, because Arik has thought of everything. “This is quite the new lease on life for a confirmed bachelor.”
“All life is a gamble.” He shrugs. “If things don’t work out between us down the road, then they don’t.
We can’t predict that, but I can promise you that there won’t be any grudges.
I’m not going to toss you out onto the street the second we have a fight or run into our own roadblocks.
We’ve weathered plenty already. We’ll figure this out.
I don’t want to live assuming the good times will always turn into bad.
After all, bad turned good on a dime in the most unexpected of ways.
” He looks toward the baby monitor, also on the nightstand.
“And by dime you mean millions,” I tease him.
“With a ‘B’ actually.” Arik pulls me closer and kisses me.
He keeps kissing me until I’m breathless.
Either Bastian’s nap was divine intervention, a Christmas miracle, or Arik somehow managed to perfectly time getting the little guy sleepy, but it’s clear how he wants to start our Christmas Eve, and I can’t think of a reason to steer us down any other path.
When our lips disconnect, I say the one thing I still haven’t admitted to him.
“I found your toys the other day.”
ARIK
I don’t realize right away which toys Beau means. “ Oh. Naughty, naughty,” I rumble.
“I wasn’t looking.”
“I’m sure not. And what did you think about what you found?”
Beau bites his lip, which is almost more mind-altering than the brandy in our eggnog. “I’ve never really used any on myself. Or on anyone else. I haven’t had a ton of experience with male partners. Some! But that was years ago and always only, well… with me, um…”
“With you as the big spoon?”
“Yeah.”
“Lucky you, because I’m flexible with being either spoon—or a knife.”
Beau laughs. Good. I want him relaxed. He doesn’t need to feel nervous around me anymore. “How about we save toy use for after round one?”
That doesn’t reduce his blush, but it does shift his expression from surprised and wary to… eager? “Maybe round… two or three? Depending on the toy.”
I knew we were compatible.
I don’t let the realization that, yes, we are about to do this give Beau any new reasons to shy from me.
I kiss him again and start backing us toward the bed.
His lips and tongue taste like Christmas, and there is this wonderful softness to his belly when I reach my hands under his shirt—until he flinches like he’s ticklish.
Self-conscious?
Beau suddenly pulls my shirt out of my slacks, reaches up beneath it, and spreads his fingers across my abs. “Knew it,” he grumbles.
“What?”
“Of course you have a six-pack.” Beau drags me back in, and if his tongue has more to say, he chooses instead to spiral it with mine again.
I get my hands back under his shirt to worship the softness he seems so skittish about. We’re not rushed but also mindful of the ticking clock in the form of the baby monitor and the distant sound of even breathing.
Once on the bed, I make it clear he can simply lie back and enjoy for a while. I’m going to.
“You don’t have to do all the work,” Beau huffs while I’m undoing his jeans. He starts to undo my pants too.
“I won’t. You get to be the big spoon, remember?”
Beau hoists his hips, and we both drag each other’s pants down to our knees.
“God, I love your thighs,” we say in unison.
We laugh. If Beau has any additional physical hang-ups, I think I just put them to bed—where I am going to enjoy keeping him for as long as I can.
We kick off our pants, and I straddle his hips, focused on getting our shirts off next. Beau’s curls distract me, however, with how gorgeously they halo him on my pillow as if Botticelli himself painted him.
When a moan bites out from between his lips, our underwear definitely need to go.
Despite our lack of clothes finally, the room feels sweltering, like our leaking precum might steam away. Beau runs his hands up the divots of my abs with the same look of wonder he offers Christmas lights, and I take it as the best compliment he could ever give me, while reaching between us.
“Arik!” He rocks into my grasp.
I stretch my fingers enough to take hold of us both, pumping us together as our hips begin to move.
“Oh yes… oh God, yes. Why weren’t we doing this the whole time?”
I laugh and lean down to whisper, “Because we were being good… but now I think we’ve earned naughty.”
“Won’t Santa be disappointed?”
I laugh so much harder at that, it halts my rhythm.
I can’t even mind, because it’s the ones who make you laugh who are truly worth keeping.
I never realized how true that was. I never realized laughing and enjoying someone’s company could beat out taking them to bed—though having both is the real Christmas miracle.
As our grinding renews, we’re too wet already. Too hard. Too close.
And I still want Beau to be the big spoon.
I slow us down and reach for my second nightstand drawer, which Beau apparently got a preview of, but in lieu of trying any toys today, I grab lube and a condom.
I slick Beau’s fingers before guiding his hand behind me, urging him to do exactly what I said I wanted.
For someone less experienced with men, he knows how to use those fingers where I lead them.
Maybe his ex was into this, but that doesn’t earn her any points when she was stupid enough to cheat on him and let him get away.
Tipped forward while Beau stretches me, I can better reach his chest with my mouth. And his neck. His cheek. His lips and tongue.
All the while, whenever I lift upright, Beau’s eyes devour me, from my hooded blue eyes to the length of my body and between our connected hips.
He licks his lips with a slow swipe of his tongue. “You know what I’m thinking?”
“What’s that?”
“How amazing you’d look riding me right now.”
“That…” I moan as his fingers sink deeper inside me. “…is the idea.”
“And maybe… some other time… you can fuck me into the mattress.”
“Both.” I knock his hand away, because I am more than ready for more. “Absolutely, eventually, both.”
I am tighter than usual since I’ve been abstaining, but oh so ready to finally get a taste of this man who has occupied most of my thoughts these past two months.
Beau is hard and hot and just the kind of fullness I need today—more than just today—while looking up at me like he wants me for longer too.
He doesn’t just lie there but moves with me and moves me with him by gripping my hips and rocking me atop him. He is amazing, but before I count my blessings, I need to know one thing.
“Does this mean you’re staying?”
Beau laughs like that is the craziest question yet. I think the way he is looking at me might mirror the way I am looking at him in the photograph.
And now.
He lifts one hand from my hips to grasp my chin. “For as long as you’ll have me,” he says.
When he pulls me in for a kiss, damn does it feel like Christmas came early. Neither of us do though. Maybe because Beau was ill last week, he lasts a good long while, just enough longer than I do that I am limp but still loving it when he comes with an arch of his neck and final buck upward.
The next miracle we’re afforded is that it is only after we’ve cleaned up and coiled together on the bed that Bastian howls over the monitor.
“How about I get him,” Beau offers, “and you refresh our eggnog?”
“Deal.”
Beau takes a bottle into the nursery once we get downstairs, and as soon as I have liberally poured more brandy and eggnog into our mugs, I join him.
I find him sitting in the rocker, dressed again in his marigold shirt, tie, and jeans, looking too paternal and majestic for words.
Bastian is downing his bottle like a man starved, and I suppose my little man is, given he is still growing and recovering from his first bug.
As I move into the room, Beau glances at the window and gasps.
“What is it?”
“Open the shades!” he tells me. From his angle, he must be able to see outside.
I do as asked and discover a winter wonderland waiting beyond the glass.
It’s snowing. Large fluffy flakes lazily fall outside the large window like we are in a skyrise snow globe.
Beau looks up at me from the rocker as if all the Christmas magic in the world is right here between us. “Baby’s first snowfall.”
“And on Christmas Eve.” I bend to kiss Bastian’s temple. Then Beau’s. “I couldn’t ask for better. Or better company.”
Beau’s smile makes this a truly fairytale Christmas Eve and more than I ever thought I’d ask for. No matter how much harder fatherhood gets from here, I think we can handle it.
Together.
BEAU
“Hey, um, while it’s still Christmas Eve, you need to open a present too,” I tell Arik. “It’s under the tree, wrapped in green with gold bows. Go get it.”
“Yes, sir.”
He does and opens it in front of me while I finish feeding Bastian.
It’s a tie.
“Skylar approved,” I assure him.
“Smart man.” Arik laughs. “Thank you.” He leans down and kisses me softly.
“Once the little man is good, shall we watch the snow beside the tree?”
“That sounds amazing.”
Almost too amazing to believe, because I’m about to have everything I always wanted.
A new job.
My master’s dissertation done—well, soon. Recently, I got the idea to add a little Sun Tzu spin to my intro and conclusion.
Know yourself and your students—but don’t consider them the enemy.
Be subtle where appropriate but not secretive.
Be there for them when they are at their most vulnerable.
Pick no battles, because when teaching, you and your students are on the same side.
Be aware of outside influences and respect how that might affect them.
And act quickly and decisively to give your students everything they need.
Funnily enough, those altered tenets from The Art of War work pretty well for romantic partners too.
Because that's the other thing I seem to have that I always wanted.
A family.
Watching the snow beside the tree we decorated together, with Bastian even seeming to notice the snow falling outside, makes this a truly fairytale Christmas and more than I ever thought I could have after I lost my wife and the promise of being a father.
But no matter how much harder life gets from here, I think Arik and I—and Bastian—can handle it.
Together.