Epilogue
Christmas Eve - One Year Later
“Sweet Baby Jesus,” Beckett whimpered. “That’s cold.”
I watched him tiptoe on the thin layer of fresh snow over the huge wooden deck.
He had a towel around his waist, but that did little to protect his bare torso against the thick snowflakes that were falling around us.
The early evening resembled night this deep in the forest. The only source of light was coming from Nate’s sprawling vacation home.
The subdued glow of yellow lights, dimmed for our evening coziness, touched the deck and the giant hot tub Beckett was tackling.
“I don’t think I want to do this,” I said.
My comfort zone was stretched already simply by being here.
It seemed like a huge responsibility to visit a man’s house for the first time and treat it like my own home, all the while Nate was in the city.
Trying out the hot tub in the flurry of snow was maybe a little too much.
But Beckett stood next to it and dipped one hand into the steaming, bubbling water.
“Oh, yeah. That’s the good stuff.” He ignored my words and untied the towel.
Even though there wasn’t another house for miles, my muscles stiffened.
He was totally naked, out in the open, while snow covered the deck I had cleared just a few hours earlier.
“Come, baby, before my balls freeze off.”
I let out a disgruntled sound and stomped across the deck. It was like walking on needles. Each freezing step punctured my feet and sent icicles through my veins. Wherever a snowflake kissed my bare torso, a searing sensation remained. It confused my senses. “There’s no way this can be worth it.”
Beckett shivered and gave me his hand. “Get in. It gets better.”
I didn’t believe him. When I was a boy, we opened our pool during the summer. And in the winter, we built snowmen. It was the right way.
I tossed my towel next to Beckett’s. They would be buried under snow soon, I was sure.
We climbed a few stairs and entered the tub.
Instantly, I remembered the story of cooking a living frog.
This was not what human bodies were meant for.
The bubbling surface made me think of boiling water, especially since no snowflake survived long enough in the rising steam to touch me once I lowered my body into the hot water.
Beckett groaned and exhaled as he dipped his shoulders under the surface. “Fuck. Me.”
“Can’t do. Too cold.” My teeth chattered.
Beckett scoffed with his eyes closed and moved through the water.
Along the inside wall was a bench just tall enough to keep our heads and shoulders above the surface when we sat down.
I moved closer to Beckett and helped navigate him close to the cart with a bottle of wine I left out for us.
I’d had enough foresight to place the glasses upside down.
Now, I reached for the cart and turned the glasses the right way up, then filled them with chilled white wine.
As I did these little tasks to distract myself from the cacophony of sensations, I realized I was growing more comfortable with each heartbeat.
The heat flushed my face, so the cold air couldn’t touch me.
The snow glimmered in the light coming from the house, its flickers appearing magical and our wine was sufficiently chilled.
“Oh, fuck,” I purred. “Don’t you dare rub my nose in it. ”
Beckett smirked. He inhaled deeply, then singsonged the words, “I told you so.”
I bit my tongue. His face was a little red, his hair damp, and his shoulders round. His arms rested along the edge of the tub, his biceps sculpted to perfection, and his armpits covered with short, dark hair. When he was as relaxed as this, he was at his most beautiful.
The heat was lulling me from below, but I gazed up in awe at the night’s wonders. On paper, this was not supposed to be half as pleasurable. When I glanced at Beckett, I found he was as amazed as I was. We let our wine-filled glasses touch before we each took a sip and then set them down.
Beckett shifted, his chiseled torso twisting and his entire body nearing mine.
Over a year had passed since the fateful hotel room screw-up that sealed our fates and I still occasionally caught myself feeling the surprise of being so near him.
For over a year, Beckett was my lover, my best friend, and the reflection of my feelings.
He was all I had never imagined him before.
“Sometimes I wonder what happens next,” I murmured over the soft bubbling on the surface of hot water.
“Mm. I know you do.” He peeled his eyes open and looked at my face, one side of his lips ticking up. “I can see you, you know. When you’re buttering a piece of toast, you freeze, and your gaze is ten miles long.”
I snorted. “I didn’t realize I was that obvious.”
“Tsk. You’re just that adorable.” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth. It was a move that so easily took my breath away that he used it sparingly. But he knew the things it did to me.
“And don’t you think about the future?” I asked. We’d had this conversation before. Our differences complemented each other in a lot of ways. Where I could get lost in preparing, expecting, and anticipating things, Beckett moved toward them head-first, even if they turned out to be a brick wall.
“Of course I do,” Beckett said. “I just don’t stress over it. I don’t try to force it. Like…” He narrowed his eyes in thought, then widened them to see me better. “Isn’t this nice? Just us, out here, not a soul in sight.”
“It’s hella nicer than I expected,” I admitted.
“And later, we’ll sneakily open some of the gifts.
Maybe have some of that chocolate fudge.
See? I think about the future all the time.
” He laughed as I splashed water on his face.
He shook his head and looked up, then sighed.
“Ah, but I do get glimpses of it. You and me and a place of our own. And a dog or two. And those sweet NHL contracts. Living on the road for a while, then building a home together. It’s so clear in my mind that I get ahead of myself.
” He cleared his throat as he looked away from me.
The next time our gazes met, I was closer to him because his gravity pulled me in.
And his look was shy, as if he’d revealed a deeply hidden secret.
But there was nothing secret about it. His words matched my own. My vision of the future always included Beckett Partridge at the heart of it. There wasn’t a future without him.
If I could go back in time and tell my freshman self where life would take him, he wouldn’t believe me in a million years.
Beckett? The pompous monolith of smugness and the biggest thorn in my freshman ass?
No way I could imagine a lifetime with him.
I had barely been able to push through a practice session near him at that time.
But here sat the finest guy I’d ever met. And my arms swept through the water to take him around the waist and pull him in.
Beckett let himself be dragged up and toward me, lifting his ass off the bench and turning to face me completely. And when he neared me, he thrust one leg over both of mine and sat in my lap.
I wrapped my arms around his torso and pulled him closer, looking up into his eyes. He swung his hips back and forth for a few moments, sliding along my lap until he pressed hard against me. He sat on my crotch, his dick swelling against my abs.
My hands traced the sides of his torso and reached for his round ass. When I squeezed his cheeks, he sucked his teeth playfully. “Don’t you get any ideas, sir. It’s your turn to bottom.”
“Hmpf.” I squeezed him harder. “My turn was last night. It’s not my fault you decided to drive through the night.”
“That’s not how anything works, Jones,” he purred. “I bottomed last.”
I lifted my head a little more, biting his chin teasingly. “You bottom on even dates this month, and you know it.”
“The more you resist it, the harder it’ll be,” he threatened in his huskiest voice.
“You obviously have no idea how stubborn I can be,” I said nonchalantly, sliding my fingers between his cheeks and massaging his rim.
“You underestimate me, my love,” he purred. “I know exactly what you’re doing. I’m just playing along.”
That was true. I was teasing him until he couldn’t take any more of it.
I was playing stubborn so he would teach me a lesson.
Those were always the hottest. Then again, when neither of us felt kinky and we settled for a night of slow and simmering passion, those were the hottest, too.
Beckett could equally excite me by easing himself deep into me while pinching my nipples as he could by wrecking my entire world in a night. And I could do the same to him.
“I’ll teach you a lesson, Jones,” he said, his voice dripping with lust at the pressure of my finger against his hole.
He was hard already, rubbing himself against my tense abs.
And so was I, rising in the water and settling myself between his cheeks when I removed my fingers.
I pressed them together, creating pressure on my dick before thrusting my hips up.
Beckett gasped, then grabbed a fistful of my hair on the back of my head.
He looked into my eyes. “I think we’re done with this tub for now,” he said. Slowly, he pushed himself away from me and rose up out of the water. His cock was at full mast, dripping with hot water and throbbing so very near my face.
My gaze followed his sculpted body. His shoulders and chest were already prickling with cold and I stood up after him, fully aware we could not be doing anything out here. I didn’t want it, though the prospect of crossing the deck again barefoot terrified me.