Tattoos & Tinsel (2 page)

cinnamon he’d been cooking with earlier and, compared to his cold

feet, his lips were deliciously hot.

“I love you,” I whispered, wanting him to know this above anything

else.

Chris lifted his head from where he’d been kissing my shoulder and

smiled at me in the dark.

“I love you too,” he said and returned his mouth to mine.

With my arms holding his body close I rolled Chris on to his back,

taking over his previous position to take my turn to lavish attention on

his body. He pushed his hips up to meet mine, effectively telling me

to pay attention to his cock. Laughing softly, I pinned his hands to the

bed and pressed our foreheads together, grinding my hips into his and

sliding our erections together through two layers of fabric.

“Rob, please,” he said.

“Please what, sweetheart?” I asked. “What do you want?”

It was a fair question; even though I mostly topped, I was willing to

switch if that’s what he wanted. His mood was no indication of his

sexual desire, either… sometimes when he appeared most demanding

and aggressive he wanted me inside him and would take himself

inside my body with a heat and passion I’d come to recognize as

uniquely his.

“I want you,” he said, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck

and drawing me down in to another achingly soft kiss.

We both kicked off our underwear and abandoned it somewhere

under the sheets. I wanted everything from him, all at once. Chris’s

hands stroked reassuringly up and down my sides as we groaned into

the kisses, tongues and lips and teeth clashing as my erection poked

underneath his balls.

He lifted his legs and wrapped them around my waist, his feet digging

into my ass as he encouraged me to push further back between his

cheeks. I indulged him for a moment then pulled away to find the tub

of his favorite lube that he kept in his nightstand.

I kissed the inked lines and rich color of his tattoos that covered his

chest as my fingers searched for his puckered hole, running my lubed

fingers over it as I switched my attention to his nipple. Chris laughed

breathlessly as I teased him, his body playing into mine as he ran his

fingers through my hair and pinched at his own nipple – the one that

my teeth weren’t clamped around.

We’d learned so much about each other over the past year, both as

people and as sexual partners. I knew his body, how to make him

twitch and squirm and groan with pleasure when I finally gave him

what he wanted and pushed my fingers up inside him.

Chris threw his leg over my waist to give me better access to his body

and I obligingly slipped a second finger in next to the first, stretching him gently and pressing against his prostate. He gasped beautifully,

just as I knew he would, and reached for his cock. Unlike me, Chris

could hold off stroking himself for ages, drawing pleasure from other

parts of his body first.

When I was satisfied that I wasn’t going to hurt him I smeared some

extra lube on my cock and moved between his legs. We kissed hard

for a moment, reassuring each other, then I pushed hard into him. His

back arched sharply off the bed as he hissed.

“Okay?” I asked.

Chris grunted softly as he melted back, then took a deep breath.

“Good pain,” he said.

I understood. Only being half-way in, I rocked forward again, more

gently this time, until my cock was buried all the way and I was more

than a little lost in him. Chris clung to me, all arms and legs and his

lips on my neck.

We moved together seamlessly. His cock was trapped between our

stomachs and I purposefully rubbed against it as I thrust into him,

touching as many points of pleasure on his body as I could. This was

to be one of our patented slow, easy fucks, with neither of us having

the energy or inclination to make it fast and wild.

There was time for fast and wild later.

I always liked having his face close to mine when we made love,

when he would rest his cheek on my shoulder was even better. I liked

to hear all the little noises he would make and those could be lost

when we were trying something more acrobatic. Chris would gasp or

grunt or whimper with nearly every one of my thrusts; he moaned my

name and sighed deeply when we paused to catch our breath.

With one of my arms tucked under his neck the other was free to

touch him; I ran my fingers over his cheek and he turned his face

against my touch, then kissed my fingertips.

I took that as my permission to speed up a little, dragging out the

pleasure for us both, encouraging his hand to his cock for him to tug

at it desperately. He liked it when I came inside him, which is why we

so often did it bare, and we were both safe. I sobbed and cried out as

my orgasm tore through my body. Chris kissed up and down my neck,

murmuring soft, quiet words against my skin.

While I was still inside him, riding the aftershocks, he shuddered

underneath me and came too. It would have been too easy for me to

fall asleep like this, with my half-hard cock still inside him. As my

breathing evened out I think he figured out that this was a serious

possibility and pushed at my shoulder, laughing, to get me to roll off

him.

We cleaned up and I found our Christmas pajama pants out of the

drawer. Mine were green with candy canes, and his were red with

white snowflakes. They were cheesy, but surprisingly warm, so I

reasoned with myself that I was wearing them for their practicality.

Clean and clothed, Chris wrapped his body around mine, spooning me

neatly. I was so nearly asleep, it wouldn’t take much for me to be

dragged into unconsciousness.

“Happy Christmas, Rob,” Chris whispered from behind me.

“Merry Christmas, baby.”

“Rob. Rob. It’s Christmas. Wake up.”

His lips kissed up my chest and I wanted to smother him with a pillow

and send him back to sleep. Just for a few more hours.

“Oh, really?” I groaned.

“Yes, really. Are you awake? I want my presents.”

I laughed and pulled him on to my chest where he sprawled, knowing

that I loved him more when he was here than anywhere else. With my

fingers running through his hair, down over his back and up again, a

soothing, circular pattern, I forced myself into wakefulness and

checked the clock on my nightstand. It was a little after eight in the

morning. Not so bad after all.

“Okay. You can have your presents,” I said, then yawned widely.

“I’m going to go and make a cup of tea.”

“For me, too,” Chris said, immediately relocating to the warm space

my body had left and snuggling there. I tried to mind, but found I

couldn’t.

The apartment was cold as I quickly made my way to the kitchen,

turning the heat up on the panel in the wall when I passed it. I found

the Christmas teacups Chris had bought, they were red with white

reindeer on them and I liked them so much I was sure it was going to

be hard to pack them away until next year.

It didn’t take long for the kettle to boil and for me to make two cups

of tea. I grabbed a packet of nice shortbread cookies too, deciding that

today, it was allowed.

Chris was sitting up in bed and the cat was sleeping on his feet when I

returned to our room. He accepted his cup of tea with a smile and a

kiss and when I climbed back into bed he silently, and carefully,

snuggled back into my side.

We sipped our tea in silence for a few minutes then, without moving,

Chris whispered “Presents,” again.

I laughed and set my tea aside and reached under my side of the bed

to pull out a little pile of carefully wrapped gifts. He grinned at me

impishly and I couldn’t help but kiss him again.

Chris pulled away first, laughing, and pushed my hair back out of my

eyes.

“Stop trying to distract me.”

“I’m trying to distract myself,” I told him. His eyes were warm and

full of laughter as he gave me a quick, hard kiss before pushing me

back.

We both started unwrapping things at the same time; he’d bought me

a pair of new shirts, the style that rolled up at the sleeves that I’d

started to favor, new socks, and chocolate. For him, I’d chosen a cable

knit sweater I’d seen him looking at when we were at the mall, a few

new jockstraps, since he liked showing his ass off in them, and his

newly discovered favorite candy – Turkish Delight.

These were all the little things, as we’d agreed. His big present

though, was under the tree.

Before showering and getting dressed I headed to the kitchen to get

dinner started. Traditionally, my mother had always cooked a big

turkey at Christmas, but it seemed like a lot of effort to go to for the

two of us. The ham was a compromise – every few weeks I cooked a

joint for dinner because it was Chris’s favorite, and there was enough

left over to put in sandwiches or salads the next day for lunch.

Since it was Christmas I had found a recipe that used oranges and

cloves and honey and brown sugar, it smelled delicious as I prepped

everything and stuck it in the oven to slowly roast. I was making

accompaniments of honey parsnips and carrots, mashed potatoes,

beans and peas with mint. All my favorite things.

Chris had taken it upon himself to be in charge of dessert. While I

busied myself with the main course he worked on the other side of the

kitchen preparing something huge, chocolatey and gooey that had

homemade honeycomb in it. Desserts were his thing, so I left him to

it.

Every now and then our paths would cross on the way to the fridge or

the sink and he’d give me a hopelessly sappy look before leaning in

for a kiss. Since this was the first year Chris had spent the holiday

away from his family I wanted it to be special for him, for him to not

feel like he was missing out on anything.

“How close to being done are you?” I asked as I finished loading up

the dishwasher with the few things that I’d used.

“Two minutes,” he said.

“Wanna share a shower?”

This was usually code for
wanna go get naked and wet and jerk off?

Chris smirked at me. “Sure.”

“I’ll go get the water warmed up.”

Since we moved in together I’d completely renovated the bathroom,

keeping the large bath and walk in shower unit, but changing the tiles

from white to shades of blue and installing a wooden floor. The result

was a room that felt warmer than it had done before, less clinical.

The shower and the bath were comfortably big enough for two and

when we had time, it was a luxury to share with him. With the water

running, I stripped off my Christmas pajama pants and the t-shirt I’d

worn while preparing dinner and quickly brushed my teeth before

stepping in to the hot water.

It didn’t take long for Chris to join me, wrapping his arms around me

from behind and kissing across my back from one shoulder to the

other. I turned and found his lips with mine, sharing wet kisses as the

water poured down between us.

Naked, Chris was even more beautiful than he was clothed. When we

first met his tattoos had intimidated me, I wasn’t sure how to react to

someone who was brave enough to literally wear his emotions on his

arms. Over time, I’d started to appreciate the artistic beauty of the

images he’d chosen to imprint on himself. Each one of the brightly

colored designs had been carefully selected; not all of them had a

particular meaning, but they were all in the same style, making him

look like an old sailor.

With a cheeky grin, Chris stretched his left arm up to rest his forearm

on top of his head, then turned to me. I wasn’t particularly surprised

to see a new design on his body – he seemed to want a new tattoo

every six months or so – but this particular one made me smile.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked him.

“It depends, what do you think it is?”

I knew, as did he, that it was a thistle – an emblem of Scotland, my

homeland. The tattoo was about the size of my palm, located on his

ribs…

“Next to my heart,” he said, finishing the thought for me.

The ink was raw, new, telling me he’d probably had it done while out

doing his ‘last minute shopping’ the day before. Suddenly his desire

to make love once the lights had gone out the previous night made

sense.

“You’re mad,” I told him. “And I love you.”

He shook water back from his face and smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”

Short of tattooing my name on his body, this was the closest he could

come to a permanent symbol of our relationship on his skin. There

was no way for me to know that years in the future he’d add a banner

underneath the thistle with ‘McKinnon’ written on it – my name.

There was no way for me to know that by the time the tattoo came

along, it would be his name too.

We spent the day being truly lazy: watching TV, eating, drinking a

bottle of wine, then another, then cracking open a bottle of whiskey.

Dinner was delicious, dessert more so, and by the time evening set in

we were both sprawled on the sofa with a box of chocolates on the