Must Love Christmas (Glasgow Lads on Ice)

by Avery Cockburn

  But right now, drowning in Simon’s hands and mouth, drunk on the feel of this lithe body under his palms and fingertips, Garen couldn’t imagine anything less wrong.

  Even as he hurried down the hall to fetch the lube and condom, his certainty remained. Because this time, it wasn’t just lust, it wasn’t just the magnetic pull of pheromones. After the last month, the gravity between them was built of something more tender and wise than anything Garen had ever felt.

  He returned to Simon’s room to find him with the duvet pulled nearly up to his chin, biting his lip in concentration as he fumbled beneath the covers with what looked like an effort to undress.

  “Let me do that for you,” Garen said.

  “I can take off my own trousers.”

  “But it’s so much sexier if I do it.” Garen set the condom and lube bottle on the bedside table. When he went to peel back the covers, Simon stopped him.

  “I don’t look the way I looked before.”

  Confused, Garen glanced toward Simon’s crotch.

  “That’s still the same.” Simon let go of the covers. “I mean my muscles.”

  “Hate to break it to you,” Garen said as he pulled down the duvet, “but you were never Mister Universe. You are a long-distance runner, after all.”

  “But even my legs are like sticks now.”

  “Your legs are beautiful, just like the rest of you.” He knelt between Simon’s thighs, careful not to tickle his belly as he drew back the open flaps of his unzipped trousers. Garen swirled a palm over the bulge in the front of Simon’s black boxer briefs.

  “You’re right,” Simon gasped out. “This is much sexier.”

  “I telt you.” Garen gave him a wicked grin as he pulled off the trousers and briefs together. He tossed them to the floor, then ran his hands up Simon’s thighs. Not only were they not “sticks,” they actually seemed more substantial than before, no doubt due to Simon’s rehab regimen and the fact he wasn’t burning away every superfluous ounce by running. “Does that feel all right?”

  Simon’s eyes closed. “Feels amazing.”

  “I wanted to do this to you when you were in hospital, just throw off your covers and massage your legs. Not for therapeutic purposes, or even to turn you on. Just to touch you.”

  Simon opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it and simply nodded.

  Garen imagined what it must have been like for Simon all those weeks, having people handle his body so clinically—like it was an object to manipulate, not a bit of divinity to worship. He wanted to give Simon’s body all the adoration it deserved.

  “Is it okay if I taste you?” Garen asked.

  Simon gave a short, sharp inhalation. “Oh, please.”

  Garen bent over and drew Simon’s cock into his mouth.

  “God…” Simon’s heels scraped against the mattress as his thighs folded in to embrace Garen. Then he gathered Garen’s hair in his hands and pulled it back from his face.

  Garen looked up to see Simon gazing down at him. He smiled and took him deeper, to the back of his throat, relishing the noises of delight. He grasped Simon’s hips with both hands, thinking of how soon he’d be grasping them with his legs.

  Soon Simon tugged Garen’s head up. “I’ll come if you keep doing that. And I really want to fuck you, so…”

  “No arguments here.” Garen handed him the lube bottle and hurried to remove the rest of his own clothes. Then he shifted up to straddle Simon’s waist so he could reach. “I could do this myself if you—oh…” He lost all words as he felt the gentle press of Simon’s fingertip against his hole. This warm, wet, welcome invasion sent a shudder up his spine, all the way to his shoulders. He clutched the top of the headboard to steady himself. “Yes…more.”

  He got more. As the sensations spread and intensified, Garen was aware of Simon’s eyes upon his face, watching his reaction to every twitch and wiggle of finger.

  When he found himself grinding down upon Simon’s hand, desperate to be filled, he knew he was ready. But first he had to confirm, just in case.

  “You still want this?” Garen asked as he fumbled with the condom, his pulse pounding.

  “More than ever,” Simon breathed, his face the picture of eager affirmation.

  A minute later, as he carefully took Simon inside, Garen whispered, “Remember this moment, love. It’s our one and only first time.”

  “I’ll never forget it.” Simon threaded his fingers through Garen’s hair and pulled him down into a long, hot kiss that melted Garen to his core. He opened up below, allowing Simon deeper and deeper with each breath, until at last they were fully joined.

  Then Garen dug his fingers into the firm, fluffy, excellent pillow and began to move.

  “Yes…” Simon let his hands fall to Garen’s thighs, where they latched on tight. “Ah fuck, yes.”

  Garen arched his back and rocked his hips, driving Simon inside again and again and again. He had no idea where he was finding the strength after the day he’d had, but he couldn’t stop. Any hint of fatigue was quickly swallowed by the need for more of this delicious fullness that was setting his whole body alight.

  Through his own rapturous haze, he watched Simon’s face and listened to his voice, searching for clues as to what pleased him most. This may have been their first time, but he sensed—he hoped with all his heart and every other body part—that it was far from their last.

  When Garen slowed to a stop to catch his breath, Simon asked, “Sound, lad?”

  “Aye, I’m…fucking glorious.” Garen swallowed hard and tucked his hair behind his ears to keep from inhaling it. “You?”

  “Same.” Simon gazed up at him. “Part of me is kicking myself for not letting this happen when we first met, but I think it’s better now we...” His voice trailed off, and he looked a bit stricken, like he’d said too much.

  “Now we actually feel something for each other?”

  Simon nodded, his face going smooth with what looked like relief.

  “I’m pure crap at a lot of things.” Garen slowly arced his hips in a figure-of-eight, provoking a dreamy smile from Simon and an even dreamier sensation within himself. “Hiding my feelings is top of that list.”

  “I’m so glad.” Simon grasped Garen’s face with one hand and kissed him. In a moment, the other hand drifted down over Garen’s back, finally cupping his arse with long, strong fingers.

  Garen began to move faster, suddenly needing more.

  “Wait.” Simon grasped Garen’s hip to bring him to a stop. “Let me take over.”

  “Are you sure you can—”

  “I’m sure.” Simon shifted beneath him, bending his knees to place his feet flat on the mattress. “Do you trust me?”

  Garen could only nod. He adjusted his position, sliding one hand beneath Simon’s shoulder to support his own weight and using the other to grip his cock. “Do it, Simon,” he whispered. “Fuck me till we come.”

  Simon began almost tentatively, but once he found the angle that made Garen quiver and moan, he worked up to a steady cadence. Garen matched it with his hand, stroking in double time. Under their duet of rising cries he could hear the staccato rattle of Simon’s race medal against the bedpost.

  Simon kept going, urging Garen’s pleasure relentlessly higher, until he felt he could disintegrate at any moment into a thousand sparks of light and heat. Garen heard his own voice pitching up with each pleading Yes, and then his tongue was tangling around Simon’s name as he soared, at last, over the edge.

  With a deep groan and a final, shuddering thrust, Simon throbbed inside him. His eyes flew open to meet Garen’s, and the moment of searing connection stole what was left of the distance between them.

  Garen collapsed onto Simon’s chest and just lay there for a long moment, feeling their breaths synchronize as they slowed. Then he slid off to lie against Simon’s side, skin-to-skin and speechless.

  Simon passed a hand over his own forehead, which held a faint sheen of sweat. Garen resisted the im
pulse to ask if he was all right. From this vantage point, he seemed well and truly…well.

  “I’m sound.” Simon arched a brow as he side-eyed him. “I know you’re wondering.”

  “Oh, just ‘sound’?” Garen managed to quip with his still-elusive breath. “Is that all?”

  Simon curled both arms around Garen and pulled him even closer. “I’m outstanding.”

  13 Days Until Christmas

  It was still dark outside when Simon woke the next morning, his body heavy with sleep. Before fully opening his eyes, he replayed the last twenty-four hours in his head, beginning with the Santa Dash and ending with Garen’s body above him—first moving in a sure and steady rhythm, then jerking and spasming as he dissolved into orgasm.

  They’d fallen asleep afterward, then risen to shower and eat, finally tumbling back into bed for a session of drowsy kissing, their bodies too tired to do more and too satisfied to need more.

  So it was only now, outside the mists of passion and contentment, that Simon recalled a potential problem.

  Garen stirred beside him. “You awake?” he murmured.

  “Mmm-hm.” Simon opened his eyes wide to see the ceiling. He turned his head to look at Garen, who was sprawled on his stomach, hair falling over the collar of his blue T-shirt and obscuring his face.

  Simon couldn’t decide whether now was the best or worst time to broach the subject, so he just went for it. “Shall I start looking for another flat?”

  Garen’s head jerked up. “What? Why?”

  “You said we can’t live together and be together. The morning after we met, remember?”

  “Ohhhh.” Garen flipped over onto his back, then ran his palms up and down over his forehead, as if coaxing blood to flow to his brain. “Well, considering all that’s happened since that morning…” His voice trembled a bit. “I think maybe we’ve moved beyond that?”

  Simon’s hard exhale ended in a nervous laugh. “Definitely. This was your rule, anyway, not mine.”

  “It made total sense at the time.” Garen moved in to snuggle close against Simon’s side, pressing his face into his shirt and inhaling deeply.

  “I don’t disagree.” Simon wanted to turn over to face Garen, to give him a thorough kiss, damn the morning breath. First he mentally reviewed the three simple steps:

  1. To roll to the left, fling the right arm over the chest.

  2. Pull up the right knee, keeping the right foot on the bed, until that leg forms a triangle, and allow it to fall over the other leg.

  3. Shift hips slightly, and boom—rollover complete.

  But as Simon went to start Step 1, he realized it wasn’t that easy. His right arm felt like a breeze block had fallen on it. He tried harder to budge it, which only made the imaginary breeze block catch fire.

  “Garen…I can’t move.”

  “Mmm, me neither.” He nuzzled Simon’s shoulder. “Glad it’s my day off. I need to be at the rink by ten, though, so—”

  “I mean, I literally can’t move.”

  “What?” Garen reached across him to turn on the faerie lights. “What’s wrong? You’re paralyzed? Is it all starting over?”

  “No.” Simon tried to move his left arm and was rewarded with a shooting pain from his shoulder to the tip of his middle finger. “At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh my God.” Garen went to touch him, then drew back his hands, his eyes flashing up and down Simon’s body. “Oh my God.”

  Simon cautiously stretched one leg, then the other, feeling only half the pain he felt in his arms. “What time is it?”

  “About seven.” Garen’s voice shook. “Why does it matter?”

  “My physio will be here for my appointment in two hours. Catriona will tell me what to do.”

  “‘Do’?”

  “Like if I need to go back in hospital.”

  “Oh my God.” Garen scrambled off the end of the bed and began to pace. “This is because of yesterday, isn’t it? I never should’ve made you do the race. How could I be so stupid?” He pounded his temple with the heel of his hand.

  “You didn’t make me, and it wasn’t stupid. My physio cleared me to try it, remember? She said I have to balance the risks of overexertion with the benefits of boosting my spirits.” Simon hissed in a breath as the pain seemed to leap from one shoulder to the other. “She said there’d be setbacks, that it’s all part of the process.” He was trying to convince himself as much as Garen.

  “How can you be so calm? You can’t move.”

  Simon started to reply that he wasn’t calm, before realizing he actually was. Maybe he was simply too tired to panic, or maybe he’d already overcome so much that this latest development seemed almost routine. “I’ve been worse, and I got better. And I know I’m safe now. You’re here.”

  “Yes, I’m here. That’s the problem, isn’t it? This is all my fault. You shouldn’t have done the Santa Dash, and you certainly shouldn’t have fucked me.”

  “I disagree on both counts.”

  Garen clutched at his hair, clearly not listening. “The day you came home, you said I would be very bad for you—”

  “That was a joke.”

  “—and now it’s come true! I broke your body. I’m clearly a danger to your health and maybe even your life.”

  “Please calm down,” Simon said.

  “I can’t calm down!”

  “Then leave me alone.”

  Garen stopped pacing. “What?”

  “You’re making me feel worse. So go to your room, or the kitchen, or wherever you need to go to get a grip.”

  Garen stared at him, his eyebrows pinching together. “But I-I can’t leave you like this.”

  “I’ll survive for five minutes while you get your head together.”

  Garen took a step toward the bed. “Let me just—”

  “Go. Now.”

  His face pinched, Garen turned toward the door, then spun back to pick up his Santa suit from the floor. Then he was gone.

  Simon realized he still needed to get up, if only to piss. He focused on his left arm, which hurt less than the right. The process of getting out of bed began with that arm.

  With great effort, his breath puffing out like that of a woman in labor, he managed to get his left arm across his chest. The leg would be easier. He formed it into a triangle and dropped his knee over his right leg. Finally he shifted his hips so he was lying on his right side. Progress! he thought as a cheering section played in his mind.

  But now he was stuck, for he couldn’t push himself to sit up without using his right arm. “Bollocks.”

  Stop your whingeing. People with injured or missing arms get out of bed every day. He just needed to be creative.

  Garen had left the walking frame within reach. Simon grasped the top of it and pressed down, trying to lift his upper body so he could sit up. But the frame was too far away to give him leverage. He tried again, rolling forward, hoping to slide his legs down to keep himself from—

  Oh shit.

  —falling.

  “Aaaugh!” he cried out as he crashed onto the floor. The pain in his limbs seem to splinter him into a dozen pieces.

  Footsteps thundered down the hall.

  “Simon! What happened?”

  “What does it look like? I fell out of the fucking bed.”

  Garen shoved the walking frame out of the way and knelt by his side. “I knew I never should’ve left.”

  “Not your fault.” As the shock of impact subsided, Simon began to laugh.

  “Are you injured?” Garen was patting him down like a police officer searching for a weapon, which for some reason Simon found hilarious. “Did you break anything? Did you hit your head?”

  “Not really.” In fact, Simon’s head was the part of him that hurt the least. “I don’t need an ambulance, if that’s what you’re asking. But maybe phone my physio’s office and see if Catriona can come sooner than nine?”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course.” Garen stood, then spun in a ci
rcle. “Phone…”

  “On the bedside table.”

  “Right.” Garen picked it up, then fumbled it. It thumped to the floor an inch from Simon’s nose. “Oh my God, sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” Simon said, silently thanking himself for buying a heavy-duty phone case. “I’ll make the call.”

  He dialed the office and was relieved to reach his favorite physio assistant, Michael. Simon explained what had happened, then Michael put him on hold while he went to speak to Catriona, who was currently with another patient.

  Meanwhile, Garen was pacing again, twisting his hands together in front of his chest. “What did they say?”

  “Nothing yet.” Simon stretched his right leg and felt only a shadow of an ache. “Michael didn’t seem alarmed.”

  “He’s probably faking calm so you won’t panic. That’s what these people do. They try to manage you.”

  Simon wished someone would manage Garen for him. He was about to ask him to leave the room again when Michael returned to the phone.

  “Simon?” he said. “Catriona will be there at eight.”

  “Ah, thanks very much. What shall I do until then?”

  “Is your flatmate there?”

  Not entirely. “Yeah, why?”

  “You can try to get up with his help, or you can wait until Catriona arrives so you’ve got two people to assist. Just let the pain be your guide, she said. In the meantime, have him make you comfortable and fetch you your morning dose of gabapentin.”

  After they hung up, Simon related what Catriona had said, leaving out the part about Garen helping him up by himself. Neither of them were ready for that rodeo.

  Garen slipped Simon’s pillow under his head, then draped the duvet over him before fetching his pain pills and some water. He seemed calmer now that he had specific instructions.

  Finally Garen reclined on the floor behind him, resting his forearm and hand on Simon’s side. “Is this okay?”

  “It’s good.” Simon relaxed at this steady touch. “You’re good for me, Garen.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not.”