Dylan pulled Austin in close at his hips, slotting their cocks together in that delicious way, and leaned in for a kiss. Austin groaned, carding his hands underneath Dylan’s hat and into his black hair. Dylan felt the man’s cock harden as he ground his own against his lover. Austin never failed to light Dylan on fire. “Fuck the party. I want you again,” he whispered against Austin’s soft lips. “And again.” He bit Austin’s bottom lip and trailed his hand down Austin’s chest to unhook the button on his slacks. “And again.”
Dylan knelt, pulling slacks and boxers down around chiseled hips. He bit and licked at Austin’s skin, savoring the scent and taste of his man. Austin’s hands tugged at Dylan’s hair. He looked up, and Austin was smirking down at him with his devil’s grin. So mischievous and playful. “I love you, baby,” Austin whispered, petting Dylan’s head in affection. The clear love in Austin’s expression propelled Dylan’s lust to higher heights, forcing his desire into a shocking thirst that needed to be quenched.
Dylan pulled Austin’s large cock into his mouth and sucked. He wanted to make Austin come hard and fast; he wanted Austin dazed with pleasure. He relaxed his throat and sucked him down so far he could feel him at the back of his throat.
“Yes, love,” Austin moaned. He was a vocal lover, which worked beautifully for Dylan since every moan and cry incited his passion further. Austin dug his hands into Dylan’s hair and began to fuck his mouth, thrusting that needy cock of his in and out of Dylan’s already swollen lips. Dylan could taste Austin’s precum. That salty essence was the sweetest taste on earth to Dylan. Nothing could compare. Dylan grabbed Austin’s hips, urging him to fuck his mouth harder.
“Yes, baby. Yes, right there. I love your lips on my cock. Fuck!”
Dylan trailed a set of fingers into the seam of Austin’s ass and rubbed his rim. Austin came with the force of a fire hose, his cum jetting into Dylan’s mouth in satisfying and salty bursts. Dylan glanced up as he swallowed, not wanting to miss the erotic expression of pleasure on his lover’s face. It was beautiful as always.
Austin pulled Dylan up by his shoulders and kissed him. He nibbled on Dylan’s lips and licked at him tenderly, lovingly. Dylan wrapped his arms around Austin and rested his head against the muscular man’s shoulders. Austin was barely an inch shorter than Dylan, the difference so minuscule Austin never even noticed it.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Austin murmured into Dylan’s dark hair, his voice sending shivers down Dylan’s spine and comforting him. “But was that worth being late to this party and missing out on all your mom’s baked goods? You know she’ll follow through on her threat, and I know how much you love all those desserts.”
Dylan pulled back, still marveling at how Austin could in any way doubt how much he loved him. “More than worth it.” He framed Austin’s face with his hands, gazing into those deep green eyes. “Because I love you.” Dylan kissed him slowly, savoring the feeling of that plump bottom lip as it gave way to his tongue. “Merry Christmas, Austin.”
“Merry Christmas, Dylan.”
Feeling a tad smug, Dylan watched Austin put his clothes back to rights and don his winter gear. The snow was falling steadily, guaranteeing an authentic holiday party for the hostess with the mostess, Mrs. Danica Johnson.
“You ready for this epic night?” Dylan asked.
“What’s the big deal with this party, anyway?” Austin questioned. “Your mother made it sound like it would be the end of the world if we missed it.”
“Oh, you dear, naive young thing.” Dylan shook his head, putting his black hat and gloves back on.
“I’m older than you,” Austin muttered, shaking his head in good fun.
“Mrs. Danica Johnson’s ChristmaHanuKwanzikah Extravaganza is the event of the year in my hometown. If you don’t get an invitation, you are pretty much labeled a grinch and are considered a pariah.”
“Why’s that?” Austin laughed.
“Because only an antisocial grinch wouldn’t get an invitation from the exuberantly cheerful Danica Johnson. She loves everybody.”
“She sounds like a trip.”
“She’s actually…sorta awesome. She doesn’t care what people think, she says whatever is on her mind, and everybody loves her for it.”
“Why is it so important to your mom that we go?” Austin asked, stopping Dylan from opening the front door with a hand on his wrist. Dylan smiled, seeing the small hesitation and understanding Austin needed some time to collect himself before braving the party. Moving back to his hometown was simply coming home for Dylan, but for Austin it was a new world with new small-town challenges to face. Dylan wanted Austin to understand there was nothing to be scared of in this town. He wanted Austin to not only live here, but to feel like he was home. A little background on the exuberant Danica Johnson would be just the story to help Austin acquaint himself with his new town.
“Mom and Mrs. Johnson have been aerobics buddies for as long as I can remember, although I think it’s Zumba buddies now. Mom always helped Danica organize this massive party. She used to talk about all the details and shenanigans that went on during the planning, and it sounded amazing. I’ve always wanted to go, but I was at my dad’s during the holidays, so I was never able to.”
“Ah, the joys of divorced parents.”
“Hear, hear.” Dylan mimed holding up a glass in a salute. “Well, with us moving back into town this year, my mom is bent on me finally attending her best friend’s party.”
Dylan smiled at the memory of his mother’s fierce declaration. Come hell or high water, Dylan and Austin were going to this party. Admittedly, Dylan was excited to attend the famous get-together. He’d personally known a few of the older Johnson sons, had attended high school with them, and every year after Christmas break, they’d come back telling hilarious stories about the party. This guest was found in the closet with that guest. This guest got so drunk he started singing “Oh, Holy Night” in perfect Latin.
After moving away for school, Dylan forgot about the stories and all that the season entailed in his hometown. But ever since moving back with Austin this past year, he was excited to be a part of it…and with a man he loved more than anything. He couldn’t wait to show Austin off to his old town and claim the handsome man in front of everyone.
“I should warn you, the party has unofficially been labeled mating season.”
“What?” Austin asked with a chuckle, sounding perplexed by the odd nickname. “Why?”
“Danica manages to fix up at least one single adult with one of her many grown kids or some other unsuspecting single person. Her ability to see a potential love connection is uncanny. She gets it right every time. All her married children either met or proposed to their significant others on Christmas Eve.”
“You don’t think that’s really why your mom is crazy about us going to this party, do you? So you’ll meet the right woman and leave me for her?” Austin asked, his tone indicating he was joking. Dylan saw through that casual and carefree veneer; he could see the man who had been tossed aside by his family and left to flounder.
“Please.” Dylan laughed. “My mother loves you, and you know it. You’re never getting away from us, Austin.” Dylan grabbed the lapels of Austin’s coat and pulled him in close. “Deal with it.” Dylan leaned forward with a smile and gave Austin a series of small, playful kisses.
“Fair enough,” Austin said with a sigh as they parted. “I think I can handle being chained to you and your crazy family for eternity.”
“Yeah…” Dylan hesitated. His mother might not be sending him to Danica’s party to find a woman to replace Austin, but she sure as hell had her own motives. He couldn’t let Austin go to this party unprepared in case his mother decided to inexplicably start throwing women at them. He’d been thinking about it for a while but never found the proper time to broach the subject. “But don’t relax just yet. My mom may have mentioned recruiting Danica to help find a lady to add to our relationship.”
“Tha
t’s why she wants us to go so badly?” Austin laughed loudly, slapping his knee in glee as his Southern twang let itself be heard. “We should have told her we were bi sooner.”
Dylan shrugged, not knowing how to take Austin’s reaction. Was he laughing at his mother’s antics, or was he happy with the direction the conversation had taken? “My mom thinks we’re hopeless without a woman.”
“Well,” Austin said, playing with the tip of Dylan’s ear. “I don’t need anyone but you, baby.”
“Neither do I,” Dylan said, leaning into Austin’s hand. He wanted to keep talking about it but didn’t know how to continue the conversation. Austin bent his knees to catch Dylan’s downcast gaze.
“What are you thinking?” Austin asked.
Dylan decided to throw caution to the wind and be honest. “Do you ever miss being with a woman?”
“Sometimes.” Austin nodded, surprising Dylan with how quickly he answered. Maybe Dylan wasn’t the only one thinking about a woman’s curvy shape and soft skin. “Just little things.” Austin moved to open the door, but Dylan stopped him.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Their smell. Their hair always smells like flowers—”
“Or fruity.”
“Yeah.” Austin laughed, running his hands through his blond hair. “What do you miss?” he asked, turning back to Dylan. “Tell me, please?”
“We’re gonna get ourselves into trouble here,” Dylan prevaricated, encouraged by how excited Austin was getting.
“C’mon,” Austin teased right back with a grin, playfully poking Dylan in the cheek. “It’s just a game.”
“I miss… I don’t know. This isn’t something only women do or have, but that rumpled look in the morning. They’ve got leftover makeup under their eyelashes, sleep lines on their faces, and hair sticking up every which way.”
“Is that why you’re always horny in the morning? Because I’m rumpled?”
“Oh, baby,” Dylan purred. “You all rumpled is like sex on a stick.”
“What else about women?” Austin asked after his booming laughter subsided.
“I miss…small hands. Shapely hips.”
“Soft cheeks.”
“Mm…yeah.”
“Not that I don’t love your cheeks,” Austin added at the exact same time as Dylan said, “Not that I don’t love your hands.”
They laughed at their idiocy, clearly having wanted the same thing but too nervous to discuss it with the other. Dylan reached out to Austin and was suffused with familiar warmth as Austin’s long fingers intertwined with his.
“So we both miss women,” Austin said.
“Apparently.” Dylan squeezed Austin’s hand in agreement.
“Would you ever want to…”
“Add a woman? Only if you wanted to.” Dylan would never do anything to jeopardize their relationship. “I love you, and I know you love me. I know that nobody, man or woman, could ever come between what we have. We worked too hard to get where we are, Austin. From you dragging me out of the closet, kicking and screaming, to everything with your family…I have full confidence that we can weather anything coming our way.”
“Even a woman?” Austin joked, ever the playful one.
“Even a woman,” Dylan echoed, appreciating his handsome lover and letting the love he felt for Austin fill his features, never wanting Austin to doubt how much he loved him.
“Okay…what does this mean?” Austin asked as they opened the door and finally stepped onto the snow-covered stoop.
Dylan couldn’t believe they were on the same page about this, but it was fucking exciting. “I think it means we are open to it.”
“Right,” Austin said evenly. Dylan could hear him reining in excitement. “We won’t actively go searching for a woman. If it happens, it happens.”
“Right.”
“Right. Do you think her hair will smell like flowers?”
Chapter Two
Miserable. She was miserable, as she knew she would be, as she always was at the damn ChristmaHanuKwanzikah Extravaganza. Mercy Johnson wasn’t the most sociable person on the planet. In fact, she was what she liked to call an extreme introvert. It didn’t mean she was depressed, and it didn’t mean she hated people, contrary to what her family believed. She just enjoyed the solitude. Others needed to speak and interact with their friends and families on a constant basis in order to thrive. Mercy was the exact opposite. She thrived on quiet evenings, a good book, and a glass of wine for company. Nothing was more ideal.
Then came Christmas—her own personal hell—that time of year when her dear family and friends gathered together and tortured her within an inch of her sanity. The constant questions. The worrying that she would live her life as a miserable spinster if she didn’t get out more and meet the man of her dreams. That particular statement usually came from her enlightened brother, Tucker. She knew they all loved her and only said those things with the best of intentions, but couldn’t they take a hint?
She endured year after year of the same answers to the same questions. It was never ending, she dreaded this season with an anxiety bordering on hysteria, and it had only gotten worse. Hearing the first notes of a holiday song on the radio was simply a reminder of the pain to come.
But her brother Niall—thank God for him—made good on his promise to take the heat off her by parading his new fiancée, Katie, and her massive diamond around the dining room. Stupidly, though, she had underestimated how awful this year’s party would be for her. She’d thought having a few years of separation from the infamous Mercy-Lucas event would let her fade into the background. She shook her head rapidly from side to side, trying to physically dislodge the unpleasant memory from her mind.
“Hey, psycho!” a deep voice called from the entryway. “The voices talking to you again?”
“I’ll have you know, Jacob, that I have not heard any voices for a whole two days. I’m completely cured!” She laughed as her eldest brother scooped her up into a hug and spun her around like he did when she was a kid.
“Hey, pip-squeak.” He laughed in that boisterously jolly way of his and gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. No matter how old she grew, she would always be the baby in her big brother’s eyes. Jacob had just turned forty, and he had never seemed more at home with his large physique, black hair, and blue eyes. He was the first of the Johnson siblings to get engaged on Christmas like their folks, though not the first to get married, much to her embarrassment. He now had two precious daughters, and his wife, Jennifer, was six months pregnant with the third. Jacob was apparently taking after their parents in his voracious need to breed.
“How’s the solitary confinement going?”
“Are you already starting to bust my balls?” Mercy griped, pinching his massive biceps in annoyance. He swatted her away like a fly, as he always did, emphasizing the difference in their sizes. “I’ve only been here twenty minutes, and four—count it, four—old ladies have tried to set me up with their sons or grandsons. I should go hide in the attic now and nap through the rest of the evening.”
“Mom says she found raccoon droppings up there last week.”
Mercy deadpanned, “The raccoons would be better company.”
Jacob laughed, throwing his arm around her shoulders in order to guide her back to the living room, the center of the party. The grand fire was ablaze, and the piano player their mom traditionally hired was plunking his way across the keys. It wouldn’t be a Johnson Christmas without the horrific piano player, so they kept hiring him back, much to the guests’ amusement. Mercy had a sneaking suspicion the guy had caught on to the joke and played worse so he’d get more pity tips. The Santa-face cookie jar sitting on the piano was already overflowing with singles. His strategy seemed to be working.
She’d never liked the man. There was something unkind and off-putting about him. Last year he’d made one too many comments about her ex-husband’s infamous indiscretion. She’d almost punched him. In all honesty, she couldn�
��t remember why she hadn’t.
“We’re worried about you, pip-squeak.” Mercy and Jacob sat on the old red love seat, and he pulled her close against his side. She rested her head against his shoulder and sighed, content and thankful for the moment of peace. Mercy might complain, but she dearly loved all eight of her older brothers, as crazy and overprotective as they were.
“Nothing is wrong with me; you don’t need to be worried. There’s nothing wrong with living alone.” She looked up at him, using her big blue eyes to her advantage. “You wouldn’t begrudge me my me time, would you?”
“If I thought you were only using that as an excuse to run from your problems? Yes, yes, I would.”
Mercy huffed, pushing away from him to stand. She wasn’t in the mood for any lectures from her many siblings, relatives, and random acquaintances she barely knew.
She brushed some wrinkles off her dress and then propped her hands on her hips. “I’m not running from anything, and I’m not hiding away from the world. I just like being alone. That is it. There is nothing more to it. Done and done.” She leaned down to give Jacob a peck on the cheek. As she turned to leave, thinking how much she needed a drink, two of the most beautiful little girls stopped her in their tracks. They were blonde-haired, blue-eyed angels.
“Aunt Mercy!” they shrieked in that octave only children seemed to be able to accomplish. Mercy grinned and dropped to her knees, arms thrown wide open to receive the bouncing girls in a big hug. They didn’t stop squealing once.
“Jessica! Gillian!” Jacob yelled, covering his ears. “Enough. No more shrieking, please. You’re making Daddy’s ears melt.”
That stopped them.
Jessica, who was only five, glanced over at her father with big blue eyes and said, “But Daddy, if your ears melt, we can scream as loud as we want.”
Jacob glared at Mercy, who was cackling like a jackal, proud of her nieces for being little pistols.
“I blame you for this, devil woman.”
“Jacob, I can honestly say your daughters are perfect.” Mercy squealed right alongside the girls that time.
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