Let It Snow

by Heidi Cullinan

  Frankie lay naked on top of the sheets, knees bent and agape, letting Marcus get a good, hard look at him.

  Marcus drank in the sight. The flickering firelight certainly helped things along, but in his opinion Frankie would look like a sea of sex on those sheets even under fluorescent lamps. Long and lean, his body glowed from more than just reflected light. His skin was smooth like cream, all except his cock, which jutted out red and hard from his dark blond nest, curving slightly to the left.

  Slicking up his hand, then his cock, Marcus knelt over Frankie, lowered himself into place and took that pretty red cock in hand.

  Feeling their cocks together was damn fine, but Marcus loved the sensation of Frankie squirming underneath him full stop. How the hell Frankie thought he wasn’t masculine, Marcus would never know—he’d fucked girls, and there was absolutely nothing feminine about the way Frankie pushed at him, wiry muscle taut in his arms, hips firm and forceful as they ground against Marcus’s. This was saying nothing about the hot, needy cock throbbing in Marcus’s hand and driving his own dick crazy.

  “Oh God.” Frankie’s fingernails cut into Marcus’s shoulders, thrusting back enough to jar Marcus’s rhythm. “Fuck me. I want to feel that fat thing in my teeth.”

  Marcus wanted to thrust in right then, but he tucked Frankie’s leg up and snuck his fingers down instead, teasing then working insistently at his opening. “Condoms are beside me. Suit me up.”

  Frankie did, and Marcus loved the way his lover’s whole upper body shook as he tried, losing his grip entirely whenever Marcus pushed his fingers in a little deeper. Frankie whimpered, but when he finally had the condom on and he looked up at Marcus, his expression was feral. “Do it. Show me rough. Fuck me. Right now.”

  Marcus moved Frankie’s thighs back, lined up and drove inside. When Frankie cried out, he paused, but Frankie opened his eyes back up and glared, so Marcus drove in again, and Frankie resumed moaning and begging Marcus incoherently.

  It all went pretty quickly after that—any hope of drawing it out to an epic marathon fuck was gone when Frankie grabbed his own ankles and gave Marcus a look of such naked abandon that he literally saw red. He fucked fast and deep, all thought lost except fucking that tight hole until he came, which in an embarrassingly short time, he did. He didn’t even realize Frankie hadn’t until he felt a hand slip between them, jerking hard and sharp before Frankie followed after.

  They slumped together to the mattress, Marcus holding on to the condom as he slid out. “Sorry,” he murmured, the word more of a slur.

  Frankie, who looked like melted butter, rolled his head lazily toward Marcus and regarded him as if he were crazy. “What for?” His words were even more slurred than Marcus’s.

  “Should have—” Marcus fumbled with awkward, barely responsive fingers against Frankie’s thigh. “Should have gotten you off first.”

  Snorting, Frankie shut his eyes and caught Marcus’s clumsily questing hand. “No complaints here, Papa Bear.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow at that, but when Frankie nuzzled closer, pressing a kiss against his lips, he forgot to ask. When the kiss deepened, drawing him into a soft, still place, he removed the condom, dropped it on the floor, and drew Frankie into his arms, the petals on that flower inside him slowly, tenderly opening to bloom.

  Chapter Nine

  FRANKIE WOKE SNUGGLED against a broad, hairy chest. A thick beard buried into the back of his head, and a much thicker chub of morning wood rubbed naked against his sore but happy ass. For half a second, he felt self-conscious, wondering what turns their relationship would take without whiskey and in the full light of day. Then Marcus’s hand slipped around to Frankie’s cock, and all thoughts of shyness evaporated with the promise of a morning hand job.

  As he came into Marcus’s fist, Marcus following suit in the tight heat he’d made fucking between Frankie’s thighs, footsteps on the stairs announced Arthur’s and Paul’s arrival into the main room. Frankie stilled, the red in his face having precious little to do with exertion, but when Arthur leaned over the back of the couch, he only laughed a deep belly laugh and ruffled Frankie’s already untidy hair.

  “Got some good lungs on you, half pint.” He slapped Frankie’s rump, making him yelp. “Bet you got a sore butt too.”

  “Arthur,” Marcus grumbled in warning. His voice against Frankie’s back felt good. So did the hand still lingering on Frankie’s balls.

  Arthur rolled his eyes. “Get off. He’s not that fragile a flower, not according to what I heard.” He whistled low. “Damn. You sure you don’t wanna come play with me and Paul, sugar bean?”

  “Fuck off, Arthur.” Marcus’s body tensed around Frankie’s. Arthur laughed and headed to the kitchen.

  Frankie nestled back, reaching for Marcus’s hand and twining their fingers together.

  Marcus brushed a kiss at his nape. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Frankie nodded and brought their joined hands up to kiss Marcus’s knuckles. When Marcus shifted his body, drawing Frankie in deeper, he closed his eyes, carried away by the bliss of the moment.

  “You look happy,” Marcus observed, and Frankie had enough presence of mind to hear the current of unease underneath. Are you? went unspoken, but it was still there.

  “I am. Totally.” Swallowing his self-consciousness, he turned to face Marcus. “Last night was great. This morning too. But last night—” He shivered in memory. “Well. That was…epic.”

  The word felt silly, but Marcus beamed, and Frankie decided silly was worth it. “Oh yeah?” Marcus said.

  “Oh yeah.” Frankie sobered and traced a finger into the hairy burr of Marcus’s chin. “Though…if it’s okay, I really don’t want to do a threesome or foursome with the others.” Blushing, he added quickly, “I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but—”

  Marcus stopped him with a deep, searing kiss, and when he lifted away, he nuzzled against Frankie’s nose and mouth. “I don’t want to do a threesome, or a foursome, with anybody—ever. But particularly I don’t want to share you with Arthur and Paul.”

  The caveman possessiveness of Marcus’s statement thrilled Frankie, made him want to melt into the bed. It made him want to spread his legs too, but his ass really was that sore, and anyway, his legs were all tangled in the sheets. He gave what he hoped was a coy smile but probably just looked like a goober face. “Okay.”

  Marcus’s expression gentled a little, but he was back to grumpy, gruff Marcus as he stroked Frankie’s face and continued. “This can be it, if you want. Because I know I’m a headcase about relationships. I already want to nail Arthur to the shed wall for even thinking about fucking you, and I don’t have that right.” He pursed his lips and withdrew from Frankie.

  Frankie grabbed him and pulled him back, heart pounding. God, he was going to go back to Minneapolis, find that fucker Steve and make sure his hair fell out, every last strand. “I want you to have that right.” He blushed, bit his lip and corrected himself. “I mean—okay, I know this can’t work, you and me, because we live a zillion miles apart. I also get that you fucking my brains out isn’t a relationship. But—” He bit his lip again but couldn’t stop his smile. “Well, maybe we could pretend, while we’re snowed in.”

  Though he still frowned, Marcus sounded intrigued. “Pretend what?”

  Pretend we just fell in love and everything will be happily ever after. Frankie traced the pink of Marcus’s mouth with his fingertip. “Whatever we want. We can sleep together at night, flirt during the day—we can decorate a tree for Christmas, maybe plan a special meal. You know. Relationship stuff.” When Marcus’s face didn’t change, he backpedaled. “Or not. Or we can just fuck—all I mean is that I like you, and well, we’re here, stuck together. It’s not a bad stuck to me. It’s like a weird forced vacation.”

  He reached up and teased Marcus’s hair, his gaze focusing as his mind began to whirl with possibilities. “I’d love to do your hair, whatever else we do or don’t do. Your mom’s hair too, but I�
��d love leaving you knowing for five weeks you’d think of me every time you looked in the mirror.” Marcus’s expression was still unreadable, and Frankie sighed and pushed playfully at his chest. “Okay, you have to say something now, even if it’s to tell me everything about my idea is stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid.” Marcus ran a thumb over Frankie’s lips. “Yeah. We can pretend. Everything you just said is good with me.”

  It was? Frankie beamed and looped his hands around Marcus’s neck. “Great. We’ll have to get a tree, maybe make Arthur do it.” Remembering what Marcus said about jealousy, Frankie sobered. “I won’t let Arthur flirt with me. While I’m your fake boyfriend, nobody else gets to touch me but you. Not even for flirting.” Marcus started to object, but Frankie stilled him with a finger against his lips. “No. This is about us having fun and feeling good, and you just said that’s what you need. Besides, it makes me feel like a princess, knowing I have a big scary bear keeping everybody at arm’s length from me. And yes, I was one of those little boys who put on my mother’s shoes and asked for dresses in my dress-up drawer.”

  Marcus lifted an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth. “Oh? You still have those? Because John Inman, he was a killer pantomime dame too. That’s basically a British drag queen.”

  Frankie shook his head. “Left that behind at ten, I’m afraid. Being treated like a princess, though? Yeah, I’ll admit I still want that, unmanly or not.”

  “Quit calling yourself unmanly. You’re your own kind of man, princess fantasy included.” Marcus’s smile eased into something comfortable and sure that made Frankie’s insides flutter. “I can make you my princess for a few days. Not sure what that makes me, though. Your prince? King? Woodsman?”

  Frankie laughed. “It makes you my big grumpy Papa Bear,” he declared, and brought Marcus’s smiling face down for another kiss.

  MARCUS WASN’T EXACTLY sure about this whole pretend-relationship thing—not that he didn’t want to do it. That was actually the problem. Were Frankie a local, he’d want to have a relationship with him, and how. He’d be working up great date nights in his head and shuffling his schedule to have as many of them as possible. Frankie wasn’t a local, however, and Marcus really, really wasn’t moving back to Minneapolis. Their relationship was a nonstarter. Logic said he shouldn’t even play with this kind of fire for a minute.

  Logic, however, didn’t take a shower with Frankie and get on its knees to kiss his tender hole better until Frankie sobbed with need and came against the tile. Logic didn’t get to watch Frankie turn aloof and move closer to Marcus when Arthur teased him about letting him have a go when they emerged for breakfast. Logic didn’t get to have Frankie smile up at him and look as if being brought tea and oatmeal was the greatest kindness anyone could ever give him.

  Logic could fuck itself, because Marcus was going to milk every second of this pretend-boyfriend business, no matter how much it would hurt when Frankie went home.

  Even Arthur thought the temporary relationship was a good idea, when Marcus told him about it as the two of them went out to find a tree while Frankie and Paul strung popcorn. He didn’t explain the arrangement exactly, but when he made it clear that he and Frankie had hooked up temporarily, Arthur clapped him on the back and gave him a hearty grin as they got the Ski-Doos ready.

  “Good for you, Marky. From the sounds of things, you’re off to a good start.”

  “It’s just during the storm,” Marcus repeated, more to himself than to Arthur. “We’re having a good time together, but it’ll have to end.”

  Arthur nodded. “Sure. Though maybe you’ll surprise each other and things will work out somehow.”

  “I can’t let myself think that way.” Marcus didn’t realize he’d tensed up until Arthur clapped him on the back.

  “I know, old friend—so let me think it for you.” Arthur sighed and patted his belly as he stared out into the storm. The snow had stopped, but the wind was still bad. “So, we shouldn’t go far to find this tree. I figure we’re going to end up with a Charlie Brown one, but we might as well find the best we can. Where do you suppose we should look?”

  Marcus rubbed his beard. “What about the other side of the hill there? That stand of pines before the lake—one of them has to be the right size.”

  “Either that or we could pull an Emmet Otter Christmas and use a branch instead of a whole tree.” Arthur pulled his goggles down and straddled his Ski-Doo. “Let’s go find some Christmas cheer.”

  They did end up finding a tree, a four-footer that was only slightly lopsided, and ten minutes after its discovery it was hewn and strapped onto the sled. Back at the cabin, Marcus brought the tree in himself, carrying it over his shoulder as he ducked it under the porch roof toward the door. It felt good, bringing home a tree, knowing that Frankie would be pleased to see it.

  Frankie was, and then some—he praised the tree up and down, refusing to hear anyone speak ill of the most beautiful, perfect tree anyone had ever brought into his life. He thanked Marcus and Arthur—but mostly Marcus—for bringing it in, and as Arthur and Paul fired up the grill on the porch to make steaks and pork chops to go with more chili, Marcus and Frankie decorated the tree.

  “I thought you were going to string popcorn,” he remarked as Frankie handed him a paper chain made out of magazine and newspaper clippings.

  Frankie grimaced. “Yes, well—it turns out you need that puffed corn without hulls or a lot more patience than I have, because half the time the kernel breaks or you prick your finger. So we made paper chains instead, though I still want to make ornaments. I just have to figure out something that’s not paper.”

  “What about yarn, or cloth? We have both in that trunk on the far wall from the winter when Paul thought we should all learn to knit.”

  This made Frankie laugh, as he’d intended him to, but it also made Frankie tip his head to the side and regard him curiously. “Wait, I thought you’d only lived with them for seven months?”

  “Yes, but I visited a lot before that, and I always took an extended vacation around the holidays to be with my mom.” He draped a paper chain over a branch, admiring the way even in its simplicity it dressed up the tree. “I stayed in Minneapolis for half a year after Steve and I broke up before I came north. I don’t know if I was waiting for him or something else, or if I was just stunned. I wish I hadn’t lingered.”

  “Because of your mom.” Frankie touched his arm in gentle reassurance before reaching for another chain. “I hope I get to meet her before I go home. I really want to do her hair now.”

  “The storm wasn’t half so bad as I’d thought when we were out getting the tree. It’s blowing, but we could get into town tomorrow. Roads are shit, but so long as we stick to daylight and Ski-Doos, we’re good.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Frankie smiled and leaned against him, cradling Marcus’s arm and resting his head on Marcus’s shoulder as he admired their tree. “This is nice. We put up a tree in our apartment back home, but Josh and Andy always end up fighting over the decorating scheme.”

  “Not you?” Marcus asked, surprised. “I would have thought you’d be the first one in there, wanting to set things right. Even when you’re borrowing our sweats you look color-coordinated.”

  Frankie slapped his chest playfully. “No, I don’t get in the tree fight, because what I want is a homey tree. A lopsided, beautiful, cutesy-cheesy, mismatched thing full of collected ornaments. I want a family where I get a new one every year, where I put the date and the name of who gave it to me on it so I can think about the moment I got it each year as I decorate. The rest of my house I’d have themed and tricked out à la Martha Stewart, but my tree I’d always make homey.”

  Marcus stared at the paper chains, imagining Frankie’s tree full of ornaments, and Marcus ached to have that be his tree too. A vision flashed of him coming into a beautifully decorated room, the tree sparkling in the background, he with a package in his hand. Frankie would open it and smile, delighting at the or
nament, then give Marcus a kiss before hanging it on the tree. Marcus could see the scene so clearly it hurt.

  Clearing his throat, he slipped out of Frankie’s hold. “Let’s get you your yarn and cloth.”

  Frankie squealed with delight when he saw Paul’s old supplies, and half an hour later Frankie had commandeered the dining room table to cut out shapes and directed them all to cut holes for hanging. They stopped long enough to eat their steaks and chops and chili, and then they went back to decorating, laughing when Arthur made a penis ornament, laughing harder when he faked sounds of pain and agony as he stabbed a needle through its tip. They played another round of cards, and had more whiskey, and when dusk fell and hunger began to gnaw at them, Marcus heated up more chili. At the very end of the day, they sat together in front of the fire, Paul beside Arthur on the sofa, Frankie curled against Marcus on his lap in the easy chair.

  “So.” Paul eyed Marcus as Frankie snuggled deeper and Marcus stroked his arm. “The two of you are an item now?”

  Marcus was about to reply, “For now,” but Frankie said, “Yes,” simply and with finality, and kissed Marcus’s cheek.

  Paul grinned. “Great. God knows Grumpy needed some softening up.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Looking forward to hearing from you tonight.”

  This part Marcus wasn’t sure how to play, not wanting to embarrass Frankie but—well, he wanted to embarrass him later in much the same way he had the night before, or along those same lines. He glanced at Frankie, who blushed and smiled.

  “Tell me more about your childhoods,” Frankie urged. “Tell me about the three of you growing up in Logan. Tell me about Logan.”

  Paul, Arthur, and Marcus glanced at each other.

  “There’s not much to tell,” Paul said eventually. “It’s not a big town at all. It has the grocery we went to, which is probably pathetic compared to everything in the Cities. We had what everybody called the dime store until the mid-nineties, when we got a sort of Walmart knockoff. Hardware store, library, post office, bank. There’s Logan Manor, the care center, which is run by the county, but it’s the only nursing home so everybody goes there who needs that kind of care. There’s the Lutheran church, of course. Used to have a Catholic one, but they couldn’t keep a priest. Couple of bars, beauty salons—sorry, stylist salons, or whatever—a barber shop, and an electronics repair place. There’s the café, and we’ve had a coffee place a couple times but they never stick. Used to have a bookshop, but that’s long gone. There’s a knitting place, but I think it’s going to go under. We have a couple antique joints, and there’s always somebody who starts something up for tourist season, a knickknack shop or some such, but they never last. We have a city hall with fire and police—fire is volunteer, police is two officers. We share a school with Pine Valley—they built a K-12 complex between the two of us, because it’s twenty minutes either way. When we were kids, we still had a school in town, but all of us graduated from the cornfield school, as we called it.” Paul rubbed his beard, then shook his head. “That’s about all there is to tell.”