“Oh Jesus Christ.”
“We get to wear them in the hot tub!”
“Jesus fuck, Crispin, couldn’t you stop him?” Crispin is supposed to be the reasonable on in that relationship.
“I love you, Baylor.” Audie picks up her hand and kisses her wrist. He’s so trashed.
“What’s your tat?” Crispin eyeballs her from across the tub.
“Oh, an Edward Abbey quote. Can we not talk about my tat right now? Lemme go get my suit on.” After yesterday, no shock she doesn’t want to discuss it.
“Quinn. Be awesome and go get some liquor.” Crispin sinks deeper.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re dry and I’m not. Then get your ass out here! And tell Amory to come out, too!”
Quinn wanders inside. Amory’s talking to Wills, who’s stuffing his face with cookies. “We’ve been summoned to the hot tub,” he says. Amory drags their stuff into their room and they strip. God, Amory’s cut; he’s got all that hard muscle, the short blondish hair on his head and the really, really, really short blondish hair around his cock. Quinn hardens looking at him. Amory smirks.
“Like what you see?”
“We’re supposed to go up to the hot tub.”
“You wanna play?”
“We’re supposed to go up to the hot tub.”
“I want you. You didn’t get fucked this morning. I know how you get when you don’t get fucked in the morning.”
Quinn resolutely turns his back, one of the most difficult goddamn things he’s done all day, and pulls his suit on. Upstairs, he ignores Amory as he sifts through the liquor, pulls out some Jim Beam for Crispin and some scotch for himself. Isa appears and grabs him. She stuffs a Santa hat on his head. “Gotcha.”
“Aw, dammit.”
“It makes Wills happy.”
Wills pauses in the cookie marathon. “It makes me happy.”
Quinn sprints out to the hot tub and leaps in. “Isa got to me.” He gestures at the hat. “And you get the Jim Beam, because I’m nice. The scotch is for me.” He passes the liquor to Crispin, then glances at Audie. “Are you fucking vaping and drinking Goldschlager at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Just making sure.”
“You want some of either?”
“I’ll hit that.”
Audie passes him the pen. He takes a long hit. “This is really good shit.”
“I only smoke the good shit.”
Amory splashes in, and Quinn curls up next to him. Everyone’s passing the pen when Audie says, out of nowhere, “I wouldn’t let many guys top me but my knees would hit the ground for Ellis.”
Quinn and Amory crack up.
“Wait ‘til I tell Ellis. He’ll be honored.” Quinn’s belly hurts from laughing so hard.
“Oh god, just don’t tell Calhoun.”
Amory grins. “What’ll it take?”
“What?”
“Not to tell Calhoun, quote, ‘I wouldn’t let many guys top me but my knees would hit the ground for Ellis?’”
Audie passes him the pen again.
“Good man.” Amory hits it.
“What about me?” Quinn looks him up and down.
Audie narrows his eyes. “What d’you want?”
“A favor. To be called in at a later date.”
“Bastard.”
“Or I tell Calhoun.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Or I tell Calhoun.”
“Fine.”
Quinn cracks up. So does Crispin.
Eventually, everyone but Wills and Calhoun end up in the tub. They’re presumably still cookie binging. Only Henry and Crispin say no to the vape pen, but like everyone else, they’ve got a bottle of liquor. No one’s bothering with glassware, and they all have bottles of water tucked in the cupholders.
“Aw, try it.” Audie holds the pen out to Crispin. He sighs, take it, and hits it, then doubles over coughing. He hits it twice more. Isa tells him to slow down.
“You’re gonna be high as a kite, son.” Henry laughs. He passes it over.
“Oh, what the fuck.” Henry hits it, then keeps hitting it. “Figure it takes a good bit to get someone as big as me stoned.”
“We’re all wearing Santa hats.” Isa starts laughing. “With our names on them.”
Crispin lets his legs float. “Oh my god, y’all. Wills and Christmas. He was Martha Stewart. I’d count how many times we want to Target but I’d cry.”
“But I got a stocking!” Baylor squeals. She floats over into Audie’s arms. He wraps around her.
“Don’t you steal my gay boyfriend, Baylor.” Isa’s possessive over the gay boyfriend thing.
“Quinn’s your gay boyfriend.”
“Audie’s my other gay boyfriend.”
“You only get one gay boyfriend and he was my gay boyfriend first.”
“Girl, Bastian and Tristan were your gay boyfriends.” Audie tells Baylor as he chugs his goldschlager. Baylor steals it. “I’m a convenient stand-in.”
“Ohmygod Bastian was your gay boyfriend?! Like Bastian McCarthy?!”
Christ on Christmas, Isa’s so stoned she doesn’t remember they already had this conversation. Like, right when they met. Lord.
“Oh sweet Jesus.” Crispin drops his head in his hands.
Baylor puts her hands on her hips “Yes. We’re like, total besties. I told you that. You’re so high you don’t remember.”
Isa cracks up. “I lost my virginity with him.”
She smirks. “Don’t I know it. I’m like, the only girl coming to this party who hasn’t fucked Bastian.”
Quinn leans over from the bubbles, which he’s sunk into up to his nose. “Delia never fucked Bastian.”
“Delia so fucked Bastian. She told me.”
“What?!” Isa and Quinn say at the same time.
Baylor grins. “So did Bastian.”
“Baylor, shut the fuck up.” Audie smacks her. “You just love to start shit.”
“Fucking knew it!” Henry slaps the water. “Totally called it. I knew she fucked him.”
“Girl fight.” Amory grins. “I love to watch girl fights.”
“We’re not fighting, god.” Baylor kisses Isa on the cheek. “I would never fight with Isa. Sorry to ruin the fantasy. And Ellis would kill your ass if he heard you say that.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
She smirks.
“Don’t!”
Her mouth twists.
“Baylor!”
Crispin, then Audie, get out to find their significant others. Delia, Lucky, and Thor arrive soon after. “Cousin!” Delia and Baylor squeal and hug and do all that stuff, then Isa and Delia do all that stuff, then Delia and Lucky and Thor have to catch up on the intoxication levels. Henry’s being really quiet.
“Dude, what’s up?” Quinn sidles next to him.
“Jax. I miss Jax.”
Aw, fuck. He means his ex.
Luckily no one can hear them over the bubbles. “And Isa? She won’t go out with me because of it. Not that we should go out, with all her issues, plus we’d kill each other. But it still sucks, you know?”
Oh god. Henry’s gone over into maudlin high. “Drink more.”
“What?”
“Drink more.”
Henry obediently begins chugging more bourbon.
“So then Grandfather tells Quinn he’s stupid.” Baylor’s laughing. “He always calls Quinn the stupid one.”
Amory, Isa, and the Jaspers are laughing their asses off.
“DUDE!” Quinn splashes over. “What the fuck?!”
“Oh. I was telling them about Christmas. We all know you’re not stupid.”
“You don’t have to tell them that, Christ!”
“You looked so cute carting around the baby, though!”
“Jesus, did you tell them that, too?!”
“You and Ellis and Amory should have a baby.” Baylor gets all dreamy. “I’d like, sooooo surrogate for you. It would be
so cute. You’d be the most adorable dad.”
“Um, I don’t wanna be a dad.”
“Yeah, it’d be kinda difficult.” Isa giggles. “When he —” Quinn kicks her, hard, under the water.
“When he what?” Baylor turns to her.
“Nothing.” Isa presses her lips together.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey, Isa!” Amory shoves the pen at her. “Hit this.”
Isa hits the pen hard. Amory squeezes Quinn’s hand underwater.
Henry eventually orders pizza, or he says they’ll all die of alcohol poisoning. They snarf the pizzas in the hot tub.
Calhoun talks to Quinn for a while. Quinn misses Calhoun something awful and they never see each other anymore. “Did you bring the game systems?” Calhoun asks.
Quinn shakes his head.
“Dammit. I wanted to play Zelda with you.”
“You can come over sometime.”
“I’d like that.” He pauses. “Link.”
“Shut up. I do not look like Link.”
“You’re even wearing a green bathing suit.”
Quinn smacks him. Calhoun smacks him back.
“You two have been at that since you were five.” Henry laughs. “And it never gets old.”
Isa splashes over to separate them. “No fighting, boys. Quinn, lemme hit that.” She steals the vape pen. “Calhoun, you wanna shotgun?”
Calhoun shakes his head.
“Quinnie?”
“Maybe from Amory.”
Baylor, meanwhile, is blathering to Thor about crows, and he’s actually interested. Amory accuses Calhoun of hating her, and Quinn’s sort of floating, with all the alcohol and pot. He cuddles Isa. Then she starts cuddling with Audie, and Quinn sits in Amory’s lap, and they keep shotgunning each other, which turns into a total makeout session. Someone says something about stockings, but Calhoun and Audie have disappeared.
“And Quinnie, stop sucking face in the hot tub. It’s rude.” Quinn realizes Baylor is talking to him.
Crispin cracks up.
“Mind your own, Baylor.” Quinn glares.
“You mind your own or I’ll tell everyone about the time you made up a dance to ‘Voulez-Vous Coucher’ and made Delia and I do it.”
“Too late.”
“Nope. Because do you remember the dance? I sure do.”
“You do not. We were seven.” No way does she remember.
“Uh-huh. I’ll prove it.”
Baylor stands up. She crosses her arms. She starts belting out ABBA and shaking her ass and moving her hips exactly like Quinn taught her. “Quinn made this up when he was seven.” She plops down in the hot tub and sticks out her tongue. By then everyone’s howling. “And they say being gay is a choice.”
“Oh my fucking god, Quinn.” Amory’s wiping away tears. “Wait til she does that for Ellis.”
“Baylor. I will kill you slowly.”
“I love you, Quinnie.”
“I will eat your liver.”
“I visited you when you were in the hospital.”
“While you’re still alive.”
“Quinnie, you love me so much.”
“She got the dance exactly right.” Delia’s actually crying with laughter. She and Baylor high-five. “You shake it, cousin.”
Quinn wants to crawl into a hole and die, except there is no hole. Thank god Amory notices. “C’mon, let’s go to bed,” he whispers in Quinn’s ear.
“Can we please before I actually, literally die in this hot tub?”
They say their good nights and head downstairs, where they strip their suits and drop them on the floor. Like all the rooms in the beach house, it’s huge, big enough for a couch and a queen-sized bed, plus its own bathroom. Quinn climbs into bed naked. Amory doesn’t bother with clothes either. He crawls under the sheets and faces Quinn.
“Hey, Baby Q.”
“Hey.” Quinn suddenly, desperately, wants to bury his face under the pillow. He at least doesn’t look at Amory.
Amory strokes his hair. “I know that was a hard night for you.”
“I want to kill my fucking cousins!”
“I know. But don’t think about them right now.”
“It’s really hard not to.” Quinn still looks down, but his stomach flutters.
“Think about this instead.” Amory presses his cock against Quinn’s. Quinn isn’t hard, but Amory is, and Quinn’s breath catches. “Want you so bad, Baby Q.”
Quinn smiles a little. “You’re calling me ‘baby.’ That means you really wanna.”
“I want to so bad. I’ve wanted to since last night. And I wanna fuck you. Not suck you off or play with your cock.” Amory strokes his face. Quinn still hasn’t looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“‘M embarrassed.”
“Why, Q? If it’s all that stupid shit Baylor said —”
“It is and it isn’t stupid! She made me look like an idiot!”
Amory sighs. “Quinn. Q baby. Shhh.” Amory scoops Quinn into his arms. He smells like Old Spice, and Quinn can’t help but nuzzle into him. “Don’t worry about all that. She was joking and all of us love you and no one cares. Lemme cuddle you some. You need it.” Amory kisses his forehead and hands him his bear. Quinn snatches it and clutches it to his chest, as if he grabs it fast enough Amory won’t notice. Amory sighs. “Quinn.”
“What?”
“Just do it. I know you want to and I don’t care and I don’t think it’s weird.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Here, then.” Amory moves so he holds his own thumb up to Quinn’s lips. Quinn gives up and opens his mouth. Amory slips it inside. Quinn sucks contentedly while Amory curls around him. Amory’s thumb feels different in his mouth. Not bad, just different: bigger against the roof of his mouth, knobbier. Quinn’s tongue explores it a little. He returns to sucking sleepily for a while, but it nags at him: Amory’s thumb. Instead of relaxing, Quinn starts to tense; he moves so his legs tangle with Amory’s and his cock rests against him.
“What’s that about?” Amory kisses him on the ear. “I thought you wanted to go to sleep, Baby Q.”
Quinn rubs against him, half-hard.
“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be a sleepy little twink. Now you wanna wake up.” Amory cups Quinn’s cock in his big, soft hand, then strokes it into hardness. “This wants to wake up.” He takes Quinn’s bear away and pinches his nipple. Quinn gasps at the suddenness of it.
“You love that. Too bad Daddy’ll get mad if I send you back covered in bite marks.” He twists a little and it goes straight to Quinn’s cock. Quinn whimpers.
“What was that? Didn’t hear you.” Amory pinches and twists the other. Quinn gasps again. “Daddy says to use your words, and he told you to behave. What do you wanna do? I want to pin you up against that headboard and fuck you. But I’m open to suggestions.”
“That.” Quinn can say that much while Amory plays with his nipples.
“What?”
“Pin me and fuck me.”
Amory kisses him, gentle and slow. He strokes Quinn’s nipples rather than pinching. Quinn wraps his arms around Amory’s neck. He kisses over to Quinn’s ear. “You want I should?”
“Open me up.”
“I love that part.” Amory turns and digs the lube out of the side table, isn’t he just a prepared little Boy Scout. Lube slicks his ass; he whines until one finger, then another slips into him and strokes the right spot. Quinn arches up. Amory kisses him again, then slides in another. Too much, then suddenly not enough when he touches that spot. Too much again when he starts fucking Quinn with them, but it settles fast, and soon Quinn jams his fists under his ass and begs.
“Back against the wall and god knows we’re gonna try not to make too much noise.” Amory gestures at the top of the bed. “Put your legs over my shoulders and your arms around my neck. Thank god there’s no headboard to bang.”
It’s awkward to get
into the right position with Amory on his knees, but once they manage it and Amory’s inside him, oh god his cock touches the right spot, and he and Quinn are so close together. He’s slicked Quinn so his cock slides between them. “Can I?”
“Do it hard?”
“Oh fuck yes.” Amory pushes him against the wall; Quinn holds onto him, and he fucks Quinn fast. Quinn closes his eyes. His cock slips between them; Amory hits the right spot over and over and over. Fuck but it’s good. It must be for Amory; he tenses fast and clutches Quinn, thrusts even harder, then spills hot inside him. Well, hell. But Quinn nuzzles him anyway.
The dismount’s pretty awkward. But Amory lies next to Quinn, smiles, slips his thumb in Quinn’s mouth, and begins jerking him in exactly the right way: a ton of lube, random pauses to play under his head. That combined with his thumb, something about the two of them, and Quinn bucks and arches and spills all over Amory’s hand. Amory kisses him. They clean up.
“God, but I fuckin’ wanted you.” He kisses Quinn again. “Want me to cuddle you til you go to sleep?”
Quinn nods. Amory cuddles him up again with his bear. He sucks his own thumb, and his eyes get heavy.
2
Amory
As soon as Quinn’s deep breathing says he’s asleep, Amory wanders back upstairs, finds some liquor, and sprawls out on the big blue suede couch. Pot always keeps him awake to some degree, and he’ll have to drink to take the edge off. He puts his feet up on the coffee table, next to the manger. Probably shouldn’t do that. Santa glares at him. Oh well. Some of the fake snow falls onto the beige carpet. Calhoun wanders in, shirtless in pajama pants. Thank god, he’s not alone up here. “Oh good, a drinking buddy.”
“Oh, I’m not —”
“You are now. What’s your poison, Grey Goose? Here.” He grabs Calhoun a bottle. “Quinn’s asleep. Fucking finally. God, his cousins are pissing him off. You have a good time?”
“What d’you —”
“Aw, c’mon, you and Audie were totally banging. Oh my god, you’re still wearing your Santa hat. Did you fuck with your Santa hat on?! OH. MY. GOD. BAYLOR!”
Baylor’s got to be awake. He heard noises. She and Isa are staying right off the living room. Calhoun sort of falls into a big armchair and curls up under a chenille throw with the liquor. He opens it and starts swigging.
Christmas Cousins: Quinn, Ellis, and Amory (Southern Scandal Book 3) Page 3
