Page 20 of A Very Armitage Christmas
“You’re an asshole,” he gritted out, and yanked his shirt over his head, flinging it away. My hands went to his chest of their own accord, stroking his soft skin and rolling his nipples between my fingers. “Fuck,” he said, arching into my touch. “Fuck, you’re such an asshole. I’m going to ride you, and I’m coming before you knot me or you’re sleeping in the bathtub.”
He shimmied his slim hips, somehow working his pants down without getting off of me. His long pretty cock popped free, and then he turned enough that I could glimpse the perfect, rounded curve of his ass.
“Not a problem,” I growled, getting one hand around his cock and slipping the other between his legs.
He stiffened and moaned as I pressed a finger inside him, simultaneously running my thumb over the head of his cock.
I grinned at him, not even trying to hide the way my fangs had dropped and my eyes had started to glow. Yeah, he’d come first.
And he did. Twice, the first time writhing on top of me, his plush lower lip clenched between his teeth, and the second time under me, sobbing out his pleasure as my knot forced him open.
When I’d filled him up, I lay on top of him, letting him take most of my weight, stroking his tangled hair off of his face. My whole body sang with the high of it: my mate hot and wet around my knot, his eyes half-lidded and gleaming with satisfaction, his lips parted and pink, and the mate bond pulled tight between us, not a bit of space between him and me either magically or physically.
All mine. And when we finally separated and dressed, and headed downstairs for dinner, where we’d sit next to each other and hold hands and try to ignore my dad being an ass…he’d still be mine. Part of my family. The most important part.
“Next Christmas, can we skip the revenants?” I asked him, kissing the side of his neck.
“No promises.” I could feel Arik’s smile through the bond as much as I could see it on his lips. “But maybe next year’s disaster will be Nate’s fault.”
I laughed. “Something to look forward to.” I paused a second, nipped his earlobe, smiled as he gasped a little and squirmed under me. “We have a lot to look forward to, right? Starting with the best dinner we’ve had in this house in ages.”
Arik stayed silent for long enough I wondered if he’d started to reconsider Venezuela.
Finally he said, “I can even do family dinner if it’s with you.”
I wrapped an arm under him and held him close, burying my face in his silky hair. “I love you too.”
Arik kissed my cheek and wrapped his arms around me. “You’re still an asshole.”
“Like I said. I love you too.”
Arik laughed, and I closed my eyes and rested my head next to his. Dinner could wait a little while. I had everything I wanted for Christmas already.
***
Nate escaped out of the back door from the kitchen, chased by a puff of fragrant steam and a burst of laughter from the people still inside, right as I finally got the stupid Santa upright again. The fucker was about half duct tape by weight, but he stood tall and proud, and I’d even rigged a spotlight so he’d be visible all night.
And so I could tell if anything tried to crawl out of the woods to gnaw on him. I wasfuckedif I was doing this a third time.
“I was getting ready to yell at you for leaving me alone with your mom for so long,” he said. “But I see you planned on that and headed me off at the pass. Well played.”
I grinned at him. “I’m not always an idiot.”
Nate grinned back, strolling around the Santa and inspecting it from all angles, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Not bad, not bad,” he said airily. “But it’s missing something.”
He pulled his hands back out of his pockets and laid them against the Santa’s leg, closed his eyes, and whispered something that didn’t sound like real words. Right. Some kind of spell. A soft glow transferred from his palms into the Santa, traveling up and up, twisting and whirling like smoke in the wind.
Santa’s upraised waving hand blurred, glowed, and transformed into a giant fist flipping Matthew and Arik’s bedroom window the bird.
Fuck. Yes.
“You like?” Nate pulled his hands away and raised his eyebrows at me expectantly, bouncing on his toes. He looked like a little kid, well, seeing Santa for the first time. God, I loved him so much.
“Yes, I like,” I crowed. “Arik’s gonna be so pissed. Hey!” I shouted. “Look out your window, Matt! Merry fucking Christmas, big brother!”
Nate and I stared up, and a second later the curtain twitched aside at Matt and Arik’s second-floor window. Two faces appeared: my brother, looking first annoyed and then amused, and Arik giving us an open-mouthed glare of fury.
“Oh shit,” Nate said. “Run!”
