Page 25 of The Christmas Mittens
“Like complaining about QR-codes or paper menus, which are a waste of trees, or droning on about customer satisfaction. You know, old stuff.”
I tore my muffin in half. “I might have said those things, yes.” She groaned in utter teen agony. Well, preteen. For another nine days. “And trees are a renewable resource so printing menus will not wipe out a forest as foresters will just plant new trees.”
“Did you really say something about customer service?” I nodded as I popped a chunk of sweet, moist muffin into my mouth. “Dad, honestly, why would you even? Tim is doing what the owners tell him to do. Keep interaction with customers to a minimum since it slows things down. He’s super busy and can’t just stand around and talk to people.”
That made me snicker. She glanced up from peeling the muffin paper from her treat.
“Sorry, it’s just that back in my day, when the cavemen were hunting mammoths, the people who cooked your mammoth meat at the mammoth drive-in always took time to talk to you.”
“You’re being dumb.”
“Yabba dabba doo,” I mumbled and chuckled at her blank stare. “There used to be a cartoon about cavemen, and they rolled up to a drive-in and…” She looked bored stiff. “It’s not important. I’ll try not to be so utterly geriatric the next time we go to a restaurant with no menus. I’ll just make wild guesses about what they have. Yes, I’d like a brontosaurus burger with a side of pterodactyl fries, please, extra ketchup. Oh, you don’t have those? How about a stegosaurus steak with a fat baked pill beetle with sour cream?”
“You aresobizarre.” She tried to hide a smile behind her muffin, but I caught the twitch at the corner of her mouth. My stomach rumbled, so I dove into the muffin with gusto. “You can come up for air, Dad.”
“I’m hungry.” I did love soup and bread, don’t get me wrong, but they wore off quickly, it seemed. Plus, it was way past six and dinner was going to be either something frozen or a pizza ordered in when we got home. Heck, maybe we could just do baked goods for the evening meal. I was not being a good parent with these kinds of nutritional choices.
“Why did you not eat lunch again?” The quarter of a muffin I was going to cram into my face froze an inch from my crumby lips. She plucked off a tiny bit of her muffin. “I mean, you’ve brought back your sandwiches two days in a row. If you’re hungry, why are you not eating?”
Shit. She was far too observant. “I was busy at work. I planned to eat them as a snack before bed.”
“Tuna and cheese before bed? Gross.” She turned to gaze at Timmy behind the counter, ignoring customers. Guess it wasn’t just me.
Everyone got the cold shoulder. Seemed Iwasreally getting old if that kind of new and modern thing knotted my knickers. QR-codes. Please. “I’m going to order us some bagel sandwiches for dinner.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her phone, scanned the damn QR-code glued to the table, and began typing in our order. “Ten minutes.”
“Cool beans.”
“Dad,really? The only people who say that are like Franny’s age.”
“Would you like me to say something is lit or that Tim kid has rizz?”
A look of sheer horror mixed with disgust took over her face. She then set into explaining why I was far too elderly to say such things, which took her mind off my soggy sandwiches in the fridge. I’d eat them later or toss them out into the yard for the crows in the morning. At least her mind was onto something else for the time being. I may be a crotchety old dad, but I was a clever, crotchety old dad.
Chapter Eleven
Thursday, December 17
After all these years, lunch was suddenly one of my favorite meals of the day.
Before Anders rolled into town with his fancy coat, luxury camper, and generous donations, I’d spent my noon break alone, eating sandwiches, and watching funny animal reels, fantasy vacation shows, or engine repair YouTube videos. Seems the hours between getting Gilda on the bus and going to fetch her from whatever after-school activity she was in were spent here chewing soggy bread and wishing I could be anywhere other than at this workbench. Not that I disliked my job—I enjoyed it—it was just a solo endeavor that left me far too much time to feel bad about our lonely state or how poor we were that we couldn’t go to Copenhagen on a whim. Christmas was a yearly setback on an exhausted credit card that I’d probably never get paid down due to the interest rates. So, yeah, what was once just a small timeout from work to eat blasé food was now an exciting hour spent with a man I was hot for. And, miracles of all miracles, he was hot for me too.
This was why I was now lying flat on his bed, amid a scattering of new mittens for Della that we’d tossed on the bed, as he rucked my pants down to my ankles to admire my cock. Which, I don’t like to brag, was doing a fine howdy and salute for him. We’d never gotten to the stew warming nicely in a crockpot atop his micro counter. It filled the small area with the rich smell of beef, garlic, and bay leaves. It smelled amazing. Nearly as good as the neck of the man I had just been nuzzling and sucking on for ten minutes.
“Such a beautiful cock,” he murmured before his tongue darted out to capture a droplet of precum from my tip. I nearly came unglued. This man could bring me to the brink faster than any other lover I had ever had. He wedged his wide shoulders, bared as his shirt, which now hung off a bottle of red wine in the wine rack over the bed, between my thighs. “Would you mind if I tongued every bit of you that I can reach?”
“Shit no,” I panted out in reply, brazenly spreading my legs wider. He made a pleased as punch big cat purring sound and pressed my prick to my belly to draw one of my balls into his mouth. “Oh God, oh God,” I repeated a few dozen times. He rolled one orb followed by the other around in his wet mouth, one hand pinning my dick down, the other probing ever so gently around the tip of my hole. “I’d love your finger inside me.”
He popped off, met my gaze with dark eyes the same shade as melted dark chocolate, and slid his middle finger into his mouth to wet it. I lost most of my means of coherent thought upon seeing that and grew even bolder. I threw a leg over his shoulder. He pulled his finger free from his pink lips, gave his head a shake to toss some damp curls from his brow, and pushed that spit-coated finger into me.
“Yes, yes!” I yelped when he fell on my cock, taking me down his throat with a happy hum as I writhed like a snake. He knew just where to look, for within a second, his nail scraped overthat magic knot of nerves. “Yes! Yes!” I thrust even deeper into his throat as bolts of white ecstasy exploded from that little cluster inside me outward to every nerve ending I possessed. There was no holding back. Not with him sucking like a Hoover while he worked my prostate like a pro. This man knew the male anatomy. Wasn’t I lucky? I came far too quickly for my liking, but there was no way to slow it down. My back arched so violently it cracked like popcorn as I dug one heel into the firm mattress while the other massaged the span between his shoulder blades. He drank it all down greedily as I dug at the bedding with clawed hands.
“Anders, shit, oh shit that…” I gasped and wet my dry lips. He eased his finger free of my body and proceeded to lick my dick clean. I had barely caught my breath when inspiration hit. I reached for him, sliding my fingers into his curls to pull him up and over me. I led his mouth to mine with one hand as I fumbled to free his stiff prick with the other. We managed to get his pants and briefs over his ass. He rocked into my hand on his groin, sighing in relief when I got his dick freed from its denim confines. With that meaty shaft in my palm, I wiggled downward, leaving his tempting mouth to nibble my way down to his cock. “Fuck my mouth,” I stated, grabbing one tight ass cheek to tug his dick down and into my waiting mouth.
“Mitchell…” That was the extent of love talk from him. He was eager to work himself deeper, the head of his cock now resting on my tongue, his foreskin drawn back to expose the swollen head. I took hold of another buttock. He braced himself on two locked arms and began pumping into my mouth, slow at first, then with more speed until I was choking on each thrust. He eased up slightly. I was having none of that. I slapped his bare ass soundly. He grunted, a sound of pleasure if ever I heard it, and resumed plowing my mouth and throat. I loved it all. Every gag, every rivulet of spittle that leaked out of the corners of mymouth. I loved the taste of his flesh, the tang of each burst of precum that hit my tongue, and the clench of his ass cheeks on each stroke. He came hard with hardly any warning. My mouth flooded with spend. I swallowed. He sank into my throat deeply. I held him there as long as I could, hot for his cum to coat everything from my tonsils to my stomach. He pulled out too soon for my liking. I drew in a long breath of air as spit and seed coated my lips. His cock sat on my puffy lips, oozing spend that I lapped up like a dog at a water dish.
“My God above…” he gasped, easing himself down and to his side, rolling over me and plastering his mouth to mine. We both longed for that mix of his taste mingling with mine. We kissed and kissed and kissed until we had to come up for air. “That was…you are…spectacular.”
