His for the Holidays

by LB Gregg, Harper Fox, Z. A. Maxfield

  That sounded so reasonable. Chandler peeked back at Poppy. “Can I tell you something? I’m a little stressed out about having Poppy.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to mess up,” Chandler admitted.

  “Most people worry about kids. Were you and your brother close?”

  “Yeah.” Chandler tried to find the words to describe his brother. Two years older, organized, intelligent, hardworking. Genuinely caring. “I think he was my best friend. My mentor. My rock. They asked me to be Poppy’s godfather and I was so honored.”

  “But you feel like you might screw up? Is that because you don’t know much about kids? Or you think you might have problems because of what other people say about a single man raising a kid?”

  “Both. They wanted it to be me. They even made a videotape, where each one of them said why they thought it was in Poppy’s best interest to stay with me.”

  “So you only have to worry about common-sense things. You’ll get used to having a kid. It’ll get easier. Most things do.”

  Chandler was just about to tell Steve that getting used to having a kid wasn’t what he was worried about when Steve pulled the car to the curb in front of a pretty little house. Very like the others, it was a typical Craftsman bungalow with a nice front porch. It stuck out in this festive neighborhood because it was unlit and undecorated, as remarkable as a tiny cactus plant growing in some lush tropical rainforest when you considered the ones belonging to his siblings.

  “This is yours?”

  “Yeah. Surprised, huh?” Steve pulled the keys from the ignition and got out.

  “A little. I thought you’d be…more like your family. Awash with Christmas lights. Laden with decorations.”

  “I am. Usually.”

  “So what happened?

  “I’ll tell you some other time. We’ll get your things and get you settled, and then I’ll pull my Honeybee into the garage. I’ll have to move my truck.” He waved the driveway. “That’s my work truck. It makes the place look like someone’s here when I’m not.”

  Chandler read the sign on the door of the neat white utility truck. “Steve’s Painting Service? You have your own business?”

  “Yeah.”

  The truck featured a splashy rainbow pattern over the back fenders. “Not exactly subtle.”

  “People do see me coming. A colorful truck puts me in people’s memories in a good way. They don’t always associate painting with a pleasant experience. I have this truck and four panel vans. It’s usually a pretty busy gig.”

  “How many people work for you?”

  “I have about ten regular painters, a woman who handles phones and accounts, and a Rolodex full of independent drywall and texture guys. But it’s slowed a lot since the economy went into the toilet. It slows during the holidays too, which I like.” Steve pulled Chandler and Poppy’s bags from the trunk of his car. “Let’s get you guys inside and settled. I’d love an ice-cold beer.”

  “Oh, me too. I don’t suppose that would be a bad thing. I mean just one.”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I don’t know. What if something happens and Poppy needs me? What if I have to drive her somewhere?”

  Steve’s eyebrows rose. “How much does one beer affect you?”

  “Not much, I guess. I drink a lot more than that sometimes. I don’t drive, but I’m fine. I’m just…nervous.”

  “Have you been this tense since you’ve had her living with you?”

  “I guess so. I’ve never been responsible for a kid before. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Expect the unexpected.” Steve’s smile was slow and sweet. “But it’s going to be fine, you’ll see. Everyone gets a little scared going in. I’ll take the bags, you bring your girl, all right? The bed’s made up and it’s clean, so you can just pop her in there and have a beer with me. If we need to drive somewhere and we’re not fit to do it, although I doubt one beer would make that much difference, I have a neighborhood full of people who can help.”

  “Thanks, I am so glad you came along.” Chandler leaned in and unstrapped Poppy. She was the type of kid you could transfer from a car seat to a bed without waking. His brother and sister-in-law always joked about how lucky they were that she slept so well. For Chandler, since he was the type to study all possible outcomes of any situation, good or bad—what his brother had called finding a silver lining and looking for the cloud—her knack for sleeping so soundly sometimes kept him awake.

  Chandler worried about things. Burglars and smoke detectors that might not wake her up, or…he didn’t even know what. But something about how trusting she was, how she fell asleep in his arms and counted on him to keep her safe through anything—bad decisions, illness, bogeymen, and acts of nature…that humbled him. And it scared the shit out of him.

  “No problem.” Steve locked up the car and led him up a nice little landscaped path to the front door. When they got close, the porch light turned on, giving Chandler a start.

  “Oh.” He jumped back.

  “Jeez. Would you relax? It’s on a motion sensor.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Chandler. I’m really happy to help. And I like you. A lot. Why don’t you consider leaning on me a little this weekend? Two pairs of hands and eyes, two brains. You can relax. Maybe I can get my mom and sisters in on it, and we can give you a break, all right?”

  Inexplicably, Chandler wanted to refuse Steve’s offer. “It’s not that it’s so hard to take care of her. She’s great. She’s terrific. I really love her so much. I’m just—”

  “Shh. It’s all right. We all need a little break sometimes.” Steve opened the door and tripped an alarm system sensor. A shrill whistle filled the air. He motioned Chandler in. “Second door down that hall on the right. I’ll get the alarm.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chandler moved though the house, which was lit by square flat nightlights plugged in to outlets wherever he went. He found the second door and entered the spare bedroom. It was pleasant. Chandler pulled the covers back with one hand and held Poppy until he could put her down with the other. He sat next to her and undid her shoes, removing her small lacy socks and tucking them in, leaving them beside her bed.

  Steve came in with two more pillows. He kept his voice so low it sounded like a caress when he spoke, raising the hair on Chandler’s forearms and the back of his neck. “Is she a roller? I brought pillows in case. Or I can make up the air mattress so if she falls off she won’t hurt herself. I have a nephew who sleeps like a top. They finally put his mattress on the floor.

  “She’s fine like this, I think. If you make up the air mattress, I’ll sleep on the floor in here.”

  “Great, we can go into the living room and inflate it and I’ll get you that beer.”

  “Gods, yes.” Chandler gave Poppy a light kiss on the forehead and straightened.

  “Perfect.”

  * * *

  Steve had his work cut out for him with Chandler’s nerves. Dave, his older brother, had been the first among them to have kids. He’d gotten his girlfriend pregnant the summer before college. After their kid was born Dave and his wife Alice had seemed practically insane for the first few months between lack of sleep and increased responsibility. Steve had still been living at home back then and their mom had threatened to rip the phone out of the wall if Dave didn’t just relax and learn to trust himself.

  Steve didn’t know Chandler all that well, but he seemed like a good guy. Poppy’s parents would hardly have done what they had to ensure that Poppy stayed with Chandler if he weren’t, and where the wife was concerned, that was an even better argument. A mother wouldn’t leave the care of her child to someone just because he was a relative. She had to have trusted him as well. Which probably meant that Chandler just needed to learn to trust himself too…

  Steve led the now-quiet Chandler into the kitchen where he took two bottles of Corona from the fridge. “Lime?”

  “N
o, thanks.” Chandler simply looked at the bottle in his hand. Steve took it back and opened it on an old-fashioned bottle opener he had screwed to the wall.

  “Oh, hey. Haven’t seen one of those since I was a kid.”

  “I keep a Coke machine in the shop out back. With those little bottles, you know? For the kids. They like that. I put an opener in here too ’cause I like imported beer best.”

  “That’s cool. May I?” Chandler motioned toward the fridge.

  Steve nodded. “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Chandler opened the door of the big refrigerator, which was on the empty side. He pulled one of the small Coke bottles out and examined it. “This brings back memories of road trips. We’d get to those tiny Midwestern towns, and there’d be a machine in the gas station. Coke, 7UP, Bubble Up. Orange Crush.”

  “What do you call soft drinks?”

  Chandler grinned. “Pop. Why?”

  Steve smiled and leaned over to press his lips to Chandler’s. He pulled back less than an inch, only enough that when he spoke, sotto voce, his lips still brushed over Chandler’s. “Because I asked. Because that tells me you’re not from around here, where we call them sodas. You don’t use Coke as the ubiquitous term, and you’re not from the South, because you don’t say ‘a cold drank.’”

  “I see.” Chandler kissed him back, stepping into him so they were hip to hip,

  “I was kidding about that drank one, but… Uh-huh.”

  Oh yeah. Their beers forgotten, they tasted each other. Their free hands followed up, his cupping Chandler’s face and Chandler’s—wow—was working its way into the waistband of his pants in the back, looking for skin. Steve wished he could ignore the fact that every time they came up for air, Chandler looked over his shoulder to the hallway and the guest room where Poppy was tucked in bed, probably sleeping like the angel she was. Steve wasn’t sure Chandler even realized he was doing it. He just couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “Stop.”

  Chandler drew back, surprised. “Hmm?” Steve saw him trying to process the word stop while his little head was doing his thinking. Apparently it didn’t understand. “What?”

  “Finish your beer and then I’ll show you something, all right?”

  “Steve—”

  “It’s okay.” Steve leaned over to nuzzle Chandler’s neck. “Take a minute to finish your beer.”

  They stood in the kitchen drinking their Coronas in silence until they were drained, then when they’d finished Steve took Chandler’s hand and led him back to the front door. “First, look here. There’s an alarm system. All the exterior windows and the sliders are wired, along with the front door. Nobody gets in or out without us knowing, and it’s on right now, so don’t open windows and doors unless you tell me first, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  Steve led Chandler down the hall toward the back of the house. “My bedroom is at the end of that hall, to the right. There are smoke detectors in each, one in the hall, and one in the kitchen.” Steve couldn’t help it; he started mimicking a flight attendant. “The exits include the front door, the slider in the kitchen, and that door at the end of the hall, which is a guest bathroom but also has a door leading out to the backyard. There’s a hot tub, but I keep it covered and lock the cover down because kids are in and out of here all the time.”

  “So your house is kind of childproofed?”

  “I like to keep it pretty safe. Any of the kids can stay here if their folks need a break. I had a nephew who kept getting into trouble at school so he stayed with me for a couple of weeks in October while his folks cooled down. It’s handy, because it’s still in the neighborhood and we’re all family.”

  “That’s a good arrangement.”

  “They say it takes a village.”

  Chandler laughed. “You guys have your own sprawling metropolis.”

  “I admit that.” Steve nodded. “But what I wanted to show you is this.” He went to the closet in the hall by the door and pulled out a box. If he could find what he was looking for…

  “Ah. Here it is.”

  Steve pulled out a large metal loop attached to a long leather strip which had a row of sleigh bells sewn on it. He held it carefully still, and even then its muted jingle was loud in the quiet house. He led Chandler down the hall and gently placed it on the doorknob of the guest room.

  “Voilà. Early warning system.” He held his hand out to Chandler. “What do you say we go to the living room and canoodle while you’re still young and hot?”

  Chapter Six

  Chandler let himself be tugged into the living room where Steve maneuvered him onto the long leather sofa. The room itself was comfortably masculine, a little rustic, warm and inviting. Just like the man.

  Chandler hadn’t had a drink for three weeks and he’d picked at his food, so he had a pleasant buzz going. Most important of all, he felt for the first time in days he wasn’t free-falling through space with the certainty that there was an unscheduled and highly painful landing in his near future.

  “Gods.” He dropped his head forward when Steve massaged the back of his neck. It was such pure bliss, such an unexpected pleasure, he moaned out loud.

  “So tight,” Steve murmured from a place right next to his ear. There was a richness, a resonance to his voice that was exacerbated by the way he lowered it to keep it quiet. Nothing caught Chandler in the gut like a man’s deep voice in his ear. Hot breath on his neck always followed. He closed his eyes and gave in to the pure wicked pleasure of it. Gentle hands turned him a little, and soon they were working all the big muscles in his back. Kneading and smoothing his skin, pulling the tension out of him like an exorcism. “You just relax, now. You’re safe with me.”

  Chandler smiled. “Yeah. ’Cause no one ever lies about that…”

  Steve’s hands stilled. “You think I’m lying?”

  Chandler shook his head, and the hands started up again, magically obliterating his last shred of resistance. “No.”

  “You are safe here, you know.” Steve kept smoothing and soothing, working the lumbar vertebrae and then his lower back, until he gripped Chandler’s hips, fitting his fingertips into the hollows of his pelvis next to his dick. Steve paused there without moving, poised, ready to work the fastening, but still for a nerve-shattering, breathless minute. “May I?”

  “You’re sure we’ll hear her?”

  “If she opens that door, the people next door will hear her.” Steve kissed Chandler’s neck and rubbed his lips over the skin below his ear. “I’ll be dressed. You’ll grab a throw pillow, and we’re only watching television.”

  Chandler gave himself a minute to think while Steve picked up the remote and turned the set on. Headline News, with the volume low enough that if Poppy called out for him he’d hear. “All right.”

  “Thank fuck.” Steve’s hands slid all the way around Chandler to his fly, where he unfastened first the button and then the zipper. “Thank fuck, I’ve wanted to do this since I laid eyes on you.”

  With the first electric touch of Steve’s callused hands on his cock—holy cow—Chandler’s head fell back on Steve’s muscled shoulder. A bristly chin scrubbed the skin along his neck as soft lips pressed kisses just below his ear. For such large hands, they were gentle—maybe even a little too gentle. Chandler didn’t say anything and even resisted the urge to push into Steve’s hands. Everything felt so good, so right, he thought it would be fine to let it play out, to leave the control to Steve and see where it went.

  “Have you got a little buzz on board?”

  Steve’s voice could make him come. He was doing that on purpose, rumbling low and slow, his lips and voice arousing one part of Chandler’s body while his hands started to explore.

  “Yeah.” Chandler turned his face toward Steve and kissed his chin. One of Steve’s hands cupped his balls, rolling them gently, while the other pulled his cock, a long, tight stoke that ended with the roughness of four fingertips as each one slipped over the tip. Steve did it aga
in, a long pull, and then a twist and stroke over the head. Chandler’s breath hitched. “Ah, yes. Just like that.”

  “I’ll take care of you.” Steve turned his head and captured Chandler’s mouth for a kiss that devoured the moans his hands were drawing out.

  Chandler’s eyes closed and his spine arched. “Been a while…”

  “Let yourself go,” Steve said between kisses. “I’ll catch you.”

  Chandler grunted when he felt his control slipping. He grabbed on to Steve’s arms where they wrapped around him and held on. The languid stroking gave way to a firmer, faster touch. Steve encouraged him to lift his hips and find his own rhythm, and in very short order he was jabbing his cock into Steve’s closed fist. He clenched his teeth and grunted as he blew, hot and sticky, into Steve’s hands.

  Steve didn’t stop kissing him; he didn’t move his hands but gentled them, cradling Chandler’s softening cock, holding it almost reverently as Chandler’s heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out. Steve’s touch changed into the sweetest thing, tender and relaxing. It felt like slipping into a hot tub after a hard run.

  “Better?”

  “Hell yes.” Chandler kept his eyes closed and drifted.

  Somewhere Steve found tissues and cleaned him up without shifting him from his lap. That deep voice rumbled next to his ear, soothing and erotic at the same time.

  “You have a great face. You know that? When you come you look like an angel having some kind of an ecstatic vision… I just noticed a tiny scar on your lip. I plan to kiss that some more later… Kick your shoes off and put your feet up on the couch.”

  Chandler did exactly that, and when Steve turned him so he was stretched across his lap, his torso in Steve’s arms, he didn’t complain. He only wound his arms around Steve’s neck and tucked his face in.

  “Can I stay like this for a while?” he asked. “Is it okay?”

  “As long as you like,” Steve whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  “Have mercy,” Steve whispered some twenty minutes later, when Chandler started to snore. He made a patently silly sound, really. Not loud enough to be considered an actual snore, it was more of a suctiony sound, with a sweet little hitch at the end and then a deep, deep sigh. Steve doubted that Chandler would wake up until morning unless he or Poppy woke him up. He spent what he thought was probably an embarrassingly long time watching Chandler sleep. He hoped Poppy wasn’t the kind of kid who would be frightened if she found herself in a strange room. He decided he should wake Chandler in a few more minutes and then help him get that air mattress ready.