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  “I didn’t expect you to give up your holiday with your family,” Spence explained, “but I hoped you’d be willing to see in the New Year with me.” He stood quickly, taking a small box from the fireplace mantel and sitting back on the floor next to Connell, placing it in his hand. “I wanted you here beside me to give you this.”

  Opening the lid, Connell found a silver band edged with a delicate twisting knot pattern nestled in a bed of cotton. “It was my father’s wedding ring,” Spence said. “I know technically it wouldn’t be legal here or in England, but I want to ask you to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Connell threw his arms around Spence’s neck, feeling the tension that had infused his lover ease, replaced by a spark of joy that lit Spence’s deep blue eyes. “There’s nothing I want more than to stay with you forever.”

  “Forever sounds perfect to me,” Spence agreed readily, claiming Connell’s lips in a possessive kiss that lasted until they both had to come up for air. He slid the ring onto Connell’s finger and kissed the palm before interlacing their hands. “Not that I want to say anything to dissuade you, but will it be a problem for you to give up your job? And what about your family?”

  “As Kate reminded me, I’m a web designer—I do ninety percent of my work online anyway, so it really doesn’t matter whether I’m in England or here. Half my clients are based in the U.S. anyway. And as much as I love Mum and Kate, you’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. We’ll just have to take turns going to see them and having them come here to visit us.”

  “I’d love to meet them. It sounds like Kate is on our side already, but what about your mother? Will she be okay with your moving here to live with me?”

  “Mum never thinks anyone is good enough for either of her babies, but I know as soon as she meets you, you’ll win her over.” Connell’s brown eyes shone as he kissed Spence gently. “Once she sees how happy you make me, she’ll be fine. What about your family?” he asked in turn.

  “My family’s pretty much given up hope of my ever finding anyone,” Spence chuckled. “My mother will be so glad I’ve finally found someone to meet my exacting standards, she’ll be fawning all over you.”

  “I’m glad you have such exacting standards, since it meant you were still available when we met,” Connell rejoined.

  “I’m easy to please,” Spence insisted. “I just demand perfection. Luckily for me, I met you.” Connell’s protest that he was far from perfect was swallowed in another slow, thorough kiss.

  “It’s too bad you didn’t open the card before you left, though—you could have saved yourself the cost of another ticket,” Spence observed when Connell leaned back to rest against his chest.

  “I’d have to go back anyway to pack up the things I want to bring back here,” Connell answered. “Maybe you could fly back with me—that way you’d get to meet Mum and Kate right away.”

  “Good idea,” Spence agreed. “If you’d like, we could fly back to London right after the holiday. With both of us to help you pack, it shouldn’t take too long. We could spend a few days visiting your mother and sister, and be back here in time for the fireworks over the river on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Anything that didn’t require him going back to England without Spence was fine with Connell.

  “My mother’s birthday is in February,” Spence went on thoughtfully. “I can’t think of anything that would please her more as a birthday gift than for me to bring you to New York to meet her.”

  “Let’s do it, then. And speaking of gifts,” Connell said, “I have something for you too.” He burrowed into his backpack again, handing Spence the bag from the Christmas store. Spence undid the cushioned wrappings to extract a finely detailed, hand-blown glass saxophone.

  “I thought it would be the perfect first ornament for our Christmas tree, since it’s what brought us together in the first place,” Connell explained.

  “I love it.” Spence hung the ornament with care in pride of place at the top of the tree. “Love you,” he added, turning to Connell and taking him into his arms.

  “Love you too.” Connell’s fingers played with Spence’s tawny hair, brushing it behind his ears with a gentle kiss. “I don’t have a ring to offer you, but I came here meaning to ask if I could stay. So I guess in a way I’m your Christmas present too.”

  “Just what I always wanted.” Spence’s hands slid under Connell’s sweater, guiding him between his legs as their mouths met again, opening deeply, their bodies straining to unite at every possible point. A tremor of excitement racked Connell’s frame when their resurgent erections brushed together beneath the denim of their jeans.

  “Bedroom,” he gasped when the necessity to breathe finally forced them apart. “Now.”

  Spence was already pulling the bright red sweater over Connell’s head as they made their way the short distance to the bedroom, still wrapped in their embrace. He toed off his shoes and socks while Connell fell onto the bed after doing the same. Spence crawled up Connell’s body until he could reach his mouth again, knees straddling either side of his lover’s hips.

  “Still too many clothes,” Connell complained, soothing the words with a gentle nip at Spence’s sculpted chin. “Kneel up so I can undo your belt.”

  Taking advantage of the space between them, Spence worked at the button and zipper of Connell’s jeans, pausing only long enough to kick off his own. Connell pushed onto his elbows and raised his hips to let Spence slide the jeans down his legs, moaning when their bare cocks rubbed together at last. Gliding a palm up Spence’s hip to the small of his back, he urged his lover forward until he could close his lips around one of the small pink nipples, knowing they’d still be sensitive from his earlier attentions.

  Spence moaned and threw his head back in bliss, his thumbs rubbing over Connell’s darker nipples until they pebbled. “So good,” he husked, his hips rocking in an instinctive rhythm that dragged the silky skin of their erections together through the growing pool of fluid leaking from them both. “Been way too long.”

  “It’s been half an hour at most,” Connell laughed, gasping when Spence dipped his head to nuzzle at first one side of his chest and then the other.

  “Too long,” Spence repeated, following the thin trail of dark hair down Connell’s abdomen. “That was just taking the edge off. Need to love you the way you deserve to be loved.” His tongue lapped over the head of Connell’s cock and then swirled around it, savoring the taste and scent of his lover and even more the deliciously needy sounds he was coaxing from him.

  “Love me, Spence,” Connell pleaded, needing the physical union of their bodies to mirror the union they’d pledged to each other. He worked a hand between them to grasp his lover’s rigid shaft, spreading his legs in wanton invitation.

  “Hold that thought,” Spence groaned, swinging a knee over Connell’s torso to roll to one side and scramble in the drawer of his nightstand. After searching for a moment, he came up with a seriously depleted bottle of lube. “Guess we used more of this than I thought the last time you were here.”

  “Better stock up, because I plan on going through a lot more,” Connell chuckled, tugging at the portion of Spence’s anatomy he still held in his hand to urge his lover’s return.

  “Gonna need to conserve this ’til we can get to a store, then,” Spence countered. “After all, it is a holiday weekend.” Instead of straddling Connell’s hips again, he knelt between them, curling his palms beneath the slender buttocks to raise them to his mouth.

  Connell’s laughter changed to a moan of pure pleasure when Spence’s tongue ran up the cleft between his cheeks. Parting them with his thumbs, Spence stabbed his slick muscle into the puckered portal, the rich musky taste sharpening his own desire. Working the clenching ring to the chorus of Connell’s moans until it was wet and relaxed around him, he gasped in shock when a handful of cool gel encircled his cock.

  “Ready for you,” Connell deman
ded, pulling Spence upward. “I can’t wait a minute longer to feel you inside me.” He guided the head of Spence’s cock to where he ached for it, their groans sounding together as their bodies slid into the most intimate of homecomings.

  Connell’s legs wrapped around his lover’s hips, the change in position dragging the head of Spence’s cock over his sweet spot. “God, yeah,” he sighed, “just like that, Spence, don’t stop….”

  “Not gonna stop,” Spence promised hoarsely, “not ever. Love you so much, Conn.”

  Leaning forward, he closed his lips over Connell’s, his tongue matching the slow glide of his cock, their bodies moving as one toward an inevitable climax. As much as he wanted to make this moment last forever, the warmth of Connell surrounding him filled him with so much joy that Spence’s body couldn’t contain it, overflowing into his lover at the same instant that Connell cried out beneath him in bliss.

  Connell rejoiced in the weight of his lover’s sated body pressing against his until Spence rolled them to their sides; then he slipped from the bed, returning a moment later with a warm washcloth in one hand and Spence’s saxophone in the other. Setting the instrument reverently in a nest of pillows, he cleaned his lover’s body with equal reverence and then washed himself before returning the cloth to the bathroom and settling back onto the bed.

  “You still owe me a request,” he announced, handing Spence the sax.

  Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, Spence slipped the horn’s strap around his neck as Connell knelt behind him, resting his head on the musician’s shoulder. “What would you like me to play?”

  Connell wrapped his hands around Spence’s chest, so he could feel it expand with each of his lover’s breaths. “Every song you played this afternoon was about being alone at Christmas,” he answered. “I want to hear you play something happy.”

  Spence turned his head for a quick kiss, then raised the sax to his lips. It took Connell a moment to recognize the bluesy tune flowing from the horn as the opening notes of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

  “That’s easy,” Connell murmured in reply. “I’m spending it, and every night from now on, right here with you.”

  The trill of Spence’s horn was every bit as joyous as Connell’s voice whispering in his ear. “Merry Christmas, darling.”

  Read about how Spence and Connell met in the short story Riverwalk by Rhianne Aile and Nicki Bennett, published by Dreamspinner Press.

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

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  About the Author

  Growing up in Chicago, Nicki Bennett spent every Saturday at the central library, losing herself in the world of books. A voracious reader, she eventually found it difficult to find enough of the kind of stories she liked to read and decided to start writing them herself.

  Copyright

  Home for Christmas ©Copyright Nicki Bennett, 2009

  Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  4760 Preston Road

  Suite 244-149

  Frisco, TX 75034

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

  Cover Design by Mara McKennen

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  Released in the United States of America

  December 2009

  eBook Edition

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-320-9