Once they were alone in the elevator, Griffin and Mick burst into laughter.

“Oh my God,” Griffin said, half-laughing, half-groaning. “You don’t talk much but when you do, it packs a helluva punch.”

“I learned from the best,” Mick said.

In unison they said, “Nora.”

Mick leaned back against the elevator wall as it headed up to the thirty-seventh floor.

“Plus, she called me a twink,” Mick said. “Only Alfred’s allowed to call me your twink and only because he makes the fancy grilled-cheese sandwiches.”

“Plus he’s British. Even when they’re insulting you it sounds classy.”

“I still can’t believe you had sex with her,” Mick said, grinning to show he wasn’t angry, only playfully horrified.

“I was so drunk,” Griffin said, rubbing his forehead. “Like for a full week. And I was twenty, I think. Or maybe I was twenty-one. It’s all a blur. That’s my only defense.”

“Her name is Bitzi.”

“You fucked a Pearl.”

“I know.” Mick winced. “And I wasn’t even drunk. I have no excuse.”

“Forgive me?” Griffin asked.

“Always,” Mick said.

“Always?” Griffin asked, cupping the back of Mick’s neck. It felt strange touching Mick’s neck and not feeling the leather of his collar against his hand. “You sure about that?”

Mick was a lot of things—intelligent, talented, submissive, artistic, sensitive… Aggressive he was not, but that didn’t stop him from putting both hands on Griffin’s shoulders and kissing him. It was a hard and hungry kiss and Griffin kissed him back twice as hard and twice as hungry.

“I guess you’re sure,” Griffin said against his lips. He had Mick’s face in his hands and he looked into his eyes.

“I have a Christmas present for you,” Mick said, a little breathless and glassy-eyed, just the way Griffin liked him.

“I have one for you too,” Griffin said. “But I’m going to fuck you before I give it to you. How’s that’s sound?”

“Perfect. I’ll give you mine before, during, and after.”

“Before, during, and after? What kind of present is this?” Griffin asked.

Mick smiled at him. “You’ll see.”

Griffin kissed him again, pushing him up against the elevator wall, pinning Mick there with his full body weight.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” Griffin breathed.

“I missed you more,” Mick said.

Griffin grinned at him, put his mouth to Mick’s ear, and whispered, “Prove it.”

The elevator door opened and Mick smiled a seductive heated meaningful smile. Griffin couldn’t wait to find out what it meant.

“Guess what?” Mick said.

“What?”

“I can.”

Mick picked his backpack up off the elevator floor and stepped out into the hall. Griffin grabbed him by the hand, almost dragging him to their room—suite 37A.

Griffin opened the door and pulled Mick in after him, shutting it behind him and locking it. He slammed Mick’s back to the door. Griffin’s cock was already painfully hard. He hadn’t had sex in weeks and hadn’t had sex with Mick—the one person in the world he most wanted to have sex with—in over three months.

“If I don’t get inside you soon, I’m going to die,” Griffin whispered. “Literally. Bleeding to death on the floor. You don’t want to kill me, do you?”

“If you don’t get inside me soon, it won’t matter. I’ll be dead, too.”

“Do you want me to hurt you?”

“After,” Mick said. “Fuck me first.”

Griffin held Mick by his chin and forced his face up. “What do we say when we want something?”

“Please fuck me, sir. Please?”

“Say ‘please’ again.”

“Please?”

“Say ‘sir’ again.”

“Sir…”

“Say ‘fuck me’ again.”

“Please, please fuck me, sir.”

Griffin could hear a note of desperation in Mick’s voice. If Griffin’s cock could talk, it would probably sound about like that.

“Bedroom. Now.” Griffin clasped the back of Mick’s neck hard enough to leave bruises and marched him from the door through the sitting area and into the bedroom. The concierge had brought all of Griffin’s things up as requested. Griffin glanced around. Over ten years since he’d been in this room. Crazy…the room looked exactly as he remembered it—pale-blue and silver striped wallpaper, white curtains, ornate furniture and windows that looked down onto Manhattan. Per Griffin’s request, the concierge had brought in a Christmas tree decorated with white lights and an angel on top. He didn’t turn on the lamp by the bed. The lights from the tree alone lit up the bedroom, and it seemed as if a thousand stars were watching them.

“Do you have my collar, sir?” Mick asked between feverish desperate kisses.

“No. I left it at home.” Griffin was already working on the buttons on Mick’s vest. “I didn’t want to jinx it.”

Mick laughed. “You thought I wouldn’t want you?”

“Even doms have insecure moments. And you did leave me.”

“Only for a few months. Just so we could figure stuff out.”

“What did you figure out?” Griffin pulled the vest down off Mick’s shoulders and dropped it on the floor. He started in on Mick’s pants.

“I figured out I wanted to be with you even if it hurts sometimes,” Mick said as Griffin started at the bottom of Mick’s shirt and unbuttoned his way to the top. “Because you’re worth the pain. See?”

Mick didn’t wait for Griffin to take his shirt off him. He pulled it off and dropped it on the floor next to his vest.

“Oh my God,” Griffin said, his eyes flying open wide, his heart catching in his chest. Mick raised his right arm over his head so Griffin could see it all. “Mick…you got a gryphon tattoo?”

After that Griffin couldn’t speak. He could only touch. The tattoo on Mick’s right side was solid black. But though the color was simple, the design was elaborate. The head of the ornate mythical beast was on Mick’s stomach and its body wrapped around his side and back. He’d had to raise his arm to show Griffin the wing that stretched almost vertically up Mick’s side. With his fingertip, Griffin traced the outline of the gryphon—its proud head, its wings, its long tail that curled on Mick’s back. He could feel Mick shivering from the light touch. It was easily the most beautiful tattoo Griffin had ever seen in his life, and it was on the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life.

“You did this for me?” Griffin asked.

“For us,” Mick said. “And for me, sir. I needed the pain.”

“This must have taken hours.”

“Two weeks, three hours a day.”

“You did the design?”

“Of course,” Mick said. “It had to be perfect.”

“It is perfect,” Griffin breathed. “You’re perfect.”

“I pretended it was you,” Mick said, putting his hand on Griffin’s shoulder to steady himself as Griffin ran his hand over the tattoo. “It was easy. Felt like getting flogged by fire. I had to come after every session. I almost came during a couple times.”

Griffin didn’t laugh. He couldn’t stop caressing the tattoo, especially the wings…the majestic wings etched along Mick’s ribcage from hip to chest. The tattoo was still new enough Griffin could feel the raised edges of it.

“Is it healed?” Griffin asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Griffin pushed Mick down onto his back on the bed and straddled his hips. He kissed Mick, but not on the mouth. He started at the throat and worked his way down Mick’s chest, kissing and licking and biting. Mick wound his hands in Griffin’s hair and the lights from the tree illuminated Mick’s chest and arms. That wasn’t enough naked flesh for Griffin so he pulled back and yanked Mick’s shoes, socks, pants and underwear off in one near-violent motion.

Seeing his Mick naked on the snow-white bed was everything Griffin had wanted and dreamed of for three months right before his eyes. For a few seconds he did nothing but feast upon the image. They’d been lovers since Mick was a skinny, long-limbed skater boy who could barely get ten words out of his mouth around strangers. Since then, Mick had put on almost twenty pounds of muscle and looked like the young man he was instead of the scared teenage boy he used to be. But even Mick’s broader shoulders and extra muscle didn’t alter the air of vulnerability Mick always wore around him like an invisible aura. Invisible, but Griffin could sense it. The scars from Mick’s suicide attempt were still there, hidden under the wing tattoos on his wrists. And the damage his father had done to him by making him feel like a freak his whole life was still there, lingering under the surface just like the scars under the ink. Healed wounds were still wounds. Knowing that brought out Griffin’s most fiercely protective and possessive instincts with Mick.

“Collar or no collar, I own you right now,” Griffin said.

Mick gave him a look, that look, that fuck-me-until-the-world-ends look.

Now it was Mick’s turn to say, “Prove it.”  

Griffin grabbed Mick, dragged him closer, and licked his cock from base to tip. Mick shuddered with pleasure underneath Griffin, which led to Griffin smiling up at him and saying, “I rest my case.”

Lying on his side, Griffin wrapped an arm under Mick’s right thigh, locking them together. He took Mick’s entire cock into his mouth, sucking on it deeply, massaging every inch of it with his lips and tongue. Mick rewarded him with a sound that was somewhere between a gasp, a moan, and a cry. Griffin had missed that sound.

“You have permission to come,” Griffin told him. “In fact, consider it an order. But take your time. I’m in no hurry…”

And he wasn’t. He could do this all night. He loved having Mick’s cock in his mouth. The only thing Griffin enjoyed more than giving Mick pain was giving him pleasure. And the only thing Mick enjoyed more than the pleasure Griffin gave him was the pain.

Being with Mick again brought Griffin’s body back to life. For months he’d felt dormant, half-asleep. But now he’d woken up. His heart raced and his thighs clenched and his stomach tightened. Under his kilt, his erection throbbed and as the wool tickled him, it throbbed even harder. Mick’s hips were moving against Griffin’s mouth. His breaths were coming in short bursts. With his free hand Griffin reached up and pushed his palm into Mick’s throat, not enough to cut off his air but enough to make him feel the pressure. It worked. Mick arched so hard his back came off the bed, and he came into Griffin’s mouth with a rush of salt and heat.

Griffin swallowed every drop of him.

As Mick lay there panting between his slightly parted lips, Griffin kissed his hips and lower stomach.

“Don’t move,” Griffin said. Mick lifted his hand to give him a thumbs up. Griffin laughed. “Feeling good there?”

Then Mick gave him two thumbs up.

God, Griffin had missed Mick. Yes, the sex he’d missed, the kink, owning this gorgeous boy of his…but that right there, a tired, post-orgasm thumbs up that had them both giggling—that was love right there.

“You’re insane,” Griffin said. “You know that, right?”

“I haven’t had any kink in months. I’m suffering from oxygen deprivation.”

“Let’s get you breathing again, shall we?”

Griffin threw his black leather duffel bag on the bed and unzipped it. From it he pulled an anal plug, a tube of lube, black leather wrist cuffs, a long bondage strap, a spreader bar, ankle cuffs, and a flogger (the vicious stinging kind).

“On your stomach, sub,” Griffin ordered and Mick complied without hesitation. On your stomach, sub were four of Mick’s favorite words.

It was jarring at first seeing the tattoo on Mick’s back. His body was different now, and Griffin couldn’t wait for his body and Mick’s to get intimately reacquainted. But not quite yet. Griffin had a few things to do first.

Griffin applied a likely excessive amount of lube to Mick. They hadn’t had anal in months. Better safe than sorry. Griffin may have taken an unnecessary amount of time with this step, but he couldn’t get enough of touching his sub inside. He carefully inserted the anal plug to open Mick up. That was it for the gentleness. Griffin yanked Mick’s arms behind his back and buckled the leather cuffs on his wrists and ankles. With the bondage strap, Griffin tied Mick’s wrists to the bed frame. He cuffed Mick’s ankles to the spreader bar—a two-foot spreader. Perfect. Griffin picked up the flogger and struck the center of Mick’s back. Then he did it about a hundred more times.

Griffin didn’t aim for Mick’s new tattoo, but he didn’t actively avoid it either. The tattoo was healed but still sensitive. He couldn’t help it if he loved the sounds Mick made when his agony and ecstasy intersected.

When Mick’s back and shoulders glowed a bright red, Griffin dropped the flogger. He sat at Mick’s side and kissed the welts. And since Mick didn’t have his collar on, he kissed the back of his neck.

“You want me inside you?” Griffin asked into Mick’s ear.

“As soon as possible,” Mick replied in a low and desperate voice. “Sir.”

Griffin sat up and pulled his tuxedo jacket off.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Will you leave the kilt on?” Mick asked.

Griffin smiled down at Mick. Sometimes he could pull off the stern scary dom-thing that Nora and Søren were so good at. But not now. Nothing could stop him from smiling.

“You’re as bad as Nora,” Griffin said.

Mick grinned back. “That’s not true.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. I’m as good as Nora.”

“Better,” Griffin said.

“I’m better than Nora?”

“Oh yeah, she doesn’t put out for me anymore.” Griffin winked at him and Mick laughed. And that was the best. The two of them. Alone. Laughing together. Together laughing. Now it was Christmas.

Griffin bent and kissed Mick’s naked shoulder while he eased the plug out. Then he pulled up his kilt and rubbed lube all over his erection. With such an enjoyable task he usually took his time, rubbing and stroking and making Mick watch and wait. Not tonight. Tonight he finished fast, more eager now than he’d ever been to be inside Mick.

Eager as he was, Griffin moved slowly as he pushed the tip of his cock into Mick, penetrating him with a long, controlled stroke.

Griffin groaned loud and long as he sunk into Mick. Mick released a sigh. Griffin could feel the tension Mick had amassed during the beating now leaving his body.

“You did miss this, didn’t you?” Griffin asked as he pushed into Mick again meaningfully. “You missed my cock in you.”

“So much,” Mick said. “Every inch.”

“How many inches?”

“Eight and a half,” Mick said.

“You sure? We better count.” Griffin pulled all the way out. “Count.”

“One,” Mick said as Griffin pushed in just the tip.

“Two.” Griffin tilted his hips just slightly.

“Three.” Not slamming into Mick at this point was taking every ounce of self-control Griffin had.

“Four,” Mick said with a grunt as Griffin’s cock pushed passed his G-spot.

“Five…” The grunt turned into a groan as Griffin went deeper. His thighs were hard as steel as he tried to steady himself.

“Six.” Griffin gripped Mick’s hip and squeezed it. He shifted his knees and lowered his mouth to Mick’s neck.

When Mick counted seven, Griffin bit the back of his neck. When Mick flinched from the pain, Griffin pushed in as far as he could go. Almost.

“Eight,” Griffin said for Mick. Then with one more brutal thrust, he said, “And a half.”

The counting lesson over, Griffin gave in to his need and fucked Mick like his life depended on it. He rode him with long strokes, strong thrusts, full and possessive pushes, all the while caressing Mick’s sore back, rubbing the still-burning skin. It still wasn’t enough for Griffin. He pulled out again and unstrapped Mick’s ankles from the spreader bar and pushed him onto his back.

“Knees up,” Griffin ordered and Mick obeyed, bringing his knees to his chest so Griffin could fuck him face to face. They hadn’t had sex in months, but this wasn’t the sort of thing one forgot how to do. It was so easy to be with Mick, so natural. Religious people, the kind not like Nora and Søren, sometimes called the sort of sex he and Mick had “unnatural.” They didn’t understand that this was the most natural thing in the world for them, joining their bodies together, being with each other and in each other. What was more natural than their bodies following their hearts?

Griffin bent low and kissed Mick on the mouth, a deep kiss with mingling lips and tongues and breaths.

“I’ve missed making love to you,” Griffin said.

“Is that what this is?” Mick asked.

“I love you so it has to be.”

“I was scared you’d stop loving me,” Mick said and Griffin knew exactly what he felt. “I got the tattoo because I was afraid I wouldn’t have you anymore.”

“That’s the one thing you never have to be afraid of. Never.” Griffin touched Mick’s face with his fingertips, touched his hair which was always so soft. They kissed again for a long time as Griffin moved inside Mick. The kiss only ended when the need to come grew too great for Griffin to hold off any longer. Clutching Mick by the shoulders, Griffin rode him with deep strokes. Mick was panting again. Sometimes if the angle was perfect and the mood was right, Mick could come solely from anal penetration. To help him along, Griffin held Mick’s cock in his hand and lightly massaged it.

There were no words for the sight of Mick lying on white sheets with his eyes closed, his arms tied to the bed and his head thrown back. Griffin pressed his lips to his exposed throat and came hard with a series of quick short thrusts. Beneath him, Mick whimpered from his own orgasm. The tension was unbearable, all tight knots and straining muscles. Then it was over. Done. Griffin collapsed onto Mick’s chest. Mick went still underneath him. His only move was to wrap his legs around Griffin’s lower back, his favorite place to rest them.

Griffin felt Mick’s chest move. He was laughing.

“What?” Griffin asked.

“I think I got come on your kilt,” Mick said with a sigh. “Sorry about that.”

“I hope you did,” Griffin said. “I’d be disappointed if one of us didn’t.”

“Pretty sure you’re not going to be disappointed.”

Griffin flipped the kilt up and saw a telltale white stain.

“Good boy,” Griffin said, giving Mick a quick kiss before pulling out of him and disentangling their limbs.

Mick rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom for the post-sex cleanup routine. While he was gone, Griffin found his gift for Mick and set it under the tree. He pulled the covers down on the bed and relished the night ahead sleeping with Mick spooned against him. If Mick was planning on staying the night, that was.

Griffin stripped out of his socks and tuxedo shirt and pulled on a black T-shirt from his overnight bag. When Mick emerged from the bathroom he wore nothing but the ankle and wrist cuffs. He seemed in no hurry to take them off.

“I have your Christmas present,” Griffin said.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Mick reminded him as he sat on the bed. If Griffin was ever going to be put in a spaceship all alone and sent rocketing across the Milky Way never to return to earth and he could only take one photograph with him, it would be a picture of Mick sitting on a white bed wearing black leather ankle cuffs and wrist cuffs and nothing else. Except maybe his collar. That’s all he was missing.

“I got my present early. Now you get yours.”

He nodded at the tree and Mick walked over to it somewhat warily.

“It’s not something big, is it?” Mick asked. One of the first requests Mick had ever made of Griffin was “no more big presents.” No sports cars, no original Picasso paintings, no ski lodges in Aspen. Normal presents. Socks. Goofy t-shirts. A new skateboard. Griffin had reined in the urge to buy Mick every awesome thing on earth. But this gift was different. This gift had cost him nothing and everything at the same time.

“Just a little something,” Griffin said. “It’s a little weird. But I wanted you to have it. I’ve been holding onto it for a long time.”

“How long?” Mick picked up the slightly weathered envelope from under the tree and brought it back to the bed.

“I’ve had it about ten years.”

“Wow,” Mick said sitting back down on the bed cross-legged. “Are you sure this is for me?”

“It is. You’ll see. Open it.”

Mick gave him a curious look but he did as he was told. He gingerly tore open the envelope and pulled the letter out.

“Read it out loud,” Griffin said. “I don’t even remember what is says, it’s been so long.”

Once more Mick gave him a look, a little skeptical, but he did as he was told.

Griffin saw Mick’s eyes flash at him, more curious now than ever. He kept reading.

Griffin waited, not speaking. He watched Mick fold the letter up and slip it back into the envelope. He set the envelope on the white table by the white bed. He stood up and walked over to Griffin who looked up at him. There was a moment, a long one, where they only looked at each other without saying a word.

Still not speaking, Mick went down on his knees and rested his head against Griffin’s thigh. Griffin bent over and laid his cheek against the center of Mick’s back.

“I was terrified,” Griffin said as he traced the edge of the gryphon tattoo with his fingertip again. He would never tire of doing that.

“Of what?”

“Of you being away from me for three whole months. You being across an ocean without me in a foreign country. I could handle missing you that long, but I hated the thought of you being on your own. What if someone tried something with you? What if someone tried to hurt you, and I was four thousand miles away?” Griffin would never forget slamming Mick’s dad into a wall. That hadn’t been the first time Griffin had to get physical with someone because of Mick, and it hadn’t been the last either. “I kept talking you out of going because I didn’t want you somewhere I couldn’t take care of you. It was wrong of me to guilt trip you into staying when you had to go. I just want you to know that. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t do it again, and if I try to do it again, tell me, and I’ll stop. Deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

“And if I do that, you won’t leave again, right?”

“I can’t,” Mick said. “You’re a permanent part of me now. You can take off a collar. You can’t take this off.” He laid his hand over the gryphon on his stomach. “I need what you give me.”

“I give you what you need.”

“You do.”

“So we’re doing this?” Griffin asked, his heart clenching like a fist in his chest. “This forever thing? I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just saying no more breaks. If something’s broken, we fix it. We don’t throw it out.” 

Griffin felt Mick nodding against his leg. “I don’t regret going to Rome, but three months apart was more than enough for me.”

“Okay,” Griffin said. Mick sat back up and looked at him. “We’re in it to win it. No more breaks. You and me and for always. Sound good to you?”

Griffin held Mick’s chin in his hand.

“Sounds perfect.”

“Do you want to stay the night with me here?” Griffin asked.

“I want to stay the night with you everywhere.”

“We’ll start with here tonight. Get back in bed. I want to violate you some more.”

“Can we do something first?” Mick asked.

“Maybe. What is it? I might be feeling generous.”

“I have to go get something.”

Mick started to stand up but Griffin put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back to his knees.

“Crawl,” Griffin ordered.

Mick’s breath caught in his throat and his pupils dilated. Typical sub. A slut for rug burn.

He watched Mick crawl from the chair over to his backpack and back again.

“Give it here,” Griffin said, holding his hand out. Since he’d had to crawl on his hands and knees, Mick carried his eyeliner pencil in his mouth. He dropped it in Griffin’s palm.

“Sit up,” Griffin ordered. “And hold still.”

Griffin uncapped the pencil and angled Mick’s face into the light.

“Go easy on me,” Mick said as Griffin carefully lined Mick’s eyelids. “Jared Leto, not Adam Lambert, okay?”

“I’ll make you look like Ozzy Osbourne if you try to tell me what I can do to you again,” Griffin said, putting on his most stern dominant voice as he finished his work. Mick looked beautiful as always, but now he looked like his Mick again, the Mick who lived on his knees for Griffin.

“Ozzy who?” Mick asked.

“Oh, you’re getting it now, sub.”

“Is that somebody from long, long ago?” Mick asked. “Like your childhood?”

“Keep cruisin’ for a bruisin,’ pain slut. I have the misery stick with me, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Griffin pushed Mick onto the bed.

“Use it,” Mick said. “I’m out of practice submitting. You’ll have to beat me back into it.”

Griffin grinned at him, that demonic sort of grin he used when attempting to terrify subs.

“Challenge accepted.”

Five minutes later and with the aid of a sheet and his bondage strap, Griffin had Mick tied to the headboard of the bed in a kneeling position. Mick was sitting on his heels with his hands over his head. His entire back, from neck to thighs, was on beautiful display.

Griffin took a thin flexible cane two feet in length and flicked it against Mick’s back under his right shoulder blade. Mick flinched. Anyone would. Nothing stung quite like a cane. But Griffin didn’t want Mick simply flinching. He wanted him in pure agony. So Griffin flicked the cane again. Right onto the very same spot he’d hit before.

Then he did it again.

And again.

Over and over Griffin flicked the same sensitive spot under Mick’s shoulder blade. Ten times. Twenty times. His pale skin turned pale red, then bright red, then a blazing burning scarlet. Griffin could sense Mick recoiling, twisting in his bonds, instinctively trying to move away from the relentless assault on that one little part of his back. And yet Griffin could hear Mick’s labored breathing, a sure sign of arousal.

“Nora taught me this trick,” Griffin said, still flicking that same spot. “I don’t need to hurt every square inch of you. Just the same square inch over and over again. You’re going to have the ugliest bruise on your back tomorrow. Just in this one spot. You’ll feel it every time you move. Does it hurt?”

“So much.”

“Good,” Griffin said.

There was a time and a place for mercy during a BDSM scene.

This was not the time.

This was not the place.

Griffin kept striking the same spot until finally Mick let out a sound of pure agony. He’d buried his mouth against his arm and released a sort of strangled scream.

But Griffin struck the spot again.

“Yellow,” Mick said, his voice strained.

“Oh my God…” Griffin chuckled. “The pain slut cries mercy. I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

Griffin placed his hand over the spot he’d been torturing for the last ten minutes. Mick’s skin burned to the touch. And when he kissed that spot it burned against his lips. Mick groaned. It might have been from pleasure and it might have been from pain, but Griffin didn’t care. To Mick they were one and the same.

“You’re a sadist…” Mick said, audibly wincing.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, slut.”

Griffin slapped Mick hard on the ass because of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?

Speaking of asses…Griffin grabbed the lube off the bedside table. When they both were wet enough, Griffin pushed back into Mick. Once he was fully embedded, Griffin pulled his t-shirt off and pressed his naked chest to Mick’s naked back. With his hands on Mick’s hips, Griffin raised and lowered him on his cock.

“Now do you remember how to submit to me?” Griffin asked into Mick’s ear.

“Yes, sir…” Mick breathed.

“You’re my property even when you forget you are,” Griffin said. “You belong to me whether you like it or not.”

“I like it,” Mick said.

“You like this, too.” Griffin pushed in deeper. It wasn’t a question. They both already knew Mick did. “Even if you didn’t like it I might still do it to you. Why?”

“Because you own me.”

“I own you. Your body belongs to me. Every…single…beautiful…” Griffin wrapped his hand around Mick’s erection, “inch of it.”

Mick came in Griffin’s hand. It was sudden, but not unexpected. Pain was by far the most effective aphrodisiac where Mick was concerned. Nothing worked quite as well as a long, sustained beating.

“Sorry, sir,” Mick said between breaths.

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the housekeeper who has to clean your come off the headboard.”

“I’ll write a note to her,” Mick said.

“Yeah, I know where you can stick it.”

Mick laughed but the laugh stopped when Griffin pushed up and into him again. Mick might have had his orgasm but Griffin was only getting started.

He fucked intently, vigorously, and mercilessly. Mick would never again forget who was in charge in this relationship. And if for some reason he did, Griffin would remind him.

“I could go all night,” Griffin said into Mick’s ear. “I think I will.”

He pulled out of Mick and untied him from the headboard. Griffin stripped out of his kilt and crawled into bed.

“I should make you lie on your right side,” Griffin said as he dragged Mick to him. “I could make you feel that bruise with every stroke. But then I wouldn’t get to see your ink. Decisions, decisions…I’ll be nice. You know, since it’s almost Christmas.”

Griffin put Mick on his left side. With a pillow he propped up Mick’s right leg. It was the easiest way to open him up so Griffin could comfortably fuck him for as long as he wanted to, which was forever.

As he thrust in and out of Mick slowly, Griffin kissed the shoulders and neck and back he loved so much. His hand rested on Mick’s tattoo, Griffin on gryphon.

“That’s why,” Mick said, his voice still a little breathless.

“What’s why?” Griffin asked.

“Why I got the tattoo right there,” Mick said. “The first time we had sex, I was on my side like this and that’s where you put your hand. It’s my gryphon landing pad.”

“Don’t make me laugh when I’m fucking you. My cock will do weird things.”

“Weird things? Like what? Start a band? Go on a shopping spree? Write a haiku?”

“That’s it. You’re in so much trouble.” Griffin shoved Mick onto his stomach and held him down on the bed, a hand on the back of Mick’s neck. With rough strokes, Griffin fucked Mick hard, hard enough to make the bed rock. Luckily it was a padded headboard.

Griffin gave everything he had to his Mick. His love, his lust, his desire and hunger, his grief over the break-up, his joy over the reunion, his need to own Mick—truly own him and have him and keep him safe and happy and treasured until the end of time.

When he came at last it was with Mick’s name on his lips and his lips on Mick’s shoulder. He rolled onto his back and Mick stretched out on Griffin’s chest.

“I have so much come inside me,” Mick said.

“Merry Christmas.” Griffin kissed the top of Mick’s head. “I’ll let you take a shower. But not yet. You have to stay here for a few minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Happily. And wetly.”

“Is wetly a real word?”

“It is now.”

Griffin wrapped both arms around Mick. He’d let him go. Eventually. Maybe.

“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Griffin asked. “I guess your mom is expecting you back home.”

“She sort of is. I think she missed me while I was gone.”

“I guess I can share custody. You know…we could pick your mom up and go to the ski lodge. Lucas and the kids are all sick so they aren’t coming this year. There’s plenty of spare rooms. Although your mom and Aiden could just shack up. He thinks she’s hot…”

“My mother is my mother. She is not hot.”

“She is a stone cold fox. She looks like Jennifer Connelly.”

“Who?”

“She was the chick in Labyrinth. Aiden totally wants to be her Goblin King.”

“You’re creeping me out so much right now.”

“He told me you and I had to get back together so he could continue to woo your mom. He wants to woo the fuck outta her.”

“Now I know why Nora tells Father S she hates him all the time.”

“It’s meant to be. They’re both divorced, same age. They both have kids about the same age, both cute as hell.”

“Can you just beat me some more if you’re feeling this sadistic?” 

“If your mom and Aiden get married, then my half-brother will be your step-father, and that’ll make me your uncle.”

“That’s it. I’m going back to Rome.” Mick tried to escape Griffin’s arms but Griffin wouldn’t let him go.

“No. You never get to leave me again. Especially not if we’re going to be family.”

“Wings,” Mick said, invoking his safeword. Griffin ignored it.

“Call me Uncle Griffin.”

“I have a few other names I’m tempted to call you first.”

“Don’t be rude. Not my fault your mom’s a MILF, and my brother’s got a middle-aged-man crush on her.”

“He’s forty-five.”

“He wears Merrells and khakis. He’s middle-aged.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that.”

“Don’t you dare. He still gives me the worst wedgies.”

“Just don’t wear underwear anymore,” Mick said.

“You,” Griffin tapped him on the end of the nose, “are a genius. Now go take a shower before we do more damage to these white sheets.”

Mick sat up and looked at the bed. Wet spots everywhere.

“I think it’s too late. We’re going to have to burn them.”

“In that case, we might as well get them even wetter.”

Griffin pushed Mick on his back and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him. He kissed Mick’s neck and chest and licked his collarbone end to end. He bit Mick’s hips and stomach, then flipped him over and ran his tongue and lips from Mick’s neck down his spine to the very base and back up again. With his whole body he worshiped Mick’s, every part of it, with his hands and mouth and skin on his skin.

They were tangled up with sheets and legs and arms, with tongues and fingers and teeth. Finally they stopped and Griffin held Mick to him so tight it hurt them both.

“No more leaving,” Griffin said in his ear.

“Never,” Mick said and Griffin could hear the anguish in his voice. “It hurt to leave you. But I don’t regret it. Is that weird?”

“No.” Griffin ran his hand through Mick’s hair. “That’s just life. You do what you have to do. Even if you have to do it, it’s not easy. I had to go to rehab to get clean. It wasn’t fun. I couldn’t wait to get out. I don’t regret it. Not for one second. It made me into the man I am today, the man who is here with you, not somewhere else—like a cemetery.”

“I can’t believe you wrote me a letter before we even met.”

“You were with me in rehab,” Griffin said. “Just an idea. I didn’t know who you were yet, but you gave me something to look forward to, a dream to hold on to. You kept me there working at getting clean when that was the last place I wanted to be.”

“I love you,” Mick said. “You know that, right? I did say that tonight, right?”

“I know.” Griffin kissed him on the lips softly. “Now go take a shower before the bed is one big wet spot.”

Mick laughed. “You coming with me?”

“You get it warmed up. I’ll be right there.”

Mick got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Griffin stretched and stood up. He heard the comforting sound of the water turning on and Mick getting into the shower. It was the beautiful sound of life going back to normal.  

He walked to the window and looked out on the city. It had started to snow again. From the thirty-seventh floor the city looked like a fairy-tale kingdom. The skyscrapers looked like castle turrets. The snow looked like falling stars.

From his overnight bag he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the cityscape and sent it to Nora.

Merry Christmas! he captioned it.

Nora wrote back seconds later.

Nora: My beautiful city. I hope it misses me.

Griffin: I’m sure it does. I know I miss you.

Nora: Speaking of missing, what’s the news with my angel?

Griffin: Good news. I have a sub again.

Nora: YES!

Nora: I told you so.

Griffin: Exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

Nora: I have a present for you if you want it.

Griffin: I want ALL the presents.

Nora: My present is a secret I’ll tell you. I have a sub now, too. Collared and everything.

Griffin: Serious? Never thought that would happen. Who’s the lucky guy and/or girl?

And when Nora replied with a looooong text message that included a name he knew, Griffin nearly fainted. Because that name was…

“MICK!” Griffin yelled. But Mick was in the shower.

Griffin dropped the phone on the floor and ran naked into the bathroom almost wiping out on the wet tiles in his haste to get to Mick. He wrenched the shower door open and stepped inside. Then he grabbed Mick by the shoulders.

“MICK!”

“What the fuck?” Mick demanded. He pushed wet hair out of his eyes.

“Oh my fucking God…Mick. You’ll never believe it.”

“WHAT?”

“I found out what’s going on with Nora and King and why she keeps going to France every couple of months and crying and King keeps telling her it’s okay and why Nora and Søren are like in second honeymoon mode.” The words came out in a wild joyful rush.

“What? What is it?”

“Nico. King’s son. She’s fucking King’s son Nico. Not just fucking him. She collared him. She owns him. They’re in love.” Griffin was holding Mick’s shoulders so hard he was almost shaking him. Then he did shake him.

“Wait. Nora did what? Are you shitting me?”

“No! She just told me. Apparently he took care of her after her mom died, and the usual happened but it wasn’t the usual usual because Nora collared him afterward. Kid must be real fucking good in bed if Nora collared him and risked Kingsley’s wrath. Not just that though. I was right. King and Søren are together again. Like for real for real. Which is why Søren’s so happy and horny all the time, and Nora’s so happy and horny, because she has a sub now and it’s…oh my God, it’s insane. Søren has King and Nora. Nora has Søren and Nico and King has Juliette and Søren and it’s like the sexiest love hexagon ever.”

“Five people. That’s a love pentagon.”

“I don’t have time for a geometry lesson when Nora collared King’s son. All the cosmic tumblers are clicking into place and the universe is showing me its secrets!” He yelled that last part, which he stole from Nora who stole it from Field of Dreams. Seemed the right thing to do.

“This is the best gossip in in the entire history of gossip,” Mick said, almost hooting with laughter. “Why is Christmas so awesome this year?”

“Because you’re here,” Griffin said, holding Mick by the back of his neck. “You’re here and I’m here. And Nora’s fucking King’s son Nico and Søren’s fucking King and I’m fucking you and that’s fucking awesome.”

He shook Mick again. But only a little.

“Good fucking Christmas,” Mick agreed once Griffin stopped shaking him.

Griffin kissed him until they both dissolved into laughter yet again.

Not just a good fucking Christmas.

Best fucking Christmas ever.