The master shower was big enough for them to have sex in if they wanted. If interrogated later, Chance couldn’t have said what color it was or if it had hot and cold running water.

“Nice shower,” he commented.

“When you say shower, do you mean ‘place to have sex’?”

He laughed. “That is absolutely what I meant.”

“Good.”

John bent, fiddling with the faucet, turning on the water and sticking his hand underneath to check the temp. His arse was sticking up in the air on purpose, Chance had little doubt, exposing the back of his balls and his hole.

This time it was Chance who dropped to his knees. Before John could turn around, he grasped his ass cheeks in a firm hold, parting them so he could get a better look. John moaned and pushed back.

Yes, his man liked his ass to be touched and played with. Chance loved that too. The water was running. Chance didn’t care—he’d pay the damn water bill himself. Leaning in, he licked from John’s sac to the top of his hole. John moaned and writhed, so Chance did it a second time, wanting to hear that sound over and over again.

“Jesus Christ, Chance,” John whispered.

“Should I stop?”

“No, no, p-p-please don’t stop. Oh god, oh god.” There was more, but it was pure gibberish.

Chance licked and laved John for what seemed like a beautiful eternity, nibbling at his hole, piercing it with the tip of his tongue. He snuck a hand between his legs. John was fully erect again; he pushed into Chance’s hand and back against his tongue in a movement older than time.

“Fucking, fuck me,” John gasped.

“Can I finger you first?” Some guys, as much as they liked a monster cock, did not enjoy fingers. Chance loved it all, although he preferred to top.

“As long,” gasp, whimper, Chance’s tongue inside again, “as it ends with your cock inside my ass, fucking yes.”

“Turn the water off.”

John complied but stayed in position. As much as Chance was willing to stay kneeling on the bathroom floor, his body was protesting.

“Is your bedroom off limits?”

John answered him by standing and heading through the connecting door. Again, Chance didn’t notice what the bedroom looked like until afterward. Currently he was focused on the California king bed in the middle of the room and the man splayed in the middle of it, face down, knees spread, with his ass tipped upward. An offering, a gift; Chance didn’t know which or if—both? He gulped. Good god.

Knee walking across the bed, he came up behind John. The day had lightened outside, brightening the room considerably. Chance took in John’s strong back, the muscles across his shoulders, the dark, amoeba-shaped mole on John’s left side. He leaned over and traced it with his tongue, tasting salty sweat. Yum.

He tried to take his time. Slowly, he parted John’s ass again, this time tracing his hole with a finger. John moaned and cursed.

“You have lube?”

John spoke into the pillow. “Yes, I have lube and condoms.” He motioned in the general direction of the bedside table. Chance opened the drawer, snatching up the lube and a shiny condom packet, dropping them next to him on the bed.

Then he went back to work. Squeezing some lube onto his fingers and John, he traced around his hole again, loving his responsiveness. His gasping moans and shudders egged Chance on. One finger pushed inside the heat, then two. John was tight; he instinctively clenched around Chance’s fingers.

“Relax, you know how to do this. Push back against me.”

“I know—I fucking know—but fucking hell!” He pushed back, and Chance’s two fingers were in past his knuckles. “It’s been a while.”

“You like it,” Chance remarked.

“Yeah, I like it.”

“You like it when my fingers move inside you, when they feel you.”

“Ugnegh.”

Chance chuckled. Teasing was fun. He loved to fuck, to have sex, but he also loved words and exposing his lovers, making them shameless.

He pressed a third finger partially in, and John pushed back. “You are so good. How about I do a little search?” Without any more warning, he crooked his fingers downward to find the little bundle of nerves most men had hidden there. There it was. He rubbed across the spot.

John shouted something incomprehensible. Reaching under him, Chance wrapped his fingers around the top of John’s prick. It was hot and pulsing, but Chance didn’t want him to come yet. He wanted to feel the clench of John’s hole around his cock when he came. When they both came.

He pulled his fingers out. John sighed, rutting against the duvet.

“Mmm, enough of that, I think.”

Tugging on John’s hip, Chance had him turn onto his back. The man was a glorious sight, an absolute ruin. His pupils huge in his gray-blue eyes, lips still plump and red from blowing Chance earlier, cheeks flushed.

“I want to see you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He rolled on the condom, already looking forward to the day they could get rid of them.

Tapping John, he silently asked him to raise his knees, then tugged him closer, over his own thighs.

“Relax. I’ll take it from here.”

Slowly he pushed himself against John’s opening, demanding—no, seeking entrance. John was relaxed and supple where Chance had massaged and licked him, where his fingers had just been. His cock had barely slipped inside before John pushed against him and Chance was past the initial ring of muscle.

Balls, he wasn’t going to last. He’d been so intent on teasing John he hadn’t realized how aroused he was. The heat and tightness, John’s body accepting him, surrounding him, clenching and relaxing around his sensitive dick—he was going to come far too soon.

“I told you to fuck me, now get to it,” John gasped out.

Chance chuckled again, thinking he’d never laughed much during sex before, and that he liked it.

Then he got to it.

Minutes later they lay next to each other, panting. Chance wasn’t sure which way was up until he opened his eyes. Carefully, he removed the condom and wrapped it in a tissue from the nightstand.

“I think,” said John, staring at the ceiling, “we should probably take separate showers.”

---

When he woke, Chance was still tired from jet lag and some of the most incredible sex he’d ever had, but they had work to do. He’d given Reed his mobile number, and once he’d showered and dressed (with John as a distraction), he checked to see if there were any messages. He’d also quickly talked to the feisty ex-mayor of Skagit, Gloria Browning, as she left the theater the night before.

He hadn’t expected to hear from her quite so soon, but there was a voice mail from her and a text from Reed.

The text merely said that the showtimes were set and he’d changed the marquee. And would it be okay if a friend helped him with the refreshment stand. Chance replied yes and thank you and that he would see both of them later.

Gloria was a real firecracker. It seemed that the entire retirement community would be attending every showing at the NorthStar between now and the end of time if she had anything to do with it.

Chance hadn’t out-and-out revealed John’s financial difficulties to her, but he had done a great deal of insinuating. He’d asked if the business community had grants or loans or anything that John might apply for. She ended her message with, “I’ve known John Hall since he was a boy. His mother and I were good friends. Skagit will pull together behind him; he’s had a hard time and forgotten who his real friends are. We’ll see you at the seven o’clock show tonight, after the center does its annual keep-the-seniors-from-being-depressed sing-along, since many of us don’t have relatives who visit.”

That was when Chance realized it was Christmas Eve.

He made his way downstairs, poking his head into various rooms along the way. The rooms were all gorgeous. John had excellent taste. Chance knew without asking he’d planned the interior decoration and restoration himself.

The water pipes were squeaking, so John must still be showering. Next time they would shower together. The two bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a large multipurpose room over the garage John had converted into a home theater—Chance chuckled; of course John had a home theater—were all located on the second floor. There was a narrow set of stairs off to the side of the landing leading to a third level. Chance was curious what was up there, but he also wanted to nose around downstairs.

The main floor, aside from the kitchen, which Chance now had fond memories of, had a smallish room that was a dedicated study or office, a formal dining room, another washroom, and the living room. Again, it was all quite lovely, but Chance wondered if John didn’t celebrate the holidays himself: There were no decorations. No wreaths, boughs of holly, or ridiculous elves.

He may have only met John a day ago—though it seemed like a lifetime—but John seemed to Chance the kind of person who normally enjoyed the holiday season. The water turned off with a ping.

Sitting on the kitchen counter was a cup that Chance was never going to be able to look at or drink out of without getting a hard-on. The kitten, true to kitten form, was fast asleep on the barstool. They were going to have to take it in to see about shots and whatnot. And give it a name.

There was a door off the kitchen next to a large stainless-steel fridge. The door on the far wall led to John’s garage, so this one—he turned the knob—led to the cellar.

The cellar, basement really, was as well organized as the rest of the house. It took Chance about thirty seconds to find the Christmas decorations. They were boxed up in seasonal order at the end of a row of plastic boxes, directly next to several labeled “Thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving had been the only American holiday Chance’s mother insisted on celebrating.

“Chance?” John called out.

“Down here!” he called back.

John trod down the stairs. “What are you doing down here?”

“Blatantly snooping. Looking for your decorations; the house needs a pick-me-up.”

John looked toward the ceiling. Chance assumed he was calling upon his patience. “Looks like you found them.”

“Everything?”

“Outdoor lights are in the garage.”

“Excellent, let’s get started. Here.” He dragged a box off the shelf and handed it to John, then grabbed one himself. “We’ll take these upstairs. After that I’m going to need breakfast or lunch or something, my body doesn’t care what, and then we’ll go find a tree.”

John was sputtering again. “Why would we get a tree? It’s Christmas Eve. All the trees left will look like rejects from the reject tree farm. Reject rejects.”

“We’re getting a tree because you have all these decorations and ornaments, which means you like to decorate and normally have a tree.” He waggled the tree stand in John’s face.

John rolled his eyes but quit protesting.

Two trips later they had all the boxes upstairs and stacked in the living room.

“I need sustenance. I have no idea why you’re doing all this.”

Chance ignored the last part. “Me too. Do we eat in, or do we dare try to find something out?”

John thought for a minute, leaning around and checking the clock on the stove. “If we go downtown—which is less than a mile—we can grab something at the Booking Room, and there’s usually a Boy Scout tree lot down by the marina.”

Before leaving, they stashed the protesting kitten in the pantry with food, water, litter box, and a fluffy towel to sleep on. They shut the door against its offended yowls and headed to Chance’s rental.

“It will be fine,” Chance said.

“I know,” John replied. “I’m just a softy. Cat used to go everywhere with me.”

“Cat was your previous . . . cat? This one will not be named Cat Two.”

“Oh yeah?” John retorted with a sexy grin, “Says who?”

Chance growled, “Says me. Do you happen to have an extra parka? I gave mine to Reed.”

---

There was indeed a tree lot down by the marina. Chance had John drive the rental. After hardly any sleep, driving on the wrong side of the road seemed like a bad idea. Although, he chuckled to himself, he was going to have to start thinking of it as the right side of the road, wasn’t he?

They parked in a gravel car park next to the fenced-in trees. A couple of puffy humanoid shapes—bundled against the wind coming off the water and what John had said were unseasonably cold temperatures—greeted them with waves but left them to look around the lot.

John was right, most of the trees looked like rejects.

“I don’t know about England, but Skagit folks tend to buy their trees right after Thanksgiving so they can enjoy them longer.”

“Mmm. Let’s look at the taller ones.”

“The ceiling is only ten feet.”

The trees were stacked by height and type. There were rows of trees that looked like pincushions, some that looked fairly traditional, some that were so puffy Chance couldn’t see their trunks.

“What kind do you like?”

Christmas carols were playing over the speakers, and Chance started humming along. John walked ahead of him, touching tree branches as he went, making comments like, “Too scrawny,” “Not enough needles,” and “Branches are all wonky.” Then he stopped in front of one and cocked his head.

The label said it was a Norwegian pine. It also quoted a price that should have been enough to reforest the entirety of Norway. Chance grabbed the top of the tree and pulled it out of the stand, twirling it. It was still here for a reason; he wanted to know why.

Sure enough, the back side had a huge spot where there were no branches.

“Dang,” John said.

“We could turn this side against a wall?”

“I guess.”

But Chance could tell that this was not “the tree.” “Let’s keep looking. Are there other lots?”

Three lots and over an hour later, Chance was beginning to regret suggesting a tree. John was very particular. And most of the lots’ trees appeared to have barely survived a zombie apocalypse. At this rate the damn thing wouldn’t be up by nightfall, or even tonight.

Just as he was thinking this, John let out a gasp and tugged at a tree tucked tightly in between two other rejects. He lifted it out and banged it against the ground to loosen the branches, then he twirled it.

Chance raised his eyebrows, nodding. “We may have a winner. I don’t see anything wrong. Here, let me hold it, and you look.”

John declared it the perfect tree. A lanky teenager approached, asking if he could help. Chance handed him the tree. “And can you put it in that netting stuff for the top of the car?” The kid nodded and trotted off with the enormous tree. Hopefully it would fit in the house.

Chance watched John. He was clearly delighted with the tree, regardless of his initial protestations. A beautiful smile graced his face. Chance couldn’t resist leaning in and kissing him right there in the Christmas tree lot. John’s lips were cold; their breath mingled, ghosting against their cheeks. He bussed John’s nose with his own. “You are delicious.”