And there was only one thing to do, really.Nothing else James could have done but lean forward and kiss Cillian properly.Taste his lips, sweet with cinnamon, warm and falling slightly open in what could have been surprise or invitation.
Unsure, James drew back to check.Took all the strength he had at his disposal, but he did it, and then it took even more strength not to plunge straight back in.Cillian looked as dazed as if he’d just woken up from a Rip van Winkle length nap, and as startled as a baby rabbit.
“You had a little…” James kept his hand resting lightly on Cillian’s cheek.“Hey.Are you all right?”
Cillian blinked.The tip of his tongue flickered out to taste his own lips.He can taste me.I can still taste him.“I had what, now?”
His reaction made James slow to focus, to respond, to make coherent words.“Sugar.On your cheek.I think it’s Demerara.”
Blink.Blink.“Who?Don’t think I’ve met her.”
James couldn’t help snort-laughing.“Seriously, are you okay?”
“Am I okay?”Abruptly, Cillian straightened.“You’re asking me if I’m okay,now?”
Focus snapped back into his eyes and color flooded his cheeks, so arresting that James froze in place -- but not for long.Cillian caught him by the wrist and yanked him sideways.His feet, unprepared, tangled beneath him for the few steps that Cillian dragged him along.He started to ask what was going on.Started to apologize -- pure reflex, nothing more.Started to think this was a bad idea, and that he’d fucked it all up.
But then Cillian had him behind their wonky tree, back to the wall, and was kissing him again.Hands, sticky with tree sap, clung to his wrist and pressed against the pulse hammering like thunder in his throat.Warm body, pressed against his, long limbs and strong shoulders boxing him in.A jerk of the hips, like that was reflex too.
Hard?James couldn’t say.Too distracted by Cillian’s mouth pressed against his, by the flick of a cinnamon-sugar taste on Cillian’s tongue, by hot breath against his chin.The hand at his neck moved, slid, and suddenly somehow Cillian had an arm wrapped around him to draw their bodies closer still.
James could say for sure now.Hard.He made a muffled noise, drowned in their kiss, and clung back just as tightly.Until an abrupt gust of cold air made them both startle apart, though James thought the person who’d parted the branches of another tree and accidentally put them on display was the most surprised of all.Spluttered apologies followed the branches snapping shut, but -- too late.
“It’s all right, no worries, we’re not doing anything!”Cillian called, despite his fingers still digging into James’ sweater.He shot James a guilty look and a grimace that could have meant anything.
James held himself carefully still, watchful and waiting.
Cillian stared at him, eye to eye, and -- laughed.A little weakly, but genuinely, and instead of caressing James’ cheek he gave it the gentlest of taps.“All right, Mr.Enthusiasm,” he said, just a little chiding, just a little… wrong.Which was awfully hard to hold onto and figure out when his next question was, “What do you say we take this showoffthe road?”
* * *
James shoved the last few inches of tree through their door.“You got it?”he called to Cillian, invisible save for the occasional flash of red hair buried among the fir branches.
Cillian swore at him and yanked at the tree, hauling it deeper into their apartment.
Good enough.The moment trunk cleared lintel and he had the space, James kicked the door closed and threw the lock and deadbolt into place.He nudged the tree sideways just to make sure Cillian was alive in there, and was rewarded with the sight of his friend, his -- his -- oh hell, definitions could wait.HisCillian.That would do for now.
Frazzled and frowsy and sticky with tree sap, a frown line forming between Cillian eyebrows, and a question on his lips.
James lifted his chin briefly in answer to the question Cillian hadn’t formed yet, and, without meaning to, felt his lips curling in a grin of demand and challenge.“Now,” he said, still out of breath from hurrying and hauling.“Where were we?”
Cillian’s answering grin dawned slowly, but then it blazed.
James leaned back against the door and raised one hand, curling two fingers in a beckoning motion.“I remember.I think we have some unfinished business, you and me.Wouldn’t you say?Come here.”He had no idea where this suave bastard he was impersonating had come from, and he couldn’t say he cared.Not when Cillian’s gaze dropped to his fingers and he absently traced the tip of his tongue across his lips.When he didn’t move, James met his eyes and felt himself somehow just as caught as Cillian.“Come here, I said.”
Cillian hurried toward him.He’d toed off his shoes somewhere along the way, probably habit, and scooted almost silently in his sock feet, sliding closer to James one step at a time until James could smell the last remnants of cinnamon sugar and cloves under the pine.He leaned forward to inhale it, greedy for every bit of Cillian.Where had this hunger come from?He’d wanted Cillian before, he was human, he had eyes, but this level of ravenous craving?Unreal.
And yet itwasreal.Cillian was leaning into him, lips parted.Asking without asking, promising without saying a word out loud.No one could resist that sort of invitation, and James had never claimed to be any kind of a saint.A flurry of movement, and he’d caught Cillian by the waist to turn them around so that it was Cillian’s back against the door and James standing in front of him, blocking his way in or out.Cillian’s arms twined around James’ neck, Cillian’s mouth met his, and oh yes, thatwaswhere they’d been.
We’re not doing anything, indeed.If James had his way, they’d doeverything.
But --
No.James ruthlessly squashed the hell out of his intrusive thoughts, riddled with spiky little questions and doubts, and stuffed them all into a box to be dealt with later.He tipped Cillian’s chin up, delighted when a full-body shiver made Cillian’s muscles flex like a dancer’s, and deepened their kiss.Cillian didn’t taste of sweetness anymore and as the contact wore off so did the overwhelming tree sap scent, but James didn’t miss either of them.
Cillian moaned into James’ mouth and let his head fall briefly backward, resting against the door.He stared up at James, searching his face, his breathing harsh and fast.His chest pressed against James’ with every inhale and exhale, not able to go far in either direction for being too boxed in.
Which gave James an idea.He caught Cillian’s wrists in both hands, one each, and raised them above his head, pressing them firmly to the door.“Stay there.”
