When our mouths part, he whispers against my lips, “Merry Christmas.”
I smile. “Merry Christmas.”
His thumb brushes my throat, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe.
“Did you…” I swallow, unsure. “Did you have plans today? I hope I didn’t ruin them.”
“You didn’t ruin anything. I didn’t have plans to begin with. I’m glad you’re here.”
I let out a small breath of relief and move my hand from behind my back, holding the gift out to him. “This is for you.”
He sits up a little, surprise flickering across his face. “You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.”
He unwraps it carefully, much more carefully than the wrapping deserves, and when he pulls the book out of the box, he goes perfectly still.
It’s a hand-bound collection ofThe Epic of Gilgameshand other Babylonian texts, the leather cover a deep oxblood red, the pages edged in gold.
Isaac runs his thumb over the spine like it’s something he’s afraid to break.
“Jackson, this is…” He looks up at me. Really looks. His expression makes my chest ache, like he can’t believe someone thought of him this way. He shakes his head slightly, emotion tightening his voice. “It’s beautiful.”
I shrug like it’s not a big deal. “It just made me think of you.”
He leans forward to kiss me again, and when he pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I whisper back breathlessly.
After setting the book gently on his nightstand, he reaches under the bed and pulls out a box of his own, this one wrapped much more neatly than mine in brown paper and tied with twine instead of ribbon. He hands it to me, and I’m just as surprised as he was.
My fingers tremble a little as I open it. Inside is a leatherbound journal in a rich, pine green and stitched by hand. I open it, the pages thick and blank and waiting.
“I thought,” Isaac says quietly, watching me, “your words deserved a nicer place to be written down than one of those cheap composition notebooks.”
“Thank you.” I swallow hard and reach out to lace my fingers with his. “It’s perfect. I love it.”
With his free hand, he brushes a strand of hair off my forehead and smiles. “The green reminded me of your eyes.”
Emotion swells in my chest, my throat so tight it almost hurts.
Setting the journal down, I lean in and kiss him again, slow and grateful, and he sighs into my mouth as his hand moves to the back of my head. I let him take over, guiding me where he wants me as his tongue travels briefly past my lips for a quick taste. He presses his lips to mine for one last kiss before pulling back.
“Speaking of green,” he says, lips curling into a faint grin. “How do you feel about what we did last night?”
I shift on the bed as the memory makes me flush and my cock threaten to fill with a rush of blood. Isaac rubbed some lotion on my ass as I drifted in and out of sleep last night, but it still aches a little. Oddly enough, it’s a good kind of ache.
“You really enjoy making my ass sore, don’t you?”
His grin widens enough to show teeth. “Very much.”
“I enjoy it too,” I admit with a quiet laugh. “I liked it all. What we did last night. A lot.”
“Good,” he says on a breath of relief. “We can talk more about it later. Just know I was going easy on you.”
I flop down onto the bed on my stomach and groan into the pillow. Then I turn my face to peer up at him, and the affection in his eyes almost seems to contradict his promise. “Do you really have a crop?”
He chuckles and lies next to me on his side. “And a cane.”
