Monthly Bonus Content #3 — ‘Humbug’ (Mason Xmas Special-Deep Romance) (Patreon)

The pine needles, though pleasingly bushy and with a smell that spins me right back into childhood, are prickly as all hell. I roll my lips together to keep from crying out, “Ouch, ouch, ouch…” as I wiggle my arm beneath the tree.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Christmas tree from this angle before. Laying on my back, my head looking up from beneath the base, adds a very different perspective to it. It’s quiet beneath the thick pine. Soothing.

“Okay, I think I’ve got,” I comment, as I adjust the clump of tangled fairy lights and spread them out. “What do you think?”

“Sure. Fine,” comes the grunted response from beyond my view.

I sigh. “Are you even looking?”

“I’m sure looking at something,” Mason says with a purr behind the words.

I chuckle. “Well, look at the tree and tell me if it looks all right. I don’t want to have to be crawling under here again.”

Soft footsteps thump over the rug before stopping. There’s a pause. Then another grunt.

“Looks fine.”

I’m not sure how much I trust the disinterested response, but it will have to do. I stretch out to press my finger against the switch and give a small yelp as I’m blinded by the sudden burst of light that flashes out from the tree.

After blinking my vision back into being, I give a satisfied nod. “Ah, it does look fine.”

“Told you,” Mason replies.

Hands wrap around my ankles before I’m tugged gently across the rug and out from under the tree.

I smile as Mason instantly straddles my hips, placing his hands either side of my head, and arches down until our foreheads are touching.

“Now you’re done, can we go?” he asks, the words mumbled against my lips as he leans in for a kiss.

I sink into the kiss, tasting the sweetness of his lips and eagerly sliding my tongue over them to ask for more.

He draws away, his hair ticking at my cheeks as it cascades in lazy waves around him.

“I still have to put the tinsel on,” I reply, smiling up at him as a pout almost makes his lips purse. I bop my finger on the tip of his freckled nose. “Bored?”

“Do you even need to ask?” He brushes his lips against my neck, and I can’t stop the shiver which courses through me at the light touch. “Surely you deserve a break. Wasn’t Felix supposed to be helping you with this anyway?”

“Yeah, I don’t know where he went,” I mumble as my eyes close when he presses a gentle kiss at the base of my throat. “But I’m glad he’s not here right now.”

“And why is that, sweetheart/handsome?” Another kiss, but this time slightly lower.

I twist my fingers into his shirt and tug it up a little before running my fingertips along the bare skin. He arches at the gesture.

“I don’t think he’d be very happy to see the tree’s not done,” I mutter, meeting his eye and holding it with a half-smile.

Mason lets out a groan, rolling off to land beside me on his back. I twist over, resting my hand on his stomach and drawing circles with my finger against him.

“Christmas is more effort than it’s worth.”

I chuckle. “Anything that can bring some more cheer to someone’s day is worth any amount of effort.”

He rolls his head over to look at me, raising a hand to cup my cheek. “How the hell did I fall for a softie like you?”

“Opposites attract, right?” I reply with a grin.

He bounces up onto one elbow in order to place a peck of a kiss on my lips. “If it was only attraction, then I wouldn’t be in this deep.”

“Are you saying that’s a bad thing?” I ask.

He smiles, his eyes sparkling, and his sharp features cast in a warm hue from the fairy lights. “Do you really need to ask?”

I wrap my arm further around him. “Well, you’re not always this forthcoming, so I figured I’d make the most of it.”

“Guess the spirit of Christmas is infecting me too.”

I roll back with a laugh. “Ah, you’re such a humbug.”

“And you love me for it,” he says through a deep chuckle before dragging his body closer to wrap us in an embrace.

We lay together like that for an hour more, staring up at the glittering lights of the tree, surrounded by sparkling tinsel and glimmering baubles, and I wonder if Christmas magic really does exist to give me this a moment this perfect.