Page 5 of Season of Gifts

Alice let him clasp her waist and slide her down in front of him.She patted under Jay’s jaw like she’d been canoodling with the horse.“All right, good boy, let’s find that tree.”

Wick snorted and stamped.Alice giggled.Glenn tipped his hat, revealing a smooth shaved head underneath.“You take all the time you want.”

They tramped down the rows, Jay giving a running commentary so his lovers would know why he’d rejected this one or that one.Henry crunched his apple; Alice let Jay lick melted chocolate chips from her fingers as she broke bites off the cookie for them both.The crisp air filled his lungs; the sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds.And then he found it.

He circled four times to be sure.Straight trunk, shapely branches trained around one primary, solid springback, no holes, no browning, good clearance at the ground for the cut.He set the tools near the base.“This is it.”

Henry hummed softly, the familiar opening bars of “O Christmas Tree.”He laid his hands on Jay’s shoulders, so light until Jay nodded, then gripping with increasing pressure.“Thy choice of green delights us.”

Henry’s breath warmed Jay’s mouth as he swept in with a kiss, all tea and chocolate and evergreen and citrus swirling around him.His feet had to be floating; he couldn’t feel the ground.The stirring in his jeans, that he could feel.The thumping in his chest.Thewhoosh-whooshof blood past his ears, yup, that too.Henry dotted his lips with more kisses, smaller kisses, before letting him go.

“Take a minute, my boy.”Henry’s eyes glowed with warmth.“I’ll fetch our assistant.”

As he walked back down the lane, Alice sidled up next to Jay and passed him her phone.“That photo’s just for us.”

She’d captured them with the tree behind them, Jay’s head tipped back, eyes closed, lips parted as Henry pulled away.He’d never seen himself like that with Henry before.Casual photos, goofy photos—but not this, not Henry’s singular attention and his own aching desire.He stroked the air above the screen.He was, they were…

“Beautiful.”He buried his face in Alice’s neck and covered her in teasing kisses.“Send it to me?”

The phone nudged out of his grasp, which left his hands free to circle her waist.“Done,” she murmured.“And I hear bells.”

Bells—oh, uh-huh, he heard bells too, and there was Wick coming down the row toward them, with Henry and Glenn on the front bench.Jay stepped between the trees, stuffed his hand down his jeans, and made an adjustment in his shorts.He couldn’t claim he’d never cut down a tree while sporting a hard-on before; he’d been a teenager once, and there might’ve been a girl or seven who’d gotten his blood pumping, even if he’d never spoken a word to them.

The work moved faster then, the axe familiar in his hand as he cut a notch to guide the tree’s fall.He started the back cut on the opposite side, lying on the ground just below the lowest branches—nice work the farm had done, trimming off the sweepers so you didn’t get a face full of needles.The saw blade slid smoothly with a little depth, the raker teeth clearing the greenwood easily.He rolled out on his back and waved Alice down.“You wanna try?Cuts like butter.I’ll tell you all about the saw engineering on the way home.”

She scrambled down, game for trying anything—and hadn’t that been a lucky stroke for him and Henry both.He pressed up behind her and set her hands in a secure grip.“You don’t have to force it—let the teeth do the work.”

She rippled against him in a suppressed laugh.“Thought you wanted more tongue than teeth,” she whispered, “but I can scrape my teeth along your trunk later and we can find out.”

Lying with her ass snug against his crotch as she wriggled the saw back and forth wasnothelping his dick settle down.But it might rank in his top ten experiences.

She cut through a third of the trunk and declared her arms were worn out.He’d seen her arms stroke longer than that, but he kept his mouth firmly shut as she crawled out and tugged Henry forward.“You have to try this.”

Which was how he ended up lying behind Henry and positioning his hands for the cut.“Yup, just like that, and then nice and gentle, start it sliding.”

“Like this, you say?”Henry wasn’t half as innocent as he sounded, and he’d dropped his voice into the bassy register where commands lived.

“Mm-hmm.”An inch of ground separated his cock from Henry’s ass.Somewhere on the far side of the tree, Alice peppered Glenn with questions about special events the farm offered.Jay lowered his voice.“I’m not used to being the one in back.”

“Nor should you be,” Henry whispered.“But we’ll see if we might take this in another direction at home.”

Close to the finish, as the gap widened and the saw wobbled, Jay took over the cut while Henry and Alice stabilized the trunk.He calledtimberfor their amusement; as they jumped back, the tree landed dead center on the tarp Glenn had laid down.The older man inspected the cut and gave him a hand up from the ground.“Mighty fine work.You get the itch, any weekend, the offer’s open.”

Between the hauling and baling and tie-down, and the trek inside the barn for mantel swags and a door wreath and a proper tree stand, it was nearly sunset when they climbed back in the car.Barely past four, and it would be dark before they got home.But he’d have plenty of time to get the tree in water before dinner, and then there were those promises Henry and Alice had made about the after-dinner entertainment.

This December would be different than every one before it.But like his therapist said, different didn’t have to mean bad.Sometimes change was what you needed to reach something better.The traditions he started with Henry and Alice this year could last a lifetime.

Chapter three

Henry

Supervisingtreetrimming,Henryneeded only avoid confusing decorations for his submissives with decorations for the tree.The former rested in a small case to his left on the sofa.The latter were making their way onto the massive Fraser fir courtesy of Alice and Jay.The strings of lights, already accomplished, enveloped them all in a soft yellow-white glow.

A small stepladder gave Alice the necessary height to begin the cascade of silver garland from the top.Her minuscule red skirt with its thick white trim hung enticingly to the lower curve of her ass.As she stretched her arms over her head, her red velvet corset hugging her ribs and lifting her breasts, the skirt concealed even less.

Jay stood behind her, feet planted solidly on the floor, hands planted solidly on their wife’s hips.Her skirt swished across his chest as she leaned toward the tree and passed the garland from hand to hand around the back.The front of Jay’s green elf shorts twitched.

“Lovely display.”Henry left his tone ambiguous; whether he meant their work on the tree or Alice and Jay themselves would be for them to decide.He’d joined Jay’s after-work shower before dinner and took matters into his own hands to ensure Jay’s patience this evening would be a treat and not a torment.“Not too cold?”

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