DECEMBER 30, 2007

Christmas Heat

By Laine Williams

"Lobster is a good look on you, lover," Keith's deep voice was heavy with amusement as he pulled back the tent flap, knelt down and crawled inside next to Mark.

"Oh, fuck off," Mark snapped, then winced, the badly sunburnt skin on his neck and shoulders stinging painfully as he tried to crane his head around to get Keith in view. The large detective looked edible, dressed in his holiday casual of cargo shorts and knit polo shirt, the naturally olive skin of his arms and legs tanned to a rich, golden brown by the blazing North Otago sun. Unfortunately, Mark wasn’t in any mood to enjoy the view – and the deep tan the man sported made his own predicament all the more  . . . er . . . painful . . . to bear.

"Ooooh, snarky," Keith retorted, unphased by his lover's irritation. He wriggled further into the tent, stretching himself out on the large air mattress next to the smaller man. Mark lay face down, completely naked, not even a light sheet spread over the blistered skin of his back and legs.

Mark sighed - of course he was snarky. Who wouldn't be? It was two days from Christmas and he was in the middle of the first decent break he’d had in nearly a year. They’d been organising the camping holiday for the last three months, sharing the planning with their small circle of friends (friends who were all currently out enjoying themselves in the brilliant summer weather) . . . and he was stuck in the fucking tent with fucking sun stroke. Who the fuck over the age of ten got sun stroke? Apart from him with his stupid red-headed, fair skinned complexion and his tendency to forget to reapply sun screen as often as he should.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Did you get it or not?" He didn’t even try to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

Keith was still grinning, the bastard. "Yeah, I got it - did you really think I'd drive three hours to the nearest pharmacy and back and come home empty handed?" He flourished the white and green paper bag, bulging promisingly with bottle-shaped lumps.

“Well, for fuck’s sake, put it on would you?” Mark growled. The pain from the tender skin of his severely sunburnt back was still warring with a headache that just wouldn’t quit; the roil of nausea in his gut hadn’t faded either, despite his constant efforts to sip water and rehydrate himself.

“Alright, alright! Sheesh, usually you’re asking me to take things off . . . or put them in . . .” Keith protested, ripping open the bag and spilling out two pale pink bottles of Solarcaine and a third of some sort of light green goo as he did so.

Mark sighed in relief – at least Keith had bought the right stuff, and plenty of it. Solarcaine contained a local anaesthetic which would completely numb the pain, as well as help to heal his badly burned skin.
“I don’t think you’ll be putting anything in anywhere for a while, lover,” he commented, his breath hissing out as Keith upended one of the bottles of pink lotion and squeezed what felt like half of it out over his back and began smoothing it on gently. The cold of it was a shock, and the touch of Keith’s hands stung a little, but the relief was immediate. Having it applied still felt as good as it had when he was a kid. Well . . . maybe it felt even better – Keith wasn’t quite as gentle in his application as Mark’s mother had been, but he was a whole lot sexier.

Continuing his careful rubbing, Keith applied the lotion up and down the length of Mark’s body, from the tips of his toes to the blistered back of his neck. His lover made small, concerned noises as he tended to the injured skin, but Mark felt no such pity for himself. Just served him right, he figured, for falling asleep stretched out in the sun.

“Oh . . . I don’t know,” Keith’s hands swept down the back of his thighs, bringing blessed relief. “Your butt looks fine to me . . . and your cock didn’t get burnt . . .”

No . . no, it hadn’t, thank God for small mercies – Mark had, at least, been wearing his swim trunks at the time, and he hadn’t rolled over while he was sleeping, so his front had escaped the worst of the sunburn. But he knew what the thickness in Keith’s voice meant – his lover was definitely interested in what he saw, even if it was red and blistered. The slow, almost sensual strokes continued, igniting a different sort of burn, even though Mark was pretty sure that, by now, Keith had covered every scorched inch of him in lotion.

 “Keith . . .” Mark put a warning note in his voice. “You can look all you want – but that’s all you’ll be doing for now. It hurts.” He couldn’t help the slight whine in his voice, and he remembered that from when he was a kid too.

“I know, love, I know,” Keith sounded contrite now, and a hint of guilt joined the nausea rolling around in Mark’s stomach. Mark knew that Keith had taken on some of the blame for Mark getting so badly sunburnt – he’d been with Mark most of the day, and he hadn’t remembered to put more sunscreen on his lover either. Personally, he thought Keith was being a bit stupid – Mark had been dealing with the certainty that he’d burn quickly his whole life, and he was a nurse to boot. He should have – and did – know better. Keith, who tanned at the drop of a sun hat, wasn’t to know that even ten minutes out in the sun would have Mark doing his best boiled crayfish impression.

Of course, Mark hadn’t really emphasised that fact when Keith volunteered to get up at seven in the morning to drive to the nearest town and be there as soon as the pharmacies opened.

“I’m sorry,” Mark murmured. And he was – as much for the lack of sex in Keith’s immediate future as he was for getting so badly burnt and putting Keith to so much trouble. He was also rather disappointed that he probably wouldn’t be giving Keith the Christmas present he had planned for him on Christmas Eve.
“Hmmm,” Keith replied agreeably – too agreeably – as he squirmed his way back down the tent. What was the man up to now? “I could just put some of this on your butt, you know, or your cock . . . make sure nothing hurt . . .” He trailed a lotion smeared finger over the pale, unburned skin of Mark’s arse cheek, leaving a streak of numbness in its wake.

Mark yelped and tried to pull his bottom away from Keith’s touch, thankful that his skin was numb enough to let him move quickly now. “Don’t you dare! You are not to put that stuff near my arse! Or my cock! It is not lube!”

“No . . . but this might be,” Keith held out the bottle of light green stuff that had fallen out of the pharmacy bag along with the Solarcaine. “It’s aloe gel. The pharmacist said it would help rehydrate your skin after it had finished blistering and started peeling.” Mark wasn’t sure whether the grin on Keith’s face was because of the thought of using the aloe gel as lube, or because he was looking forward to peeling the dead skin off Mark’s back like he was some sort of weird lizard.

“Surely just a little wouldn’t hurt,” Keith wheedled, pouring a small amount of gel onto his fingers and then dabbling it onto one arse cheek.

Oh . . . oh, that was nice . . .Keith’s fingers rubbed small, moist circles on Mark’s skin. And he was feeling better. The Solarcaine had taken the sting out of his sunburn completely, and cooled him down considerably to boot. Even the headache and nausea was receding now the pain was gone, especially since he’d been trying to rehydrate himself most of the night.

“Just a little,” Keith repeated, pushing gently on the soft – and unburned – skin of Mark’s inner thighs, spreading his legs apart and rolling his big body between them. “Just a little.” He breathed then buried his face between Mark’s arse cheeks, his tongue leaping out to dart over Mark’s hole.

“Fuck . . .” Mark groaned. Unfair, it was fucking unfair. Keith knew Mark loved being rimmed . . . and Mark knew that Keith didn’t really like doing it. So when he did, it was a special treat, and something Mark was completely unable to resist. Problem was that Mark honestly didn’t think he was up to fucking. The pain might be gone for the moment . . . but if he had to put up with anything, even Keith’s delectable body, rubbing against his abused skin, he didn’t think that state would last for long.

“Shhhh, love, shhh, I know it hurts . . . we won’t do much, just a little,” Keith whispered against the skin of Mark’s inner cheeks, raising his head slightly to talk, before pushing back in and sucking on Mark’s hole. Mark didn’t know how he managed it, but somehow Keith had figured out how to fasten his mouth tightly around Mark’s pucker and apply the most heavenly suction to it. His tongue was working its own brand of magic too, pressing firmly against the wrinkled skin, loosening Mark’s anus with ease.

Mark whimpered, his arse pushing back towards Keith’s face, hoping Keith would push his tongue right in and fuck him with that small, hard heat.

He didn’t though, and Mark wasn’t surprised when his lover pulled back – he didn’t enjoy eating butt after all – but any protest Mark might have uttered was stifled by two gel slick fingers sliding right on in to take the place of Keith’s tongue. Mark groaned again, and pushed back harder – fingers were good . . . fuck, fingers were better, even, as they pressed firmly against the small nut of his prostate and Mark cried out in pleasure.

Although he wasn’t sure whether he should be ashamed or pleased that his arse took two of Keith’s fingers right off without any more preparation than a little tongue fucking. Was he a slut or what?

Keith’s slut.

Oh yeah, definitely . . . and right now, Keith’s slut didn’t care how many fingers he could take at once, because those same fingers were sliding in and out of his arse, penetrating deeply before pulling out to stretch, and Keith’s free hand was on his hip urging him up onto his hands and knees, and his cock was throbbing and as hard as nails and thankfully not burnt . . . . and somehow Keith was managing to finger fuck him and turn him the fuck on without actually touching him anywhere but the safe, unharmed skin of his butt.

Clever man.

Then Keith’s hand was gone from his hip, soon returning covered in aloe gel as it snaked under his raised hips to take his aching prick in a firm, slick grasp. Keith didn’t waste any time once he got his hand on Mark’s cock, didn’t tease or tickle, just began strong, even strokes up and down his length, timing each movement with the thrust of equally strong fingers in his arse.

“Oh . . . oh . . . uh . . . God, Keith, God . . .” Mark gasped out incoherently, his cock and anus the only things on fire now, and fuck, Keith was so good to him, and thank God the children were out on the lake with the rest of their friends, because it was a sure bet their heads would be poking through the tent flaps by now to see why ‘Uncle’ Mark was yelling . . .

“Fuck!” Mark cried out, his balls tight and hard against his body, his arse clenching around Keith’s fingers, and pleasured spasmed through his groin in waves that made his hips snap back and forth, and thick white semen spill onto the air mattress beneath him.

Thank God they’d bought extra sheets and not sleeping bags.

Breathless, and still riding Keith’s fingers, he collapsed back onto his front, panting heavily. Fortunately, Keith’s hand followed him down so he didn’t tear.

“Good?” He couldn’t see it, but Keith’s self-satisfied smile was evident in the tone of his voice.

“Yeah . . . good,” Mark managed to string two words together coherently. “But you haven’t . . .”

“No, but I will,” The amusement in Keith’s voice got stronger, accompanied by the rustling of cloth and grate of his zipper being pulled down. Then the strong smell of Keith’s sweat and musk, the irresistible scent of a cock that had been confined for far too long in a pair of cotton shorts on a hot day, and the sound of a come and gel slick hand being rubbed up and down a hard, throbbing shaft.

If Mark hadn’t been so damned tired, he would have turned around to watch and tried to get hard again. But turning to watch meant rolling over onto his back, and, Solarcaine or no, he didn’t think he was ready to risk it just yet. But damned, Keith’s cock smelled good . . . the bitter tang of pre-come joining sweat and the scent that was solely Keith . . . and the sound of flesh against flesh wasn’t bad either as Keith masturbated himself to climax . . . and then . . .

Oh . . oh fuck . . . the smell of come got stronger suddenly, and Mark jerked in shock as heat splashed against the sweaty, gel smeared skin of his arse and trickled down between his thighs.

Keith, the arsehole, had splooged on him! And it stung, the salty semen just brushing the edges of his sunburn as it ran over his legs.

Heavy breathing as Keith came down from his climax, and then the man spoke, amusement at the whole situation still thick in his voice. “You won’t want your post-sex cuddle then?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mark grumbled, more than ready now for something to drink and another sleep.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed to do that?” Keith quipped, but Mark could hear him zipping himself back into his shorts, then reach for one of the still damp face cloths they’d been using to cool Mark’s abused skin overnight. Mark felt his lover gently wipe the jizz and gel from his bottom, although Keith avoided the stuff that had strayed onto his sunburn completely.

“I got some of that sports water for you when you want it – the pharmacist said you’d need to replace electrolytes, but I’ll keep in the chilly bin for now so it stays cool.”

“Mmmm . . . thanks, love.” Mark troubled himself to reach out for the bottle of water already in the tent and take a decent sized gulp, wrinkling his nose as he did so. It was warm, but he couldn’t be bothered waiting for Keith to get him something colder.

“Welcome,” Keith replied, pulling a light sheet up over Mark’s naked body. “The others will be back soon; I grabbed a couple of last minute presents when I was in Oamaru, so I’m going to wrap those before the kids get back, then I’ll start the barbecue for lunch.”

 “Yeah,” Mark murmured, already half asleep.

“Call me if you need me,” Keith whispered, dropping a kiss on Mark’s cotton covered arse, and wriggling out of the tent in much the same way he’d entered. Mark shifted a little as his lover exited, much more comfortable now that his body was free of pain and relaxed by sex. He heard Keith moving quietly about the camp site, first turning on the car stereo and letting the soft sounds of Christmas carols drift through the hot, lavender-scented lake side air. Mark’s last thought before he drifted off to sleep was just how odd itwas to be listening to Bing Crosby crooning about white Christmases when it was over thirty degrees outside.

***

Laine Williams has a Sip, Mark's Toy Box, appearing in 2008.