“What?”
“The Princess and the Pea? Not that I’m a princess and I probably wouldn’t feel a pea. It’d get squashed. I always wondered about that. Peas squash so easily.”
“This is my bed.”
“It’s a lovely bed.” Maric wriggled. “So comfortable. And warm. And it has a naked man in it. You were a bit slow, but you’ve eventually noticed.” He beamed.
“How long have you been—? Oh God. Who put you up to this? Tom?”
Maric swallowed hard. This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. Phin didn’t seem to think he’d suddenly got lucky, more like unlucky. “No one put me up to anything. I like you. You’re awkward and difficult. I like awkward and difficult, especially when it comes with a helping of tall, dark and handsome. A cliché, but in this case…”
“Get out of my bed.”
Uh oh. I’ve pissed him off. “Have I gone too fast? I’m sorry. I thought…” Shit. Maric flung back the duvet and stood up. Despite the exchange of words, all of him was standing up, and he didn’t miss the way Phin’s gaze briefly dropped below his waist to take that in.
“I don’t believe you,” Phin snapped.
“What? That I’m sorry I went too far? I am.”
“This is a set up. That’s why Tom called me last night. Where were they hiding? They dropped you off in the road and then…” Phin released a shaky breath. “There were no tyre tracks. How in hell…?”
“Stop taxing your brain. I have no idea who Tom is, but if you don’t want to believe me, then fine. Go back to sleep and I’ll suffer on the couch. Oh, and Happy New Year. I wish you—oops, I almost wasted my wish.”
Maric thought Phin might stop him before he left the room, pull him into his arms and kiss him, tell him to stay, tell him he wished he was in his bed, then warm him up in the best possible way…
He didn’t.
So Maric collected his clothes from the sitting room and had a long shower which got rid of one problem, though he wished it had been Phin’s hand wrapped around his cock rather than his own. Oh damn. Now he had wasted his wish.
When he emerged, he peeped into the bedroom to see Phin was asleep, sprawled across almost all the bed. Maric rolled his eyes. As if lack of space would stop him, but he’d got the message. When he reached the kitchen, the light was almost blinding so he assumed Phin’s curtains were made of blackout material. Maybe he’d wake up in a better mood.
The snow was still falling. It had built up on the windowsills, was creeping up the French doors and had turned the garden into a mysterious, alien world of lumps and bumps. No angles, only curves, a thick white blanket covering everything he could see. All the trees were laden with snow and the wind had created drifts in places. They were definitely snowed in. No way could Phin take him anywhere. Nor could he insist Maric leave. His heart thumped. Was that a sign he was in the right place? He’d take it as one. Maric still had time to show Phin that Christmas wasn’t over.
He put on his boots, borrowed Phin’s jacket and made his way out of the back door. He wanted a branch from one of the trees at the bottom of the garden. Maric waded around the edge of what was probably a lawn, though for all he knew it might have been a covered swimming pool.
Once he was in the woods, he searched for the perfect shaped bough. If the snow hadn’t been so deep, he wouldn’t have taken one off a tree, but he had no choice. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for, though he got a face full of ice crystals when he broke it off. A fair price to pay.
“Sorry, tree, but I am going to make your branch look beautiful. It will bring warmth to a cold heart.”
Phin’s shed was unlocked. Maric grabbed a black earthenware pot from a shelf and looked for something heavy to put in it to support the branch. Bark chippings were too flimsy and he didn’t want to open a bag of compost. Then he found sand, which was perfect.
Back indoors, Maric set the branch inside the pot in front of the window in the sitting room, turned it until it looked at its best, then smiled. Good choice. He started a fire in the wood burning stove, because once the branch had dried out a bit, he could decorate it. He took his special paper—much easier to work with than the paper last night—glue and scissors from the sack, sat on the couch, which no longer seemed uncomfortable—strange—and set to work.
Maric made snowflakes and stars of all sizes, origami Christmas trees, snow globes, pine cones and birds. The scissors flashed in his fingers and lines of snowmen appeared in his hands, along with soldiers, bells, angels, seven swans a swimming for the day he’d arrived, and for today, the first of January, he crafted a string of eight maids a milking, along with eight cows. Using a spool of thread and a needle from his sack, he attached the single decorations to the tree branch, hanging them at different lengths until it was festooned. He created lines of reindeer to run back and forth across the windows, while congas of snowmen danced along the mantelpiece. Then he made tall paper trees with spiky branches to sit at either end of the snowmen, and one larger more elaborate tree for the table in the kitchen.
Don’t go too far.
He looked around the sitting room. Oh dear. He’d already gone too far. He could throw a few of the decorations in the fire, but he didn’t want to. I should. This is too much. The room had been transformed.
“What the…?” Phin stood at the door, bare-chested, in black pyjama shorts—sadly no jolly Christmas motif—a dark line of hair running from his navel to… A place I shouldn’t stare at.
“Too much. Sorry. Your house. Shouldn’t have. Sorry.” Maric wrung his hands. He always went too far. He never learned. Getting into Phin’s bed and now this. Stupid. “I’ve created a fire hazard, haven’t I? I’m really sorry.”
Phin walked over and when he reached out, Maric couldn’t help flinching. Phin wasn’t Olan, but he still worried he’d hit him. He thought Phin would pull back and say something when he saw the expression of fear that was undoubtedly on his face, but instead he wrapped his hands around Maric’s fidgeting ones and held tight. Maric’s heart calmed.
“It’s okay. It’s only paper,” Phin said. “You haven’t painted the room pink.”
“Ah shit. Don’t go in the kitchen.”
Phin laughed. “If you’re going to paint, the second bedroom needs attention.”
Maric perked up. Phin wasn’t angry.
“I’m really good at murals. I’m thinking bacchanalian orgy which always makes me think of backing an alien orgy for some reason.” Shut up. “Not that I’d want to do that. Oh God. I didn’t ask you if you were an alien. I missed that off the list.” He gulped. “I’m nervous. Just in case you think I’m usually a babbling idiot, though some would say I am.” Olan, for one.
Phin was rubbing Maric’s palms with his thumbs and it was as if there was a direct line from Maric’s hands to his cock which was showing too much interest, and if Phin looked down, he’d see what the stupid thing was doing. Stop waving at him.
“I never do this,” Phin said quietly.
“No decorations, I know. I heard you. I had no right.”