When Quentin started grinding into him, he brought his hands to that perfect ass to touch and knead, and fucking hell, his body was on fire. He drove his hard cock into Quentin’s body, seeking more friction, and Quentin managed to wriggle his right hand between them and grab Mac through his sweat pants.
“Ohhh,” Mac moaned, lifting his hips to push into that hand. “P-p-p-please…”
Quentin scratched his lower lips with his teeth, just rough enough to get Mac’s attention. How could that bit of pain feel so good?
“You like that, huh? Look at you, rutting against me.”
“M-m-more,” Mac begged. Pride be damned, he needed Quentin’s hand on his bare… “Ungh!”
Another squeeze of his cock had his head reeling. Dammit, he was ready to beg for more.
A massive crack from outside broke through his sex-hazed brain. What the fuck? He froze, and so did Quentin. Another ear-splitting thwack reverberated through the house, causing the glassware in the cupboard to rattle.
“What the hell was that?” Quentin asked.
Mac’s stomach sank. “It s-s-sounded like a l-large branch off a t-tree has fallen off, m-maybe a whole t-t-tree. I n-need to check it out.”
“I’ll come with you,” Quentin said.
Mac wanted to refuse the offer, but one look at Quentin’s face made him reconsider. He wasn’t offering Mac to help; he was telling him that he was coming with him. He kissed him one last time, all thoughts of sex forgotten now. “Th-th-thank you.”
They bundled up, and Mac grabbed the snow shovel from the garage before they stepped outside. It was still dark as fuck at six in the morning, the heavy snow almost blinding in the broad beam from his flashlight. Damn, there had to be a foot of snow on the ground already, and it was still coming down hard. The weather channel’s estimates were solid for once. Go figure. He’d plow the driveway and road later with his truck, which had a snowplow on the front, but for now, he needed to make a path to whatever the hell had crashed down.
“H-h-hold this,” he told Quentin.
Quentin took the flashlight and lit the way. A sweat broke out on Mac’s back as he silently cleared the walkway to the fence that separated his house from his junkyard. There was little sense in doing the junkyard itself, not while it was still snowing anyway, so they’d have to trudge through it to get to wherever the problem was. But if he waited with shoveling the path to his house, it would be too much snow to clear by hand. He had a snowblower, of course, but it was a hassle on the small path, and he preferred doing it by hand.
“Holy fuck, that’s a lot of snow,” Quentin commented.
Mac nodded as he put the snow shovel against the fence, then opened it with the key on his keychain. He couldn’t see far, but he had an idea of where the noise had come from. He took the flashlight from Quentin and waded through the snow, Quentin on his heels in the path he’d created.
As soon as he saw, he had to swallow back bile. Out of everything that could have gotten damaged, why did it have to be his shop? Even through the heavy snow that was still coming down, the massive tree branch that had crushed the roof of his shop was clearly visible.
“Oh, damn,” Quentin said with a sort of awe in his voice.
The oak tree on the edge of his property had lost one of its lower limbs—a huge branch that had collapsed under the weight of the snow. Dammit, he should’ve cut that tree down in the fall. He’d seen it getting old, knowing it was a matter of time before it would come down, but he hadn’t wanted to deal with it on top of everything else he had going on. He’d figured it would hold for one more season. Well, he’d figured wrong. Damn it all to hell.
When they got closer, Mac inspected the damage. The roof had partly been shattered, but the branch was still resting on top of it, not on the ground. That meant it was unstable, making it dangerous to go anywhere near it. Still, he had to try and salvage what he could.
“Can we drag it off?” Quentin asked.
Mac loved that he tried to help, tried to come up with a solution. “N-n-no. T-too heavy. I n-need my truck, b-but I can’t drive here until the s-s-snow has been c-cleared. W-we n-need to wait f-for daylight.”
“Is there anything inside we should protect from the snow?”
He sighed. There was no use in trying to keep it a secret now. Quentin would find out anyway. “M-m-my projects.”
“Projects? What kind of projects?”
“I m-m-make things. F-from junk.”
“Things… You mean like art? Sculptures?”
Mac hesitated. He’d never labeled it as anything else but projects. No one had ever seen them. Not even his mom, since he’d started on them after she passed as a desperate attempt to do something with the pain and grief and rage inside him. Was it worthy enough of being called art?
“I g-g-guess,” he said slowly.
Quentin stepped closer and tilted Mac’s chin up with his gloved finger. “Will you show it to me when it gets light?”
Mac nodded.
“Do we need to protect them?” Quentin asked again.
Hmm, that wasn’t a bad idea, actually. He had some tarp to cover them up as best he could. And if he propped up the roof with some beams, maybe he could prevent the whole shed from tumbling down when he pulled off that tree branch.
“W-w-will you help m-me?” he asked Quentin.
He was rewarded with a quick kiss. “Tell me what to do.”
Together they managed to secure most of his sculptures under the thick tarp, though Mac refused to remove the ones that were directly underneath the branch. He was too afraid the entire roof would cave in, crushing whoever was underneath it. If those projects were a total loss, well, so be it. He was already relieved he hadn’t lost all of them. Some he had worked on for months.
Quentin proved to be a great help. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up in following instructions to the letter and being stubborn as hell until he’d finished what needed to be done. By the time they had the tarp in place and Mac had raised three sturdy beams that would hopefully provide enough support for the roof, they were exhausted.
“I’m hot and cold at the same time,” Quentin said as they plowed through the snow, back to the house. “My upper body is sweating like crazy, but my legs and feet are freezing. I would kill for a big breakfast and a hot bath.”
“W-w-which would you l-like first?”
Quentin’s delighted smile radiated in the early morning light. “We can take a bath? Seriously?”
Mac nodded, his insides doing a happy roll at the word “we.” Would Quentin really want to take a bath together? The bathtub was certainly big enough. He’d installed it when his mom was diagnosed, so he’d have enough space to help her get in and out when she’d need help. “The h-hot water is on the b-b-backup generator. S-so is the s-s-stove.”
“Best news ever,” Quentin declared. “First food, then a bath.”
“Y-y-you can c-cook breakfast while I t-t-take a b-bath first.”
Quentin spun around to search Mac’s face, then broke out into a happy laugh. “You’re teasing me! Fucking hell, Mac, you keep surprising me.”
Mac smiled as he opened the door for Quentin and let him enter the house first. Lucy barked a happy greeting, then ran outside to do her business.