Jesse's Christmas (9 page)

He wouldn’t need any of the posed shots. He had what he wanted already.

Cameron, the space cowboy, laughing hysterically. Jenny, the green rabbit, smiling post-tears with a gap-toothed grin. The redheaded alien-kid ordering people to their places. None of them over seven years old, some as young as five, and all of them captured in an artist’s mind. He had shots of Gabriel’s entrance. Gabriel hugging Jenny. Gabriel calming down Cameron. Gabriel and the kids, like a litter of puppies, running and playing on the stage. He had shots of their excitement and laughter and the utter seriousness with which the children posed in their positions.

Children with the pure uninhibited excitement for the season? Perfect for day sixteen or seventeen.

The dress rehearsal was frenetic and loud, but Jesse was feeling oddly peaceful. He had his cell phone out and wonders of wonders, he actually had some internet access. The number of comments on his work was phenomenal. Somehow the posts had been picked up by Reddit, and they were viral. A win for the newspaper and a win for him. People commented on the kids, the snow, the Christmas spirit, and there were an awful lot of comments about Gabriel and his blue eyes. Jesse hadn’t consciously chosen the photos with Gabriel in them; he just knew instinctively that they were the best of his photos.

The camera loved Gabriel, and hell, even though it had been less than three weeks, Jesse was falling for Gabriel in a wholly inappropriate, not-temporary way. Jesse was even having thoughts about visiting Eden Vale again, maybe after the snow melted. The two of them could have a long-distance relationship for a while and see if it worked. Getting back to the City was a priority. He had people wanting to commission him, and he actually felt inspired to get out there and start taking photos.

“Penny for them?” Gabriel asked gently. His tone was low and calm, but there were questions in his eyes.

“Not worth that,” Jesse dismissed as if what he had been considering was absolutely nothing.

“You were miles away.”

Jesse bit his lip. He had been miles away, back in his apartment in New York with commissions and a life and theatre trips and friends. Well, not so much the theatre trips and friends, neither of which was enough for him to go home. But definitely the City. The noise and chaos of the Big Apple was in his veins, and he couldn’t imagine not seeing the place again.

“Sorry. What did you say?” He assumed Gabriel had been talking.

“Nothing. I was just watching you. You looked so serious.”

“Just  considering what photos to use up to Christmas Eve.”

“Can I see the options?”

Jesse hesitated. He didn’t share his photo choices with anyone normally. But something in Gabriel’s eyes showed sincerity, and abruptly Jesse wanted to share everything with Gabriel.

He fiddled with the camera a little until he had the three choices up on the viewscreen. Gabriel clicked between each one and nodded as he examined them carefully. There was one of the tree in there with a group of children from the school singing, and Gabriel leading the singing. Another had Gabriel’s gingerbread house and a smiling Gabriel licking his finger. The third was a view of the fire in Gabriel’s house with Gabriel sitting next to it. They’d been talking and he’d stoked the fire before deciding to stay where he was next to it. Jesse simply took a load of shots to capture the fire playing on Gabriel’s skin.

Gabriel handed back the camera. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Uh huh.”

“Am I in all of your photos now?”

Jesse bit his lower lip. “No,” he said. “Only some of them.”

“Your photos seem…” Gabriel paused. “I don’t know how to explain.”

“Try.”

“You’re focusing on me. On my hands or my face or my eyes.”

“I can’t help what I think is beautiful,” Jesse said bravely. He waited for Gabriel to answer, but Austin chose that moment to congratulate Gabriel on the dress rehearsal.

“I’ll see you later,” Gabriel said to Jesse. Then he left, corralling the kids and ushering them back to their classrooms to change out of their outfits.

Jesse felt like he’d taken a step down a path that was alternately scary and exhilarating. He just wished he could have heard what Gabriel thought.

Chapter 11

The rest of Jesse’s photos were up and published in advance, apart from the last one that was scheduled for Christmas Day. Finding images he wanted to capture of a Christmas he remembered was getting easier by the day, and slowly but surely more layers of ice thawed inside him. He had a photo in mind for the Christmas Day post, of Gabriel and the presents at the charity wrapping event, but he needed something for himself.

Last night the kissing and holding when Gabriel left him at the hotel door had very nearly made Jesse drag Gabriel to his room. But it was still Jesse who had pulled away, and for the life of him, he couldn’t think why. There was Gabriel, his lips swollen with kisses, near demanding they take this further, but Jesse couldn’t. He’d admitted that he wanted Gabriel, and hell, in Gabriel’s place they’d spent evenings kissing and exchanging slow, steamy blow jobs, but something about making love for real was scary.

Not just scary. Terrifying. Because Jesse was so close to finishing what he had come to Eden Vale for, a journey that had him coming to terms with what had happened to him, and the man he had become because of the city and Jonah. Gabriel had never asked him about Jonah even though he only had to click a link from any of the blogs to Google’s cache of news about what Jonah had done. Unspoken was an agreement that this was something that didn’t affect them, Jesse guessed.

Gabriel couldn’t be part of this Christmas journey Jesse was taking because the passage ended with the last photo tomorrow. When the contract ended and he returned to the city, he and Gabriel had to end.

I don’t want this to end. Four weeks and I have fallen in love so hard it hurts my heart.

Christmas Eve caroling was the last event before Christmas Day and the second-most popular event in the town after the town hall tree trimming, which had passed with Jesse staring at Gabriel’s ass the whole time he was up the ladder. Jesse didn’t need to wonder for one minute who would be organizing caroling. His suspicions were proved correct when Gabriel texted he would meet Jesse at the hotel. When he heard a knock on his door, he pulled on his jacket and opened it with a ready smile, only to be pushed back in the room by a six one snowy-cold man. He heard the door close, and then abruptly, he was backed against the closet and in the middle of hot and heavy kissing. They were burning up, and the excitement of being pushed back and held went directly to his cock, which pressed insistently against the zipper of his Levi’s in the space of seconds. Gabriel’s hands were there and here and there and,
jeez,
under his shirt and roaming over Jesse possessively. Fingers teased at his nipples, and their cocks lined up with instinctive accuracy. Jesse moaned deep in his throat. Hell, if Gabriel didn’t stop… He was already not far off from coming in his pants at the pushing and the sliding and the—
fuck
—kissing.

Jesse pulled back, and Gabriel chased his lips.

“No. Wait,” Jesse said breathlessly. He wanted more, he did, but it had to be after all of this contracted stuff, when he was free and clear and ready to start the next part of his life.

“I want more,” Gabriel pleaded, unconsciously echoing what Jesse had just thought. “Come back to my place after carols?”

“Yeah…okay…” Jesse had been formulating yes even before Gabriel finished the question. His last photo would be posted to the blog, the last nail in the coffin of his relationship with Jonah. Suddenly there was air between them, and Gabriel was leaning against the opposite wall, a hand pressing his cock and the fingers of the other tracing his lips where they had kissed. It was singularly the most erotic thing Jesse had ever seen, Gabriel flushed and needy and all for him.

“We need to go,” Gabriel finally said ruefully.

Jesse nodded and pulled his sweater down to cover his groin and zipped the jacket. Hopefully, the cold snowy air would deal with his erection.

Diana and Austin held hands while singing “Once in Royal David’s City” outside the house at 14 Orchard Road. The two of them exchanged brief kisses during “Away in a Manger” at the police station, and Jesse captured it all digitally. They were beautiful images to catch, even though he didn’t really need them. He took them as a gift for his new friends, and then seeing Gabriel smile gently behind them, his approval tacit, was the icing on the cake.

“Break it up,” Gabriel smirked at his mom and the kissing. Austin made to move away, but Diana pulled him back.

“Ignore my son,” she said to her partner. There was the suspicion of a smile, so much like her son’s. “He’s jealous I’m in love.” The two of them laughed, and after a second, Austin joined in.

Jesse respected the open and easy affection between son and mom. He was jealous, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it to himself. Maybe he should phone his mom tomorrow, see if he could recapture some of those early family memories. It was certainly worth a thought. He hadn’t really talked to his mom properly since the FBI asked his parents questions about Jonah; it wasn’t for want of effort on her part. She organized events and visits, and he did what he had to do with his duties as a son and had even convinced her he was fine without Jonah. She’d never actually met Jonah, even though she was possibly the most liberal parent ever in her own way, and she was desperate to see whom Jesse had chosen.

There had been no criticism ever from her about Jesse being gay. In his mom’s words, “you’re an artist; of course you’re gay”. He wasn’t entirely sure that could be said about every artist, but at fifteen he appreciated the sentiment. Of course, at the time, when his mom and dad were going through the whole divorce thing way over in Los Angeles, they had been then outdoing each other over who was most understanding about Jesse being gay. When his dad had bought him a six-month supply of condoms and his mom said she was painting their garage with a rainbow, he had finally put a stop to it. No, if he was honest, he had never wanted them to meet Jonah.

They’d love Gabriel though, and they would be putty in his strong, capable—sexy—hands.

Jesse was a mixture of excited, awed, and breathless whenever he was near Gabriel, and nerves flew like butterflies in his stomach. His first fumbling advances toward Ben from biology class was the last time he’d felt anything like it. He wanted Gabriel. In fact, if he was honest, he needed Gabriel. He was just worried because, if the sex was as good as the kissing, it was fifty-fifty whether he’d ever leave Gabriel’s bed, and somehow he needed to earn money to live.

Instead of hot and heavy and now, Gabriel led Jesse by the hand down the narrow hall to the bedroom in his house. The lighting was low, created by a simple lamp next to the bed. The bed itself was large and made of carved wood.

“It’s very like the bed in the scarlet room,” Jesse said for want of anything else to say.

Gabriel sat down and patted the pristine white covers. “My dad was a carpenter,” he explained. “He made the bed in the room you’re in ’cause it was my old bedroom, and he made this one.”

“Your old room?”

“You have too many clothes on,” Gabriel said, changing the subject neatly as he pulled off his sweater and T-shirt in a combined move.

The skin exposed to his view was begging to be kissed, and it sent Jesse to his knees in front of Gabriel. A few moves and he had removed the clothes from his top half and Gabriel was on his knees in front of him. The trail of kisses began at Gabriel’s chin and moved to the delicate sensitive area over the pulse in his throat. Jesse paused at each nipple, kissing and sucking. Every single kiss was met with a sigh from Gabriel, and when Jesse’s tasting moved lower to Gabriel’s navel and the trail of hair to his groin, it was clearly enough.

In a smooth move, Gabriel helped Jesse to stand and pushed at his jeans. Jesse got with the plan and did the same to Gabriel until finally, fully naked, they tumbled with laughter back on to the soft cloud of the quilt. For a second, Jesse just stared into Gabriel’s eyes. The connection was intense, dangerous, and new. This beautiful man under him had somehow gotten through his defenses, destroyed them, and made Jesse feel. He didn’t want sex; he didn’t want to fuck. He wanted to make love.

“Why so serious?” Gabriel whispered. “Are you okay with this, Jesse?” His name on Gabriel’s lips was just the right tone, the syllables soft and dripping with emotion.

“More than okay. It’s just I need you to know.”

“Know?”

“About…him.” He wasn’t sure of the etiquette of bringing up another man when he was in bed with Gabriel, but he had to say something.

“You don’t have to say a word,” Gabriel murmured.

“His name was Jonah and I loved him. He was my future and I was going to…” Emotion shot through him. It wasn’t the usual grief though. The emotion was more akin to anger. “I had a ring. I was going to ask him to make it all official on Christmas Day. Thing is, the whole relationship was a lie from day one. He chose money over me. You’ve seen these traders that swindle millions from banks? Well one of those was Jonah. Took all my money as well.”

“I did see that,” Gabriel offered gently. Jesse nodded. He knew it wouldn’t have been something Gabriel wouldn’t have seen.

“It killed me,” Jesse admitted.

“Oh, Jesse.” Gabriel worried his lower lip with his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“Everything I felt was wrapped up in that single perfect Christmas. Does that make any sense? I had the tree and the decorations and food and presents and that damn ring burning a hole in my pocket, and on Christmas Eve I woke up to everything going to hell.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Gabriel offered gently. And Jesse believed him.

“I’ve spent almost two years running from it all, and I-I couldn’t face Christmas.” Jesse closed his eyes and rested his head on Gabriel’s chest. That was possibly the most incredibly stupid thing he had said since he had arrived in Eden Vale.