Damian's POV
"Fuck, we are sooooo late," June moaned quietly into my shoulder and tugged her black leather skirt down with her hand.
She repeated those words from the moment we pulled ourselves off my sofa, which my ass stuck to. It stung like a bandage ripped off when I stood up.
I pressed my lips together so my 'Not as late as Celia' comment stayed in my mind. June's skirt, like some of her other coupon-obsession deals, was a lost cause yet her stubbornness clung to the idea she smoothed it over.
Like recovered and rescued living things, June was a sucker for coupons and bargains. Why she fell for such 'good deals,' as she called them, I also had no idea. As the prime recipient of her Brazilian waxes, and another year's worth was her present this year, I confessed that they weren't all bad.
Apron-only cooking lessontss and a Kama Sutra class were better on paper than in reality. Both would have been fun with the two of us, but not in a group class setting.
The most recent 'fail' example of my girlfriend's odd combination of a weakness and determination happened two days ago. Why she thought I wanted a buy one, get one free dirty water hotdog from the vendor closest to where the Central Park carriage horses shit on West 59th Street, I still had no idea. The second June's hand petted a nearby horse, my hot dog went into the nearest trash can. She had to have known, by the exaggerated way she choked hers down like she deep throated it.
Two steps off the elevator, my shoulders relaxed when she thrust both the holly and aloe plants into my hands and yanked her wrinkled skirt down. A smile twitched my lips because I'd abandoned salvaging my pants and changed into a fresh pair.
"I like it shorter," I teased and looked at her backside... to make sure it was covered, like a good, protective, gun-licensed boyfriend would do.
"You would," she huffed quietly and snatched her plant friends back. "Holster the teasing and knock already, please?"
I chuckled quietly because at one point June told me she preferred that I knocked on people's doors. She'd said something about my fist slammed harder and was easier to hear over than her 'are you sleeping?'-type soft knuckle raps.
Full honesty, I was fucking her from behind during that conversation, so the details past the part where she told me my door knocks were sexy are a bit fuzzy.
A fresh paint smell lingered in the loft-style apartment building's lobby and hallway. I locked my eyes on June's, which flashed like tiny Christmas stars as the side of my hand pounded on our designation's doorway.
My stomach clenched at the sound of approached steps that muffled on the other side of the apartment door, where-
"Wow!" Adam Johnson catcalled out from where he opened the door to the apartment he shared with his boyfriend Vaugh Goldin. "You came... finally."
With my slight height gain over Adam, his perfectly gelled brown curly hair made mine look like a porcupine in comparison. Since the only person I cared about impressing stood next to me, I hadn't even attempted fluffing up the flat spot in the back where my head pressed against the sofa. While I worked out for work stamina and stress relief, Adam was fit but his muscles were slender and tapered, especially his legs.
He couldn't look more different from his boyfriend.
At the thought of his boyfriend, a tall, rail-thin guy who only lifted photography equipment, with slicked back blonde hair and piercing blue eyes appeared. Vaugh stepped flush against Adam's side and smiled at us with a flash of toothpaste-commercial white.
It faded as soon as they dropped to the plants in June's hands, which twitched up the corners of my mouth. I rolled it inward because the two of them were joined at the hip, by a couple's double sweater they wore. Vaughn's half was green with 'Nice' written in white, while Adam's red 'Naughty' side was accurate.
June noticed their couples' outfit right away too, mentally cataloged it as an option for us next year, and wagged a finger between them. "That's adorable and accurate. Does it mean you have to go everywhere together though?"
Once she pointed that out, I saw the annoyance factor and was thankful June hadn't gone that route.
Still could do without the reindeer tit though.
In a brief moment of stupidity, I thought when the nose flew off that she abandoned the sweater boob idea, but she brushed off the 'wardrobe malfunction' and taped it back in place.
"Hey," I greeted them with a smile, lifted up the bottle of bourbon I'd brought like a club cover charge, and stepped into a magazine-like apartment.
Correction, Christmas magazine.
Contrary to June's accusation that we never left our place, we had visited Vaughn and Adam's midtown apartment within the last year. Vaughn's black-framed photographs were covered with silver and light blue wrapping paper and adorned with ribbons and fluffy bows like presents.
At the snap of Adam's fingers, June and I kicked off our shoes into a collective pile near the door, and stepped onto their pristine, sandy blonde floors.
I remember when my place was this clean.
The days when some kind of animal hair wasn't embedded in every pair of socks I owned dissolved like a distant memory when June handed Vaughn the plants. His long, spindly fingers wrapped around the pots and he retreated into the kitchen area with the look of a man who received an unwanted but expected gift.
"Oh goodness! Damian, look at the gingerbread house, oh and the tree is gorgeous, Vaughn!" June's sweet giggle in my left ear drew my attention to all kinds of details around the room, but my eyes glazed over them because I knew she dragged me around for a closer look. "It looks like one of those Macy's displays!"
"It looks like..." my voice dried up when the details came into focus.
Giant ornaments and three-dimensional paper snowflakes hung from the ceiling in different heights. From where we stood in the front foyer, I knew my 6ft head would hit some. I wouldn't have minded, even complimented their efforts, if their theme wasn't...
Dicks and balls.
At my side, June dissolved into a fit of giggles. "Oh my gosh, they really hung dildos from the ceiling."
"They sure did," I croaked out at the glass, silver, and royal blue dildos that hung dispersed throughout the living room in - yep, in a repeated pattern. "Color-schemed even."
"That was the -" Vaughn started when June made a mistake when she removed her coat.
The collective croak he and Adam shared would've made me laugh, if they hadn't both stared down at her breast like it was a tumor.
Suppose that's better than how I'm looking at it.
"And you look... exposed June-bug," Adam exclaimed, squeezed her bare tit in his palm like a circus clown honked a rubber horn, then dropped it. I stifled a groan as it bobbed and jiggled back into place. "And what do you mean Vaughn? Those dicks didn't hang themselves. Joint labor of love here."
If Adam wasn't gay enough to emcee New York's Pride Parade and in his own long-term relationship, then he wouldn't be getting that hand back.
"Boundaries, Adam." Vaughn's eyes rolled and he mouthed 'sorry' at me.
"It's okay." June patted one of her palms in my stomach. "Lock down that caveman mode caveman or I'm not tugging your club later."
Did she just -
"Oh my gosh, you came!" My nose cringed and my lower eyelids pushed up higher when a shrill, chirpy voice rang out to us.
As both Adam and Vaughn snorted at her choice of words, I lifted my eyes in the direction of my most-likely-cousin-in-law-to-be, where she waddled, yes waddled, at us in a black sweater with two downward arrows on the sides and 'Fruitcake in the Oven' on the middle.
Like her pregnant belly wouldn't have said the same thing.
My eyes rolled before I caught them, which earned me a sharp elbow from June into my left rib.
While I grunted, clutched my throbbing rib, and hinged over slightly, June and Celia exchanged a squealed greeting. I nodded acknowledgement of my cousin, whose black-haired head maneuvered around a well-endowed, blue rubber penis. My lips twitched at how he pitched so far sideways that the back of his head brushed up against another one, a shiny metal fucker.
Should've known this is what 'Come for a naughty Christmas sweater party' on the invitation meant.
These better not be party favors.
"Celia!" Thankfully, June's sweet voice filled in for the both of us and she extended both arms to grab the basketball-sized belly stretching Celia's sweater. "You're so adorably pregnant, like you've swallowed a tiny, cute fishbowl."
My eyebrows drew together at the mental image. It wasn't a good one.
"Jason got the memo though," Adam muttered, which shifted my gaze to the green sweater my cousin wore. 'Tis the Season to be Naughty' was printed in the background of two gingerbread men in doggy-style position, the one behind smiled while the one on all fours' mouth was stretched in an 'o' shape.
"Merry Christmas." Jason's brown eyes sparkled as he shook my hand. By the straight lines in his short, black hair, his knocked-up girlfriend had made him get a haircut right before tonight's party.
Still surprised that happened.
Their unplanned life's twist prompted my undeserved assault on the effectiveness of June's birth control. I even considered going back to condoms until June went to her ob/gyn and assured me with the driest tone of voice that her IUD was more than operable.
"Enjoying a night out before your life's over?" I joked and squeezed his hand tight.
"Just wait, man..." Jason's voice faded as he checked out my and June's sweaters, then just shook his head.
My chest tightened at the idea of children, not that mine and June's wouldn't be -
"Why is your face paler than snow?" June's arm hooked around my waist as she steered me further inside. While she gasped and 'oohed' at the decorations, I contorted my body similarly to Jason's Matrix-like shoulder backspring moves around the ornaments as she added, "And normal, beautiful, white snow. Not that black dirty shit we get here."
"I'm... fine." My eyes narrowed when we got closer to the Christmas-wrapped wall pictures.
The first one showed a naked Mrs. Claus with her own tits out as she ran away from a naked Santa. His jaw was dropped open and hands clutched at Mrs. Claus' ass. In another one, Mrs. Claus bent over a Christmas tree as she hung up an ornament while dressed in a red, sexy short skirt and Santa laid behind her, his eyes on her ass. I stopped looking at the third picture, a Grinch that cupped two ornaments over his crotch.
Don't get me started on how the Christmas tree looks like a bachelorette party threw up on it.
"Drinks?" Adam-Vaughn extended two cups of what looked like eggnog at me and June.
The smell of whiskey hit my nose when the glass was six inches from me, so I turned it down. "No thanks, but if you have a regular one, I'll... still not drink it."
"Sorry, even the eggnog is naughty." Vaughn handed me a water bottle, which I nodded at.
"Thanks." While my drinking was under control, I wouldn't have indulged. The worst insult to a good whiskey was the snot-like consistency of Christmas eggnog.
For her own understandable reasons, June wasn't much of a drinker past an occasional glass of wine either. I wouldn't have been surprised if she skipped drinking out of courtesy to Celia, who eyed Jason as he slurped up enough eggnog for the rest of us.
"I'm good too, I just can't with that texture." June flashed her palm up at Adam's offered cup, which he just shrugged, tapped it against Vaughn's, then took a long sip and swallowed hard.
Once Adam chugged his cup empty, I took in his flushed pink cheeks and slight look of panic in his blue eyes. "You alright?"
"Just fine," he assured me in a cool, even tone that raised my bullshit meter suspicions. Before I prompted him further, two thin arms squeezed around my neck.
"Damian!" Celia squeaked out as her belly rubbed right into my, well, jingle bells. She stepped back and giggled at the sweater, "Adorable. Good choice, June."
"Did pregnancy make you go blind Celia? It's horrible," I deadpanned. "How are you feeling, fishbowl?"
"Fishbowl?" she squeaked out, which earned me a few narrowed eyes.
"What?" I grunted when June's elbow hit my ribs again, this time without a coat barrier. "June said it first."
"She said I look tiny and cute." Celia's gray eyes clouded over, her red lips turned down, and her annoying voice turned into a loud wail that scared small animals, "I bet you think I look as huge as one of those Thanksgiving parade balloons!"
Not yet I don't. Ask me again in a month or two.
"Celia, you're not huge." Jason curled his arm around her and triggered my inner gag reflex when he kissed her cheek. "You're growing our son."
My eyebrows lifted at that announcement while June offered a more normal reaction and clasped her hands at her heart. As she did, I groaned against the urge I watched her bouncing reindeer tit. "Aww! You found out the gender?"
"No." Celia narrowed her eyes at Jason and flipped a stray strand of her light, straight blonde hair over her shoulder. "Someone has wishful penis thinking during every ultrasound."
"More like a death wish," I muttered and groaned out loud when June's elbow hit my rib and a stronger pain erupted in the same damn spot she'd nailed earlier... twice.
I'm getting her back if I have to pretend to like their black, blobby ultrasound pictures.
Starting with -
"Let's go look at the tree, Grinch." June flashed a bright smile at Celia and Jason, who now rubbed his hands over his girlfriend's belly. My ears tuned out their argument of who saw what on the last ultrasound while my girlfriend dragged me away.
"June, wait -" I started when my forehead smacked right into a glass dildo. "Ugh."
My hand steadied the long, slim figurine swinging back and forth, then I stepped behind June as she led us up to an eight-foot tall tree. The smell of fresh pine greeted us, along with strands of soft white lights, blue garlands of Christmas wreaths alternated with breast-like shapes that up close were testicles, white ornaments paired together also like balls, and almost as many dicks as what hung from the ceiling.
"June..." I started and wrapped my arms around her from behind. My head leaned forwards, caught her weird cinnamon and nutmeg perfume choice as my nose skimmed through her hair, and I pressed a soft kiss into the warm, smooth skin at the side of her neck. "Your friends are weird."
"They're also your... Damian." June gasped quietly and we both froze when my knuckles grazed the soft skin on the underside of her breast. A small shiver ran through her shoulders and her pulse vibrated right under my lips.
I pressed soft kisses and nibbles over her pulse point until June's lips rolled inward, her head slacked back against my chest, and she shivered again. Definite movement swelled between my legs, which I pressed right into June's lower back. From behind, I hugged her close and slid my eyes closed at how my body wrapped around hers. My heart pounded when my hand cupped right around -
"Okay everyone!"
Loud claps and Adam's barked out voice behind us sucked my brain back into reality and my eyes flipped open. I turned both of us around so that June's pink-flushed face drew more attention than the semi I hid behind her. By the sideways glance from Celia and slight shake of Jason's head from where they now stood across the room, we were anything but subtle.
"Now that almost everyone is finally here." His eyes narrowed at me and June, then sidestep shuffled into the middle of the living room in tandem steps with Vaugh. "We have a special announcement. Or, I do."
At the slight dizzy sensation from my bloodless brain, a soft jingle sounded as I reached down and adjusted my tented pants. Thankfully, June's hideous sweater offered another layer of coverage but my brain fogged over again at the close proximity of her ass, round and ripe for squeezing or more grinding against. My hand met the softness where her cheek met her thigh and blood flooded down into my dick.
Fuck, why did she wear the tight, black leather skirt? She knows -
"As everyone knows," Adam continued in a strained voice and beamed at Vaughn. "This guy has put up with me longer than anyone else, Lord knows why."
"Even I don't know most days," Vaughn quipped with a grin.
"Oh gosh..." June's reindeer tit lifted, then dropped as she sighed dreamily.
The softness of her hair brushed against my neck while she leaned her head and shoulders back against me. I wrapped my arms around her, below the bare skin that my brain still buzzed over. A lightheadedness spun between my eyes when she whispered excitedly, "He's going to propose. He's so going to propose right now, Damian."
"He's... what?" My whisper came out broken and I breathed heavily, right into June's ear.
Her nod lifted my eyes from her shoulder to the sight of Celia and Jason. They stood in a similar position as ours, except Jason whispered into her ear and they both exchanged sappy, lovesick looks. His hands caressed around her stomach like he held it up for her, she beamed brightly, and pressed a kiss under his jawline.
"I picked the worst sweater for this," Adam confessed with a smile, tossed back another eggnog cup with a loud gulp, and slipped down out of the sweater.
His hair stuck up in the back of his head as he turned around, and my stomach dropped right when he sank down onto one knee. Tightness constricted my chest like a vice grip and a flushed sensation ran through my veins.
A collective gasp rang out from the room, led by June, but all I felt were waves of heat that swelled inside my brain. Vaugh's eyes stretched wide right as mine did and a throbbed pulse erupted right in the center of my forehead.
"Vaughn, love -" Adam started but the rest of his words dissolved under the pulsed beats in my eardrums.
My heart pounded so painfully in my chest, I would've guessed I was the one being proposed to. The pure white walls squeezed in on me like a straight jacket and I swore the dildos above us jiggled slightly, like icicles ready to impale us. A whistling sound tickled my throat as I took a shallow, shaky breath. The warmth and admiration that flowed out of Adam's eyes blurred over for a few moments until I blinked them back into focus.
A burn in my lungs brought my attention to how I'd held my breath, so I gasped but the room spun in a whirl of inappropriate Christmas ornaments, sappy exchanged looks, and teary-eyed faces, until my eyes fluttered and the entire scene went black.
The last thing I remembered was June's soft gasp as I collapsed and crashed flat onto the floor.