Authors: Cooper McKenzie
Climbing the wide circular staircase to the second floor, he entered the bedroom, which took up nearly half the second floor. It, too, was an open design with only the toilet and closet area screened off from the rest of the room. The walls were a color that reminded Winter of French vanilla ice cream, and the floor was carpeted with a thick, caramel-colored carpet that he couldn’t wait to roll around on. Toeing off his shoes, he moaned as the soft carpet caressed his bare feet.
The bed was the biggest thing he’d ever seen, the mattress lying directly on the carpet. The headboard looked like a piece of wrought iron fencing. When he approached, he discovered that it was attached to the wall and not to the bed.
The only other furniture was a couch with a coffee table in front of it facing a set of windows. He could imagine snuggling on the couch as they watched the sun come up in the morning. Or watching the leaves change color. Or snowflakes fall and cover the ground. Or the stars come out at night.
Looking around the rest of the room he could see that there were additional decorative touches that needed to be added. A basket of soft towels to sit by the giant, modern claw foot tub. Some artificial plants and trees to turn the bathroom area into a jungle. Extra pillows and a thick comforter to cover the bed. A trunk at the foot of the bed to hold their small but growing toy collection along with extra blankets and pillows.
God, he really was a girl, he thought as he walked around the room and looked across it from a different angle. That was one of the things all his boyfriends had teased him about, being too feminine. Though his apartment didn’t show it, he liked to cook, help his friends decorate their apartments, read foodie and women’s magazines, clip coupons, and shop when his brain wasn’t consumed with whatever project he was in the middle of.
His mood grew darker when he realized his mates knew nothing about that side of him. Would they still want him when they found out?
Before he could open the double doors that led to the rest of the second floor, a voice called from downstairs. “Winter? Where are you?”
“Up here,” he said sadly, turning to head toward the stairs.
Before he reached them, his mates bounded into view, each carrying two large black plastic bags.
“So, what do you think?” Garrett asked.
Winter watched as he carried his bags across the room, setting them next to the four boxes containing Winter’s entire wardrobe. He rarely traveled and didn’t even own a suitcase, just a large sports-bag he used when he went to visit his parents.
“It’s beautiful,” he said simply as his inadequacies piled up to smother him. He dropped his face so his men wouldn’t see his expression.
“But?”
Winter heard Hawk drop his bags and come to stand in front of him. He saw the man’s boots just before large warm hands settled on his shoulders. A moment later he felt warmth at his back and knew that Garrett had joined them. A kiss brushed across the back of his neck sent shivers through him, making it hard to think of a polite way to break the news to his mates of his girly side.
“What’s wrong, Winter? Don’t you like it?”
“No, it’s not that. I love it. I want to decorate it. I want to hang pictures and buy couches and chairs and rugs and make it even more beautiful. I want to cook gourmet meals in that beautiful kitchen and throw poker parties for your brothers,” Winter said softly, unable to hide the misery in his voice.
He blinked several times, but the tears filling his eyes would not be caged. When a hand slid under his chin, he fought it, not wanting his mates to see him cry.
“Winter, look at me,” Hawk ordered, his voice gentle but with a thread of strength that melted Winter’s determination.
He slowly lifted his head until he was looking up into Hawk’s strong features and bright blue eyes.
“Baby, we love you. We want you to be happy. If decorating and cooking will put a smile on your face, we’re all for it,” Hawk said as he brushed the tears from Winter’s cheeks.
“We haven’t decorated because we wanted to wait for our mate so it would be
our
house. Except for the office, we don’t really spend much time here,” Garrett said behind him before kissing the side of his neck. “We’re mountain men, Winter. We don’t know anything about decorating. The only reason the walls and carpet go together in the room was because Mom picked them out. We just did the manual labor.”
“So you don’t mind if I’m girly?” Winter asked hesitantly.
“What’s girly about decorating and cooking? Some of the best chefs and interior designers in the world are men. And most of them are gay,” Hawk said. “Feel free to go crazy. All I ask is that we have a big screen TV and at least one nice recliner chair, so I can sit back and watch movies with my baby in my lap.”
“I’ll see if I can find double recliners, so we can all snuggle together,” Winter suggested, the sadness gone and excitement surging forward to take its place. His mates didn’t see him as weak or less than a man because he liked things most men wouldn’t be caught dead doing. All at once he couldn’t wait to get started.
The two men pressed closer until they made a Sullivan sandwich with a Winter center. Winter felt long, thick, hard cocks press into his belly and between the cheeks of his ass and knew he was in trouble if he didn’t break this up and soon.
“Show me your office,” he requested, stepping sideways and out from between the brothers before they realized his intent.
His mates grumbled as he danced away from them, across the carpet toward the closed double doors. The boxes of his equipment sat lined up along the wall as if no one wanted to enter their office.
“Now, you can do anything you want with the rest of the house, but please don’t do anything in here without discussing it with us first,” Garrett said as each man reached for a doorknob.
“Okay, not a problem. I figure I’ll be demanding your input on almost everything I do. I want this to be our house, so you’re going to have to help choose some things.”
His mates looked at him with identical deer-in-headlight expressions. “We have to go shopping?”
“It won’t hurt a bit. And if you go shopping with me, you’ll be able to test out the recliners and the couches and have a say on what kind of pictures I hang on the walls.” Winter tried to make it sound appealing.
“We can talk about that later. Right now we want you to see this,” Garrett said as they opened the double doors.
Winter walked in, his eyes growing wider with each step until he thought they might pop out of his skull. “Oh my God, it’s…it’s…it’s…Oh, it’s perfection.”
This was the office of his dreams, though he hadn’t realized it until that very second. One wall was lined with cork with papers, pictures, and small colorful notes hanging from tacks. Another wall held a bank of monitors with several keyboards on a long table just in front of them. Though currently dark, he could see them lit up, each monitoring a different program or showing an aspect to a complicated layout. Another wall had nothing but maps; of the world, of the country, of the state and one of just the local area. The fourth wall had a series of storage cabinets though he saw that at least one contained the computer mainframe that provided the heartbeat for this room.
The center of the room was filled with a huge worktable, two-thirds of which was covered with computers, papers, and other minutiae necessary for running a business. The last third was completely empty, as if waiting for him to set up his station and get to work.
Turning, he found Garrett and Hawk standing side by side, tense and nervous. He threw himself at them, knowing instinctively that they would not let him fall. He wrapped a hand around each man’s neck and pulled them both down, so he could reach them.
“I love you.” He kissed Hawk’s lips.
“I love you.” He turned his head and kissed Garrett.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue. Thank you for choosing me to be your mate. Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for not hating me for being girly. I love you both so much.”
He moved from one to the other, back and forth every few words. Lips, cheeks, and chins all received kisses as he grew more and more excited about this new life they would be building together.
“I love you, too, baby,” Hawk said, his voice deeper and rougher than usual.
“Me, too, sexy,” Garrett echoed in the same tone that sent need racing through Winter’s entire body to gather deep in his pelvis.
Before they could strip themselves and him, Winter pulled away. “Will I be able to have my computer without hooking it into your system? I’m kind of paranoid about people hacking in and stealing my work.”
“Not a problem. We can set it up for you any way you’d like,” Hawk assured him. “But we’re not doing it right now.”
“Why not? It’s been days since I’ve checked my e-mail. And I need to let my publishers know that I’m incapacitated. And my assistant needs to know that I’m out of commission for jobs for the next few weeks. Oh, God, my fan club will be going nuts since I usually check in with them a couple times of day.”
He began to pace around the room, mentally kicking himself for falling out of touch with the world. Just because he’d been hurt, met his mates, fallen in love and moved was no reason to go completely incommunicado for this long.
“We’ll set it up for you later. And we’ll help you with your e-mail and anything else you need to be taking care of,” Garrett said, taking him by the arm and leading him out of the office and toward the stairs.
Hawk followed just behind after closing the doors to the office. “Right now you need to relax and heal. Nothing is so important that it can’t wait another couple of hours while we take you on a tour of your new hometown.”
Winter looked from one to the other. “Really? You’ll help me? Wow, that would be great. Okay, then let’s go sightseeing.”
Chapter 11
Garrett watched Winter as he fell in love with Sanctuary. Their little mate was interested in everything, wanting to know what each of the outbuildings was for and how the co-op general store worked and how they’d brought electricity, water, Internet and cell service to their little corner of the mountains.
He didn’t believe him when Hawk said, “A little piracy and a lot of magic.”
So Garrett went into details about how over the past two hundred and fifty years the Sullivans had earned more than a few favors from the government and every once in a while called one in through back channels and goodwill.
After walking the perimeter of the meadow that encompassed Sanctuary proper and keeping Winter from exploring every nook and cranny in every outbuilding, they returned to the Wash House for lunch. After the meal was over they left Winter at table and cleared the table and did the dishes.
“So, what’s for dinner?” Cole asked as he and Dawson pushed from the table.
“Hmmm, haven’t given it any thought.” Garrett looked at Hawk who shrugged. “Any suggestions?”
“There’s no more frozen lasagna in the valley, so don’t even think about it,” Cole said. “Since we’ve had sandwiches for lunch you can’t do that either.”
Winter waited until the others left to move to the open kitchen door. “So what’s the deal with dishes and cooking and stuff?”
“One set of twins cooks, and the next set in the alphabet cleans up then cooks the next meal. Since we cleaned up for lunch we’re responsible for cooking for dinner and Mom and the Dads will clean up. They’ll make breakfast and Adam, Brock, and Spring will clean up and then cook lunch. And so on and so on.”
“So where do I fit?” Winter leaned against one side of the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest. His pain was almost tolerable, but he would take a couple of generic over-the-counter painkillers in a few minutes just to keep everything under control.
“You’re on our team. But until you can get your hands wet, you can just stand there and look cute,” Hawk said as he began to wash pots and pans while Garrett stacked dishes into an industrial-sized dishwasher.
“Sounds like a tough job, but I think I can handle it,” Winter snarked.
The two worked as a well-oiled machine putting the kitchen to rights. Once they finished, Hawk opened a subzero freezer and then stood and studied the contents. “Damn, there’s nothing in here.”
Winter crossed the kitchen to stand beside him and giggled. The freezer was nearly full of meats and vegetable packages.
“Pull out that big package of chicken breasts, and lay them out to defrost,” he said, pointing to a large plastic bag. And those two bags of green beans. Do you have onions? Cornflakes? Mushroom soup?”
As the brothers rushed to pull out the items he called out, Winter mentally put together a menu that was easy enough for his mates to fix, yet delicious enough to impress his new extended family.
“We’ll need to be back here an hour and a half before dinnertime,” he said. “So what should we do now?”
Before either of his men offered a suggestion, the front door slammed open, causing Winter to jump. A disheveled man walked in, looking around the room wide-eyed and panicked.
“Winter? Where the hell are you?”
“Scott? What are you doing here?” Winter started across the room, baffled at the other man’s sudden appearance in this place he shouldn’t even know about.