December with Peppermint

By K.L. Noone

Wesley Kim absolutely, positively refuses to film a holiday sex tape. And that might be a problem.

His boyfriend’s agent thinks it’ll be good publicity for Finn’s career. In good fun. Tasteful. A deliberate leak to announce to everyone that former adorable teen idol Finn Ransom’s all grown up and definitely sexy. Finn’s already said no, but now he’s worried about his image. He does want to be himself for the world, openly loving holidays and handcrafted ornaments and terrible puns and his boyfriend and all.

With some holiday decorations, candy canes, and a lot of love, Finn and Wes just might find a compromise that’s a little bit nice, a little bit naughty ... and flavored with peppermint kisses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781685500054

K.L. Noone

K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press; her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies. With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

Book preview

Chapter 1

My agent thinks we should make a sex tape.

Finn made this proclamation from their couch, where he’d been alternately making decorative citrus garlands and checking email, legs stretched out atop pillows. He also glanced down at Wes, clearly just to see the reaction.

Wes paused amid a snowdrift of student papers to say, And who would be the ‘we’ in that case, because it definitely doesn’t involve me, and scribbled a note about historical clarification and fourteenth-century sumptuary laws in a margin. And if you say Santa Claus I’m hiding all your Christmas decorations.

Might be fun. Jolly. Coming down someone’s chimney. Gumdrop—

Please stop there.

But now you’re picturing it. Anyway, she thinks it’d be, and I quote, a good way to spice up my image. Finn leaned down to wiggle a string of dried oranges and cranberries at Wes’s face. His eyes were amused, blue-green as oceans, the unforgettable tropical color that’d once made Finn Ransom a massively famous teen idol. His hair was getting long, and brown-blond floppy waves bounced. You know, because I’m so wholesome.

Janice doesn’t know you and the Santa Claus fantasies, Wes said wryly, at all, does she? He tipped his head back for a kiss, though.

He’d been sitting on the floor, letting Finn have the sofa—his boyfriend’s legs had been aching in the cold mid-December weather, damp spitting Los Angeles rain coming and going—and using the floor space to sort papers into graded and ungraded heaps. He’d planned to finish early, and not have to worry about grade submission closer to the university deadline.

He did try to be conscientious about comments and feedback. He wanted his students to love medieval history, and the delight of detail and adornment and materiality, and the way legislation about shoe-points or the wearing of sable said so much about fashion and economics and being human.

He’d always loved his job. His research and teaching. His life. Even more so now, with Finn sharing it.

Their living room floor was in fact decently comfortable. Room to stretch out. Space to spread out those student papers, sorted by his