Christmas delicacy
Title: Christmas delicacy
Pairing: Andy Murray/Tim Henman
Rating: R
Word count: 2,986
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters and this is a fiction.
Summary: Andy and Tim try to bake a Christmas cake on a peaceful Christmas Eve.
Author’s note: This is a Christmas story dedicated to the_limousine as a part of the Secret Santa event on tennis_crack. Merry Christmas, sweetheart :)
It was Christmas Eve. Unlike other Christmas holidays, Andy had decided to spend a quiet Christmas with his boyfriend, Tim. He had had enough of his mother scolding him to get a haircut and he also had had enough of his brother, Jamie’s love life problems.
“Andy, you’re glaring at the mixed fruit. Are the currants in trouble?” Tim came out of the bedroom after talking to his mother on the phone.
“Well, they absorbed whisky pretty well overnight, so nah, they’re safe. I was just thinking about Jamie’s whines. Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother but his love life is a mess.”
“Ahaha, next time I get to talk to him, I’ll make sure he knows that.”
Now it was Tim that Andy was glaring at, but Tim wasn’t afraid. He was just happy that he could spend a couple of days with his boyfriend. Things hadn’t been easy between them ever since he had retired and Tim was blissful that Andy had enough patience to stick around. And, tonight, the boy was even planning to bake him a Scottish Christmas cake, the famous Whisky Dundee cake, so he had every right in the world to be happy.
“Love you, Andy.” Tim whispered in the Scot’s ear and placed a long kiss on the ever-growing hair.
“Confessing your love won’t save you from baking this cake with me, you know.”
Andy grinned with his ears slightly red. His skin had always betrayed him whenever he wanted to hide his blushes.
“It won’t? Ah, that’s too bad.” Tim sighed in the most dramatic way possible and pointed at the bowl in Andy’s hands.
“You already have mixed fruit and candied peel in there. What else can I help you with?”
“You can always whisk eggs for me while I beat butter and sugar. We’ll have to put all of that together and… fold in sifted flour and baking powder.” Andy read from the recipe that he had gotten from his grandmother.
“Don’t be mad if I ask you this, but have you ever baked a cake before?” Tim put on his best cute smile, just in case his boyfriend chose to roar at him.
“Of course not. I always had better things to do than bake a cake.”
“Ah, so I should feel very special now, right?” Tim smiled his trademark smile that didn’t allow anyone to snap at him.
“Well, I might give you a decent answer for that if I get a decent kiss.”
Andy figured that he would need some incentives if he was to go through the horribly tedious process of baking a cake. He remembered his grandmother telling him that it wasn’t a particularly difficult cake to bake, but as Tim had suspected, Andy had never baked a cake, or for that matter, anything else before in his entire life.
“If I give you a decent kiss, do I get to eat a decent cake afterwards? I’d hate to see us waste time on something that we won’t succeed in the end.”
Tim’s arms had already taken their positions on Andy’s body; one hand was firmly around the waist and the other one was gently caressing the cheek. He was ready to deliver a kiss.
“Hmm… I don’t know. To be honest, I can’t even think of the outcome of those ingredients combined. So I’m rather trying to come up with some creative ways that would keep us on track.”
Andy’s hands were on each of Tim’s arms and he automatically closed his eyes. No matter how many times they have kissed, Andy always had trouble keeping his heart rate in check and his body would give out all kinds of signs of nervousness and excitement.
“You’re the sweetest, right before we kiss.”
Tim adored the boy in his arms and in his heart. It still felt like a dream to kiss him and their kiss had been impressively natural even from the very beginning. Tim hadn’t doubted even for a single time that the two were a match made from heaven.
He caressed the now rosy cheek a few more times before narrowing the gap between the two pairs of lips. It was kiss time.
“Mmm…”
Andy let out a half-satisfied moan as Tim’s tongue started teasing his own. If there was one thing that the Scot had been truly surprised about Tim was how much of an excellent kisser he was; probably he even knew how to kiss better than how to hit tennis balls.
Andy tugged at his boyfriend’s arm and Tim got the message. He placed a hand on the back of Andy’s neck and the other hand grabbed the soft chin. The kiss had deepened and Andy was happy.
Twenty minutes later,
“Ah, it was nice.”
Andy smiled after more than a decent kiss. It was the type of kiss that he enjoyed the most. He pressed his lips one last time against the ones that warmed up his heart so much and glanced at the clock.
“Jesus. Wasn’t it 3:40 before? Where did twenty minutes go?”
“We kissed for that long?” Tim raised his eyebrows. Judging by how Andy’s lips were shining in their most adorable color, perhaps they did.
“But it was totally worth it.” Andy stated.
“It was.”
The Scot’s smile never failed to make Tim smile goofily and they giggled like two schoolgirls.
“Okay, what do we have to do next? Now you’re responsible to give me a cake which I can actually eat.” Tim hoped that Andy’s cake would look at least half as good as the one in the picture that was on the back of the recipe.
“Let me check. Hmm… did you whisk the eggs already?”
“No. I only got them out of the fridge and then, I guess I became distracted by the possibility of kissing you.” Tim confessed.
“Haha, you whisk them while I get butter and sugar.”
“All right.”
As Tim did as he was told, Andy put on some carol and came back to the kitchen.
“It’s officially Christmas baking time now.”
“Yes, it is!” Tim liked the sound of it.
“I’m glad that neither of us insisted to make dinner too.” Andy picked up the wooden spoon and started beating butter and sugar. “We would’ve ended up with nothing edible for supper and only a great dessert.”
“Haha, true. The roast goose that we ordered will arrive at seven o’clock sharp.” Tim informed his boyfriend and earned a good boy kiss on the cheek.
“Okay, the eggs are done.”
“Same here. We should add flour and baking powder now.”
Tim sifted the flour while humming to Mariah Carey’s number one hit carol and checked if Andy was doing okay with the baking powder. He was holding the edge of the packet, tossing powder into the bowl.
“Uh, Andy, I think it said that you should use a large tablespoon.”
“A large tablespoon?” Andy frowned.
“Yes, a large tablespoon.” Tim didn’t like that frown. Something told him that things were not okay.
“But I don’t have any kind of tablespoons.”
Bingo! He was right. He was always right when it came to predicting a bad future.
Tim put down the sifter and looked at the pastry chef of the day. “How can you bake without even a tablespoon? And, weren’t you supposed to use one while you sprinkled whisky on those fruit yesterday?”
They both looked at the problematic bowl that sat on the corner of the table. Tim picked it up and sniffed. “Jesus Christ.”
He read the beginning of the recipe and shook his head. “Andy Murray, exactly how much whisky did you pour in here? It says three tablespoons and this smells definitely much more than three tablespoons.”
Andy’s fingers played with the edge of the baking power packet while his eyes rolled clockwise, trying to come up with an answer that would make Tim’s voice soft again.
“I just forgot to buy a tablespoon, that’s all.”
Given the look on Tim’s face, that probably wasn’t the best answer.
“I’m sorry.” Andy pouted. This wasn’t the romantic Christmas baking time that he had planned.
Tim laughed softly and kissed the disappointed boy on the forehead. “Don’t worry. We’ll just need to do some little adjustments.”
Did Tim know what he was talking about? No, he had absolutely no idea how to fix the cake but he couldn’t afford seeing the sad look on the cute boy’s face. He thought about going out to the nearest store and buying a tablespoon but it was snowing heavily outside.
“Too bad we can’t drive.” Apparently, Andy had had the same idea.
“It’s just a cake. It can’t be that hard, right?” Tim wasn’t really asking. He was rather reassuring himself.
“I love you, Tim.” Andy wrapped his white arms around his boyfriend’s waist and rubbed his hair against his shoulder.
Tim turned his head for a quick kiss and grabbed the recipe tightly in his hand. He was going to make this work, somehow.
Twenty minutes later, Tim had managed to fold the ground almonds, currants, sultanas, cherries, mixed peel and orange and lemon zest in the mixture, with a little amount of Andy’s help. Andy was rather helping him by encouraging him; using his hands to wipe the flour off his hands and face, or using his tongue to take care of some lemon drops that had spattered on his neck.
“Mmm… Andy…”
It was hard to focus on spooning the mixture into the cake tin. In fact, it was hard to even breathe properly when Andy pulled down his T-shirt a little and added kisses on his collarbone. He was a very sensitive person.
Still, Tim did his best to smooth the mixture out evenly with the back of the spoon. Each time he had almost done it, Andy would bite a spot and his fingers would tremble, making the mixture uneven again.
“Andy, I need to concentrate here.” Tim was almost begging.
“And, I need to concentrate here too.” Andy’s voice was casual with a dangerous amount of huskiness in it. Tim completely died for Andy’s bedroom voice.
“Andy…” Now he was whining. He couldn’t care less about the cake anymore. He just wanted Andy to get rid of his T-shirt and bless his chest with his lips already.
‘Okay, I can’t afford icing the cake. I’ll just arrange the almonds on top.’
Tim took a deep breath and gathered what was left of his sanity to put the almonds on the mixture. He was pretty sure that Andy’s grandmother had warned that this process had to be done carefully and lightly, otherwise the almonds will sink during the baking, but he was going to consider himself lucky if the mixture even made it to the oven.
“Oh, the oven! We were supposed to pre-heat it!” Tim yelled. “At 170 degrees! Andy, would you be a sweetheart and do that for me?”
“But I’m busy here.” Andy’s head was almost inside Tim’s shirt now.
“Andy… we need this cake. You went shopping to get all these ingredients and…”
He couldn’t keep talking. Andy had just hooked a finger on his jeans and briefs, and had put some almonds inside.
“Oops.”
So much for an “oops” when the Scot had an evil grin on his lips.
“What are you doing, Andy Murray? I asked you to go pre-heat the oven.” Tim hoped that his voice didn’t shake too much, or even if it did, he wished that it would have sounded as if he was trembling with anger, not with guilty pleasure.
“I love it when you call me by my full name.” Andy whispered in his huskiest voice as he got up from the chair and walked past the poor Englishman who had frozen in his place.
He hummed along to the carol that was still playing in the living room and set the oven at 170 degrees.
“By any chance, do you want me to help, getting out those almonds?”
Andy winked at his boyfriend and felt good. This was the Christmas mood that he could enjoy. Teasing Tim had never failed to put a demonic grin on his lips and he had to admit that he liked the sexy idea of having to find out every single almond that fell inside Tim’s tight briefs.
“You so did that on purpose…” Tim breathed hard.
He knew that he had to remain sane until the mixture was inside the oven. If he could hang on until then, he would have about two hours for the oven to do its job and about half an hour for the cake to cool. He could make Andy pay the price for teasing him for those two and half hours or so.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”
Andy stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, making sure that Tim was watching. He was giving a hint of what he could do, once he found all those naughty almonds.
“I enjoy eating almonds, you know.” Andy pressed one last time and heard Tim swallow hard.
“But I need to put the mixture in… The oven has to be heated…”
He wasn’t speaking coherently anymore. The mere idea of having Andy’s delicate fingers and talented mouth on him was too much for him to handle. He hadn’t had Andy in his bed for more than a week. The Scot’s coach had dragged him for intensive training and he had only returned for his Christmas vacation yesterday morning.
“Hmm, you’re worried about the oven? I’m sure that it’ll be ready in a few minutes. Would you mind me starting my search a little earlier than that?” Andy took a few steps towards his boyfriend who was clearly agitated.
“I… I never agreed to a search. I’ll just go… in the bathroom and take them out myself.”
Gulp.
Tim felt thirsty.
“Pfft, nonsense. I want to be a very caring boyfriend. I can’t let you take care of such trivial matters on your own. Let me do the dirty work.”
Andy took the final step, and now he was standing right in front of his shaking boyfriend.
“Kiss me.” He demanded. He knew that there was no way Tim could refuse.
“Andy…”
“It’s Christmas Eve. I think I can ask for a simple kiss here.”
Tim sighed, knowing what might come with the kiss. But did he really want to go to the bathroom and turn his underwear upside down, when there was an eager guy who wanted to help you out in a more fun and creative way? Tim knew the answer deep inside his heart. He just had too much decency left to admit it.
“Kiss me, Tim. Please…”
Begging had always worked like magic and this time was no exception. Tim pulled the pretty, little devil in his arms and closed his eyes.
The kiss was as magical as any other great kisses that they have shared… until Tim felt familiar fingers unbuckle his jeans.
“Mmm…” He wanted to protest but Andy took control over the kiss while they both heard the sound of a zipper go down.
‘Hallelujah!… Oh, wait. That wasn’t what I wanted to say…’
No more thoughts were possible for Tim as a hand sneaked inside his briefs, moving around as if it was a free zone.
‘Andy…’
The kiss became more aggressive and the hand started to move in and out of the underwear, taking out one almond at a time.
‘Can’t you just take out several of them at once?’
Tim wanted to complain but something inside his underwear told him that he was enjoying this time much more than he had expected. Perhaps he wasn’t too old after all.
Clang.
The oven caught their attention, and Andy pulled out his hand before putting the captured almond in his mouth.
“Hmm, it’s good! I knew that I bought the right ones.”
Tim let out a moan. He couldn’t believe that seeing Andy eat it was turning him on so much.
Clang.
“Oh, the cake!”
As the oven announced once more that it had finished pre-heating, Tim grabbed the mixture and headed to the oven.
“I’ll open it for you.” Andy offered and Tim placed the mixture at the center of the oven, making sure that he had everything under control; well, of course, except for the almonds that were still left in his briefs.
“Good. Now we should wait for roughly two hours and check if the center is firm and springy to the touch.” Tim read from the second-last paragraph of the recipe and yelped when the torturous hand came back inside his briefs.
“Hmm… I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long.”
Andy’s hand took firm hold of its target. “I’d say that the center is already quite firm and…”
He now checked its elasticity, “Well, it could be a little springier to the touch but don’t worry. I can help you with that. After all, it’s Christmas. I’m feeling the Christmas Spirit.”
Andy flashed one last wicked smile and hooked a finger on his prisoner’s briefs again.
“Andy…” Tim couldn’t stop himself from following his boyfriend into the bedroom. He wanted this.
“Merry Christmas, Tim.”
Andy pushed his boyfriend on the bed before pulling down his black jeans.
“Merry Christmas, An… dy…”
Tim gasped for breath and heard Andy mutter a thank you to Santa Claus. Santa had just given him a mouth-watering Christmas gift.