"Shit!" I growled out in exasperation as the doorbell rang; who ever came to our door out here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?  Well, that is except for the occasional delivery men either dropping off art supplies for Justin or a special courier arriving to pick up one of his works, which were lately beginning to sell for obscenely high amounts of money.  Considering my partner was only 25 years old, it was amazing how quickly his reputation had spread among art aficionados and how much money his works were presently commanding, especially considering he had only spent two years in New York before deciding to return back home to move in with me at Britin.

After Justin had left, I had initially thought there was no way I would ever decide to keep this monstrous house, but as I found myself taking long drives on the weekend out here to think and de-stress, over time I had grown to love the peace and tranquility the grounds provided, as well as the memories that it evoked; short-lived ones, yes, but happy ones of Justin and me, as well as dreams of what could be at some time in the future, and I had ultimately decided that I didn't want to part with our home.

Not to mention that my son absolutely adored Britin; I had acquired six horses to fill the stables out back approximately six months ago, including a pony just perfect for him to ride, and between that and the pool Gus enjoyed himself immensely every time he came to visit Justin and me.  To my relief and delight, Mel and Lindsay had decided to move back to the Pittsburgh area about a year ago, right about the same time the same-sex laws had been relaxed sufficiently enough to ensure that the fears they had once expressed about being deprived of so many of their freedoms had been effectively squelched.  Missing their family, friends, and hometown, they had decided to come back home to raise Gus.  Now, I was able to see my son on a more frequent basis, and I relished in being able to spend time with him at least two weekends a month.  Between that, and Justin being back home where he belonged in my life and in my arms, along with Kinnetik chugging along like a well-oiled machine, I had to say that I was pretty much on top of the world.

In fact, I was expecting my son in about a week; his spring break from 2nd grade began then, and he would be spending the entire time here with Justin and me.  I was determined, therefore, to get as much of my work done at home in my office in the next several days before he arrived so I wouldn't be preoccupied with business matters while he was here.  I was going to concentrate on my son instead, and not the next, greatest advertising campaign.

So when the doorbell rang, interrupting my best-laid plans, I groaned.  "Justin, can you get that?" I called out.  Silence.  The doorbell sounded again with that stuffy, 'Buckingham Palace' chime that I abhorred as I repeated my request a little louder this time.  "Justin, get the door, okay?"  Justin had just been in the kitchen working on something to fix for lunch.  Where had he gone?  "JUSTIN!" 

I sighed heavily when the doorbell sounded a third time.  Was he deaf?  "Aaargh!" Throwing my pencil down onto my desk in resignation, I pushed back from the leather chair and stomped over to the hallway, trudging toward the door and frowning when I looked through the frosted, pane glass and seeing no one there.  What the fuck? I wondered as I reached for the door handle, wondering if the UPS man had left another package on our doorstep and scurried back to his van like they tended to do.  As I opened the door, however, I glanced down to see a petite, curly-haired towhead with fiery red hair and bright, blue eyes staring up at me.  In her hands she grasped a familiar cardboard box as she squinted at me curiously.  "Buy some cookies, Mr. Kinney?" 

I looked around, expecting a car of some type to be idling in the driveway, waiting until this wisp of a girl finished her spiel, but there was none.  "Where the fu, uh, where did YOU come from?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes.  "Well, when my mommy and daddy wanted to make a baby, they went up into the bedroom and..."

Cheeky little shit, I couldn't help thinking, remembering a time when I had used the same type of witticism on someone else - and garnered the same type of reaction. "Well, wherever you came from, I don't eat car...," I paused as what she said sank in.  "Hey, wait a minute; how do you know who I am?" 

"Duh; I live next door," she told me as she shook her head with that 'boy, is he old and senile' look.

I arched one eyebrow as I frowned.  "You do?  Where?" 

She opened her mouth to reply, but instead smiled brightly.  "Hi, Mr. Taylor," she gushed out with a giggly sort of breath as Justin appeared quietly at my side seemingly out of nowhere.  Justin had to be the sneakiest person when it came to walking around the wooden floors of our home; I normally managed to hit every squeaky spot there was, but he somehow succeeded in typically missing every one, resulting in him scaring the shit out of me on several occasions by appearing at my side without so much as a breath giving him away.  He seemed to take inordinate pleasure in testing the strength of my heart on a regular basis - in more ways than one. 

"Hi, Rachel!" he replied with one of his trademark smiles.  "What have we here?" 

I watched as Justin worked his charm and the girl blushed deep red to match her root hair color in reaction to his smile, much akin to a tween throwing herself at an idol at a rock concert.  Well, to be honest he sort of had that same reaction on me, too; only it normally made me horny and want to fuck him to within an inch of his life instead.

She shyly held out her bundle of outrageously high-carb treats to my partner, whose face lit up like he had suddenly been gifted with either a jumbo variety of our favorite sex toys or else an assortment of high-quality art brushes; I wasn't sure which.  But the beaming smile on his face told me all I needed to know; next to sex with me and his art, this was Justin's most favorite indulgence. 

His eyes sparkled as he reached into the box and retrieved an orange-colored box.  "Yes!" he practically crowed.  "Do-Si-Dos©!"  Before I could say 'promenade and allemande left,' Justin had shoved the box into my hands before snatching two green boxes this time.  "Oooh, Thin Mints©!  I love these after they're frozen!  And, oh, yeah!  Tag-A-Longs©!  Awesome!" 

Rachel glowed as Justin continued to shove boxes and boxes of cookies into my hands; I stood there with a combination of battle fatigue and shell-shock as he asked our neighbor, "Any new ones this year?" 

Rachel grinned with a nod.  "Yeah - and they're my favorites, too; they're kind of a cross between an Oreo© cookie and a Nestles Crunch Bar ."  She reached inside to show my partner a black, white, and red box emblazoned with the new cookie's name, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I was in trouble.  I snorted.  "Oh, that's perfect.  We'll take four boxes of the Hankie Pankies©; that's right up Justin's alley."

Rachel's eyes grew large at the increasingly growing order, images of accolades from her fellow scouts and the scout leader dancing in her head as Justin turned to glare at me and I merely smiled back in response.  "Better make it six boxes," Justin said evilly as he turned to face our red-haired neighbor.  "It might be the only hankie pankie that he gets - until the next time they're for sale.  On second thought, though, just give us whatever's in the rest of your box, okay?"  Rachel nodded excitedly as she handed over the entire medium-sized box to Justin. 

My mouth fell open in disgust as Justin turned to smile over at me smugly.  "I'll take those," he told me as he promptly snatched the Thin Mints©, Do-Si-Dos©, and Tag-A-Longs© out of my grasp and threw them back into the box, leaving me with the others.  "Pay the girl," he ordered like a royal decree with a twinkle in his eye as he peered back over at our neighbor.  "Nice to see you again, Rachel.  Come over sometime and you can ride one of the horses with us."

She dreamily beamed at my partner like he was some sort of demi-god.  "Really?  I love horses!"

Justin smiled affectionately at her.  "Great!  Well, have your mom or dad give me a call, and we'll set something up, then.  Need me to give you a lift home?" he asked.  Obviously Justin was a lot more familiar with this girl than I was.  Just what did he do during the day when I wasn't home?  Paint, or operate a combination babysitting service/horseback riding camp on the side?

"No, that's okay," she told him as I peeled off a couple of twenties and gave it to her.  "I'll just go back through the hole in the fence," she explained as Justin nodded like it was perfectly normal.  She reached inside her uniform pocket to fish around for some change to give me, but I held up my hand, still trying to get around the fact that we apparently had a hole somewhere in our fence that allowed this thief to come and go as she pleased.  I wondered if it was big enough for a horse to escape through, also; I would have to check that out.

"Keep it," I told her as her eyes grew large at the thought.  "I normally have to pay a lot more to get some hankie pankie." 

She frowned at me in confusion as Justin guffawed over my comment before shrugging her shoulders, apparently deciding I was simply mentally unbalanced somehow and couldn't be expected to form many coherent thoughts.  "Well, thanks again," she chirped brightly as she turned and began to skip away, her hands now free of her previous burden.

"Bye! Don't forget about what I said!" Justin told her with a wave as she nodded and hurried over toward the far side of the property; soon she had turned around the corner of the house and was out of sight.

I sighed as I shut the door, wondering what had just happened.   As I looked down at the boxes of cookies in my hands, however, I realized exactly what had happened:  Justin Taylor, thief of my heart, had struck again. 

Turning to walk down the hall toward the kitchen a few seconds later, I wasn't surprised to see Justin with the refrigerator door open.  Sure enough, I saw the gallon of 2% milk clutched in his hand as he carried it over to the counter and retrieved a tall, large glass from the cabinet next to the sink.  Before you could say "Big, Fig Newton©," Justin had opened one of the boxes of Tag-A-Longs© and was dunking the cookie in and out of the glass in a rhythmically-smooth motion.  He noticed me observing him as a gleam grew in his eye and he smiled.   I watched him as he slowly brought the chocolate-covered cookie up to his lips and took a bite, uttering an "Mmmm" in a sexy, guttural tone of voice and closing his eyes briefly in bliss as the cookie bites slid down his throat and he swallowed.  He licked the corner of his mouth then to retrieve an errant crumb and uttered one more "Mmmm," probably just for effect.  And I had to admit that it worked wonders on me.  The whole thing sounded remarkably like Justin normally reacted when he was about to come from ecstasy while my cock was thrusting in and out of his ass or he was sucking on it, and it instantly made my dick twitch in avid attention.

He had the gall to smirk at me then as I huffed in protest over being read so well.  I walked into the kitchen and dropped the Hankie Pankies© down onto the granite kitchen island with a thud.  "There...All the Hankie Pankie© you will need, Sunshine."  I narrowed the gap between us as I walked over and stood next to him with that shit-eating grin on his face and that milk-soaked, half-cookie still clutched in his hand.  I leaned down to whisper in his ear, "Hope it's as satisfying as the other kind."  Just for good measure, I took a little nibble on his ear, my hot breath washing over his face before I gave his smooth, creamy-colored neck a swipe with my tongue, noticing him shiver a little in reaction, before I turned to go.  "Now if you and your Hankie Pankies© will excuse me, I have a lot of work to do before Sonny Boy gets here."