We’re celebrating Christmas in July all month long! There will be bonus shorts, free goodies, giveaways, and even a new book! Keep your eye here on the blog, in the Facebook group, and on Instagram to hear about new things all month long.

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Ready for your first bonus goodie for Christmas in July?

Stubborn Little Teddy Bear has a stubborn little cutie and his equally stubborn Daddy butting heads over Christmas presents.

This comes from one of the photos Sage found for me that gave great inspiration for Christmas.

This guy looked adorable and was obviously little but he also looked like he could be a pain in the butt. So I started poking and this is what his Daddy had to tell me about.

Have fun with our first Christmas in July bonus short. It’s only about 2,300 words in length.

Stubborn Little Teddy Bear

“No, I made my decision clear.” He was the most stubborn cutie I’d ever met, but I was the most stubborn Daddy he’d ever met.

So I was going to win because he loved making me happy more than he liked getting his way.

Especially when he didn’t want what he was fighting for.

Some subs were more interesting than others and mine came in a delightfully grumpy flavor that was fascinating sometimes.

Christmas Eve was one of those times, but I’d expected it, so it wasn’t a surprise.

“You can’t just buy presents and not let me have them.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the large pile under the tree. “It’s not reasonable in anyway.”

I’d never claimed to be reasonable.

“I bought you presents.” A lot of them actually. The grownup ones were just smaller in size so the pile wasn’t as impressive. “There they are.”

Oh, he wanted those too but the big pile was wrapped in brightly colored Santa paper and each one was covered in bows and every decoration I could find. The grownup presents were decorated with a beautiful light blue paper with foil snowflakes and were wrapped perfectly with ribbon.

The contrast was deliberate, but I knew my boy.

Gawdy presents were just as big of a temptation as they were a trigger, but this was our third Christmas together and I’d learned my lesson. He was honest to a fault in most ways but not in his responses to what he thought about gift giving holidays…especially Christmas.

Then he lied like a felon trying to get out of a thirty-year sentence.

“But…” He didn’t know how to get what he wanted since just being a demanding pain in the ass hadn’t fixed the situation…and seemed to have made it worse. “You bought them for me.”

There it was…his little side was peeking out, but he tried to firm up his glare as he huffed. I just ignored the drama and nodded. “Yes, but they’ll wait for next year. I’ll put them up in the attic and won’t have to worry about what to buy.”

The threat of possibly having to wait until next year to see what was in the boxes had the desperate hold he had to his grownup side slipping away. “They…they might get damaged…then…then you’d have wasted your money. You hate that.”

Technically he was right.

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take. I clearly laid out the rules and I like rules more than I hate wasting money.” It was a close call, but his deflating sigh said he knew I was telling the truth. “We’ll put them up in the attic before we go to my mother’s tomorrow morning. Then we’ll do our presents in the afternoon when we get back.”

Like proper boring adults.

“We can do one tonight if you’d like.” I smiled as he barely kept himself from flopping on the floor like a frustrated toddler. “I can’t wait to show you the pajamas I found for you.”

Wonderfully boring fully grownup button-down pajama set like my father had worn when I was a kid. “Are you ready for a drink?”

Little time and alcohol never went together in our house, so it would mean leaving the fun presents behind and having a regular date night. “I thought we could watch Die Hard. We haven’t had the chance to do that yet.”

Some of our Christmas traditions had gotten fucked up with too much work over the past two weeks, but we both had plenty of time off through the new year to catch up. The fact that I was fucking with him using something he really liked was driving him crazy and making it impossible to do anything.

So I waited and kept my pleased, slightly neutral expression on my face while he barely held back whines and drama.

The war inside of my conflicted boy was difficult to watch, but I’d let the wrong side win last year and he’d somehow convinced me he hadn’t wanted any presents on his birthday either. I wasn’t falling for that shit ever again and it was time to draw that line in the sand.

I didn’t care if his family thought presents were for toddlers and everyone else needed to just grow up. He was my boy, and if I wanted to spoil his little side with presents and silliness, that was what I was going to do.

And if being a stubborn asshole didn’t help with the situation then I was going to put my foot down about therapy.

The fact that he’d decided to distract me with a blow job every time I brought that word up was both ridiculous and erotic.

Smart men were both sexy and a pain in the ass.

“I…I like Die Hard.” He whined out the admission like it was painful. “But…but you like…”

I liked a lot of things but I wasn’t going to start guessing as his words trailed off and he slowly lowered himself to the floor. The presents were calling to him and had been tempting him for days. He’d kept saying he didn’t need presents or toys or anything like that, but the rhetoric had gotten harder to spew as the pile had kept growing.

Technically Santa should’ve brought the presents on Christmas morning but I’d needed to fight dirty to get us over the holiday hurdle.

Santa could bring presents next year…this year Daddy had to be a dick.

He let out a low whine he didn’t know he made and wiggled closer toward the big pile. “You…you like Christmas pajamas, Daddy. I bet…I bet you bought me cute ones too.”

He pointed to an obviously rectangular shirt box that did indeed have cute Christmas pajamas for an even cuter little. “It… I…”

Taking in a slightly ragged breath, he squirmed and somehow ended up a few inches closer to the pile. “You…you need to get what you want at Christmas too.”

So that was how he was going to justify it?

“You made it clear that we both need to enjoy Christmas.” He’d been using that logic to focus on purely grownup holiday activities, but I’d hoped that wouldn’t last. “And I don’t like wasting things…we both know that.”

It was about time being a pain in the ass came in handy.

He nodded, letting out a longing-filled sigh. “It would be mean.”

Mean…not rude or any other word his grownup side would’ve used.

“You’re not a meanie, teddy bear.” He was a stubborn, wonderfully sexy man and adorably little…but he wasn’t mean to anyone but himself. “I like how nice you are.”

His innate sweetness had been something that’d originally caught my eye when we’d first met several years ago. He just wasn’t always good at treating himself as nicely as he treated everyone else, and I’d let it go on too long.

That sweetness could be used in diabolical ways, but I was prepared this year.

“I’m nice.” It sounded like a painful admission and some kind of character flaw, but he couldn’t deny it without lying and being an even bigger meanie. “It’s… I’m nice.”

He was weakening.

“Yes, you’re very nice and you’d be cute in new pajamas.” I shrugged, knowing he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “But they’ll wait. We can play toys and have fun time this week. We haven’t played blocks in a while.”

He liked those, but they weren’t nearly tempting enough to drag his thoughts away from his pile of goodies. “You can wear your Minions jammies and we’ll play blocks once we’re done with Christmas stuff.”

On any other day he’d have loved those plans, but they seemed lackluster at the moment.

“I…I like Minions.” Especially when he was little. Then they became the funniest things he’d ever seen and he’d laugh every time they said banana. “But…but you like presents.”

“That’s okay. We can like different things.” We’d found a lot of compromises over the past couple of years, so he couldn’t argue about that. “I’m enjoying our time off.”

We’d both needed it.

“Me…me too.” His painful admission came with another sigh. “I like playing with you, Daddy.”

“I’m glad, teddy bear.” For a variety of reasons…including the way it seemed to indicate I’d won. “You’re happy when you play and that’s one of my favorite things.”

Oh, such dramatic sound effects.

But he pulled them back as I moved from the couch to join him on the floor. He waited in quiet drama until I was settled next to him before crashing into me. When his head was nestled against my chest and his shoulders were in my lap, he pouted. “I like presents, Daddy.”

“I think you need a reminder that all littles like presents. It’s even more ubiquitous than chicken nuggets and tater tots.” That got a reluctant giggle out of him. “It’s even more well-known than coloring and dessert.”

Even that one little we’d met at the club who hadn’t spoken a single word of English beyond the word Daddy made his love of American chicken nuggets clearly understood.

“You’re supposed to like presents because Daddies generally like buying things for their littles.” I was pretty sure it was remembering some of the stories from his online friends that made him laugh that time. “I restrain myself to small random ones and reasonable piles around major gift giving holidays. I didn’t try to buy you anything on the summer solstice, did I?”

Nope.

His sigh that time was tinged with barely restrained giggles. “You bought me a new rainbow on Flag Day, Daddy. And…and I got donuts on Donut Day. You like presents.”

I scoffed. “I bought you an American flag and the one for Principality of Sealand too. But Flag Day is important, so those don’t count as presents.”

Because they were useful in fucking with the neighbors who were very nosy and had ridiculous opinions they couldn’t hold back.

His snickers escaped but they also meant he was feeling much better and much littler. “You’re so silly.”

It wasn’t my fault every country plus a dozen made up ones all had flags that needed to be shown off on a regular basis.

And I still couldn’t believe they’d said gay men couldn’t fly the Klingon flag because it was homophobic.

They could kiss my ass.

The neighbors and the Klingons.

“I’m creative.” It helped me get my way once I’d made a decision. “And I’m good at buying presents too.”

More quiet laughter made me smile but I had to pretend to sigh. “But if you don’t want to see them…”

“I do.” All traces of my grumpy drama queen were gone and in his place was my sweet teddy bear who wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight. “I want presents and my new jammies. You like buying Christmas jammies. Your mommy tattled on you.”

She had.

She just hadn’t realized at the time what it would mean to my normally quiet looking, adorably serious boyfriend.

“I do.” Shrugging, I huffed and pouted. “I can’t help it, teddy bear.”

“You don’t have to, Daddy.” Sitting up, he gave me the sweetest most serious expression and sighed again. “I’ll open my toys and play.”

“Really?” Giving him wide eyes and a shocked expression, I sucked in a breath. “And I can put you in the new jammies that might be under the tree?”

Nodding, he took a steadying breath and looked at his pile. “I’ll be excited in the morning too.”

“You will?” When his head jerked in agreement, I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Winning was exhausting.

“Welcome, Daddy.” He gave me a quick hug before crawling over to his presents. “Did I get new blocks? Books? Clothes?”

I wasn’t going to say greed was the true spirit of Christmas, but it was the cutest part.

“Oh, I don’t know.” I shrugged and looked confused. “Santa just had to drop them off early, so I don’t know what’s in them.”

Santa knew my boy needed to be tempted into agreeing to presents and having little time on Christmas.

“You’re so silly.” He liked that about me based on his grin and the way he was slowly crawling around the pile, checking out each one very carefully. “Is that books?”

It could be book shaped.

Maybe.

It could also be coloring books.

It could also be new pretty paper to cut up and glue to other pretty paper.

“Oh, is that one books?” Nearly turning his head upside down to see around the back of the stack, he frowned. “There’s more. Is that one books?”

No.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged and still managed to keep looking a bit too stupid for the situation. “We’ll have to see tomorrow.”

His groan had me doing my best not to break character but it was his completely manufactured wide eyes that did it. “Don’t you want to make me happy too, Daddy?”

Brat.

I always forgot what a pain in the ass lawyers were until he aimed all that manipulation at me.

“Do you want Daddy to have to get out the cuffs?”

His giggles said he hadn’t forgotten what a pain in the ass cops could be.

“Naughty Daddy.”

It looked like I was going to be a tired Daddy tomorrow too, but what could I say, littles needed the best Christmas even if it was exhausting.