Page 8 of Aisle Be The Groom (Bristlecone Springs #1)

OZZIE

G ray was the sweetest man for not running off and leaving me to face the icy downpour of the rain on my own. He was the kind of man who would have found space for Jack on the floating door in the middle of the Atlantic instead of leaving him to freeze to death. When we broke into a run, he stayed by my side, even though he could have easily sprinted ahead. With a gentle hand on my back, he guided me, which I was grateful for. I couldn’t see shit.

“Come on, Ozzie! We’re almost there.”

Frigid water numbed my bare legs. When we finally made it to the building, I bent over, my hands on my knees, catching my breath while Gray wrestled with the heavy door.

“I can…help,” I wheezed.

“I’ve got it.” Of course he did. With every second I spent with Gray, I understood him a little more. He was a man who was capable in every sense of the word. Just as a gust of wind slammed into me and pushed me against him, he shoved open the door. He tightened his arm around me and pulled me inside. The door closed with a heavy thud, shutting out the freezing rain and biting wind.

“Oz, you okay?”

“Y-y-yes.” My teeth chattered, and I huddled against the door. Oh my god, why was it so painfully cold?

The flashlight came on, illuminating the barn with its crisscrossed skeletal wooden beams. The scent of freshly cut wood mingled with the pungent aroma of hay stacked neatly in corners and along the walls.

In the dim light, shadows danced across the smooth, unblemished floor. Scattered throughout were storage boxes, some open and spilling over with tools and supplies.

Gray loomed large in the dim light. Like me, his clothes were soaked, and he was dripping on the floor.

“Jesus, you’re wet,” he said.

A chill swept through me. What was he staring so intently at? I glanced down and gasped. With my clothes soaked through, I might as well have been naked. My nipples were so hard against the camisole the barbells through them were clearly visible.

A shiver racked my body, and I jerked out of my stupor.

“Take off your clothes.”

I clutched the edges of my soggy robe to my body. “What?”

“We can’t keep our wet clothes on.” He reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. “You’ll be colder if you do.”

“B-b-but—” My teeth chattered so badly I couldn’t form the words.

“There are blankets for the horses in one of those boxes next to the hay. They’re new, so we can use them.” Gray hurried over to the boxes. After checking the labels, he selected one, pulled the flaps apart, and returned to me, carrying two blankets. “Here you go.”

My fingers were stiff from the cold, making it difficult to grasp the blankets. “Th-thanks.”

“Quickly. Get out of those clothes.”

I nodded but didn’t move as he unbuckled his pants. Was he going to strip down in front of me? Despite the cold, my mouth went dry as I stared at the solid wall of his naked chest. He was so broadly built with a body sculpted with muscles he hadn’t manufactured in a gym. I would bet every hard inch of him had been honed by manual labor. With a body like his, of course, he didn’t have a second thought about undressing in front of others.

“What’s wrong?” His hand froze on the waistband of his pants. “Do you want me to put the flashlight out?”

I felt foolish. He was worried about our health, while I was letting past insecurities affect me. I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “It’s fine.”

He nodded and turned around, giving me privacy. I should have done the same, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the mounds of flesh revealed when he pulled his pants down. He didn’t have underwear on. His bare ass was as pale and as hard as the rest of him.

Heart pounding, I spun around. With numb fingers, I peeled off my clothes. My teeth chattered even more violently as I removed the wet fabric, leaving me exposed. The sodden material hit the floor with a plop. I hooked my fingers in my underwear but stilled. An unwelcoming heat flushed through my system at the thought of Gray seeing the black lace. Peeking over my shoulder to ensure he wasn’t watching, I pulled them down my thighs and stuffed them into a bundle hidden in the shorts. I didn’t need another Magnuson man questioning my choice of underwear.

“Let’s face it, Ozzie. Those lacy manties aren’t designed for guys built like you. They are for much more delicate and feminine men. What do you need to wear them for anyway? I like you without them.”

What had Carter meant by those words? At the time, I’d focused on the compliment that he liked me even without the sexy lingerie, but at the back of my mind was always the niggling thought he’d also been insulting me. After the way he’d fucked me that night, making me feel desirable, I’d shaken off his stinging words.

But now, in the cold, naked and vulnerable, I allowed myself to question them again.

“Are you decent?” Gray asked.

“Not yet.” Panic flared at the thought of him turning around at that exact moment. Being bare-assed in a barn with my fiancé’s father was not a part of my wedding plans.

Fuck. Where was the wedding adviser when I needed them? They always knew exactly what to say.

I grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around my body. The box had kept it warm, and the thick material instantly staved off some of the chill.

“You can turn around now.” I pulled the blanket more tightly around me, my stomach fluttering. Since death by exposure to the cold had been ruled out for the night, my brain was processing the predicament: we were both naked.

Gray turned around, a blanket draped over his shoulders. Our eyes met. A flicker of surprise flitted in his gaze before he glanced away, a faint blush rising on his cheeks. I shifted my feet and grimaced. Water squelched in my boots.

“You definitely need to remove those too,” Gray said. “But don’t worry. The barn is well insulated. Your little piggies will be safe from the cold.”

I flinched, and bile rose in my throat. Deep down, I knew he was referring to my toes in a childish sense, but all I could hear was Carter calling me porky, his little piglet, as he poked my love handles.

My stomach dropped. Was I really marrying a man who had refueled my insecurities? But Gray hadn’t meant anything harmful by his comment. I should be a sport and be able to laugh at myself, right?

“Oz, you’ve gone pale.” Gray took a step toward me, and I shuffled back. He frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“I…just need a minute.”

“Are you sure? If I did anything—”

“No, it’s—I’m fine.”

“All right. I’ll check the boxes to see what else we have to make ourselves comfortable. We don’t know how long it will take before the rain eases up.”

Gray walked away but shot a concerned glance over his shoulder. I dropped my gaze and waited until he was busy searching through the boxes before I removed my boots. I grimaced. Two hundred dollars for a pair of boots didn’t make them immune to water. My toes were wrinkled and cold. But as soon as the warmth rushed into them, they tingled, growing pink again.

Gray’s footsteps were hard to ignore. He was spreading hay on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making a bed.” He didn’t look up as he carried on with his task.

“I can help.”

“It’s fine.”

“Please. I’m not worthless, you know. I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I can lay out hay to make a bed.”

I tucked in the corners of the blanket to make a toga and approached him.

“All right, then.” He pointed at a box. “The blankets are in there. Mind you, there are only a few traditional blankets. The horse blankets we’ll spread at the bottom and the others we put on top. The more layers, the less prickly the bed will be.”

“Okay.”

We worked in silence to create a cozy spot while the rain drummed on the rooftop of the barn and its wooden walls. When the building held up under the onslaught, the tension slowly eased from my body. Gray had been correct that the barn was well insulated. With all my moving around, the cold faded from my stiff limbs.

We performed our tasks mechanically. Gray finished laying out the hay, and I brought over the blankets. We spread them over the hay, one on top of the other. When we were done, we stepped back. Was it just me, or did the bed look too small for both of us?

“It’ll do,” Gray said as though reading my mind. “Soon, the rain will stop, and we can go back to the house.”

“Yeah.”

But neither of us moved toward the bed. An awkward silence stretched between us, broken only by the torrential downpour.

“Go on, then,” Gray said. “I’ll check how bad it is outside.”

“I don’t think you need to check. You can hear how bad it is.”

“True.” He scratched his head. “I guess we’ll have to wait it out.” He gestured to the hay bed. I hadn’t wanted to make the first move, but I couldn’t come up with a reason to turn him down.

“This will make one heck of a story one day,” I said, aiming for humor to lighten the mood. I took a step toward the bed, but my foot slipped on the wet floor.

“Ozzie!”

I grabbed for Gray at the same time he lunged forward. We both caught each other by the blankets, and relief washed through me. But then my blanket became undone, and I cried out as I toppled backward, Gray’s blanket still clutched in my hand. And mine in his.

With an oof, I fell to the hay bed. Even though I was out of breath, my limbs were still intact. My very naked limbs. I raised my head and found Gray staring at my body, his lips parted.

You have a blanket in your hand. Cover yourself.

I swallowed painfully and willed my eyes to look ahead, but as if they had a mind of their own, they slowly lowered past washboard abs, a taut belly and landed on well-defined cum gutters.

Don’t look any lower. You can still salvage this.

I looked.

The urge was too strong. Heat rushed up my face and spread throughout my body. Gray was semihard. Under my gaze, his cock thickened. It was as huge as the rest of him. Mine hardened in response. My chest rose and fell heavily, and my breathing sounded labored in the quiet barn.

“You have my blanket,” he murmured, his face red.

“You have mine.”

We stood as if nailed to the ground, staring at each other, naked under the pattering of the rain on the roof. Gray scanned my body with a strange sort of fascination. A shiver ran through me not from the cold but from something quite different. From the heat of Gray’s stare.

I knew better than to think the look on his face was more than lust. Raw, unadulterated lust. And it felt good to be wanted purely physically.

No. This is wrong. He’s Carter’s father. It doesn’t matter how sexy his gaze makes you feel. It’s inappropriate.

The flashlight flickered, then died.