Page 9 of Aisle Be The Groom (Bristlecone Springs #1)

GRAY

T hank fuck the rain had stopped, though it was almost a little too late. I’d thought it wouldn’t last long, but I’d been dead wrong. I’d been stuck in the barn with Ozzie all night. And I’d survived without fucking up my relationship with my son.

The faint light from dawn filtered into the barn, casting shadows over Ozzie’s features. After the whole blanket incident, we’d stayed as far from each other as the hay bed allowed without one of us ending up on the floor. But that was a few hours ago. During the night, we’d both shifted, and Ozzie now lay on his side with his head on my chest, an arm around my waist, and one leg thrown over mine.

It was pure agony having him pressed up against me. The blanket incident should have been enough warning to stay away from him, but when we were trapped together in a barn, sharing a bed, I didn’t have much choice. And apparently, Ozzie loved to cuddle.

His blanket had come partly undone, and he was practically under mine. How the fuck had that happened? I’d fallen asleep sometime after him. One naked leg was dangerously close to my groin.

He was so fucking soft. I liked it. I liked it a lot. The feeling of his body squishing against mine. I should have moved away, slipped quietly out of the barn, and forgotten about last night, but I savored the rise and fall of his chest against me.

I was tempted to hook my toes in the blanket and pull it down slowly to get a view of his ass, but I wasn’t that much of a pervert. Just enough to contemplate it.

All right, time to put a stop to this nonsense. It was dawn. Activities at the ranch would begin shortly. With the unexpected heavy rainfall last night, we had to check our infrastructure and the animals.

Moving as slowly as possible, I placed a hand on Ozzie’s naked thigh. My intention to casually slide his leg off me went haywire at the feel of warm, supple flesh beneath my palm.

“What are you doing?” Ozzie was staring at me. The look of confusion on his face cleared up, and color tinted his cheeks. “Gray, you shouldn’t touch me…like that.”

“No, it’s not what you think. I was trying to remove your leg so I could get up.”

“Oh. Shit. I’m lying on you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put all my weight on you.”

All his weight on me? What the hell was he rambling on about?

I tightened my hand on his thigh, preventing him from shifting away. “Ozzie, this has nothing to do with your weight.” I frowned. At times he seemed so confident and carefree, but then he became jittery and shy. Why was that? Wasn’t my son treating him right? He’d made quips about Ozzie, but I’d tried not to judge out of context. The more Ozzie reacted like this, though, the more concerned I was. Sometimes it sounded as if my son picked on him for his weight.

“Of course it does. Gray. Let me up. It’s stopped raining.”

“Ozzie, listen to me.”

“It’s okay. I get it. Not everyone wants to be pressed up on in bed by someone with all this extra weight. It’s not—”

“Jesus, Ozzie.” For want of anything better to do to prove him wrong, I slammed my lips to his. That shut him up fast. For a second or two, we stared at each other with our mouths together. Time froze as awareness filled the barn.

I wanted him.

He wanted me too.

I felt it.

Ozzie made a soft sound, like a moan, and closed his eyes. With a groan, I caved in like a poorly built bridge under the first sign of pressure. I toppled him back against the hay and climbed half on top of him. When I pushed a little harder, he gasped. I swirled my tongue into his mouth and deepened the kiss.

He shifted and opened his legs in an invitation I couldn’t refuse. I slid between his thighs and pressed my cock to his groin.

“Fuck, Ozzie.” I ran a hand down his side and traced the curve of his thigh. “I don’t care about any extra weight. Since the moment I picked you up at the airport, I’ve been fighting this attraction. You can feel it, can’t you?”

“Yes. But, Gray—”

“I know.”

“I can’t—” Yet he reached for my face and kissed me. He placed his hands on my chest and ran them over my muscles. “Can’t…. wrong… Gray.”

I palmed his cock. It was small and thin, even though fully erect. Ozzie’s face was fiery red.

“I know.” He panted. “The size is pathetic.”

Pathetic?

Who had been filling his head with all this nonsense talk? My son? Yes, Ozzie was different. He had the cutest little cock I’d ever seen, and he was beautiful the way he was.

I shuffled onto my knees on the floor and tugged Ozzie down to the edge of the makeshift bed.

“Wait! Gray, you don’t have to—argh.”

Too late. I already had his dick in my mouth. Sucking all of him down wasn’t difficult, so I took him all the way in until my face was pressed into his pubis.

“Oh! Oh god.” Ozzie writhed beneath me, the hay crinkling under our movements. I spread his thighs and kept a firm grip on them as I suckled him. His soft gasps and high-pitched moans filled the barn. Damn, but I loved the sounds spewing out of his mouth.

I released his thighs and ran my hands over his belly to his chest. I caught his nipples and squeezed around the barbells.

“Gray, I’m going to…” His warning was all I needed. I doubled my efforts, sucking harder and increasing my pressure on his nipples.

Crying out my name, Ozzie came into my mouth. I swallowed his load and lapped up the taste of him until there was nothing left to draw out of him.

Ozzie fell back onto the bed, panting heavily. “Oh my god.”

Yup. In less than twenty-four hours, I’d sucked off my future son-in-law, but we could salvage this, couldn’t we? As long as it didn’t happen again. As long as I didn’t turn him on his knees and sink my cock into his ass. As long as I stayed the hell away from him.

“Fuck.” I jerked to my feet and wrapped my blanket around my waist. My erection tented the material, and I quickly turned my back to Ozzie, avoiding his gaze. “I wasn’t trying to get your weight off me like you thought. I was putting some distance between us so that wouldn’t happen.”

“Oh.” Silence descended. I glanced over my shoulder. Ozzie was staring at my back. “You have a tattoo.”

Yup, with my kids’ names. Fuck. Carter. My chest grew so tight it was hard to breathe.

“We can’t change what happened.” I aimed for rational thought when I felt anything but. The betrayal we’d just committed should have dried up my desire for Ozzie, but all I wanted to do was forget Carter, forget my responsibilities, forget my sham of a marriage, and sink my cock into Ozzie’s body.

But a blow job wasn’t so bad. We could forget about it as long as it didn’t happen again. If I fucked him, there was no coming back from that.

“What do we do?” Ozzie asked.

“Nothing.” I turned back to him. No sense in hiding out of shame. “It was a temporary lapse in judgment. That’s all.”

“But… you said you’re attracted to me.”

“So I am, but it doesn’t mean anything can happen between us. We’re both adults, and we both love my son. Right?”

“Umm, yes, I guess.”

He guessed? I frowned. I didn’t understand the relationship between him and Carter, but it was none of my business. They were engaged, and that was all I needed to know.

Apparently not, or you wouldn’t have given him a blow job.

I stifled my groan. Later, I could knock my head against the wall. Now I had to get Ozzie on the same page over what had happened. “Then we’ll do right by him.” I winced. Wasn’t it a little too late for that? “I’m not an animal. I won’t climb on top of you just because I want to. Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine.”

Why did I sound like I was trying to convince myself more than him?

“You’re right.” Ozzie fixed his blanket. On instinct, I reached a hand out to help him to his feet but instantly snatched it back. Better not to touch him. Fuck. Better not to even look at him.

I gathered up my clothes, which were still damp from the rain. Putting them on would be too uncomfortable, which meant marching back to the house with Ozzie next to me, wearing nothing but the damn blanket.

Ozzie’s clothes were in a heap a few feet away from us. I picked them up. “Our clothes are still wet, so we can’t wear them, but no one should—” Something fell out of his bundled clothes to the floor. I bent to retrieve it, and the air punched out of my lungs at the black lace underwear.

“Oh my god,” Ozzie groaned, covering his face with his hands. “Just go away. I’ll take it up.”

“It’s cool.” He thought I’d never touched lace before? I took up the delicate undergarment, the texture of it smooth and inviting under my fingertips. The black lace had patterns entwined with ribbons. An image flashed through my mind of Ozzie’s ass cradled by the delicate material.

So much for trying to stay neutral.

I stuffed the underwear back into the bundle of clothes and thrust them at him. “Just a temporary lapse of judgment. No one needs to know about it.”

Carter doesn’t need to know about it.

Ozzie nodded. “Okay.”

“I’ll go ahead, and you follow. What do you think?”

“Isn’t it better to go together? Then we can explain what happened with the rain.”

Except if we bumped into anyone, I might not be able to hide my guilt. “It’s better this way.”

“But—”

“Ozzie, do you want Carter to find out his father knows what you taste like?”

He widened his eyes and shook his head frantically. “No, no…of course not.”

“Then we have to do it this way. If you run into anyone, say you went for a walk, found the horses, the rain started, so you sheltered in the barn. No one will question it.”

“Okay.”

But I didn’t move. Something about leaving him in the barn and walking back to the house on his own felt wrong. It felt too much like walking away after a one-night stand, but Ozzie wasn’t a nameless stranger. He wouldn’t disappear tomorrow. By god, we still had a wedding to plan.

I’ll find some way to make it up to Carter. They’ll get married, go on their honeymoon, set up a home together, and maybe even have a family. They’ll be happy, and I wouldn’t have destroyed my relationship with my son.

Decision made, I slipped out of the barn without another word. I glanced behind me. Ozzie had the blanket clutched to his chest, his eyes downcast. My chest tightened. From his stance, he clearly regretted what we’d done—no, what I’d done. I was the one who’d climbed between his legs. I was the one who had kissed him. I was the one walking away with the flavor of him on my tongue.

The walk to the house seemed shorter than when the rain had been pouring down on me. I should never have suggested seeking shelter in the barn. So what if we’d both caught a cold? At least I wouldn’t have committed the ultimate sin against my child.