Deklan’s warm breath filled Oakland’s ear when he commented, “Oh sweet surrender, Oakland. The tight grasp you had on my dick felt so incredible. I couldn’t hold back a single second. That beautiful black hole of yours sucked me clean.”
Oakland hugged Deklan tightly, and with his soft tone, whispered, “Deklan? Marry me?”
Lifting his head from Oakland’s ear, Deklan looked at him as if trying to grip his every thought. Following a tender kiss, Deklan smiled and said, “Yes, my beautiful, beautiful prince, I’d love to marry you.”
Deklan removed the ring from the jacket pocket and slipped it onto Oakland’s finger where it always belonged. It shimmered as he spoke, “With this ring and in front of our creator above, who I’m certain has made us for one another, our connection right this moment proving that. I… Wed… Thee.” His finger traced the shell of Oakland’s ear. “I love you, Oakland, and never plan to stop.”
Oakland accepted the ring and hugged the man he loved.
Even with no ordained minister, or human witness, their private marriage under the apple tree was real to them—official beyond anyone’s imagination because they were truly in love.
Deklan kissed Oakland, held him, kept his erection inside him.
The seat cushions in the horse carriage had not been fastened permanently, giving Oakland the idea to use them as bedding on the ground for the night. The clothing worn would cover them, enough to keep the both of them warm until morning.
They lay snuggling on their sides, Deklan’s body tightly pinned to Oakland’s back in a warm embrace, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. The closeness pure.
There was no going back. Not to the way it had been. Separated. Unable to touch one another. If Dante wouldn’t accept his son sharing a bed with the lad next door, then Deklan would find a life outside the Manor. Oakland was part of him—his close personal family.
“Stay.” Oakland scooted against Deklan, feeling his warm body pressing tightly against his back.
“I’m still right here.” Deklan adjusted his hips, digging his thick erection into Oakland’s spine, his sagging nuts tucked along his exposed butt crack. He hugged Oakland’s entire body, pulling him closer than he already was.
Chapter 37
The sun seemed to have taken its sweet time rising, but from what Oakland was able to see through weary eyes, it was clipping the horizon. He’d eventually fully woken, still feeling Deklan clinging behind him, his arm snuggly pinned across his chest.
Oakland had felt the pressure of Deklan’s dick head against his manhole, possibly even further than that, like beyond the entry knot. He adjusted himself to rouse Deklan into moving, and when he had, heard Deklan moan when his body shook into a stretch—the forward momentum of his trembling hips tunneled his erect cock right up inside Oakland.
The internal pressure against Oakland’s prostate prompted his dick to grow stiffer and ooze pre-ejaculate into the grass in front of him. He whispered to himself, “Jeez, my man’s dick is so damned good.” He arched his back into Deklan’s groin, helping his cock sink deeper.
Oakland was held from behind by Deklan with his man sized dick sliding in and out of his butthole. His rhythm had been kept slow, almost at a standstill. Deklan growled. His body moving in smooth waves, his hips bumping into Oakland’s rear end, the hair above his erection scrubbing his butt cheeks. He rumbled, “Oakland. Gah. Get ready. Oh Gawd. I’m…” His face had contorted, then warped into clenched eyes and gritted teeth. His body had gone stiff, pushing hard against Oakland from behind. He trembled and jerked, hips grinding forward in time with each powerful injection.
Oakland lifted one leg and pushed back against Deklan, letting go of an unrestrained howl. The pleasure was too great and increased moment by moment. With each thump against his back end, he sensed his Prince’s erection expanding and contracting inside him. Semen was spurting into his chute—flooding his rectum, much of it squirting out around Deklan’s dick, soaking his butt crack and inner thigh. Oakland’s pleasured thundering had come from deep down, “Ohmigawd, that amazing cock. I need every inch. Every spurt of sperm.”
“Yeah, baby. You’re getting it.”
Even after five, six or maybe even seven massive sperm injections into Oakland throughout the night, Deklan had dumped another supercharged load into his begging man’s butt that morning. Matching every one of Deklan’s releases, Oakland’s dick had spit gobs of his own sperm clear across the grassy knoll. Doing what they had felt reckless. Sexually stimulating. Had come with the thrill of connecting in an open field for all eyes to see.
Regretfully, reality was tugging at the both of them and the time had come to face the events that had taken place the previous day. With that dreadful thought, Oakland loosened the cock locked grip he had on Deklan and let him snake his meaty dick out of his sex hole. It had taken a while, but eventually once Oakland’s push and Deklan’s pull decided to work together, the cock head had popped free.
They’d taken off for the lake to rinse the night away. The water was cool, but seemed warmer than the air.
Deklan circled his hand over Oakland’s chest and mentioned, “I wasn’t much of a stud back there was I? I acted like a teen aged boy who’d gotten his dick sucked for the very first time. I ejaculated way too soon. I couldn’t help it though, Oakland. You are so damned sexy, and feel so amazing in my arms. And that ass? Jeez, Oakland. That ass is divine.”
“Every bit of you was a stud. Six, or was that seven times ejaculating in one night is anything but unstudly.” Oakland watched Deklan’s hands move upward to his shoulders.
“I just can’t get enough of you or your magnificent body. It makes me crazy if I’m not touching you. I’m so in love, Oakland. You’re all I think about. I need to be close to you, wrapped around you, inside you. So I can be a part of you.”
“After last night, and how much of you I have inside me right now, I’d say you are a permanent part of me and always will be.” Oakland imagined how nice it would be to live day to day with Deklan, each night and every morning. The idea of going to bed and waking in each other’s arms would be the perfect happy ever after.
They air dried and dressed, and as far as Oakland could tell, it appeared they were left undisturbed throughout the night. It had however troubled him to discover nobody had come looking for Deklan, making sure he was alright.
“Deklan?”—Oakland spoke while buttoning his shirt—“You okay with going back to the house?” He thought a part of Deklan had already rubbed off on him since he caught himself fastening the buttons on his shirt from bottom to top, the same quirky way Deklan does.
“I’m good, Oakland. We can go back together and if the doors are locked, we have this place we can call home.” While lacing his boots, Deklan whistled for Chadwick. The massive Clydesdale had come running almost instantaneously.
Oakland walked over to Deklan to fix his jacket. Even though a little crumpled, Deklan still looked good to him. He brushed his hands down the front of Deklan’s chest, flattening the lapels. “You look very handsome,” Oakland told him before lightly kissing his lips.
Deklan looked Oakland in the eyes, held his head in both hands and returned the kiss. Oakland felt it was more passionate than ever before. The depth of the kiss had gone straight to the heart and spiraled around his head like a halo of stars.
Chapter 38
Dante had been standing in the gateway of Chadwick’s empty stall, appearing irritated while waiting for Deklan and who he knew as the stable boy to return from wherever it was they had run off to for the night. Where they had gone hadn’t mattered to him, as long as they arrived home safely. That was all he ever really wanted for his child.
Since he’d known they were with Chadwick, the horse that would trample anyone who lifted a stick to Deklan, he figured the two would be okay on their own.
Being separated from Deklan had given Dante the time to absorb what it would be like to be without his son, serving him the truth about his son
and what was meant to be and would not change. He’d gone through the same situation with his brother Joseph, identified the struggles and suffering he’d gone through for being his true self. It had frightened Dante to think Deklan could end up in the same situation his brother had, hanging dead someplace to enable an escape from such a cruel world that couldn’t relate to or accept him for who he was. It had struck Dante into understanding he was included in the world driving his son away.
It was unlike Dante to pick up a whiskbroom and use one, but he reached for a weed claw anyway and raked Chadwick’s stall as though he’d been hired as a farmhand. He no longer had a hand in hard labor, but his mind required a distraction from the horrifying thoughts of what might have happened or could happen to Deklan. Raking horse droppings and dirty hay was exactly what he needed.
While cleaning the barn floor, aged memories from his younger days had come rushing back to him—those where he shared responsibilities of household chores with his late brother Joseph. He’d almost broken down at what could be a repeat occurrence, but the hangman would be his son instead. To block it out, he raked faster.
Dante was a strong man and wouldn’t allow anybody to see his weak side. He knew he had one, but it was never out in the open or even detectible. He’d always remained hard as steel and made sure everybody around him saw that, giving the impression he’d been born without a heart. The only person who seemed to know he had a soft side to his thumper and who’d ever seen it blossom was Deklan’s mother, Priscilla.
As Dante raked the trampled straw from Chadwick’s stall to the pile in the middle of the barn, he visualized the day he walked in on his brother hanging from the barn rafters by a cord.
That wasn’t a good day, for anybody.
The picture in his head had come as clear to him as the day it happened, and just then, his nerves combusted when he envisioned Deklan in place of Joseph. “Oh God, this can’t happen again. Not twice. Not in my family.”
He let the claw go and it hit the ground with a triple handled bounce. He trudged to the outside door of the barn to look out, hopeful the bright light from the sun would burn away the frightening images in his head. He worked like mad to channel his thoughts to a better place as he prayed Deklan was okay. His only son. The son he loved.
“Please come home, Deklan. Please come home,” he pleaded, squinting into the sun that was as painful as the image in his head.
His heart sped up the more he tried to get Joseph out of his mind and a possible scenario that would be his son, Deklan. Dante, the strong man who had built the plantation from the ground up with his bare hands was trembling and for the first time had fallen to his knees, repelled by his own actions for what he’d put his pure hearted son through. Again, he bowed his head and pleaded, “Please come home, Deklan. Please… come home.”
As if the sun reached out and lifted his chin, Dante spotted a speck coming over the hilltop in front of rising dust. It had grown larger and looked like Chadwick alongside the horse carriage he remembered taking off into incoming dusk the night before. As it moved closer, he knew it was Deklan. Invisible to anyone if they had been watching, he crossed himself and clasped his hands together in another silent prayer. Pleading and that time, thanking.
He stepped from the barns shadows and shielded the bright sun with an arm above his brow.
Dante scorned himself for what he’d put Deklan through and promised at that very moment he wouldn’t allow their differences to come between them ever again. He hadn’t fully understood Deklan’s attraction toward men because he wasn’t living in his boots. The image Deklan had given him about separating from Priscilla had also put him in a different state of mind. That difficult consequence had never left his thoughts since the day Deklan painted that picture for him. Smart kid. It had however helped him make sense of pure love and how it cannot be stopped. The vision he had in the barn was also a message he needed put out there in front of him, as though it was coming from above, telling him to leave a perfected creation the way it was supposed to be.
Deklan and Oakland glanced at each other during the carriage ride down the rocky hillside with Chadwick leading them home. The horse knew the way as though a trail of carrots had been laid out for him to follow.
Oakland had sensed Deklan was getting anxious by how tightly he was gripping the reigns. His knuckles had gone white as he squeezed the leather straps together in both hands. His father had pricked an angry streak in him each time the two had come within eyeshot from one another. That particular time, however, might have been the worst.
“I’m not ready for this,” Deklan said while twisting the reigns together in his hands, grinding them as if trying to wring water from fabric.
There was no purpose telling Deklan everything was going to be fine since Oakland had no clue it would be. To Oakland, Deklan’s father hadn’t appeared too outraged, and if he was correct about that, the man appeared more concerned than upset. Oakland glanced over at Deklan and kept his mouth shut, only patting his knee and giving it a loving squeeze.
Even though Oakland knew his touch would normally be appreciated by Deklan, he felt at that moment, Deklan’s reaction was distant, triggered by the broken contact he had with his father. That connection had left Deklan tunnel locked as though he was trying to figure out what his father was thinking before he reached him.
The carriage had finally arrived at the barn where Dante had been standing, and by the way the air hung heavy around them, Oakland sensed a bitter moment was ahead.
With a more cheerful voice than expected, Deklan asked Chadwick to go to his room, and without argument or a stomping hoof, the horse had done what had been told. Deklan tugged on the carriage reigns, pulling the leader horse to a stop.
The clanging of the bridle sounded pretty and Oakland was hoping it would lighten the mood a little.
“Father!” Deklan formally addressed his hello, adding a head nod. If he’d been wearing a rancher’s sunhat, he’d have gripped the brim.
Dante walked around to the side of the carriage where Deklan was sitting and rested a hand on the large front wheel. The carriage rocked as Deklan and Oakland hopped out.
During the torrid engagement, Oakland was as nervous as a worm on a hook below sea level. He wasn’t in the right place to mention it, but from what he’d witnessed, Dante had changed overnight.
“Where’s mother?” Deklan asked. He’d taken a major gulp as if working his hardest at breaking ice between him and his father. The frozen wall was showing signs of melting, but needed some help to get it started.
For some reason, Dante hadn’t spoken. If hard core love had served its purpose, Oakland would have said the man was happy to see his son.
Could it be? A heart was making its appearance.
Dante’s arms dropped to his sides. He stepped toward Deklan and had taken him into his arms, hugging him so hard it appeared to be an unconditional embrace.
At that point, Oakland wasn’t certain where the display of affection had come from or where it was headed. It had him second guessing the intentions of Deklan’s father, as well as wondering what the outcome of that family hug was going to bring. Oakland was standing on the verge of a tear jerking emotion, since a father and a son moment wasn’t heard of or seen very often, if ever at all.
Men don’t hug or show affection. What would the world think?
Dante let go of Deklan and finally said a few words, “I’m happy you’re looking fine. Are you okay?”
Deklan stepped back with a stunned appearance covering his face. “Yes… father. I’m well.”
“Are you sure?” Dante asked again, looking him over as if he was subliminally questioning his heart and mind, not his physical being.
“I’m quite sure, father.”
“Okay. Good. Good to hear. Are you and your friend hungry?” Dante asked, gripping Deklan’s shoulders at full arm’s length, giving him a subtle shake, that of which a buddy would have given.
Wait a minute. Wha
t had happened?
Had Oakland heard correctly? Was Deklan’s father concerned for him, too? Oakland hadn’t done anything other than stand on his own side of the carriage and stare. He couldn’t move. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.
Deklan had glanced over at his handsome boyfriend and nodded, meaning Oakland was supposed to go with the flow if he was hungry or not. “Yes, Pop, we could eat something.”
Deklan’s father smiled. “I like it when you call me Pop.”
Deklan grinned. “I thought? Never mind.”
Oakland left the two of them to walk together while he lingered a few steps behind. He had planned to hold a steady pace and let the two gentlemen bond the way they should have done a while ago. It was important that he kept his distance, remain clear of the noticeable baby steps Deklan and his father were taking. Whatever happened during the night to Deklan’s father ended up being a good thing. A turn for the better.
While the three of them walked, Oakland overheard most of the conversation.
“Deklan?” Dante started.
“Yes, Fa—“—he stopped—“Pop.” Deklan had taken off his jacket and flipped it over his shoulder.
“I love you, son.” Dante turned Deklan toward him with a grip to his shoulder. “I’d do anything in the world to make sure you knew that, even if a mistake had been made that seemed as though I didn’t.”
“I know, Pop.”
“No, I’m not crying. Darn those pesky gnats.” Oakland claimed he had a bug in his eye, not a joyful tear. “We really need to invent a way to kill these damned bugs. Something that’ll zap them right out of thin air.” He swatted into empty space around his head.
The Prince of Almond Manor Page 22
