14. Ridge
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RIDGE
Although Ridge had some idea of what he wanted to do with Oz, he felt a little off-kilter and entirely out of his depth when they got to his place. Oz opened the door, and Ridge saw evidence of everything Oz had abandoned when he ran over to speak with Grady.
There was a burrito wrapper on the counter, the microwave was open, and there was a half-poured drink beside the fridge.
He couldn’t help but wonder how often Oz dropped anything and everything he was doing to accommodate other people. It was definitely often enough to show in the tension he carried. His jaw was always tight, and his shoulders were always hunched.
Even when he took off his processors and settled into his more comfortable world without sound, he still carried a heaviness to his body that Ridge had only seen in people with the weight of their world on their shoulders. He knew that sensation a little too well. He’d worked through a lot of his with a very good family therapist, but the sense memory of being that on edge all the time would never leave him.
Which, of course, gave him his first idea.
He walked up behind Oz, loud with his feet so Oz wouldn’t be startled, and he put a hand on his shoulder. Leaning in, he spoke near the side of his head. “Want to take these off?”
Oz turned and smiled. “Yeah.”
“May I?”
The last time Ridge asked, Oz had told him no. And he was half expecting that same answer now. But tonight, Oz nodded, then tilted his head to the side as Ridge very carefully dislodged the magnets and tucked them into his palm.
‘Thank you,’ Oz signed as he took the processors from Ridge. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘I’m not here for you to entertain me,’ Ridge told him with stern hands. ‘But I do have an idea.’
Oz looked intrigued. ‘Okay.’
‘Go to your bedroom and strip down to boxers.’
Oz laughed, looking a bit more playful than he had been in the car. That was progress—maybe. Or maybe he was trying to distract himself. Either way, Ridge was going to be kind to the man’s body in whatever ways Oz wanted.
‘Anything else?’
‘Lay down on your stomach.’
Oz blinked, looking a little nervous now.
‘Not for sex,’ Ridge reminded him. ‘Trust me?’
After a long moment, Oz nodded. ‘I trust you.’
Ridge leaned in, his intent obvious, and Oz turned his face up for the kiss. He didn’t let it linger or distract him from his mission, but he didn’t pull away too quickly either. He waited for Oz to relax, and then he eased back and stroked a touch down the side of his neck before stepping away.
‘Go.’
Oz rolled his eyes, but he was smiling again as he turned and headed out of the room. Ridge took a moment to indulge in the sight of him before he marched to the kitchen and began a thorough search.
The place hadn’t changed since Sunday night—not that he was really expecting it to. He hated that Oz neglected himself so thoroughly, and he wondered if it was a conscious or a subconscious thing. Whatever it was, he wanted to change that.
He’d been bound and determined to keep this thing between them casual, but the more time he spent with the man, the more he realized that maybe this was the person he’d been waiting for. He had no idea if Oz would be interested in something more than this, but he decided it was time to try.
Not yet, of course. Not tonight. Not while Oz was still working through this latest round of bullshit with his family. But he was no longer in this for pretend, and he was going to make sure Oz understood that before they slept together again.
He needed Oz to know how he felt.
Yeah, his life was a little complicated. He had a career that was both busy and dangerous. He had a kid who didn’t have another parent to take over part-time. There wouldn’t be nights like this all the time. He had babysitting help, but the truth was, he didn’t want to spend nights away from his daughter.
What he wanted was a partner who was looking for exactly what his life offered.
He had no clue at all if that was the life Oz had been looking for. Or if it was a life he could grow to want.
But he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
His search of the kitchen turned up very little. He’d been hoping to put together maybe a snack tray with some tea, but the poor bastard didn’t even own a kettle. He gave up, then headed into the guest bathroom, where he grinned in triumph.
There were three small bottles of body oil that were still in cling film. They looked like they’d been part of some holiday gift, and after checking that the dates were okay and they wouldn’t be rancid, he tore the plastic and selected the one with lavender.
Maybe it would help Oz relax a little. Ridge was very proud of his massage skills. He’d been good at it before he had a kid, and then he took a sleepy-time infant and toddler massage class, which worked wonders on his kiddo.
He had no idea if the same skills would put an overworked, depressed teacher at ease, but hey. It was worth a shot. He tucked the oil bottle under his arm, then glanced at himself in the mirror and cringed. He looked…not his best. Not a total wreck, but he had a black soot smudge on his cheek that hadn’t washed off in the super-quick shower he’d taken before he left the station. He hadn’t combed his hair, so it had a weird, misshapen tangle on the top, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t professing his feelings to Oz tonight.
Turning away, he headed for the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. Oz had obeyed—just like Ridge knew he would. He was face down on the comforter, the bed haphazardly made, and he was staring at the door with half-lidded eyes. Ridge saw his cheek lift in a smile.
‘Stay,’ Ridge ordered so Oz wouldn’t get up, though it looked like the man had no intention of moving. He set the bottle down on the nightstand, then reached behind his head and grabbed his shirt, pulling it off.
Oz made a soft, curious noise.
‘Trying to be fair,’ Ridge told him.
Oz snorted and shrugged.
Unbuttoning his jeans, he shimmied out of them and left his clothes in a pile at the foot of the nightstand. Tossing the oil onto the pillows, he knelt down and rested his chin on the edge of the mattress.
‘Hi,’ Oz mouthed.
Ridge smiled at him, then eased back so he could have signing space. ‘I’d like to give you a massage.’ He had to spell the word.
Oz’s brows lifted, and his body twitched like he was debating about moving before deciding to use his voice. “Massage me?”
Ridge nodded. ‘It might help you relax. I’m very good.’
Oz rolled his eyes and laughed. “Of course you are. Is there anything you’re not good at?”
Ridge felt his cheeks heat a little. ‘There’s a long list, trust me. But tonight, I can help you relax.’
Oz licked his lips, then asked, “Happy ending?”
Ridge’s whole body jolted, and Oz’s face filled with panic. Before he could take it back, Ridge leaned in. ‘Yes,’ he signed. ‘If you want. Only if you want.’ And then he kissed him, this time not waiting for permission. Oz groaned, lifting his head and shoulders off the bed to give as good as he was getting.
Ridge felt himself thicken in his boxers, but he shoved that thought out of his mind. Tonight might be that night he gave everything to Oz without worrying about himself. The thought made him even harder.
He eased back with a series of small pecks, then nuzzled Oz’s nose with his own before rocking backward onto his heels. ‘What would you like tonight?’
Oz swallowed heavily. “I don’t know. I just want to forget for a little while.”
‘I can do that,’ Ridge signed. ‘Starting with getting you relaxed. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Just feel, okay? Feel my hands.’
Oz nodded and did as Ridge asked. His lashes fanned downward, light but so fucking pretty. Ridge knew the kind of trust it took for Oz to shut out the visual world. It left him down one of his most important senses—the one he relied on most. There were very few people in the world Ridge would trust in that position.
Taking a breath, he pushed to his feet, then carefully climbed over and settled half his weight on the backs of Oz’s thighs. Oz let out a soft groan and arched into the first pass of Ridge’s hands.
Normally, Ridge would correct him, gently pushing him back down. But he wanted Oz to hunt for that comfort, to seek it out and show Ridge with his movements and unconscious sounds exactly what he wanted.
He felt heated deep in his core as he opened the oil bottle and poured a large dollop on his hands. The smell was subtle but nice, and the moment the oil was warm, he lowered his palms and did a firm sweep from the top of Oz’s ass to his shoulder blades.
The man beneath him let out a chest-deep groan and went boneless against the mattress. Ridge smiled and repeated the motion—over and over as Oz’s whole body began to shed his tension. He knew this wasn’t a cure. He couldn’t fix everything with a bottle of oil and a nice orgasm after.
But he could give Oz moments of peace, and that had to mean something, didn’t it?
Those little moments were how Ridge survived the first few years of raising his daughter and realizing that his choices probably left him more alone than ever. He hadn’t grown up with the best role models. Oz was the first person Ridge had ever told about his family, and he’d left out heaping piles of detail because he hated thinking about it.
Sometimes, when his mind was too quiet, he’d shuffle through old memories. The road trip he’d taken with his aunt only to come home and find everything he’d ever known in tatters.
There had been blood on the wall because his dad had gotten drunk and punched through the living room window. The lawn was scattered with the charred remains of his clothes because his mom had burned them all that same night after the cops took him away. Ridge’s room was trashed because in his dad’s drunken state, he thought his mom was hiding her affair partner in there somewhere, and no one had bothered to put it right again.
His dad lost his job after that, and his mom was having an affair with a guy who lived in a broken-down school bus up the street. She looked Ridge in the eye the first weekend after his dad officially moved out and told him she was tired of being a parent.
“It’s my time to focus on myself,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for fourteen years. You need to figure yourself out.”
He had no idea what to think about that. What did a teenager who was too young to drive or work say to a parent who was done with them? That week, he packed a bag and didn’t see her for two full years. And when he came home to a new apartment that was entirely alien with no room for him, he knew that everything he remembered from his childhood had all been a lie.
That was the moment he knew he was in it for himself. And that was the moment he knew that if he ever had kids, he would never, ever allow himself to be like them. They were nothing more than a cautionary tale of two selfish assholes who had no business bringing life into the world.
“Ridge?”
He snapped out of it and realized he hadn’t moved in too long. Leaning over, he caught Oz’s gaze. ‘Sorry.’
Oz shook his head. “You’re fine. You can stop if you’re tired.”
‘I’m not tired. Let me work on your hands. Roll over.’
He shifted, but Oz didn’t move. When Ridge gave him a pointed stare, Oz’s face bloomed pink. “I’m hard,” he said.
Oh. Well. That was definitely not a problem. He reached out, easing Oz over and onto his back, then took Oz’s hand and pressed it right against his own erection. It throbbed gently at the touch, and Oz sucked in a breath.
‘Wow,’ he signed.
Ridge smirked. ‘Touching you does that to me.’
Oz swallowed hard. ‘Thank you.’
Ridge didn’t know if Oz was thanking him for the massage or for the compliment. It didn’t matter either way. Both were his pleasure. He took Oz’s hand again and pressed a kiss to the center of his palm, then one to the tips of each finger. Oz gently grunted with each press of Ridge’s lips, and he let out a heavy exhale when Ridge began to rub thumbs against his tendons.
His eyes fluttered closed again, his dick a sharply pointed tent in the sheets that twitched every time Ridge hit a good spot. His mouth watered to taste him again, but he wasn’t going to do that tonight. No. He had a better idea—so long as Oz was eager and willing.
He switched hands and gave his left the same attention as his right before rubbing up and down his arms, then moving on to his pecs. Oz was still for all of it, but Ridge could see his lips twitching and eyelids fluttering.
He was present. He was feeling it.
And if the little curve upward to his mouth was any indication, he was enjoying it.
The last thing Ridge wanted to do was interrupt him, but it was time. He gently patted his hip until Oz opened his eyes.
‘I’d like to pull the sheet down now.’
Oz grabbed his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down so hard Ridge was surprised it didn’t bleed. He took one breath, then another, and then he nodded.
Ridge watched him like a hawk, eyes scanning him for any sign that this was too much. But when he got the sheet down, Oz’s body was pliant and willing. He moved with even the slightest touch of direction, and it didn’t take long before Ridge had Oz holding his knees to his chest, exposing his asshole.
‘I’d like to touch you here,’ he said, then brushed two fingers over it.
Oz grunted hard, nodding almost frantically.
‘Inside,’ Ridge clarified.
Oz dropped one leg to ask, ‘Will it hurt?’
‘I’ll go slow,’ Ridge promised. ‘One finger until you beg me for two.’
Oz’s eyes went wide. ‘ Beg ?’
Ridge’s smile had an edge to it. He could feel the sharpness of his want. ‘Yes. Trust me.’
Oz’s fingers hesitated, but then he grabbed his knees again and nodded instead. His throat was deep red with the flush that was slowly creeping upward, and when Ridge grabbed the oil bottle again, Oz’s cock dribbled a long stream of precome onto his lower stomach.
Oh. He liked that. He really, really liked that. Ridge couldn’t help but wonder how often Oz had fantasized about being with a man and about how often he told himself that it was a reality he’d never get to have.
Well, Ridge was going to make up for all those fears and worries right now. Grabbing the top of Oz’s calf, he leaned down on him until Oz looked up, and the moment his eyes were open, he pressed one finger inside him up to the first knuckle.
“Uhg,” Oz grunted loudly.
Ridge kept his gaze firmly as he pushed in a little deeper. And then a little more.
Oz’s breath stuttered in his chest like he couldn’t catch it, so Ridge used his free hand to stroke gently over the front of his throat and down his sternum.
‘Breathe,’ he signed. ‘In and out.’
It took Oz a second to catch the rhythm, but after a tense moment of struggle, he was obeying. In and out, his lungs filled and emptied. In and out, and with each exhale, he relaxed into Ridge’s touch more and more.
‘You are so good,’ Ridge signed as best he could with one hand. ‘So perfect. So precious.’
Oz jolted and groaned and fucked his hips downward, taking more of Ridge’s finger inside him. And Ridge could see it, the desperation growing in his eyes. He was going to beg. The unchecked noises he was making now were so, so needy.
‘Good,’ he signed again when he began to fuck his finger in and out. Oz took it beautifully. His arms were trembling, fingernails digging into his knees. ‘More?’
Oz nodded.
Ridge smiled again. ‘Beg me.’
Oz’s lips parted on a sharp inhale. He worked his jaw like he was going to speak and then changed his mind. Letting his knees go, he brought his hand up to his chest. ‘Please. Please. I need it. I need more. Fill me. Thicker. Harder. Please.’
Ridge nodded, closing his eyes to gather himself because if he wasn’t careful, he was going to come from the sight of Oz alone. Pulling his hand all the way out, he added more lube, almost laughing at the sound of Oz’s loud moan of protest.
When his fingers were thoroughly slicked, he eased one back in and then, after a single thrust, added a second. Oz cried out softly, his hips rising up and falling. His heels dug into the comforter, trying to gain purchase, but Ridge didn’t need him to do that.
No. He could give him exactly what he was craving. He braced himself harder on Oz’s leg, then began to ram his ass with two fingers, slightly pulled apart to stretch him wide. On the push in, he crooked them, and it only took a second to find that spot. Oz shouted, his hands rising and falling, slapping the bed at the sensation of having his prostate touched.
Ridge was even harder now, so he shifted his position to keep his cock away from Oz’s leg, fingering him harder, faster, deeper. Oz’s entire body was bright pink, his eyes now shut, lost in a sea of pleasure he’d clearly never experienced before.
Ridge felt drunk on that—drunk on what he could give this man.
“Coming,” Oz managed to get out.
For a brief moment, Ridge thought about making him come on his fingers alone, but he didn’t want Oz to have to work for all of it. He shifted himself between Oz’s legs again, using his hips to knock Oz’s legs further apart, and with the first thrust back inside him, he grabbed his dick with his free hand.
Oz’s eyes flew open, staring without really seeing. His shoulders lifted off the bed, and his ass tightened hard as Ridge resumed fingering him hard and fast. “Oh, oh, oh, fuck please oh God oh…”
He trailed off with a garbled grunt, and a second later, he spilled. His cock throbbed fat, hot, and heavy against Ridge’s palm as he stroked it, and he spilled a hot flood that dribbled from the tip at the end, coating him as Ridge rubbed him through the aftershocks.
Oz fell back like he had no muscle or bones left in his body. His eyes remained closed, and his chest was still heaving, though his breaths were becoming more steady and even. Ridge waited a beat to see if he was going to open his eyes, but when he didn’t, he hurried off to the bathroom.
Running the water, he paused by the sink and squeezed the base of his dick and his balls until his erection flagged. He’d take care of himself later. The memory of that would stick with him for the rest of his life as permanent jerk-off material. And he wouldn’t feel a single shred of guilt over it.
By the time he was mostly soft, the water was hot, so he ran a cloth under it, then washed his hands before heading back into the bedroom. Oz hadn’t moved, but he twitched when Ridge laid his knee on the bed and pressed down.
Gently lifting his cock, Ridge cleaned off his mess, swiping between his cheeks to clear away the oil, and then he dropped the cloth near his clothes, sat by Oz’s hip, and waited.
Minutes passed before Oz finally found the ability to open his eyes.
Ridge let himself smile, though there was a spark of worry in his chest now. Was that too much? Had he gone too far?
‘Amazing,’ Oz managed to sign with weak hands.
Ridge burst into laughter and leaned in, stealing a kiss. ‘Good. I thought maybe it was bad.’
Oz rolled his eyes, though they only made it halfway through the circle before giving up. ‘Sleep. Please.’
‘I’ll leave you?—’
‘No.’ Oz grabbed for him right as Ridge started to move away. ‘I just need a few minutes. Please stay. I don’t want to be alone.’
It wasn’t a hard ask. He tossed the oil bottle to the end of the bed, then crawled beside Oz and curled around him. Oz clung like he needed Ridge to keep him afloat, and he silently vowed that whenever this man needed him—however he needed him—he would be there.
No matter what.