Rob couldn't remember the last time he'd let someone else make the decisions or orchestrate a hookup. He couldn’t recall, but it wasn’t as if he was capable of deciding here. He’d got to that place where sensation outweighed thought, and the taste of it was intoxicating

Aaron kissed him and silently demanded that Rob give in to him, and Rob didn’t have an argument with that.

“I want you bent over the railing,” Aaron said into the kiss. “Do you know how much I want my cock inside you. I want everything.”

He went to his knees, holding Rob steady, unbuttoning his jeans, and had his mouth on Rob’s cock so quickly that he nearly came right there and then. When Aaron pressed his hands to hard thighs, it was game over. He didn’t last long, so turned on and burning that all Aaron had to do was suck him down over and over. He reached to push a hand in Aaron’s hair, warning him.

Aaron moved off, twisted his fingers on Rob’s cock, and Rob was done. His orgasm explosive and he ignored the pain as he came.

“See what it’s like when you give up control?” Aaron said cockily as he stood and kissed his open mouth, licking inside and stealing his breath.

Rob wished he could answer, but all he wanted was to show Aaron what giving up control was like. If only his back would let him.

“Maybe it’s me bending you over the railing,” Rob snapped.

Aaron laughed and deliberately unbuttoned his jeans, pushing the material down and freeing his hard cock.

“How about you return the blow job? That would be a start.”

Rob shoved Aaron then, and he was caught off balance, tumbling back on the bed.

“What the fuck?” Aaron said, but he was grinning, and Rob crawled up onto the bed to him and gave him the best freaking blow job of his entire goddamned life. Aaron lost the ability to talk. The sounds he made were low and almost quiet, but the way he arched up into Rob’s mouth was evidence that despite everything, Rob really hadn’t lost his touch.

They lay next to each other on the bed, not speaking, and Aaron closed his eyes.

“Why have we not used a bed before this?” he murmured, and then his breathing evened out, and he was asleep. Rob could throw him out now, shake him awake, tell him to leave, but he didn’t. The traitorous part of him wanted to watch Aaron, see the way his whole body relaxed as he slept. He’d never wanted this to make it to a bed, wouldn’t have let it if he could still get to his knees without pain the last few days.

Because if they were in a bed, then somehow, dangerously, what they had would be more than casual sex, more than friends with benefits.

It was something real.

And that terrified him.

“Hey.”

The voice was close, a whisper in his ear, and Rob reached up to touch whoever was talking to him.

His body ached, but he felt relaxed; more so than he had been in a long time.

“Hey,” the voice said again, and little things began to make more sense.

He ached because for the first time since the problems caused by the bullet he’d pushed through the pain to make love for real, taken his time, made things good for his lover, and not just enjoyed random fucking up against a tree.

Aaron was in bed with him.

It was daylight.

The kids!

He tried to sit up, but he was tangled up in the sheet and couldn’t make his limbs work.

“It’s okay,” Aaron soothed and patted his chest. “Sam said he and the kids are baking. They’re staying for dinner and will be back at seven.”

“Sam’s been here?” None of this was making sense. He was confused.

“Your phone was obnoxiously beeping at me,” Aaron said and passed the phone to Rob who attempted to look at the screen, but it was all a blur. His memory was impaired, his limbs heavy, his spine cramping, and now his eyesight was blurry. He blinked to clear the fog and was finally able to read the simple words.

“Don’t touch my phone again,” he ordered and clutched it to his chest.

“I didn’t really have a choice. I tried to wake you up but thought maybe one of the boys needed us.”

“Needed me,” Rob corrected.

“Yeah, that.”

Rob wriggled to sit upright, fighting with the pillows behind his back and wincing until Aaron took pity on him and propped him up.

“So we have some time. You want me to give you a massage and loosen some of the tightness in your shoulders?”

“No.” A massage was way too intimate.

“Okay then, so we can’t roll around in the sack anymore. That’s a given considering you look like you’d rather die than have to move.”

“You could go.”

Aaron pressed a hand to his chest in mock dismay. “It’s like you only want me for my body.”

"That's an accurate assessment." Rob knew he was an asshole, but Aaron was looking at him with fondness and care, and none of that shit sat right with him.

“So today, I saw my work partner Grace. She’s having a baby, and no one knows who the father is, and it turns out she and my big brother, Saul, have been seeing each other.”

Rob sighed. He didn’t want to talk, and he swung his legs around. The minute the soles of his feet touched the floor, pain shot through him, and he gasped. Aaron was there in a moment, pressing fingers into his neck and talking about nothing at all.

“So Saul is all ‘I’m too old,’ but he’s only fifty-four and fit as a fiddle, and he’s spent his entire adulthood being a dad to us, so he’ll make a wonderful dad to Grace’s baby, and an even better husband.”

The words flowed over Rob, and even though he wanted to shrug off the rhythmic press and stroke of Aaron’s hands, he didn’t.

“Anyway, she was at dinner today, this big family thing we have every Sunday, and we all love her, and so I’m going to be an uncle again, which is cool.” His hands moved lower, and Rob tensed, leaning on the cabinet to stand up.

“That’s enough.”

Aaron stared up at him, and Rob had never seen anything as good as Aaron Carter in his bed. He was naked, the sheet twisted on his thighs, his cock on full view, every line of him sculptured. This was a man who worked out, who looked after himself. The kind of guy that Rob might have seen himself with.

In fact, the last few days he’d changed his mind on a lot of things.

It was okay to want to feel something for his nephews.

It was right for him to be proud of them. Bran with his stubborn caregiving and his love for his brother, so bright and watchful, and just like Suzi. Toby who’d come out of his shell, following Bran around like a puppy, but who smiled so much more now. He could imagine both boys growing up, and wondered if either would change.

The conflict inside him, to connect to the boys, was real. But he just had to remember that soon he’d be dead. Or if he chose the operation path and survived, then chances were he’d be paralyzed, and there was no situation where he would want to be a waste of space, dependent on others for everything.

You could do this if you had Aaron at your side.

He stumbled, watched as Aaron fought the sheet and was up by his side in an instant.

“Talk to me, Rob,” he murmured as he hovered and followed Rob close to the window. “What’s wrong?”

“Get dressed and get out.”

“No.” Aaron, it seemed, could be just as stubborn. He moved away, pulled on his clothes, then sat on the bed, which left Rob at a distinct disadvantage.

That stubbornness was so sexy, and again, as the thoughts hit him, he wondered what the hell was going on. He wanted to talk to Aaron, wanted to tell him everything, explain how he had to leave the boys, and that if he could have stayed, he could see a short-term future where he was with Aaron.

It wouldn’t work for long, them being together, and God, so far it had just been sex. Still, he was feeling things that he shouldn’t. A future that was alien to him, and the idea of waking up next to Aaron on a daily basis was tantalizingly out of reach.

“So Saul and Grace’s wedding,” Aaron began, drawing his legs up and crossing them. "You want to come with me? Be my date, like an official event where I say, ‘hey, everyone, this is Bran and Toby and their uncle Rob, my boyfriend’ that kind of thing?”

Rob’s mouth fell open. He didn’t want a boyfriend or to see him and the boys as any kind of unit.

I really want that.

He was already falling for his nephews, wanting to be there for them, even if he couldn’t be. Was he destined to suffer the same miserable need to have Aaron in his life as well? He could almost taste the wedding cake, see the dancing, the laughing, and him sitting in the middle of it, unable to move, stuck in a wheelchair, maybe not able to breathe unaided.

He felt the self-pity, keenly.

Then Aaron smiled at him, and in that instant, he knew one thing. Aaron was dangerous to his heart and his life plan, and he needed to make Aaron go.

But Aaron beat him to it. He left the bed, picked up Rob’s clothes, and passed them over, getting closer with each step until they were kissing, his clothes pressed between them.

And Rob didn’t want to let him go.

When they parted, Aaron cupped Rob’s face. “Let’s get you dressed.”

They ended up sitting on the back porch, the mountains beyond, the air warm, and Rob abruptly needed to hear Aaron talk some more.

“Tell me about your brothers.”

Aaron reached over and twisted his fingers with Rob’s.

"Saul, he's the eldest, became the dad to the other four of us when my parents died. Ryan, the youngest, he was still a baby. Next, after Saul, is Eddie, then me, then Jason, last—Ryan. Ryan’s dating the actor Jordan Darby, Eddie is married to Jenny, Milly and Jake are his.”

“Saul is with Grace and her baby.”

Aaron squeezed his hand. “You were listening.”

Rob huffed. "I didn't have a choice; you were talking at me.”

“So Jason, he’s on/off seeing this girl in the city, can’t seem to pin her down. And of course, I’m with you.”

He side-eyed Rob then, and his expression was clear.

I dare you to deny it.

Rob didn’t have the energy to deny anything. Maybe he was with Aaron. Perhaps he could live this dream for a couple of days and enjoy the boys and then back the hell off before he left.

“I’m bringing my niece and nephew swimming tomorrow on my day off. You want to meet me there?”

“Maybe,” Rob murmured.

Aaron stood, stretched tall. “Good, then I’ll meet you at the lake.”

And with a soft kiss and a promise of more, he left.