He’s right. No amount of time is enough, yet I feel us ticking closer and closer toward expiration. One false move, a slipped word, a knock from the past, and this ends.
The thought makes me cold and hollow inside.
I’ve spent the best three months of my life with him. He takes me dancing at the Big Sugar. Drives me to Tulsa to dine at vegetarian restaurants. Brings me with him every week to visit Lorne. Works beside me all day every day. Sleeps with his arms around me every night. Restrains me, flogs me, chokes me, spanks me, and gives me more pleasure and joy than I ever hoped for.
And he never asks me about my secrets. Never volunteers his own. That’s our limit. The line we silently drew and never cross.
He grabs the tube from the nightstand and lifts my shirt to rub the cool cream into my heated bottom. He kisses my lips while he cares for me, murmurs how beautiful I am as sleep pulls me under.
He shackled my heart with his, and I wish he would lose the key to that lock. The steady beat of his love against mine empowers me, strengthens me, makes me believe that as long as we’re together, it’s enough.
We’re enough.
THREE MONTHS LATER…
I trudge through the snow toward the stable, dragging my boots to create a manageable path for the dawdlers behind me. The icy wind blasts my face, and I laugh back at it, adjusting the Stetson lower on my forehead.
“I hate that you’re enjoying this.” Maybe stomps and groans and releases a frustrated sigh.
Grinning, I turn around to check on her. “All you have to do is ask for help.”
“No way. You always get to be the alpha.” She tugs on the braided lead connected to Chicken’s halter. “I’m determined to be the alpha in this relationship.”
She digs her boots in, yanks on the rope with all her might, and falls on her ass.
I bite down on my lip, but my grin pulls free.
She insisted we take her three-foot-tall, four-hundred-pound weanling for a walk, despite the foot of snow that dumped on us overnight. Chicken decided midway through the hike she wants no part of it and planted her hooves.
Frost clings to her black nose. Her black ears twitch restlessly, the rest of her so white I can’t see where she ends and the snow begins.
“You’ve spoiled her by keeping her in the stable.” I rest my gloved hands on my hips.
“I’d rather she sleep with us.” She climbs to her feet, dusting off her jeans.
“That’s a hard no.”
“Aww, but look how cute she is.” She bends down and presses a kiss between Chicken’s stubborn brown eyes.
I don’t know about the calf, but there’s a fuckton of cuteness happening with Maybe bent over like that. Snowflakes stick to her blond braids beneath the Stetson. White clouds plume from her pink lips, and her puffer coat lifts up her lower back, revealing a round, firm, gorgeous ass in tight jeans.
A groan sounds in my throat, and she straightens, arching a brow at me.
“Here.” I remove a wadded napkin from my coat pocket, unravel a treat, and toss it to her.
“An apple fritter?” She inspects the fried bread in her gloved hand. “Can she eat this?”
“Ask her.” I’ve been sneaking fritters to the damn calf for the past week.
She turns and holds out the treat. “Look what I have, Chicken. Can you eat—?”
Chicken launches for it, and Maybe jumps back with a shriek, hugging the fritter to her chest.
“Oh my God.” She lets out a musical sound of surprise as she stumbles backward to evade the charging calf. “Slow down, you greedy girl.”
She spins on her heel and takes off toward the stable, laughing and tromping through the snow, with Chicken bounding after her.
I catch up with them inside and find Chicken in her stall, gobbling up torn pieces of the fritter in Maybe’s open palms.
“She loves it.” She blinks up at me, her blue eyes as luminous as her smile.
I smile back, overwhelmed by the ripples of warmth swirling through my blood.
Sinking into her body the first time completely redefined my existence. But nothing compares to moments like this, when her happiness is so blinding it crackles the molecules in the air.
When the fritter is gone, she hugs the calf, fusses over the bedding, and checks the automated feeder.
It’s not an all-inclusive chicken resort, but it allows her to pamper and coddle her very own rescued critter. It makes her smile, and that means more to me than anything else in the world.
She’s lived here for six months. She works for the ranch and spent the holidays with my family—Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s. She’s become one of us, wedging right into the fold without even trying. They adore her.
I adore her. Cherish her. Worship the ground she walks on. I fucking love her with everything inside me, and I’m sick of holding back the words, the promise I want to make to her, and the secrets I ache to tell her.