Page 33 of Tusks & Saddles
“Hey! Whose team are you on?” Will huffed as her best friend broke out into snickers. Somehow they’d made it all the way onto the ranch. Everything was so dark, she couldn’t tell if she was imagining that the fence was fixed.Well, yeah, I bet Jacobus felt so bad for the broken leg, after he got patched up, he fixed it? Or maybe Boonecame home to finish it?Then she glanced at the bunkhouse and stopped, confusion clear on her face. Lights were on. More than just Roger lights were on. Gracie lit up with delight as she broke off from Will toward the bunkhouse.
“Woah, where you goin?” Will blurted out.
“To get a bunk before the good ones are taken,” Gracie scoffed.
“You can just crash with me?” Will jabbed her thumb toward the main house.
“And stop Boone from having the chance to sneak into bed with you? Not a chance. You’ve got a warm Paladin to snuggle up to! Plus, I was kind of lookin’ forward to having a whole bed to myself, even if it is a bunk.” Gracie shrugged with one shoulder, walking backward toward the bunkhouse with a swagger in each step.
“Uh-huh, sure,” Will rolled her eyes. “I bet Boone’s dead asleep in Jacobus’ room.”
“If he is, come and get me. I’ll eat my words right here and now if that man’s not already spread eagle in your bed.” Gracie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at Will before turning on her heel and marching to the bunkhouse. Will stayed frozen in the yard, staring up at a lit-up bunkhouse. It was past dinnertime so there was no reason for Roger to have all the lights on unless he was rummaging through the whole place.No, there’s people in there.
Will huffed, stomping toward the house to demand where the hell Jacobus found people to put in the bunkhouse…and how the fuck he was paying them. She stepped through the front door to an empty kitchen. Her heart lurched at the quiet blanket that fell around her. Despite the fact the house was warm from life, it was asleep. No one in the kitchen, and the only light on was the stairwell.
Toeing off her boots, she tiptoed up the creaky steps toward the second floor. She found Jacobus’ door shut, hers open with a light on within it. She whispered, “Momma?”
No response, but the distinct sound of a shower running. Will crept along the hall. Peeking into Jacobus’ room, she saw her brother’s lump of a body spread across the bed. No Boone-sized shadow in his room. Her heart skipped a beat as she peeked inside her mother’s room. There was a harpy-sized lump in her bed, distinctly on her father’s side of the bed. Will closed both doors quietly before creeping all the way to her room. She stepped in and stopped to stare down at the door handle.
A lock?Eyebrows furrowed, she closed the door and stared down at the knob like it was some foreign moon stone that dropped out of the sky and hit her in the head.Someone changed out my door?It was significantly sturdier than before, with a shiny, copper knob…with a fucking lock on it. She flipped it and heard the heavy click echo into the room.
“Like it? I think Jacobus picked out a nice one. Had them installed throughout the whole house.”
Will twisted slowly to the bathroom to find Boone standing in the glowing doorway, wringing out his hair in a towel. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the door. “I was only gone for two hours?”
“Four, but still,” Boone chuckled.
“Ooh, pardon me, I was talking with Gracie for four hours.That’s still not enough time to do all this, Boone!” She hissed with sharp venom as she stalked across the room. “And what’s with the bunkhouse full of lights?”
“Were you expecting the bulbs to be busted?” he teased, smirking as she stormed right up to him. Slick as a tadpole in a slimy pond, he put an arm around her waist and turned her into the doorframeof her bathroom. Warm steam tickled the side of her face. Boone leaned over her, his other forearm pressed to the frame over her head. “I left Jacobus a honey-to-do list. He finished everything on it and then some. Even hired a handful of ranch hands to help keep up on the slow season.”
“Where did he get the coin to do it?” she huffed. “I know I didn’t leave him a single cent to pay for new door handles, let alone hire people.”
“I did.” Boone arched a challenging brow, daring her to talk back. But she didn’t have a word to say. Her heart was in her toes, flopping along the floor erratically like a trout out of water.He…he what?
“Where did you-when did you?” she stammered after a long moment of utter confusion.
“Before we left. I told you I used to send coin back to my old man for Welby. Sometime ago, he stopped taking it and sent it back. Welby’s a man now with his own magic and means to take care of himself. My father’s living in his cabin near the water somewhere I think, enjoying his peace and quiet. All that coin was just sitting in my chest, collecting dust. It does more good here.” He pulled on her hip, pressing her against him. “And I know you’re about to say it, so before you open that pretty mouth of yours—no, you’re not askin’ me to do this. I’m telling you.”
“Boone,” she murmured.
He dropped his hand from the frame to her cheek. The rough pad of his thumb brushed along her cheek as his warm eyes roamed her face. She couldn’t help the tingle between her thighs nor the flutter in her chest.He put money into the ranch? Before he even…it wasn’t guilt, he just wanted to do it? Because that’s who Boone is, and I can’t even dissuade him from doing it either.He cupped her cheek tenderly, his voice rough, barely above a whisper. “Baby, I don’tneed that coin. It’s got nothing good to go to, and I ain’t got much in this world other than the armor on my back. I ain’t much, myself…but what I am is yours.”
“Shut up, you’re everything to me.” Her hands roamed up his chest. Pushing up on her toes, she pressed a quick kiss to his lips. Boone immediately deepened it by running her back into the frame. He caged her there, and she was a happy prisoner in his arms. Droplets of shower water tickled her fingers as she threw her arms around his neck. When he broke the kiss, only hovering a breath away from her lips, she croaked, “I’m gonna try and stop believing you’ll leave me.”
Boone chuckled, “And I’ll keep giving you reasons to believe me until you finally do. Now, scrub the dust off you so I can spend the rest of the evening between your thighs, huh?”
Will flushed, swatting at him but he caught her hands every time. Each time she tugged her hands free to smack him again, he snatched them from the air and kissed her knuckles till she was nothing but melted goo on the inside. Eventually, she did shuffle into the bathroom. Stripping down to her skin, she dropped the dirty clothes into the hamper and popped into the shower. She took a few extra minutes scrubbing herself and washing two days stuck in a box on a train out from all her pits. Even washed her hair. Then, after she’d properly boiled herself, she dried off. Flipping off the bathroom light, she tiptoed out into her room with nothing on.
The second she crawled into bed, in the near pitch black of night, she felt arms wrap around her. Boone ripped her into the covers and planted her right in the center of all her pillows. Their lips crashed together over and over. Her hands ran up his sides, tracing and memorizing every curve, every scar, every dip of his body. His mouth, however, was on a mission.He traveled from her lips to her throat to her nipples. Settling his body between her thighs, she sighed dreamily at the comforting weight of him. Like a blanket, he eased all her frayed edges and kept her warm. Raking her fingers through his hair, she tried to keep her sounds quiet. Then his fingers traced up the inside of her leg and cupped her needy cunt. A deep groan fell out of her mouth and the door lit up in golden crackles of magic.
“Is that a silencing charm?” she blurted out.
“Good, isn’t it? I installed that,” he snickered seconds before sucking on her nipple, eliciting a yelp. The door glittered again. Will laughed and watched the door continuously run little sparks of golden electricity up its length.
“Not very subtle.”
“Not meant to be subtle. Meant to work. And I intend to test its limits tonight.” He took ahold of her other nipple and sent her eyes rolling back in her head. Warmth bloomed in her core as he stroked her in tandem with his tempting tongue. Her nails left tracks along his shoulders and back as he worked both her nipples into stiff peaks. Only when she was delirious and begging him with breathy pleas, “Boone, please”, did he move down from her chest to where she desperately needed him. He threw the blanket up and over them before he settled his wide shoulders under her thighs.
