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“You have dogs?”
Pops laughed at her expression. “Have to. They keep the coyotes, coons, rabbits, and possums away.”
“You have wild animals around here too?” She glanced around as if hoping to spot a leopard or a giraffe or some creature far more exciting than a squirrel.
“If you like animals, the barn cat had a mess of kittens week before last,” Pops said. “Sure are cute little shits now that their eyes are open.”
Steve thought she might faint from elation.
“Have you ever been to the country?” he asked her.
“Not really. Am I embarrassing myself?”
“You’re perfect.” Even though showing her the adorable beef calves on his parents’ acreage might win him further points, he wasn’t going to introduce her to them or she’d probably attempt a rescue mission to save cattle from their fate as tasty steaks.
Pops headed for the house, and once his back was turned, Steve couldn’t resist pulling Roux close for a kiss. He’d brought her to the farm to give her a reason to push him away or to give himself a reason to be less obsessed with her, but damned if the trip hadn’t had the opposite effect. Her kiss was sweet and tender. They let it linger between them, and he felt its effects deep in the center of his chest.
I’m in trouble.
And he was glad. He never thought he’d feel this way about anyone again.
Roux hugged the chickens while he scooped eggs out of their nests. The way she cradled them and spoke to them in a soothing tone had the birds calm and clucking softly, and had Steve thinking what a great mother Roux would make, which . . . no. He had to stop thinking that way. He wasn’t the kind of guy who’d make a good role model for a child. Any child. Especially not his own. But maybe he was ready to settle down and stop filling the empty hours with women and booze and drugs and more women. Maybe all he needed was one woman. The right woman.
I’m in big trouble.
“You don’t eat these chickens, do you?” she asked, settling a red hen back on her now-empty nest. The bird turned its head jerkily as it viewed them with one eye and then the other.
“Not when they’re laying eggs.”
She watched several chickens pecking around in the fenced area surrounding the coop.
“I’m glad they don’t have to spend their entire lives in little cages,” she said.
He couldn’t stand her morose expression as she gazed at the hens. He figured they had pretty good lives for chickens. They were kept safe and well fed, but they were also tasty.
“Let’s go find those kittens,” he said, reaching for her hand and carrying the bucket of eggs in his other.
He carefully latched the gate behind them, and several juvenile half coonhound, half Labradors came loping up to sniff at them. They were all wags within seconds. Roux released his hand to squat down to pet them, laughing when they licked her face and nearly toppling over when they nudged her for more attention. One particularly floppy-eared pup began to bay in a hound’s distinctive bark.
“About six months ago, my granddad’s prize coonhound got into a bit of trouble with the neighbor’s Lab,” Steve said. “Pops decided to keep all the pups to remind her not to stray from the mate he chose for her, but I think he just likes the company.”
“Mutts make the best dogs,” Roux insisted, scratching a spotted one behind the ears. The pup gazed at her with understandable devotion.
Steve wished he knew the pups’ names. The mama was Trixie and the male coonhound was Jonas, but he had no idea what Jonas’s seven step-dogs were named. A pure black one was sticking his snout into Steve’s bucket, trying to steal an egg.
“Get out of there!”
The dog skittered backward with his tail between his legs and his ears back.
“I should probably wash my hands before I handle kittens,” Roux said, giving her fingers a hesitant sniff. “Not sure the mama cat will like the smell of dog on them.”
“And the smell of chickens,” Steve said.
“And of you,” she said softly, her lashes concealing her eyes.
Okay, they needed to finish this visit so they could spend some time alone together on a private beach as soon as fucking possible.
He lifted the handle of the red well pump, and Roux stared at it as if it were some miracle invention. After a moment it began to gurgle, and water rushed out.
“Oh! It’s a water pump.” She thrust her hands beneath the flow.
“Sucks water right out of the ground.”
“No fooling?”
He lifted a hand to the sky. “Hand to God.”
She laughed and dried her hands on the hem of her shirt. He ushered her toward the barn, careful to shut the overgrown pups out, and set the bucket of eggs on the dirt floor. Beams of sunlight found cracks between the old warped boards of the ancient structure, illuminating dust particles floating through the air.
“Shh,” Steve said, placing a finger to his lips and listening intently.
A faint mewing came from the hayloft above them. Roux laughed softly. “I hear them.”
“Up there,” he whispered, pointing to the ladder.
“Is it safe?” She frowned at the rickety-looking ladder.
“If you fall, I’ll catch you,” he promised.
“Then maybe I’ll fall on purpose.” A flirtatious grin teased her lush lips.
His breath caught, and he couldn’t behave himself for another second. He jerked her into his arms and filled his hands with her soft ass while he kissed her. She squeaked in surprise when he shifted her hip against the hard ridge of his rapidly engorging cock.
“God, I want you,” he murmured against her lips, unwilling to break contact even to speak.
“Again?”
“Always.”
He felt her smile against his lips as she looped both arms around his neck and pressed her soft breasts into his chest.
“Are you in the barn, Steven?”
His mother’s voice destroyed his good time.
With a frustrated groan, Steve released Roux, who dashed for the ladder and started to climb.
“Looking for kittens,” he called to his mom.
The barn door creaked open. “Pops said you brought a guest. You should have given us a little warning. I could have made a roast.”
“She’s a vegetarian.”
“Oh. Well, a salad, then.” Mom gave him a hearty squeeze. “You need a roast, though. You’re much too thin.”
“The word you’re looking for is cut. Shredded.” He tightened his muscles. “Maybe ripped.”
She caught his jaw in her hand and gave him the Mom-look that told him she wasn’t hearing any of his arguments. “Thin. It’s all those drugs you take.”
He couldn’t deny he enjoyed an occasional bump of cocaine, that pot kept life interesting several nights a week, and he liked his whiskey, but despite what his parents’ thought, he didn’t lie around all day with a needle in his arm and a crack pipe in his hand. “That’s so 1985, Mom.”
High above, Roux said softly, “Aww, aren’t you the sweetest things ever.”
“Is that her?” Mom whispered.
“Yeah. What did Pops tell you?”
“That you got married in Vegas.”
Steve snorted. “Pops is hearing things again. It’s nothing that serious.”
“But something special.”
He couldn’t deny that. “I’ll go up
and get her.”
Steve shot up the ladder, leaving his mom on solid ground staring up at him.
He found Roux sitting cross-legged near a pile of scattered straw with the mama cat purring contentedly on her lap and six small and shaky gray and white fluff balls exploring the area around her. Filtered sunlight lit the area and made her fair skin glow.
“What’s her name?” Roux asked.
“Betty. Why don’t you come down and meet her?”
Roux grimaced slightly. “I meant the cat.”
“That’s Nightmare.”
“Nightmare?” She stroked the calico on her lap, and the cat shifted belly up in surrender. “This sweet girl is named Nightmare?”
“I don’t think the mice around here think she’s so sweet. Are you coming?”
“I’m not really prepared for this,” she said, lifting each kitten and nuzzling her nose into their fluff. They made squeaky meowing noises that their mother ignored as she looped a paw around Roux’s wrist to gain herself another stroke.
“If you don’t want to meet—”
“I do,” she said, and those two little words made his heart skip a beat. “It’s just . . . I’m not prepared.”
“It’s not like you need to write a speech. It’s just my mom.”
“First impressions are important.” Having nuzzled the final kitten, Roux set Nightmare aside and climbed to her feet, brushing dust off the seat of her pants. The cat immediately started to rub up against Roux’s leg, purring in earnest. Nightmare had gotten her name because she tended to attack people as often as she attacked mice, but apparently the holy terror had a new best friend.
“Hopefully you’ve gotten over your horrible first impression of me,” he said.
Roux grinned. “You did make a complete ass of yourself.”
No denying that fact. He kissed her softly, his hands moving to her ass as if drawn there by an incredible force. Four sharp claws dug into his ankle, and he winced. Nightmare did not share well.
“I’ll go down first,” he said. “Going down is a lot scarier than going up.”
“Going down is a little intimidating at first.” She glanced down at his crotch and lifted her eyebrows. “But I’ll give it a go if we ever get some alone time.”
He blew out a breath, wondering what he’d been thinking when he’d brought her to the farm instead of going directly to the island. Then again, her heart and soul were fully on display here, whereas if they’d started their time together on the island, he’d have focused all his attention on her body. He might have missed out on witnessing her true beauty, and right now in the dim light of a musty hayloft with a holy terror of a cat rubbing against her calf, her gentle soul was blindingly obvious to him. Though in all honesty, marathon sex was also likely to increase his admiration, considering the perpetually aroused condition he found himself in.
