Page 73 of Cowboy

“We should have a picnic up there one afternoon,” Scarlett suggests, but I shrug off the idea. It isn’t that I don’t want to eat under the tree and spend a lazy day with her, but I don’t trust myself near that tree. Each passing day with Scarlett digs deeper into my feelings for her. I want to marry her. I want the statement of making her mine, but it’s the last thing I can ask of her, and Scarlett’s made no hint of marrying again.

After her ex-husband's adultery and the disloyalty added to the wound with her parents, marriage seems like the furthest thing from Scarlett’s mind. She’s grappling enough with motherhood—a job she’s determined to do well now that she’s left the Busy Bean. She’s also taken a more vested interest in the dairy.

“So what’s on the docket today?” she asks.

“Insemination,” I reply without a thought. Scarlett sputters her coffee as we stand near the counter. I try to ignore how she looks barefoot in my kitchen. The suggestion of her being here all the time would toss me back in the 1950s, but she does look good, all sleepy and hair mussed up in another pair of flannel pajamas tucked under her belly and one of my T-shirts covering her. She wasn’t wearing more than that shirt this morning in the bed we share, but it’s chilly down here first thing.

“Excuse me?” Her eyes rapidly blink as she lowers her coffee mug. “Are we talking cow sex?”

“Sort of. We have an insemination technician coming today to impregnate a few of those ready to birth again.”

“What is an insemination technician? Like a superhero bull?”

I laugh at Scarlett’s imagination. “Well, technically speaking, an excited bull could perform up to twenty times a day, which does seem like superhero status.”

Her mouth falls open. “I don’t know whether to applaud him or cringe. How does he even get it up twenty times a day?”

“Stroke up the inside of his thigh.” Her eyes narrow in disbelief, and I reach forward, stroking my hand along the inside of her leg. Those dark eyes of hers widen, and I see I’ve made my point. “Ideally, we’d put a bull out to pasture and let him go at it, but we need to be selective and organized with a schedule, so the technician comes and injects those ready with semen instead.”

“Uhm, and how exactly do you collect bull semen? Giant paper cups?” Scarlett laughs at her own joke, and I chuckle with her.

“No, it’s like a giant cow condom used as he mounts a cow or an old bull.”

“Gay cow sex?” Her brow lifts.

“It’s a thing.” I chuckle as she still doesn’t believe me. “You can actually order a variety of semen specimens from a catalog. It gets expensive, like up to fifty dollars a tube.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Her face is incredulous, doubting everything I say. “That’s like golden semen.”

“Yep.”

Scarlett’s thoughtful a second. “So if I came up behind you—” She circles around me and places her hand between my legs. “And stroke up like this.” Her fingers drag up the inside of my thigh, but the added pressure does the trick. “Does that get you ready?”

“Are you comparing me to a cow?” I tease of her insistence that she’s compared to one often. I’m also struggling with how well her touching me like that worked.

“The name does fit,” she teases.

“Technically, it’s Bull, so I’m not a cow.”

“Hmm…yes, you are. All bull.” Her hand continues working up and down the inside of my thigh as she stands behind me.

“Scarlett, don’t be starting something we can’t finish,” I warn her as I need to go soon. Before the technician arrives in the afternoon, I need to get to a final cut of our feed pastures, which will get us through winter.

“Who says we can’t finish?” Her hand slips farther between my thighs, and she cups me, gripping my balls through my jeans.

“Jesus,” I hiss.

“Maybe you could make a deposit in me?” Something is so wrong about what she’s said, but her sultry voice is turning me on just as much as her hands massaging me through the denim.

“I already did that, sweetheart.” Seven months ago, again last night, and all the days ending in day between, but Scarlett is insatiable, and I’m not complaining. Spinning around her, I switch positions with her and lift Scarlett’s hands, securing them to the edge of the kitchen counter. “Want to know what it would be like in the pasture?”

“Now you are comparing me to a cow,” she says, but when I hastily tug down her flannels to find her not wearing underwear beneath them, her laughter stops. My hand skims up her inner thigh as I stand behind her. “Are you ready for me?”

She doesn’t disappoint as my fingers meet wetness. She’s practically dripping. “God, I love how quickly you respond to me.” Two fingers dive into her, pressing forward on a rush before pulling back in retreat. Scarlett chases my fingers, eager to keep me inside her. Her fingers clutch at the counter as her backside stretches toward me. Thrusting my fingers inward again, Scarlett grunts. Her back arches, and her arms stiffen.

“Bull,” she hums, but I’m already working on opening my jeans. Button undone. Zipper down. I shove at the sides of my pants, lowering them enough to spring free.

“This is how it happens,” I say to her, lining myself up, coating the tip through her slick folds. “One of the most natural acts in nature.”