Page 29 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

CHLOE

No one warns you that in the second trimester, all that first-trimester nausea? It gets replaced by straight-up horniness.

What a terrible time to be in forced proximity with walking, talking cowboy porn that I was only allowed to look at and not touch.

Every room in this damn house, there he was.

Leaning in doorways. Rolling up his sleeves to his elbows to expose his forearms. Making me snacks at all hours of the night.

I couldn’t escape him. My vibrator hated to see me coming at this point.

If it survived this pregnancy, it would be a miracle.

And what the heck was going on with my breasts? I knew they would get bigger, but it was like they had taken on a life of their own. I was so aware of them. They felt so full, and my nipples were constantly tingling. It took my thoughts from merely horny to downright depraved.

Which was why I was staring out the kitchen window, ogling Steven while he made repairs to the pig pen.

He had tossed his coat aside in the bright Colorado sunshine and worked in a dark gray henley and plaid puffer vest, shirt sleeves pushed back to his elbows, baseball cap backwards, two nails clamped between his lips.

He hammered a third nail into a fence rail and my god.

My god . All I could think was please come inside and pound me .

Amy reached around me to shut off the faucet that I had turned on to wash the dishes that now lay forgotten in the sink. Her nose wrinkled as she looked out the window. “Gross.”

“What?” I asked innocently. Steven disappeared from view and I couldn’t check my sigh.

“I can’t watch this. I’ll have nightmares,” Amy muttered and bolted from the kitchen right as Steven walked in.

“Hey,” he said. He unlocked the fridge, pulled out a Coke, and popped the top. “You hungry?”

You hungry? had become his standard greeting the past week. Clearly my cheese sandwich had scarred the man for life. Steven did not believe I possessed the skills necessary to feed myself and my growing fetus, and I was disinclined to correct him on that.

My brain glazed over as I watched him lift the can of soda to his lips and tilt his head back, the strong lines of his throat moving in deep swallows.

“I could eat,” I said huskily. You. I could lick up every last drop of you. My tongue swiped my bottom lip like I could taste him there.

He slowly dragged the heel of his palm across his mouth, his eyes darkening as he stared at me. “Chloe…”

“Hmm?” Somehow I had swayed closer. Somehow my fingers were toying with the zipper of his vest.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He captured my wrists and pushed my arms down to my sides, then gave me a wide berth as he stalked past me. The bathroom door slammed.

A second later, I heard the shower turn on.

I came home from sewing circle on Sunday to find Steven out front, a horse hoof propped between his leather chaps. A gorgeous blonde woman held the lead rope clipped to the horse’s bridle.

“What’s going on?” I asked. My tone was undeniably testy. Seeing this very pretty, very unpregnant woman looking at Steven in a very interested way set my teeth on edge.

“Annabelle here threw a shoe while Lydia was riding the property line.” Steven rasped the hoof gently. “Lydia figured she might as well swing by for a new set since Annabelle was due anyway. I’m on the last hoof now.”

“Steven is such a lifesaver,” Lydia cooed. She smiled at me. “You must be Amy. I’m happy to finally meet you, neighbor.”

Damn, she was friendly. I eyeballed her.

She was also a wee bit overdressed for ranch chores.

Unless she always fixed fences with perfectly curled hair and the kind of girl-next-door makeup that looked natural but took a good half hour.

I bet Annabelle hadn’t thrown a shoe at all.

Lydia had probably pried it off with her bare hands.

Honestly, I wouldn’t blame her if she had.

“I’m Chloe, actually,” I corrected sweetly. “I moved in a couple weeks ago.”

Lydia’s forehead creased as she looked me up and down. I kind of wished I had a more obvious belly bump, just to make her wonder who the father was, but I was squarely in the maybe she’s pregnant, maybe she ate a burrito stage. “You live here?”

“With Steven,” I confirmed.

Her lips turned down, which had a direct and opposite effect on my own.

“He didn’t mention that,” she said.

Like puppets on a string, our heads swiveled in unison to look at him.

He released Annabelle’s hoof and gave her a brisk pat on the neck. “It didn’t come up,” he said.

Well, what had come up while he played hot farrier with the hot neighbor? I could think of at least one thing I really, really hoped had stayed down. And that was stupid. I had no business feeling all surly and proprietary about Steven.

He headed to the forge he had set up on a metal table next to his truck, pausing as he passed me. “You hungry?”

My gaze ate him up. The leather farrier’s apron with medieval-looking tools tucked into the pockets. The black smudges on his hands. The lines of sweat running down his neck. Slowly I lifted my eyes to his. “Starving,” I whispered.

A muscle popped in his cheek and his eyes darkened. “You’re going to be the death of me, Chloe. You know that?”

I didn’t know what he meant by that. I pivoted to watch him use forceps to grab the hot steel shoe from the forge, then pivoted again as he brought the shoe to Annabelle and settled her leg between his knees again.

I knew my ogling was obvious and I didn’t care.

Someone could have been throwing hundred-dollar bills behind me, and I still wouldn’t have been able to tear my gaze away from him.

Steam hissed and billowed as he placed the hot shoe on Annabelle’s hoof. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple and followed the sharp curve of his jaw. I wanted to lick it up.

Lydia and I sighed in unison and pretended we hadn’t.

Steven only let the shoe stay against the hoof for a few brief seconds before taking it away again and dropping it in a pail of cool water.

After a final pass of tidying the hoof, he nailed the shoe in place.

Annabelle nibbled on his hair as he bent over her hoof, making him laugh, but he never lost focus on perfectly aiming the nails and hammer.

“There you go, honey,” he murmured, setting her hoof down, and I melted a little further. The way this man loved animals made my knees weak.

“Thank you so much,” Lydia said, as though he had brought Annabelle back from the dead. “How much do I owe you?”

“Same as always. I’ll send you the bill,” Steven said.

“Oh, but it’s your day off,” she said. “At least let me pay for the overtime with dinner.”

I was too afraid I would dunk her head in the dirty water to wait for his answer. I strode past them and into the house.

It didn’t take even thirty seconds for Steven to storm in after me.

“What’s gotten into you?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I said in a voice that definitely meant something . “You can go out with whoever you want.”

The way he looked at me made my chest ache. “I said no, Chloe.”

That was even worse, and I couldn’t explain why. “Well, that was dumb, Steven,” I spit out. “She’s pretty. She seems nice enough. She definitely wants to fuck you.”

His jaw worked as he turned his head so all I could see was his profile. “What if I don’t want her? What if I want…someone else?”

Anger and hopelessness swirled in my chest. God, I hated wanting something I couldn’t have. And I couldn’t have Steven. Not now, and not ever. “Don’t waste your time waiting for someone else. I doubt anyone else wants you.”

I regretted the words before they had even fully left my lips. These fucking pregnancy hormones had me lashing out like a toddler. I started to apologize but it was too late.

He jerked back like I had slapped him. Shocked hurt flashed across his face before disappearing behind a smirk. “Fine. I guess I’ll give her a call right now and tell her I changed my mind.”

It felt like a punch to my already aching chest. My eyes watered.

“I don’t care,” I scoffed, as though he couldn’t plainly see the tears rolling down my cheeks.

Goddammit, everything made me cry these days.

It was humiliating enough to want him. But crying about it? There was no coming back from this.

We stared at each other for a long moment.

“Fuck!” he roared. He disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

A second later, the shower turned on.

After that, we managed to go a full seventy-two hours without seeing each other. I half convinced myself I wouldn’t see him again until I moved out.

And then it was 3 a.m. and I was up for a little snack and bumped into him, nose to sternum, as he was coming out of the bathroom, fresh from a shower with a towel wrapped around his lean waist.

Oh, my god. His abs .

I rubbed my nose and winced. “You know, this is how all the good pornos start,” I said hopefully.

He didn’t even pretend to look anywhere but my chest. In his defense, my breasts had never looked better, and I was braless. My nipples could not be more prominent if they waved little flags. “You hate me, Chloe. Remember?” The barbed wire was back in his voice.

I scowled, mostly because it wasn’t true and I wished it were. “I can hate you and want to fuck you at the same time, Steven. It’s called multitasking.”

He speared one hand—not the hand holding his towel, unfortunately—through his hair and tugged.

“Fuck,” he growled, and stepped backwards into the bathroom, swinging the door shut in my face.

A moment later the shower turned back on.

Fuck this. I needed sex.