Page 19

“Colt’s been secretive about this night for weeks ,” Delaney says, buckling Mason into his seat with practiced speed. “You guys go. We’ve got this.”

Colt reappears behind me, hands sliding around my waist. “I’ll have that eagle sculpture done for you next week.” Jack nods.

“Awesome, brother. Thanks for fitting us in, I know you’re Mr. Big Shot now making those things for all the fancy pants ranches out in Montana or Telluride or wherever the fuck you’re shipping them.”

“Welcome, asshole.” Colt shakes his head as Jack flips him off, disappearing with Delany.

His little chainsaw carving as become quite the little business.

He got featured on the cover of Montana Monthly after someone bought one of his carved Grizzly bears that he had up for sale in town at one of the fairs.

Turns out, the guy that bought it was some big shot western and folk-art collector. After that, the orders started rolling in and Colt quadruples his prices. I love when he comes in covered in sawdust with that gleam in his eyes, dragging me outside to show me his newest creation.

“I’ve got one surprise left,” he murmurs. “And no, it doesn’t involve matching pajamas or bedtime stories.”

I smirk. “Is it wine and silence?”

“Better.”

“Better than wine and silence? That’s a bold claim, Boone.”

He grins. “Trust me?”

I lean back against him and sigh. “Always.”

We wave goodbye to the kids and the rest of the Boone circus, who are still wrangling diaper bags, snack wrappers, and a toddler who may or may not have taken her pants off.

Colt laces his fingers through mine and leads me to his truck.

Not the official sheriff’s vehicle, thank God, but his personal pickup.

It still smells like pine trees and motor oil and him.

“So,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat and giving him the side-eye. “You planning to murder me in the woods, or...?”

“You’ll see.” His grin is maddening.

He takes us out of town, onto those winding mountain roads I’ve grown to love, the kind that wrap around the ridges like ribbon and smell like earth and freedom. I assume we’re heading toward the cabin—our cabin—but instead he veers off down a gravel road I’ve never seen before.

“Colt...”

“Patience, baby girl.” He says it like he knows that’s the exact opposite of what I have.

After twenty minutes of silence and increasing suspicion, punctuated by one very suspicious deer that stared at us like it knew what was coming, he pulls off to the side of the road. There’s nothing around us but trees, silence, and that soft hum that comes with being deep in the middle of nowhere.

I glance around, eyebrows raised. “Are we... broken down? Or is this a deliverance situation?”

Colt doesn’t answer. Instead, he gets out, rounds the truck, and opens my door with exaggerated formality.

I squint at him, and that’s when I see it.

He’s put on his sheriff’s hat, and something in his expression has shifted.

Gone is the playful dad-husband look, replaced by something darker.

Intent. Amused. Slightly dangerous in that take-me-to-church-and-confession kind of way.

“Ma’am,” he says, voice gone full Sheriff Boone. “I’m gonna need you to step out of the vehicle.”

Oh, we’re doing this.

My pulse jumps a little, but my mouth curves into a smirk. “Officer, is there a problem?”

“That depends.” He steps closer, that hat shadowing his eyes. “You been drinking tonight?”

“No, sir.” My voice drops an octave without me meaning to.

“Then why were you weaving all over the road?”

I raise an eyebrow. “I wasn’t weaving. Maybe you need your eyes checked.”

“My eyes are fine.” He takes another step, close enough now that my back hits the side of the truck. “And so are you. Were you trying to get pulled over?”

“No, officer. I swear. Maybe I was a little distracted,” I whisper. And I’m definitely not breathing steadily anymore.

“Distracted?” His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb dragging slow and hot across my bottom lip.

“Yes, I have this ache. I can’t seem to make it go away.” I rub my lips together on a coy smile.

“You’re trouble.” He pinches my chin. “Show me how sorry you are for giving me trouble.”

“Whatever do you mean, officer?” I flutter my hands around my neck, batting my lashes.

“You know what the fuck I mean. You wanna play? Let’s play. Take off my fucking pants and apologize.”

His voice is gravel as he grabs my wrist, pushing my hands down to his pants. I work the button, then the zipper, and the denim drops in a heap, revealing boxer briefs stretched taut over an erection that makes my knees buckle.

He hooks a thumb under the straps of my dress, dragging them down my shoulders, then shoving the fabric to my belly, exposing my braless tits.

But, he’s not done, he grabs the fabric with both hands at my hips and jerks it down, leaving me standing in the wide-open air in nothing but a white little thong with little embroidered cherries all over.

His gaze rakes up and down my body, and lands on my lips.

“Are we playing now?” I challenge, licking my lips and arching my back. He answers with a growl, unbuttoning his shirt and freeing himself from his boxers.

My fingers dig into the sides of his ribs as I pull him toward me. He steps free of his clothes around his feet, towering over me with a cock that even half-hard looks monumental.

“You like my panties? They’re my ‘get out of jail free’ panties.” My teasing dies on my lips as he grabs the scrap of material between my legs and tears it away.

A guttural sound escapes him, standing there all magnificent and perfect before he’s crouched down, throwing one leg over his shoulder, my back slams against the side of the truck, the heat from his mouth ignites me when he buries his face into my core.

No teasing with this man, just that demanding tongue lapping up every drop.

“Christ.” My back arches as he spears two fingers deep inside while swirling his thumb over my clit.

His free hand grips a hip possessively, holding me open to devour.

Every swipe of muscle, every flick of his wrist sends sparks igniting behind my ribs until I’m shuddering, right here out for God and everyone to see.

“Look at you,” he groans, spreading me wider to feast again, dragging his teeth over my swollen flesh. “So ready to say you’re sorry.”

In one fevered motion, I’m spun around, my flesh dented by hard fingertips as my hips are tugged backwards, my hands slapped onto the side of the truck bed.

“Stay put, I’m going to do a cavity search.”

Oh shit.

He doesn’t waste time, hands pull me apart, then his thick head breaches me in one brutal push. We both groan as my eyes close, the breeze kicking up as if to say we need to cool off.

Slow thrusts start that send ripples through my center.

“You’re so goddamn tight,” he growls against my neck, biting my shoulder, making me hiss. My fingers grip the heated metal as I push back, meeting him thrust for thrust.

I squeeze, clamping down around his thickness when he pumps harder, pushing my hips forward with each brutal stroke, stretching me over his cock until it grazes something white-hot inside.

When I climax, it’s a scream tearing free of me as his fingers clamp around my throat, holding me steady through waves of light and sound and pleasure so bone deep, I never want to come up for air.

His release spills into me seconds later, a low roar vibrating into the center of my back as he buries his face between my shoulder blades as we turn into a tangle of limbs and heaving breaths.

His pulls out only long enough to spin me around, dragging me by the hand to the driver’s door.

He gets in, putting the seat back as far as it will go, then holding his still hard cock up.

“Get on. You don’t want a ticket, you gotta earn your way out. Make me come again. Show me what that wet, little pussy was born to do. Ride Daddy like the slutty good girl you are.”

Challenge accepted.

I mount him, shove one of my tits in his mouth and ride him like a drunk cowgirl.

This time it’s him shouting my name as our orgasms slam into each other with a crash of heat so bright it drowns out everything in my head except how much I love this man.

His hands know every curve now. They know exactly where to squeeze, what to undo, how to make me unravel like I’ve been waiting all day for this. Because I have .

“Been thinkin’ about this damned day,” he growls against my throat, “Watching you in that dress... knowing what I was gonna do the second I got you alone.”

“Colt—”

“That’s Sheriff Daddy Boone to you, baby girl.”

Well. Okay, then.

There’s something about the roleplay that sets everything on fire. Just fun layered over something deeper. Something honest.

He takes his time when he starts to move again and somewhere between gasping his name into the mountain air and swearing I’ll never skip cardio again, I remember why this man ruined me for anyone else.

Later, he’s driven us naked down a dirty road onto his brother Cade’s part of the mountain where there’s an incredible stream with a little clearing surrounded by sky-high pines.

We’re wrapped up in a thick quilt in the bed of his truck, the stars overhead so bright and close they feel fake. My head’s on his chest, and he’s stroking lazy circles over my back, like he doesn’t want the moment to end any more than I do.

“Happy anniversary,” he says, his voice half gravel, half butter.

“Best anniversary ever,” I reply, kissing the warm skin of his chest. “Though I’m pretty sure at least three things we just did were illegal. On multiple levels.”

“Good thing I know the sheriff,” he says, all smug and no shame.

I huff a laugh, tilting my head up. “You’re a menace.”

“I try.”

There’s a pause. Just enough silence to let the air cool around us, to let it get soft again.

“I love you, you know that?”

He shifts so he’s looking straight at me, his hand still resting over my spine like a grounding wire.

“I love you too, baby girl. More than I ever thought I had the capacity for.”

“Even when I’m old and gray and I forget the lyrics to every song I’ve ever taught a kid?”

“Especially then. You’ll be sexy and sassy and still making up lyrics on the spot.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re biased.”

“I’m obsessed,” he corrects. Then he cups my cheek like he’s memorizing me all over again. “You gave me everything. A family. A home. A reason to believe happy endings weren’t just for other people.”

I press my forehead to his. “You saved me first. Not just physically. I didn’t even realize how lonely I was until you bandaged up my knee and made me call you when I got home.”

“We saved each other,” he rumbles. “Kicking and screaming, probably. But we did it.”

The forest rustles. Somewhere in the distance, a bird makes a sound like a broken squeaky toy. It’s not perfect. It’s real.

“Think Legend’s gonna be a singer?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

“With a voice like that?” Colt’s arms tighten around me. “That boy could be anything he wants. Firefighter, astronaut, world-famous yodeler.”

I snort. “Just as long as he doesn’t want to be a YouTuber who reviews slime.”

“We’ll redirect him,” Colt says, dead serious. “Gently. But firmly.”

“We’ll be there no matter what, though. All of us. The whole insane, waffle-obsessed, boot-wearing, loud-mouthed Boone family.”

“Wouldn’t trade ’em for the world,” he says, brushing his lips across my hairline.

As we drive home into the night, windows down, the wind soft against my face, I think about how far we’ve come. From that first awkward fall on his pathway to a night spent making questionable decisions on a mountain road under the stars.

We didn’t stumble into this life.

We built it.

Brick by brick. Argument by argument. Kiss by kiss.

It’s not perfect. It’s messy and loud and sometimes exhausting as hell.

But it’s ours.

And it’s just getting started.