Page 26 of Tusks & Saddles
“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 doorframe of 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’t need 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.
Will gasped at the first brush of his lips against her curls.
That gasp turned into low moans then into whimpers as he tormented her with his tongue.
Her toes curled as he finally wrapped his lips around her desperate clit.
Hips bucking, she grabbed a hold of the sheets like it were handles on a bike.
Boone played her like a well-loved fiddle.
A coil grew taut inside her as he slowly worked her up into a frenzy.
The second it snapped, she prayed his name over and over for mercy.
He granted it by spearing her alive on his tongue .
Boone spent a long time, lazily lapping up every drop until Will wasn’t sure she could open her eyes again.
Kissing back up her body, he returned to tangling up their lips.
The tangy taste of her pleasure on his tongue, their kiss was sloppy.
But the sweetest thing, like balm to my burning soul.
She threw her arms around him and hugged him close.
Her Paladin gave her only a few minutes respite before he kissed down her body again.
This time, even slower till she was begging him for mercy again.
Boone took his time. Goosebumps were permanently prickled all over her body by the time she finally cried out, “Please, fuck me.”
Boone scooped up her hips, his heavy cock tip pressing against her curls. “If that’s what you want, wicked thing.”
Before she could hit him with I’ll show you something wicked, he plunged into her.
Will tossed her head back, moaning for all three of the moons.
Boone stuffed her to the brim and made her full again.
With him there, in her bed, door crackling with magic, she realized the full feeling was more than physical.
Finding his mouth in the dark, kissing him like he was putting air in her lungs, she let the feeling settle in her chest. Let it live there and know that she might be a long way from healed.
The wound her father’s death left in her chest, the weight of having to figure out the ranch without him, of fighting for her mother’s love with a ghost that inhabited her body, all of it was so much.
It used to make her feel hollow and angry.
While he didn’t fix all the things in her life, he took care of the things she wasn’t sure she could handle on her own. That’s what she needed, someone who could look a raging bull in the eyes and never flinch. And she loved him for that.
I love you Boone, it was bound to happen I guess.
Maybe the Sun Bringer sent you to me. I don’t pray to her, and I know she owes me no favors, but thank you.
Thank you for putting him in my path, for making him love Jacobus first, letting him show his hand first…
I don’t think I would have believed him otherwise.
And as Boone spilled into her, panting against her lips with that easy smile curled up on his face, she knew she’d feel full for the rest of her life. Because he’s not going anywhere.