Montana Cowboy (Big Sky Mavericks Book 2) (15 page)

The silent acknowledgement loosened his control even more. "Here he or she comes," Serena called out, motioning for him to join her. "Come closer. It's okay."

His knees wobbled in the most ridiculous way. This was a baby alpaca not his own child he was watching being born.

Serena, still filming, grabbed his hand to pull him close. "Is it a boy or girl? Look. Oh, yeah! It's a girl. Good job, Penny. She's perfect. You did awesome, girlfriend."

The new mother turned to inspect her progeny. She nuzzled and licked and nudged. The baby seemed a little dazed but within seconds was struggling to stand.

"In the wild, cria are most vulnerable right after birth, so they get up pretty fast," Serena said. She made one more sweep with the camera, including a shot of Austen standing, empty beer bottle in hand, no doubt looking as useless as he felt.

The baby wriggled around to get her dainty little hooves under her. Her slender stalk-like legs wobbled so badly Austen almost ran over to hold her up. But he remembered the duct tape and refrained, and within a minute or so, she could take a few steps.

"Isn't she beautiful," Serena whispered, a cry in her voice.

Austen brushed a hint of moisture from his eyes. His heart thudded so loud he was surprised the guard llamas weren't clustered around expecting an attack. He tried to tell himself his reaction was no big deal. Maybe the fact Paul and Bailey were expecting added to his heightened awareness of time passing and missed opportunities. Would the crazy thoughts going through his mind, the idea of watching Serena giving birth to their child, disappear when he went home?

Home next door? Or home to Helena? He didn't know. He didn't want to think about it.

"What now?"

Serena turned off the camera. "We give the new mom and her daughter some privacy. The other 'pacas are waiting to meet her. Our work here is done."

She stuffed the camera in the bag and picked up her journal, which, he noticed, was adorned in I Heart Alpaca stickers. Austen grabbed the chairs and the light stand. The heat from the bulb made him carry it carefully to avoid getting burned.

"Just set everything in the corner of the barn," she said.

He did as instructed. When he turned, she was right in front of him.

"Thank you. I would have been a nervous wreck by myself—even though Penny was fine on her own. Having you here made the whole thing less scary. I owe you. Big time."

She reached for his belt. "I keep a sleeping bag in the barn. Just in case I have to camp out with a sick alpaca. Would you be up for some barn sex?"

He flattened her palm to the instantaneous rise in his pants. "Up being the operative word?"

Her grin melted into a kiss the moment their lips touched. Her arms locked around his neck, her body pressed tight against him.

They kissed until they needed more. A lot more. By then they'd lost their shirts, but walking through a barn barefoot made no sense—even to the hot and bothered—so Serena grabbed his hand and led the way to the weathered wooden rungs of a built-in ladder leading to the hay mow.

A buzzing sound stopped them. Austen pulled his phone from his pocket and set it on a sawhorse, not even glancing at the message. He assumed someone was texting him, but whatever they had to say could wait.

"You first," she told him. "I'll toss up the sleeping bag."

He planted a quick kiss on her perfect nose. "You just want to watch my butt."

"True. The only thing nicer than your butt in jeans is your butt naked." She gave him a little push. "Go. I'm hot and wet."

His body reacted to the sudden, extremely vivid image of their first time together—how wet and wild she'd been in his arms. He groaned and charged up the ladder. "Um... it's pretty dark up here."

Her laugh made him smile. "Oops."

He heard her shuffling, then, a moment later, there was light...from a single naked bulb suspended a good ten feet overhead. The yellowish glow diffused in the vast, mostly empty space seemed oddly romantic. Had this world had been created just for them—above and beyond the reach of real life?

Before he could scold himself for being a sap, he heard her yell, "Catch."

He spun to his left just in time to grab a slippery ball the size of a trash can. He loosened the ties and shook it out. King-size. Good.

S
he slipped quietly to his side as they surveyed the sloppy mess of hay bales. "Don't judge me. This is how I found it."

He'd just spread the sleeping bag across a fairly level spot. "Disheveled bales make the softest beds."

She laughed. "Spoken like an expert. You do this often?"

"Not as often as I'd like."

The growl in his voice made everything click. She wanted this, wanted him. Foolish though it might be. So much had happened so fast. She had a lot to process. Like the text she'd spotted on his phone when she was turning on the lights. She didn't know what the message meant exactly, but change was coming. Which made tonight bittersweet.

"Now. No thinking," she murmured, tasting his lips.

His arms crushed her to him with a need that seemed to match hers. Did he sense the sea change or was he reacting to her desire? Did the 'why' matter when they had this?

His hands were everywhere. Her butt, her back, her breasts. She'd grabbed her pretty bra in a hurry on her way to swim. Had she known subconsciously how the evening would wind up? Probably. She couldn't deny how much she wanted him.

He slid two fingers into the cup of lilac lace. Her nipples greeted him, perky and ready for action. "You drove me crazy all afternoon in that one-piece swimsuit. Sexy but demure. How do you do that?"

"Years of practice." True, she realized. She'd hidden in plain sight, waiting for the right person to see her unpolished gem self, gleaming patiently on the shelf.

Austen saw...and polished.

His nimble fingers undid her bra and tossed it aside. She rose up on the toe of her boots so he didn't have to lean down so far to lick...to taste...to suckle. The way Penny's baby had a minute ago. A newborn on wobbly legs. Serena felt just as unsteady. The pull of his mouth reached deep into her core, touching something so elemental she threw back her head and moaned his name, her inner sex fiend coming alive.

"The pull of your mouth," she tried to explain. "It draws me right to the brink and you haven't even touched me."

She pushed him back a step. "Let me show you what it's like."

She dropped to her knees, unzipped his jeans and pulled his pants and undershorts down enough to expose his cock and ass. She licked first, like he had her nipple. Lightly, teasing. His penis quivered in response. Then she wet her lips and covered the crown with her mouth, slowly taking him in, tasting him. His hands braced on her shoulders as she went deeper.

"Serena," he cried, his fingers tightening. "Wicked good. Wi-cked."

His voice broke when she grabbed his bare butt cheeks in both hands and sucked hard, pulling back slowly. Her power fueled his need the same way he had hers. She felt an uptick of urgency between her legs.

Austen seemed to share her agenda because he lifted her jaw to make her look up at him. "You are...mine. Now."

She flew into his arms and they stumbled, fell into the bed he'd made on the hay. His hard, beautiful body cushioned their landing. They quickly yanked off boots and clothes and rolled together seconds later, naked and ready.

"You are mine," Serena said, claiming the top position. She straddled him, cuddling his erection at the v of her legs. Her ponytail had come loose and she pulled the rubber band free, letting her hair drop to her shoulders. She felt empowered, alive and sexy in a way she'd never felt before.

Because I love him, a voice in her head said.

"Yes," she said, staring straight into his beautiful Montana sky blue eyes.

Then she lifted her hips and guided him into her eagerly awaiting body. She took in all his divine fullness once then lifted up again, this time cupping her breasts and fondling her nipples as he watched. The heat level in his eyes rose and he licked his lips. "You're killing me here." She rocked her hips like an exotic dancer. "In a good way. A great way."

She loved seeing him work for control. She reveled in the power and the heat building between them. She fell forward, her hands on either side of his head, and closed her eyes as the urgency built. His hands grasped her hips, anchoring her to receive each upward thrust completely. She swore she felt him at the center of her core. Once. Twice. The third time was the charm that made her breath catch and a burst of glorious color explode from the inside out. She barely heard his shout a few thrusts later because she was too busy basking in the powerful, mind-blowing aftershocks of her own orgasm.

Her arms trembled and she fell against him. His arms locked across her back with a possessiveness that felt completely right. Even if it wasn't.

She fought to keep reality at bay a few moments longer but with her eyes closed she couldn't avoid seeing the sender's name on his text: Sheri Fast. His old girlfriend. Someone who never stopped working on his case. Intuition told her his world wanted him back.

"Can we stay here all night?"

The rumble of his voice made the image scatter. "Uh-huh," she murmured, tasting the saltiness of his skin. "Forever. They'll find our skeletons, and there'll be a huge, scandalous investigation."

His chuckle jiggled her body. "Speaking of scandals, I've gotten three or four calls from Sheri tonight. I let them go to voice mail because I didn't want to disturb the 'pacas. Something must be going down in Helena."

Tell him or play dumb?

"I saw you had a text from her. It dinged when I was turning on the light. Do you want me to grab your phone for you?"

His arms tightened. "No, way," he said emphatically. "I'll call her in the morning. I like this island we've created." He looked around. "Well, maybe not the cobwebs, but other than that I'm serious. I never want to leave." His tummy rumbled. "Except maybe to eat."

She rolled to one side and got to her knees. She used her panties to clean up a bit, then handed Austen his shorts. "I'm starved. How do egg sandwiches sound?"

He drew himself up on one elbow and tenderly looped a lock of hair behind her ear. "You read my mind." His brows knitted in a Machiavellian look. "What else do I see happening when we get to your house?"

She played the coy Southern belle. "Why, sir, whatever do you mean? The two of us? Alone? Un-chaperoned? Who knows what devilment we might find ourselves in?"

His laugh made her happy...and a little sad. She was going to miss him more than she'd counted on once the real world got its hands on him. But, tonight, he was all hers.

T
he two weeks that followed Austen witnessing Ditto's birth—the name he'd picked the next morning when they saw how much the leggy infant resembled her mother—flew past in a blink. He bought a second ATV to leave at Serena's gate. Together they designed a lean-to using old lumber she found on the property. Paul's crew gave Austen a few pointers when they came out to install the new security gate, but other than that, he built it himself while Serena was at school. He honestly could say not a single accomplishment from the last four years made him as proud.

They saw each other nearly every night, either at his place or hers. He helped with the animals—and could identify at least a dozen by name. He couldn't believe how fast Ditto was growing. When he mentioned this startling fact to his brother, Paul laughed so hard he bent over holding his side. "The tin man has a heart. Who knew? I can't wait to tell Bailey."

The tin man. He'd been called worse over the years. Ironically, he'd also been called a horn dog—wrongly. He enjoyed beautiful women, but as Sheri Fast so succinctly put it, "Being
seen
with and
being
with are two different things." He'd also been deemed a wastrel—which he believed meant a complete waste of a person—and his personal favorite...a solipsist—someone so egotistical he barely acknowledged that other people existed. Wrong. Dead wrong. Serena existed, and she'd become an integral part of his day.

But since school started, she'd been available less often to hang out, teach him the tricks of the alpaca trade and, of course, sneak off to make love when the spirit moved them. Which was often. He loved her spontaneity. Was that something she got from homeschooling? If so, he wanted to homeschool his children when—

"Whoa, Nelly," he muttered, stopping so suddenly Beau, who'd been helping him muck out the stalls, barked.

Austen soothed him. "Sorry, boy. Just a life altering epiphany. That's all."

I want children. With Serena. I want a life with Serena.

But where? Despite Sheri's assurance twelve days ago that she was close to breaking his case wide open, thereby paving the way for him to return to Helena, nothing had happened. At times he asked himself if he even cared. Yes, he wanted to clear his name. He wanted vindication, but, lately, that whole world felt foreign—the kind of place one visited for the food and culture. He'd thrived in it at one time. Hell, a few months ago he couldn't picture himself living anywhere else. But, now, he could almost...almost...see himself staying here. With Serena. With her goofy animals. Her giant dog.