Page 35 of Snowed In with the Rancher

He released her hair and stepped away. “Good. Now go give Tilly some love, she’s been asking about you. I’m going to finish up here, then spread you out on the kitchen table and have breakfast.”

Her mouth dropped open and her cheeks flushed a sexy rosy color while her eyes burned bright with arousal. “Ummm … okay then.”

Then for good measure, he slapped her ass, told her to “git” which made her squeal, and he finished up what he was doing in the barn with a big fucking smile on his face.

That night, after he plowed the driveway with the plow blade on the front of his truck and they had another pot and whiskey hot tub session, Asher found himself face down on his bed naked, and with a stunning naked woman straddling him and massaging his back with coconut oil. How in the fuck did he get this lucky?

“I know I said I wouldn’t pry last night, and I don’t intend to but …” Her soft, hot pussy was burning a hole through his lower back as she worked her thumbs into a tight knot just below his shoulder blades. She’d come to him with coconut oil, having found it in the kitchen. Obviously, it was something Nate bought, since Asher didn’t cook with that shit.

He groaned as she leaned forward and shoved her elbow into the knot and put some weight on it.

“But …” he probed since she’d trailed off.

“But what is the significance of the angel wing tattoo. I mean, if it takes up this much of your body, it has to have a pretty significant meaning, no?”

He was quiet for a while, letting her work her magic on his knots and kinks, since he’d helped her uncover a few of her own kinks earlier that night. His closet lioness liked to be blindfolded and have a little sensory deprivation when he was feeding her his cock, and even more so when he was feasting on her. As much as he loved watching those expressive eyes when she sucked his cock or came undone, it was equally hot having her put that trust in him and allow herself to be blindfolded.

“I’m sorry if I pried,” she said quickly after he’d been quiet for way too long. “We don’t really know each other and it’s not my place. You’ve seen my tattoo, and I’m sure you can guess that it’s for me and my sisters. We each have one.”

“A friend died,” he finally said, fighting to get each word past the lump in his throat. “A few friends actually. It just honors them.”

His entire back would be covered in wings if he wanted to honor and remember each and every man he knew who had given his life for his country—or taken his own life when his country didn’t give a shit about him after he got home. Because that had certainly been the case with Brandon. The shit he saw had haunted him so badly he took his own life, leaving his wife and daughter all alone.

But he didn’t want to pick at those scars right now, and she was right, they really didn’t know each other and it wasn’t her place. So he didn’t say anything else and she didn’t pry.

He liked that about her. She was smart and didn’t push. Even though she was a bit of a chatterbox at times, she also seemed to know when a conversation was over—something his niece Hannah hadn’t managed to learn in her thirty-two years.

“So what are you going to do when you get home?” he asked, his voice scratchy with fatigue, even though his cock was getting hard beneath him from the way she was rubbing her cleft against his back. Every so often when she leaned over, her tits would brush his back, too, and she’d suck in a breath which only made him get harder.

Her sigh was weary and she paused her thumb on a knot in his mid-back. “I don’t know. Hannah had a friend move all my stuff to a storage locker. And I’m having an almost impossible time trying to find a place in my price range or in a decent neighborhood. I might have to live in an Airbnb for a few months. They can come pretty reasonable, and since it’s the off-season, I might be able to find something decent.” She started working on that knot again. “I’ll tell you one thing, though, I’m going to be using my Instant Pot every damn day.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Like a Crock Pot but it does a million more things and is a million times better.”

He grunted.

“I’m also going to map out a new route to work that doesn’t involve me driving past my old apartment since it’s pretty central and on a main road, so you almost have to drive past it to get to my office. But I’ll detour five minutes out of my way through suburbia if I have to. I’ll brave those speed bumps and wave to the soccer moms.”

He snorted. “Isn’t that letting them win?”

“Who, the soccer moms?”

“No. Douchebag and Moonbeam.”

It was her turn to snort. “Echo. But I like Moonbeam better. And no. It’s called self-preservation. I don’t need to unnecessarily torture myself by driving past Lorne and Moonbeam’s house when I don’t have to. If I saw them, it would just make me mad, and I don’t like being mad. I don’t want frown lines.”

“All I have are frown lines.”

“I’m aware.”

In a quick and agile move that had her squeaking in surprise, he flipped her off him and onto her back and had settled himself on top of her and between her thighs. “Are you calling me a grumpy fuck?”

She grinned up at him. “Sexy and grumpy, but yes, you’re a grumpy fuck.” Then she did something that made his brain short-circuit and not necessarily in the sexy, orgasmic kind of way. She rubbed her nose against his. “But I happen to like the sexy-grumpy combo, and your frown lines just make you look distinguished and dangerous.” Her smile made his heart start to hammer wildly in his chest, and when she giggled all sweet and girly, he thought he was going to black out.

Oh fuck, he was having a panic attack.

Rolling off her to his back, he placed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

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