Page 41 of The Cowboy's Best Friend

There was no mystery. He had no problem talking, telling her exactly what felt good or what she should do more of. She never felt as if it was a trap. It was simply pleasure. He taught her how to use her hands, especially that first time, when she was shellshocked by the size of him that she actually felt her jaw drop open.

She could wrap both of her hands around him and there was still room to spare, and when she thought about that—when she was alone, when she was driving, when she was supposed to be doing literally anything else—it made her shiver all over. And get hot everywhere, too.

Sierra would have sworn that size didn’t matter. It shouldn’t, surely.

Yet it turned out, it really did.

Boone taught her how to play with him. How to use her mouth to drive him wild.

The first time he actually let her take him in her mouth and drive him over the edge, she came herself.

“My God,” he whispered, his voice raw. “You’re perfect.”

That was the other thing about Boone. He praised her, all the time.

She would have sworn that he was a man of precious few words, but it turned out that this new side of him was practically chatty. There was nothing about her he didn’t notice. If she changed her hair, he told her how pretty it was. If she tried out a new outfit, he complimented it immediately.

After a few weeks of this, when all they’d done was eat and indulge themselves, Sierra realized that her clothes weren’t fitting as well as the used to. She panicked.

She standing by her Jeep, pulling at the T-shirt that had fit loosely when she’d moved in here away from the belly it now clung to, frowning down at herself. How had she not noticed this was happening? How hadhenot noticed?

When she heard Boone come out of the barn, she had the panicked notion that she should just run for it. But that would be worse, surely—

“What you doing?” he asked.

He had been wrestling with some of the equipment and he looked a little bit cranky, a little bit sweaty, and so beautiful it actually hurt.

Experience told her that it was always best to come clean quickly. To make it clear that she knew how bad the situation was and to proactively advance the steps she intended to take to fix the problem. She launched in as quickly as she could, her pulse battering at her. “It’s been a strange summer and I realize I’ve put on a lot of weight, but don’t worry—”

“Good,” Boone grunted.

He moved closer to her then and he just… touched her now. Whenever he liked, he put his hands on her and pulled her closer to him. That was what he did now.

That was who they were now and the oddest part to Sierra was how natural it seemed. How strange it felt to remember that they’d spent so longnotlike this.

He kissed her for a while and then he set her back on her feet again. And while she was standing there, her head spinning, he looked down the length of her body. He took his time doing it, and it set off those same old alarms inside of her—but Boone smiled.

Wide.

“You looked hunted when you moved up here. Like you’d been running for too long. You look betterhappy, Sierra.”

“But…” She felt off-balance. Like an upset apple cart, and all the tossed-out apples were the things she’d been told her whole life. About what men wanted. About what wasappropriate. About the shame she ought to feel anytime her waistband expanded. “But I…”

“Don’t ever make yourself small on my account.” Boone’s intense hazel eyes seemed to punch right into her. He didn’t look away, so she couldn’t either. “Whatever makes you happy is how I want you to look, do you understand me? I don’t care what size you are. If you do, I’ll support that. But if I can ask one thing of you, it’s that you stop thinking that there’s anything bad or shameful about this body of yours. There isn’t. You might have noticed that there’s not one part of you that doesn’t bring me intense pleasure. Not one single part, baby.”

Then he kissed her again, left her standing there, as if he hadn’t rocked her whole world.

And a few days after that, after one of their lovely dates that Sierra found she loved more than should have been possible, they ended up in her bed. They often did, now.

But this time, things seemed different. There was a different intensity. A different kind of thrill.

Maybe it was just that something in her was different. Or maybe it was that Boone had healed something in her she would have sworn would stay raw and tender forever.

“Boone,” she whispered, as she kissed her way down his chest—that miraculous chest of his that seemed to get more perfect every time she touched him—“I think if you don’t make love to me I might die.”

She felt him begin to laugh before she heard it, deep inside that chest of his. He picked her up so easily and swung her around, and then she was on her back. And he was there between her legs and she could feel the thick, hard length of him against her belly.

“Finally,” he rumbled at her. “The magic words.”

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