Page 43 of The Cowboy's Best Friend

It was beautiful, and it was impossible, and every thrust was better than the one before. Sierra couldn’t tell where he began and she ended or if beginnings and endings even mattered any longer, not when there wasthis.

This rhythm unbroken, this white-hot communion.

She held onto him, or maybe she was clawing him, and she hadn’t known until now that beauty could be so fierce. She wanted this to last forever. She didn’t think she would survive it.

Sierra wasn’t entirely sure shewantedto survive it.

He threw her so hard over the edge that she thought she might never come back from it, that she would be lost out there like one more comet streaking off into eternity—and then she felt him explode inside of her, and shake against her, and whisper as he went.

“I love you, Sierra,” he told her.

Again and again.

She felt an answering emotion well up inside of her, and the words were on her tongue, but she pulled them back.

Because she trusted him, and she trusted this, and she couldn’t imagine that she would ever move on. But she also knew that when it came to love, she had been a fool for far too long, so how could she trust herself now?

So she kissed him instead, and held him tight as they slowly—so exquisitely slowly—made their way back from the universe and into their separate bodies once again.

She kissed him again, and again, and hoped that he could taste in her all those things she couldn’t say. All those things that he deserved to hear that were locked away, down deep inside her.

Chapter Ten

“So,” Knox saidone fine August day while Boone and all his brothers were gathered in one of the corrals, inspecting the horses. “Are we not going to talk about how Boone and his very best friend who he swore he would never ever date, are… dating?”

Because of course he did.

“I’m not,” Boone retorted, glaring at his younger brother.

“Funnily enough,” drawled Wilder, from where he was leaning against the fence, “that happens to be a favorite topic of conversation in my house these days too.”

“Rosie and I have two active toddlers and are building a house,” Ryder said with a laugh. Then he swung his gaze to Boone, and any half-formed idea that Ryder was putting a stop to this line of discussion died a quick death. “And still we manage to talk about your private life pretty much nonstop regular.”

“Let me clear that up for you,” Boone replied. “It’s still none of your business.”

There was a silence, then. Nothing but the breeze and the usual commentary from the animals. Boone was tempted to think that was the worst of it. He always had managed to get away with things simply by stonewalling. It was a tactic he’d perfected as a child.

“I’m partial to all the courtly, gentlemanly dinner dates,” Harlan chimed in, just when Boone had begun to think that the oldest of the Carey brothers was going to sit this one out. Never could tell with Harlan. “It’s downright old-fashioned.”

Boone sighed. “I didn’t put an ad in the paper like it’s the 1800s, if that’s what you mean,” he pointed out.

“Kendall suggested you were personally bringing the Old West back to life,” Harlan said, and even smiled. Wide enough to make it clear he was happy to get into this.

Great.

Boone didn’t bother to roll his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest, settled in, and waited.

“I’ve heard rumors of dates all over this county, and even up into Bozeman and back,” Knox continued like he was telling his brothers a fairy tale. “There are tales of handholding. There are reports of the opening of doors and better yet, kissing on the streets.”

Four pairs of eyes, all a little too merry for Boone’s taste, focused on him then.

Like lasers.

“Is there something you want to share with group?” Ryder asked, grinning. “Or should we keep on sharing rumors?”

Boone only stared back at them, like he was made of granite.

Wilder laughed. “Cat already knows everything there is to know,” he assured everyone. “Between working in the clinic and at the General Store, there’s not a single person who hasn’t shared their thoughts with her about recent developments. Apparently, down in Marietta, it’s causing quite a stir.”

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