“Laptop?” I mumbled.
“I’d rather check on her myself. Hard to tell a down cow from a sleeping cow sometimes. You get some sleep.”
Probably, I should’ve offered to do the barn check, but I wasn’t sure I’d recognize a problem if there was one. Plus I was warm and comfy, if sticky, and fucked out. I really didn’t want to move. “You’re the best,” I told Seth, not opening my eyes. “Eleven out of ten, would do that again.”
I felt him freeze beside me, but before I could worry about why, he chuckled and kissed my shoulder. “I’ll put that on my resume. You get some sleep. We have alotof cows to take care of in the morning.”
The mattress dipped as he got up, then his bare feet padded across the floor. My ass twinged, telling me I’d need to get out of bed myself and tend to things back there before I could sleep. Not yet, though. Here, now, in this bed, everything was perfectin my world. I let myself bask in that illusion for just one more moment.
Chapter 10
Seth
Fucking Austin once had been stupid. Incredible, glorious, but not smart. Doing it again, several times in the next week, was the height of insanity. Problem was, Ilikedhim. The day after the storm, he didn’t whine once about getting up at six a.m., feeding the dogs and barn cats, and taking care of all the horses, before starting an unending day of supplying hay to the cattle out on the pastures.
We’d got eight inches of white stuff overnight, with the wind piling drifts two feet high. Travel was slow, even with the bigger tractor, as we hauled and ripped bales, laying out trails of feed for the cows where they hunkered down. The cattle had access to water in the ponds and usually would break the ice themselves, but with that thick snow cover, we swept and cracked some watering holes for them.
Sixteen hours of unending labor, the beginning and end lit by the blinding array of halogens above the tractor. We were tootired that night to do more than fall into bed together, Austin’s back to my chest, and sleep.
The next day provided more of the same, but we got phone service restored mid-morning, and by late afternoon, snowplows had done a first pass on the county road. I cleared the drive from the barn to the road with the plow blade on my truck, and by nightfall, Colby and Davis came jolting home over the ruts and ice.
They let Austin and me sleep in the next morning, and Austin took me up on my offer to wake him with a blowjob. The memory of his face going from sleeping and soft, to flushed and screwed tight, coming hard, was one I’d keep in mind a long time. Same with the wide-eyed look he gave my dick sliding in and out of him as I fucked him on his back, propped up so he could watch. I almost came before him that time, just from the way his wet, red lips opened as he gasped.
Tiffany and John made it back from San Francisco on Sunday night, like they planned, although they said the pass above us was still bad, leaving traffic on the highway a mess. Boss had told them Austin was working a week, and John fit him in the schedule. But John gave me a long look when Austin and I got up from the TV room the next night and headed out together. I figured he’d be calling for a private conversation soon.
So I was caught by surprise when it was Davis who grabbed me by the arm Tuesday morning and hauled me up to the house, on the excuse of needing help lifting something. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. John knew I was closer to Davis. More likely to spill my guts.
“What do you need moved?” I asked as we shut the front door on the chill outside, in the vain hope I was wrong about this.
“Take your boots off and come on to the kitchen.”
I did as I was told, leaving my barn jacket on the hook.
Something really tasty was baking in the oven, chocolate and spices. I pressed my hands to the warmth of the stovetop and sniffed loudly. “Got cookies for us? I could take some down to the barn.”
“Sit your ass there.” Davis pointed to a kitchen chair.
For a moment, I debated arguing or misdirecting, but that would only put off the inevitable. I sat. “Is this an intervention?”
“Don’t be like that. We’re just worried about you.”
“No call to be,” I drawled, ignoring the queasy feeling in my gut.
“You like that boy.”
“He hates to be called a boy,” I deflected. “Bad associations, I think. He had a dad I’d like to run over with a hay baler.”
Davis snorted. “Like Miguel’s.”
“No. Well yes, okay, awful dads, but Austin’s nothing like Miguel.”
“He works harder, I’ll give him that.”
“Miguel worked,” I said, stung a little by the criticism. I wouldn’t have fallen for a slacker.
“Miguel did his job, but no more. Austin goes out of the way to find work he can help with.”
“He’s a good guy. I’d never have made it through those two storm days without him. Well, I’d have found a way, but I’d have been up forty-eight hours straight to do it.”
