“Where are the others?” she asks, kicking her shoes off.
“Boone is feeding the horses. Rhett is dealing with West about the paperwork for the restraining order. They’ll be back soon.”
I don’t give her a chance to say anything else. I scoop her up, tossing her over my shoulder. She laughs, a bright and happy sound that vibrates against my chest.
“What are you doing? You have to be at the arena!”
“I have time,” I say. “I need to recharge.”
I carry her to the bedroom. I drop her onto the mattress. She’s wearing a skirt suit that hugs her curves in ways that should be illegal. I want to tear it off her.
I kneel on the bed, hovering over her. “Did you miss me?”
“I missed all of you,” she says. “Denver was lonely.”
I hook my finger in the collar of her jacket and tug. The button pops off. I push the fabric aside.
“Knox...” she breathes.
“I’m admiring the merchandise,” I say.
My eyes catch the mark on the top of her breast. A purple bruise. A bite. I trace it with my thumb, remembering the bonfire two weeks ago. The way she looked, the way she smelled, the way we took her on the ground right here in the yard. We claimed her that night.
She’s ours. We all know it.
“You’re not a lawyer right now,” I say. “You’re just Saramaria.”
“No,” she says. “I’m just yours.”
Those words undo me. I rip the shirt down the middle. Buttons fly. She gasps, her back arching off the mattress.
Before she left town to go follow up on her caseload in Denver, we were all worried that she wasn’t going to come back. But she did.
She’s trusting us to keep her ranch running for her, when she’s up in the city being a big-shot lawyer.
A sexy-as-fuck lawyer.
“By the way,” I say, nuzzling her neck, “the contract for the Bayou circuit is sitting in my inbox, ready for you to review it.”
“Did they agree to more money?”
“They did, thanks to you. I think we’ll be making a lot of money, baby.”
“It’s your money.”
I bite and then quickly soothe the delicate skin of her throat. “Our money, Saramaria.”
The sabotage was a wake-up call. For all of us. We need to be better. We need savings.
“Thank you for trusting me to handle business for you,” she says. “We keep working and putting money aside to keep this place afloat. I’m not going to let this place fail. And neither are you. You’re going to save your winnings. We’re going to build a future.”
I freeze. The heat in her scent intensifies. It’s thick, sweet. It reminds me of the fear she felt about being pregnant.
“I’m going to breed you,” I say. The thought slams into me. I want to see her belly round. I want to see her heavy with my child.
The idea of it makes my cock throb. I need to be inside her. Now.
I drag her skirt up her hips and yank her panties down.
