“Hear what I said? Aidan is busy reading a script.”
The vibration of his voice against the sensitive skin on my neck is enough to produce a full body shiver. Shane kicks the feed room door closed and pulls a condom out of his pocket. Without breaking eye contact, he rips the package open with his teeth. We glance down together to see his erection standing proudly between us. Taking my hand, he gives me the condom.
“You do it,” he orders and watches me put it on.
The sight of his eyes fluttering shut and the hard set of his jaws fascinates me. The pleasure he feels because I’m touching and stroking him is the sexiest sight I’ve ever seen. Shane never willingly relinquishes power and control, so the fact that he’s gifting it to me makes my knees go weak. To be fair, everything about him makes my knees go weak.
Once the condom is on, he picks me up and holds me against the wall. Shoving my shorts and panties aside, he touches me softly at first. The wetter I get the more he pushes me open.
“So sweet. So soft. You feel so good, baby.” He pushes my hips down and thrust up. First in shallow movements, then deeper and deeper until I can feel him hitting the magic spot that Jaime couldn’t find in four years with a magnifying glass.
“It’s you. Always you. You’re all I think about. Morning, noon, and night.” With each declaration, he thrusts harder and harder.
“Shane, look at me,” I whisper and he does. We stare at each other as he pushes us closer and closer to climax, thrusting harder and harder.
Tears crowd my eyes. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to go without telling him how I feel. That I love him. That I don’t want him to leave. But I suspect he knows all of that because it’s written on my face every time he looks at me and it’s on my lips every time I kiss him.
I come first and have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out. He follows shortly after. Slowly, he lowers me onto the ground and we cling to each other while we catch our breath.
“Every time I smell oats and hay I’m gonna get hard from here on out,” he says, breathing roughly. Then I hear, “Where’s the condom?” He’s staring down at his still semi-hard body. Curiosity piqued, I glance down and don’t see it either.
“It’s probably inside of me.”
His head snaps up. His eyes, sharp and focused, search my face. “Are you on the pill?”
If I had any questions about how he feels about kids, now I know. All the happy thoughts I was entertaining the last few days spiral down the drain.
“No, Shane, I am not on the pill. Have you had a vasectomy?”
At my angry outburst, his expression shifts, his mouth kicking up on one side like this is a big joke. “Hey now. No need for that.”
“Maybe you should’ve asked before you nailed me to the wall.”
Angry at the look on his face, I push past him, throw open the door, and march to the small office with the bathroom attached. In the bathroom, I take off my clothing and manage feats only a boneless gymnast could accomplish to search my privates for a lost condom. Somehow, I hook a finger and get lucky.
I open the bathroom door to find Shane standing a few feet away leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He’s so hot he doesn’t look real.
He pushes off and reaches me in two giant steps. Then he grabs my face and kisses me like it’s the last kiss of his tender, young life. And he doesn’t stop. No. He only stops kissing me when all the stiffness has left my body and I melt into him.
“I found it,” I say in a low, dejected voice. “Being a paramedic comes in handy.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it together. Okay? Together.”
I don’t say anything in return. My mind feels satisfied with his answer, but my heart says not to trust my mind.
Mona runs into the barn the next day while I’m de-worming some of the animals. Mona never runs. Not even if a pack of wild dogs were chasing her. Not even if there was a sale on bootleg designer jeans at Neiman Marcus. Which is how I know something’s happened.
“There’s a person here to see you,” she says, hanging over the door of Milo our resident llama’s stall.
“Who?”
“A teenage girl. Said she’s writing an article for the school newspaper on you.”
“Me? Why would she write one on me? How does she even know me?”
Then I think of the rescue and our social media accounts. I’m all over them. Which is the only way she could know me.
“Why is the sky blue? Who the hell knows. Come talk to her.”
I finish with Milo and exit the barn to find a teenage girl, fourteen years old at the most, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse with a glass of lemonade in one hand and an oatmeal cookie that Mona offered her in the other. She’s either half Black or Hispanic with shoulder length curly hair, light brown skin, and light brown eyes. And she’s dressed in what looks to be a school uniform.
“Hi,” I say, a little awkwardly. “I’m Blue Baldwin. Are you here to do a story about the rescue?”
She looks a little unsure and places the glass down on the side table. “Um, yeah. I’m doing a story for the school paper.”
“Shouldn’t the school have called to tell us you were coming?” Something is not adding up. “What school do you go to?”
“Oak Christian Academy.”
“And your name?” I prompt with a smile.
“Um… okay, so I’m not really here for the school newspaper…”
Knew it. “Your name?”
“Callie…” She looks at me and away. “Bloom.”
Callie? “Is Matthias your dad?” She nods, suddenly self-conscious. It hits me that her boarding school wouldn’t just let her leave the property. “How did you get here?”
“With my cellphone and a credit card.”
Smart ass. I like her already. “Let’s go. I’m driving you back right now. I need you to call your dad and let him know you’re safe and with me.”
She looks so bummed I’m tempted to give her anything she asks for. I just realized being a parent is not going to be easy.
“They got married and you didn’t come,” she says quietly, clearly upset about this. “My dad told me all these stories about you running into places where there’s like gangs and stuff and you helped a kid that got shot.”
“That was a long time ago. When I was a paramedic. Now I work here, helping Mona, that lady you met, rescue animals that have been abused.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
A smile spreads across my face. I really like this kid. “We can talk on the drive back.”
After Darby lends me his truck and I put Callie’s school in the GPS, we hit the road. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet you, but I don’t really get along with my mother.”
“Dad told me,” she murmurs, staring out the window while her hands play with the cellphone in her lap. “He said Athena wasn’t the best mom. He said she left you with your dad and took off.”
And he still managed to fall in love with her? What does she do to these men? Matthias has to be a glutton for punishment.
“What about your mom?” I gently prod.