A Little Night Muse(34)

                Was that cruel? Perhaps. She was phae after all. But just once more, she wanted to hear him cry out                     her name.





                                      Chapter 6

                The winter evening dark closed in before Josh went out                     to settle the animals. Wolly glared at him reproachfully as they completed their                     tasks and made one last circuit through the barn.

                Josh grinned. “You’re just cranky because you’re sleeping in                     the living room tonight.”

                He had tried to get a call out with the cell signal booster,                     which was fairly reliable, but had given him only crackling static. So no word                     to his hired hands or to Vaile.

                He rarely let tech failures upset him—never seemed to make a                     difference—and this time he has happy to let his cozy world get just a little                     smaller.

                Adelyn seemed content too. She had offered to accompany him on                     his nightly tour, but he preferred to keep her curled in the comforter, warming                     his bed.

                A man could get used to that.

                He wanted to finish the belt buckle for her. He had all the                     right stones, and the base was delicate enough for a woman.

                For his woman.

                The thought came out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere really. It                     came from somewhere behind his own belt buckle, but it was a strange mix of low                     and high, from cock to belly to heart. All of him wanted to put his mark on                     her.

                And he knew it wasn’t just the sex, fantastic as it might be.                     He’d never felt this way about a woman. He’d watched his ex leave without a                     word. But Adelyn...

                He might never let her go.

                Josh paused under the big barn light that filled the yard                     outside the stable with a white glow. He took a breath of the cold air to steady                     his suddenly racing pulse. Just standing there, but he was moving too fast. He                     was practically branding her as his with a big ol’ belt buckle when a girl like                     her would be thinking of rings—fine rings, rings with sparkling rocks of the                     kind he would never have the chance to touch.