“Not really.”

He relaxed all around me, muttering, “Good.”

“Can I say something?” I asked.

“Can I ask why you’d ask if you could say something?” he asked back.

I felt my mouth quirk before I got serious.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that yesterday, honey. It sounded like a rough day and I feel bad that I made it rougher by not talking to you.”

His face got soft and it also got closer to mine.

“It was messed up all around,” he stated. “Now it isn’t. Thanks for saying that, spätzchen, but it’s done and we’re moving on. You with me?”

I nodded then asked, “Are you going to give me back my panties?”

“Hell no,” he answered.

I felt my brows draw together. “Why?”

“Babe, do you have even a little clue how hot it is, you sitting in my lap after we fucked like we fucked and I know you’re not wearing panties because I got them in my pocket?”

I squirmed in his lap.

His face then got something else entirely when he growled, “Yeah.”

It took a second for us both to have our moment before his lips hitched and I should have prepared but I didn’t.

So when he said, “You thought I’d bagged on you and you went to sleep in my tee?”

My eyes narrowed on him.

That got me a white flash in his beard.

I tried to push off, mumbling, “I need to make breakfast and then muck stalls.”

His arms tightened again and he returned, “You can make breakfast, babe. For three. I’ll muck the stalls.”

I stopped pushing against him. “I can muck my own stalls, Johnny.”

“No doubt. Just that today your sister is here and so am I, so I’m gonna muck the stalls and you’re gonna spend time with your sister. Then you’re gonna feed me. After that, I’m gonna go home, shower and come back. We’ll spend the day together and after dinner, I’ll take you home with me so I can fuck you without you worried about anyone hearing and I’ll bring you back in the morning. I’ll go out and get shit to grill and you guys can meet me at the mill. We got a plan?”

I forgot my pique because I liked that plan so much I just smiled at him and agreed, “We have a plan.”

Johnny’s face changed back to what it had been before, my body responded to the change and then I was shoulders to the arm of the chair and he was making out with me.

When he lifted his head, he said, “Soon’s your sister leaves, date night and you wear that dress you wore to the festival because I didn’t get near enough of it, spätzchen.”

“’Kay,” I breathed.

He knifed out of the seat, taking me with him and putting me on my feet.

Feet he looked at as he draped his arm around my shoulders.

Feet he was still looking at when he muttered, “I cannot believe I fucked you in those boots.”

Heat rose in my cheeks.

His arm angled down and his hand cupped my bottom as he rolled me into him and stared down at me, grinning.

“You sliding my finger inside you, baby, was seriously hot but you dropping drawers after half a kiss was seriously fucking hotter.”

And now I could actually feel the pink get more pink in my cheeks.

“Can we not do audible replays?” I requested.

“Why not?” he teased.

“It was—”

“Hot.”

“Yes and also—”

“As fuck.”

I slapped his arm. “Johnny.”

He brought his lips to mine. “Okay, spätzchen, I’ll just do mental replays.”

I glared at him even as I melted into him.

He kissed me again. It turned into a short make-out session. Then he guided me with his arm around my shoulders to the door, through it and pushed me gently toward the gate.

“Breakfast,” he ordered.

“Okeydokey,” I replied.

I headed out the gate and latching it, looked back to see Johnny was already to Serengeti, getting her ready to let her outside to roam.

I didn’t think about how much I liked that visual.

I didn’t think about how much had just happened and how huge it all was.

I didn’t think about the fact that life might have just changed in major ways and just how much possibility now lay before me, all of it embodied by Johnny.

I went to my house, slid my boots off outside the door (and I did this grinning) and I walked in.

My dogs bounded to me.

My nephew sat in a high chair by the island with a bib on and my sister bent over him, shoving baby cereal in his mouth.

Her head turned to me.

“You might have seen that Johnny pulled up and—” I started.

She straightened.

Brooks screeched when his food got farther away.

Addie spoke.

“Yeah. He came to the door. I told him you were in the stables. He didn’t say a word, turned on his kickass boot and stalked to the stables. And to say the man can stalk is to say the man can stalk. I watched with what I will admit was avid fascination until he disappeared around the corner and I couldn’t watch anymore. He seemed pissed and worried. I went with the worried at first then I got worried about the pissed. So I went out to make sure everything was okay. And just to say, you getting drilled by a hot guy against a wall in a stable is something I cannot ever unsee.”

My entire chest depressed.

“Though,” she bent back over Brooks and shoved more cereal in his mouth, “after my eyeballs stopped burning, objectively I could see it was seriously hot and I’m glad for you.”

“He’s mucking out the stalls and spending the day with us,” I said quietly.

She turned her head to me again.

“Good,” she said strongly.

“It wasn’t the woman. It was his dog,” I told her.

“You got until he gets done in the stable to fill me in on all this stuff you wouldn’t talk about last night and you kept from me the night before. But just to say, it wasn’t lost on me how into you he was. It was just lost on you, until he drilled you against the wall in the stable. Still, I wanna know all the dirt, so get cracking on breakfast, Iz, and spill.”

“Do you think he’ll want pancakes or eggs?” I thought for a second and added more options, “Or waffles or French toast?”

“When I turned on the ringer of your phone this morning, I saw he’d texted twelve times and phoned eleven. I think that man would eat sawdust, it was you serving it up to him.”

Twelve texts.

Eleven calls.

So fuckin’ good and so fuckin’ intense and so fuckin’ everything.

It seemed Addie might be right.

I smiled at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Spare me the post-coital bliss, cook and fill me in. Man like that will have two stables mucked out in less than twenty minutes.”

This might be true.

So I got cracking (I picked pancakes).

And I filled my sister in on what was happening.

But I couldn’t quite beat back or even hide my bliss.

Johnny

Johnny got out of the shower and reached to grab a towel.

When he did, his eyes fell on the jar by the tub.

It had been sitting there so long he didn’t even see it anymore.

But he saw it then.

He rubbed his hair, gave his body a cursory wipe and then wrapped the towel around his hips.

He secured it and went to the jar.

Ranger got up from lying on the rug in front of one of the sinks and came to him.