by Leslie North
"I remember the first time you took me." She breathed the sensual confession into his bent ear. "You were almost too much for me. You kept going and going…harder, faster…until I didn't think I could take anymore…"
"And then you came beneath me," Maxwell recalled. He began to move against her, and Lena arched her back. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and drawing attention to the haystack. "It was your first orgasm, wasn't it?"
"I…" Lena panted. His thrusts were making it increasingly hard to breathe. She hadn't realized she was capable of getting this close to him with the baby bump between them, but it seemed like Maxwell was everywhere—not just hovering above her, but occupying every spare inch of space all around her. Inside her. The thickness of him brushing up against her inner walls sent shockwaves of pleasure coursing through her. She decided there was no need to complete her sentence. Maxwell Cooper, taciturn cowboy, was talking dirty to get her hot. To get her off.
But she wasn't about to come that easily.
Lena remembered that she had been the one to call for hurrying, but every spare, aching part of her was suddenly in collusion against this plan. She wanted Maxwell to fuck her all afternoon, slow and leisurely, as the sun at his back moved through the wide blue sky. All thoughts of the royal family, and of the coveted sale, slowly bled away from her. She couldn't recall where they were, much less why they were here. All she knew was Maxwell, making love to her, making her his own again.
Being this close to him made her chest well suddenly with unvoiced feeling. What could she say to him? She had to say something. A confession itched to be released, but there was no room for it, not when her lips were parted in ecstasy and every breath dragged a moan out with it.
Maxwell groaned deeply and clutched her close. The clenching of his arms around her stirred the bed of hay as his hips began to pump faster. He struck that secret spot deep within her, and Lena gasped. Molten sensation was starting to pool in her belly. She remembered, now—remembered with her entire being—just how good Maxwell made her feel. Her inner thighs were slick with sweat, and more, as his bare skin slapped against hers. Her hands roamed down his back, dipping down the hard swell of muscle to his clenched ass. She grabbed hold of his jeans and pulled him deeper.
"Maxwell…oh, God…"
The sky above him spun. Lena fought to control her breathing and gave up. Each ragged exhale threatened to release a bright cry of pleasure, one that was certain to give them away. The hay shifted around them and fell in drifts as Maxwell drove into her. Lena caught her lip between her teeth and swallowed a keening noise of excitement as the pressure in her began to build beyond her body's ability to hold it.
He must have seen it in her face. His hand smoothed down her cheek, and he looked at her with such love, such devotion, that Lena couldn’t contain it any longer. Orgasm ripped through her as he leaned in to silence her cry with a kiss. He captured the sound deep in his throat and lodged it there. His hips stopped moving, but his cock still seemed to pulse inside her. Lena hitched her leg higher on his waist and rode him, thrusting herself along his length to milk every last drop of the incredible sensation. Maxwell groaned his release; his hips twitched, and he came as well, spilling his seed inside her.
Lena dropped her head back into the haystack, touched her forehead, and blew a raspberry with her lips. She then shook her head to try and clear it; already she could feel the heavy desire to nap tickling at the edges of her alertness.
When Maxwell had caught his breath enough to withdraw, he grabbed his shirt and offered it to her to clean up. "No!" she said, laughing. She reached out her hand and clamped her fingers repeatedly. "My underwear! Get me my underwear!"
"As you wish, princess." Maxwell handed back her lost panties, but his playful words snapped her back into the present. Lena sat up quickly. He was still straddling her; he sat back on his heels to make room but appeared to have no intention of leaving.
"Go on. Get your shirt on and get out there!" Lena giggled as she pushed Maxwell off her. "The Arabs are looking at Whisper!"
"The Arabs?" Maxwell seemed stunned as he went through the motions of buttoning his shirt up. Lena laughed and again and shook her head in dismay.
"You missed a hole. Here, let me."
Her fingers worked the buttons into their proper order, and she pushed him forward. "Knock 'em dead, cowboy."
"I'm getting used to knocking things," he said devilishly as he pushed his dark hair into some semblance of order. "Knocking girls up, knocking boots…"
"You're a beast." Lena shoved him again. "Someone should put you in a pen."
Watching him go, she had total confidence that they had just clinched the sale.
10
LENA
A week later, a solo trip to the doctor's office brought with it unexpected news.
As soon as she stepped out into the parking lot, Lena had her phone in her hand. Maxwell's contact info was already pulled up; he had work on the ranch today but instructed her before she left that morning to call as soon as her appointment concluded.
Lena looked at Maxwell's picture staring back at her from the tiny glowing screen and exhaled. The attempts she had been making to breathe were doing nothing to diminish her excitement. Come on, Lena, you can do this. It's not like you knew. And it's not like Maxwell will expect you to have known.
She dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. Each subsequent ring of Maxwell's cell bolstered her courage…and also gave her hope that he was too busy to pick up her call. Maybe this was the sort of conversation that was better to have in person…
God, what if he thought she had cut him out on purpose? The alarming possibility occurred to her just as she heard the telltale click of an answer.
"Hello?" Maxwell's familiar gruff voice answered, and Lena's heart ascended into her throat to choke the words off before they could come. She couldn't just lead with huge news like this. Could she? "Lena?"
"I'm here!" Lena chirped quickly. She jolted into motion and started for her car. "Just checking in, as requested. How's work going?"
"It's going." The issuing silence was expectant, and Lena went on.
"Maxwell, I have some news..." she began. She paused before getting into her car, and leaned up against the door. She crossed her left arm over her distended belly to prop up the right and keep the phone pressed firmly to her ear. "This appointment wasn't the one I expected to have today. I guess I'm further along in the process than I thought...I mean, not further along in the pregnancy! God, can you imagine if I had no idea how pregnant I was...?"
"Lena," Maxwell interrupted, patiently guiding her back to the point of her call. Lena exhaled again.
"Okay, all I'm saying is...I had no idea what today was."
"What is today?"
"The day you find out you're going to have a daughter." Lena clenched her eyes shut, trying to hear any hint of what his reaction might be: a hitched breath, an exclamation of surprise too far from the receiver for her to make out his exact words...hell, even the whispered “Whoosh!” of a fist pump would have made her melt down the side of her car and puddle on the pavement with relief.
Today was the day they learned the gender of their baby, and Maxwell hadn't been there to process the news with her the moment it was delivered. Lena had been taken aback herself when the doctor—ultrasound wand held steadily against her belly—had asked if she wanted to know the baby’s sex. But she felt certain this sort of thing wasn't uncommon. It was totally fine for one parent to inform the other of this news, right? Right?
"Maxwell?" She was starting to get nervous. Silence answered her from the other end of the line. Lena pulled the phone away from her ear to make sure she hadn't somehow muted the call or hung up on him by accident. The numbers denoting the time she had spent on the call continued to tick by steadily. "Maxwell? Are you there."
"I'm here."
Lena's straining to hear every detail of the action back at the barn paid off then; she heard Dennis's muffled voice address
Maxwell with a muted concern, and Maxwell responded to him. Surely the major reveal of the gender of their child would have inspired a moment of drama, even in the grizzled old stable hand. They had to be discussing something else, something work-related...
"Hey, Lena, I'll have to call you back." Maxwell's voice returned only long enough to forewarn of longer separation.
"Oh! Of course! I understand completely." Lena nodded, then realized what a fool she was being. Maxwell couldn't see her bobbing up and down like a city pigeon. She cleared her throat, turned, and dropped her key. "Shit!" she muttered as she struggled to stoop down to fish for them.
"Lena?"
"I'm fine." Tiny, hot pinpricks stung the corners of her eyes in seeming rebellion against her words, but she ignored them. "I, uh...I gotta go! Lots to do!"
"Lena?" he asked again, but she hung up before he could continue any inquiry. What more was there to say? They were busy people. Busy, busy, busy...
She had intended to drive straight home to Cooper Ranch, but suddenly the ranch seemed like the last place on earth she wanted to be. Lena didn't even consciously register where she was driving until she turned the last corner and pulled into the driveway. By then the tears were pouring freely down her face; in complete contrast to the scene her face was making, her breathing was surprisingly steady. She got out of the car just as her grandmother pushed open the front door.
"Lena! What a pleasant surprise! What brings you all the way out here, hon?" Grandma Fudge was spending the next few weeks in Montana with a family friend until the house in Florida was squared away.
"Hi, Grandma. Just thought I'd stop in." Her face was a hot, runny mess. Grandma took one look at her and pulled her into a hug so fierce Lena had to bend her back and hunch down quickly to accept it. Grandma Fudge was tiny, but she was formidable.
"Lena, darling, what on Earth happened to you? What's wrong?" Grandma took her hand and led her to the porch swing. Lena waved off the older woman's concern and quickly brushed her eyes dry with the back of her hand.
"Nothing, Grandma. Nothing's wrong. I'm just happy, that's all. I got some good news today I wanted to tell you myself."
The hugs came in endless supply as soon as Lena showed her the printout of the ultrasound. Her grandmother was so completely elated by the news that she forgot to question Lena's dubious personal presentation further.
"That's it!" Grandma slapped her thin, jeans-clad knees and rose from the swing as if she couldn't sit anymore. "I'm calling your mother."
"Easy, Gran. Even I haven't called her yet to share the news."
"I'm not calling her to share your news, hon. I'm calling her to make news!" She threw her head back and crowed a bright laugh that made Lena jump with surprise. "No more Florida for me! I've decided to stay right here. Montana! I'm going to take care of you and the baby!"
"Grandma," Lena said wearily. "I don't think you've thought this through—"
"Oh, pishposh," Grandma interrupted. "I've been thinking about it more than you suspect, Lena honey. My mind's made up. And you know how mulish Grandma gets."
"If you're going to talk about yourself in the third person, I think ‘Great-grandma’ would be more appropriate," Lena said. Her grandmother gave another short burst of ecstatic laughter and dragged her in for another hug. Lena clutched her. Suddenly, she had never needed a hug so desperately in her life.
The ranch was her next and final destination of the day. There was no hope for it. As Lena pulled up the dirt driveway and got out, she started to talk herself up again, this time out loud.
"Come on, Lena, hon," she muttered, adopting her grandmother's affectionate tone as she tried to reason with herself. "Let's be practical, girl. You never expected Maxwell to suddenly jump on board with you and adopt a ready-made family." She snorted to show herself just how unserious the fantasy was.
"You always planned on moving out at some point," she continued as she entered the barn and started up the steps to their apartment. She kept her voice low so as not to alert any wandering stable hands to her mental unraveling. She couldn't afford to start a rumor that she talked to herself...but then, it would just be one more bit of hot gossip to add to her pile. Would she even notice at this point?
The door to the apartment was cracked, and the light was on in the front room. Lena froze and breathed in until her chest was almost as big as her belly. There was no hope for it. This was the right solution for everyone involved. She pushed her way inside.
"Maxwell, I've come to a decision. I'm moving out."
11
MAXWELL
Maxwell turned as he heard the door to the apartment push open. A word of greeting was on his lips.
But Lena beat him to it.
"I'm moving out."
Maxwell stared at the curvaceous figure in the doorway. Outlined by the late-afternoon light filtering in through a window, he thought she looked like an angel. He supposed not all visitations were meant to convey good news and happy tidings.
"Move out?" He hated how bewildered he sounded repeating the words. "Why? When?”
His head spun. This was not what he had prepared for. Lena looked taken aback by his surprise, but her expression grew resolute. She walked into the room and took his hand.
"It's okay, Maxwell. You don't have to pretend…pretend like this isn't the right thing."
"Who says this is the right thing?" he demanded. Who the hell could Lena have been speaking to make her think this? Did somebody get to her after they got off the phone?
The phone call. Maxwell could kick himself. As Lena hunted his eyes for some explanation he couldn't yet form, he realized that he had probably fucked up. Their phone call that morning must have been the moment he steered things south. But try as he might, Maxwell couldn't think what he might have done to drive her away. He had barely said a word to her!
"Maxwell, it's obvious you're having second thoughts about all this." Lena's hands clenched over his. "It's okay." In stark contrast to her reassurances, her eyes began to brim over with tears. Worse, he noticed now that her face was already red and slightly puffy, as if she had been crying all through her drive home. "It's okay to not be okay with this, Maxwell."
"What are you talking about?" he asked her. "Lena, I don't want you going anywhere." I would be devastated if you did. Wouldn't know what to do with myself. But the words remained unsaid. He didn't know how to summon them to the fore to just tell her how he was feeling.
Lena blinked. She drew back and looked at him as if she suddenly suspected she had found someone else in Maxwell Cooper's living quarters. "But on the phone. You were…distant. You barely said anything to me when I told you we’re having a girl. I thought the news had changed everything."
"It doesn’t change a thing—only makes it clearer." He stared at her, puzzled. "Lena, were you worried that my silence meant I didn't want to have this baby with you?"
Lena looked away. Her brows drew together, as if she still couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Well, that made two of them. He knew this was a misunderstanding and that he had likely caused it by being his usual taciturn self.
Thankfully, Lena had arrived at precisely the right time. "Wait here. Don't move a muscle," he ordered. Lena did move, but it was only to pull up a chair and settle into it as he crossed to the couch and brought his most recent purchases over to her.
"What is this? A gift?" Lena blinked and was so surprised she accepted the box without any sort of protest.
"Open it," he encouraged.
Lena paused, scrutinizing the outside of her present, before flipping the lid of the box open. She gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth.
"You left your Pinterest up on the office computer the other day," Maxwell explained. "I didn't mean to pry, only all that pink is pretty eye-catching. So I went out today after you called to get you a little something."
Maxwell had never seen Lena Fudge rendered speechless—not when he caught her five months pregnant, not when she almost s
old off his prized horse, and not even when the Arabs were being difficult. It was humbling that his gift to her now had the power to stop all words. Maxwell shifted around to look and just to ensure that everything was in order. The adult pair of elegantly stitched pink cowboy boots lay exactly as he had positioned them. Nestled beside them in the box were their miniature twins.
"I got you a little something. And I got our daughter a little something."
"Maxwell, I…" Lena trailed off as he knelt down in front of her and gently removed the scuffed pair of brown leather boots she always wore. He held out his hand expectantly. Lena laughed at the gesture. "I feel like Cinderella," she concluded as she handed him the left boot.
"After she's become the princess, I hope, and not before."
"Maybe a little bit of both," Lena said. The amused smile that tugged at her lips was also slightly sad. "The boots are amazing, Maxwell, but I don't know if they'll fit. Swollen feet and all."
He hadn't considered that. He stopped halfway through guiding her foot into the boot; Lena's feet were adorable, but he could see now that her usual size wasn't going to work today. He carefully set the pink boot aside. Intuition told him it was better not to continue; she might be dismayed if they didn't fit her right away. Instead, he peeled her sock off and took her bare foot in both his hands. He began to rub deep circles into her sole, pressing hard and working his way along her arch. Lena sighed and let her head fall back.
"Okay, I do feel like a princess."
"Still want to move out?"
Lena bit her lip and shook her head. Maxwell felt himself begin to stir as he watched the way she dragged that plump red flesh between her teeth. He kept the massage going with one hand. He let the other trail up her leg, smoothing along the firm muscle of her calf and up her inner knee. She had worn a dress today to give the doctor "better access," or so she had joked, before throwing a flirtatious wink over her shoulder and departing. Maxwell hadn't been able to come up with a clever response in time.
