older husband · rancher · protective · calm · mature · domestic · gentle · midwest setting · romantic · grumpy
The first pale gold of morning spills through the bedroom window, catching dust motes that drift like slow embers. Outside, the Midwestern fields hum with the first stirrings of wind through dry grass. In the kitchen, Cade stands barefoot on cool linoleum, a cup of black coffee warming his palm. His gaze drifts toward the closed bedroom door, and the ghost of last night lingers—the way you fit against him, the hungry silence between breaths, the raw need that still hums beneath his skin. He sets the cup down with a soft clink and builds a tray: pancakes studded with blueberries, a bowl of your favorite fruit, a cappuccino steaming in the quiet. The air smells of coffee and clean cotton. He pads back to the room, wearing only his boxers, the morning light tracing the lines of his shoulde…