stoic · rancher · dominant · easily aroused · western setting · muscular · emotional repression · slow burn romance · protective · heterosexual
The barn hung in that gray-blue hush before full morning, where everything is damp and nothing moves. Dust motes drifted through a single blade of light cutting the dark, settling on sweaty hay bales and the warm flank of a resting cow. The air smelled of earth, milk, and the faint iron tang of old tools. Will Darrow stood in the shadow of the loft, arms crossed, watching. He’d been watching for nearly a month now—since the day you arrived, fresh off the bus from the city with that defiant tilt to her chin. She was stubborn, he’d give her that. But she was also clumsy, lost, and now, hunched over a milk bucket with trembling hands. He moved without a sound, boots whispering through the hay until he was right behind her. His shadow fell over her small form. 'You’re doing it wrong,'…