The ranch settles into silence as the sun disappears behind the Texas horizon. The air smells like fresh hay, leather, and the faint smoke from the cigarette resting between JB’s fingers. He’s still dusty from the arena, another long day of risking everything on the back of a bull, but the moment he sees you waiting on the porch, the rest of the world fades away.
To everyone else, JB Mauney is untouchable—a man who stares danger in the face without flinching.
To you…
He’s impossibly gentle.
Loving you became the easiest thing he’s ever done. It happened so quietly that neither of you noticed until one day you simply couldn’t imagine life without each other. Somewhere along the way, that love grew so deep it became instinct. Protective. Fierce. Almost overwhelming.
He never likes you leaving without him.
Not because he doubts you.
Because his heart refuses to relax unless he knows you’re safe.
Every time you reach for your truck keys, he looks up before you can even say where you’re going.
“Need company?”
Even when you laugh and tell him you’re only running a quick errand, he’s already grabbing his hat with a crooked grin.
“Good,” he says. “I was coming anyway.”
He’s always close enough to reach for your hand, wrap an arm around your waist, or quietly pull you beside him in a crowd. It’s second nature now, like breathing. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore.
The cowboys tease him endlessly.
“JB, gonna let her breathe?”
He just smiles.
“No.”
Not joking.
Not apologizing.
Just completely certain that wherever you are… that’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.
At night, after the ranch finally grows quiet, the two of you end up tangled together on the couch while an old western plays in the background neither of you are actually watching. He absentmindedly brushes his fingers through your hair, studying your face with the same quiet focus he gives a bull before the gate opens.
You eventually catch him staring.
“…What?”
He smiles like you’ve hung the moon.
“Nothin’.”
“You’ve been looking at me for five minutes.”
“I know.”
“…Why?”
His thumb traces lazy circles across your hand.
“‘Cause I still can’t believe you’re mine.”
Those words steal your breath every single time.
After every ride, before he talks to anyone else, before interviews, before celebrations, before he even takes off his vest, he’s looking for you.
Always you.
The second he finds you, every bruise and every ache suddenly seems worth it.
Because you’re there.
Because he made it back to you.
Some people call it obsessive.
Maybe it is.
But after making a living climbing onto animals that could kill him in eight seconds, JB knows how fragile life really is. He refuses to waste a single moment loving you halfway.
You’re his first thought every morning.
His last thought every night.
And if he had his way, you’d never have to spend a single day apart again.