Warnings: My first attempt at writing smut, so be forewarned!
A/N: Thanks toWyntreaurora for Beta-ing!
Disclaimer: If I owned "Star Trek", would I be procrastinating from studying right now? No, I'd be making movies and testing out the casting couch. ("I'm sorry, Mr. Quinto. We'll have to rehearse that scene again. And can you put a little more, um, emphasis in your gestures this time?") Unfortunately, I don't see Paramount hiring me for this purpose anytime soon.

***

Spock's eyes snapped open. 5:30AM. He should have been awake 30 minutes earlier. Normally, he did not set a wakeup alarm, relying instead on the internal clock that all Vulcans seemed to possess. Today, however, that alarm had failed.

Outside, a rooster crowed. 5:31AM. Nyota moaned in her sleep, reached for Spock, and snuggled closer against his back, one arm reaching around his waist. Spock closed his eyes, allowing himself just a moment to enjoy her warmth on a chilly morning. He listened to her breathing change as she wavered between deep sleep and the beginning of consciousness.

Outside, a rooster crowed again. 5:34AM. Spock made to get up but thought better of it when Nyota threw one sleek brown leg across his thigh. Staying in bed for any reason aside from rest or reproduction was unproductive, and thus was not a behavior that most Vulcans indulged in. Nyota had certainly changed his thinking on that though, Spock mused—at least as far as mornings when they were together, and neither was required to be on shift soon. Nyota occasionally teased him about this, "What do you think your crew would say, if they only knew their Chief Science Officer, a Vulcan at that, was a morning snuggler?" Those rare occasions were often the highlight of his week. He knew that Nyota felt the same way—she admitted that she loved waking up with him, that his inhibitions were down and his human side more prevalent in the early hours.

Outside, a horse whinnied and impatiently stamped its hooves. 5:37AM. Nyota moaned again, this time awake (barely), and reached for a pillow, clamping it down firmly over her head. More equine screaming echoed in the morning stillness, followed by yet another rooster crowing. Nyota screamed into her pillow then, "Shut it off!" (As if there was such a thing as a snooze button for farm animals.)

Spock sighed soundlessly then disentangled himself from Nyota. He did, in fact, have work to do since he had agreed to feed the horses this morning. He swung his feet down to the ground and moved to the closet, pulling out a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt, both borrowed from Kirk's uncle. Kirk had been horrified when he discovered that Spock had only packed Starfleet uniforms for the trip to Terra. "We're on shore leave, Spock," Kirk said, rolling his eyes, "…on a ranch." Fortunately, Uncle Frank was just about the same size as Spock. He had to admit, the rancher's clothes were rather comfortable.

Through half-lidded eyes, Nyota watched Spock dress as she lay in bed. Red shirt buttoned over taut chest. Well-worn blue jeans pulled up over lean buttocks and hips. Nyota swallowed. Hard. It was like watching a strip tease in reverse. Spock sat down to pull on weathered black cowboy boots. And last, but not least, he placed the black cowboy hat on his head. Spock looked almost fully human with the hat on since it covered the pointed tips of his ears.

"Are you sure you don't want to come back to bed, cowboy?" Nyota pulled the covers aside to expose her nudity. In the brisk two strides that Spock took toward the bed, she thought that the Vulcan might just do exactly as she suggested, especially as he lifted his hands to her. She was sorely disappointed as he merely pulled the covers back up to her chin, yet pleased by the fact that in doing so, he "unnecessarily" brushed his fingertips against her bare shoulders.

"You rest. There is no need for you to wake at this hour," Spock said just before pressing soft kisses to her temples.

"Why do you need to be up so early? I'll bet I can give you a better ride than Bones."

"Undoubtedly," Spock replied. A gleam of amusement shined through his human eyes.

***

Spock carried a carafe of hot water from the house to the barn. He mixed the hot water into a scientifically measured blend of alfalfa, molasses, beet pulp and powdered supplements—part of Bones' special diet—and then brought the steaming concoction to Bones' stall. All the horses in the barn began neighing loudly at the sight of a humanoid bringing out feed, some slamming their front hooves into their metal stall doors to accentuate their demands.

Spock poured the mixture into Bones' feed bucket and stood back to watch the stallion—Kirk had told Spock that Bones would let him know if the proportions weren't exactly to his liking. Bones eyed Spock over his stall door, one ear flicking back at the new sight of a Vulcan bringing his morning meal, and then tentatively lapped up two mouthfuls of the mixture. Bones suddenly jerked his head out of the bucket and pinned both ears back flat against his head, his lips curling at the bucket in disdain.

Spock, as outwardly indignant as a Vulcan could be, peered down at the bucket through the bars of the stall. "Illogical…there could be only a one-hundred-thousandth-percent margin of error in my measurements…." Spock's intended lecture on the irrationality of Americans' continued refusal to adopt the logically superior metric measuring system was cut short, interrupted by Bones' loud, forceful snort.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Spock decided this Terran maxim was entirely appropriate to the situation as he looked down at Frank's red shirt, now riddled with Bone's mucus and splatters of the horse's morning meal. Bones was now happily slurping down the rest of the molasses mixture, satisfied at once again having fooled the alien into getting close enough to despoil his clothing.

Spock pulled the shirt away from his front as bits of the wet horse feed began soaking through the cloth. He took off the shirt while he walked toward the hayloft. It had warmed up just enough for him to leave his shirt off for the few minutes it would take to throw hay down to the horses. No sense wasting time to change at the house when all the animals were loudly proclaiming their starvation….

* * *

6:08AM. Nyota glared at the clock on the wall. To her mind, there was no earthly reason why someone needed to be up before 7:30AM, and preferably not before 9:00AM on a day off work. She considered the routine 5:00AM wakeup calls at Starfleet Academy to be a nightmare rite of passage that she hoped never to repeat again. Nyota shut her eyes again and pulled the pillow tighter down around her ears.

6:10AM. Why would those animals not. shut. up? The horses' neighing was incessant, the damn rooster(s?) seemed to crow about every 1.8 minutes, and now there was also a horrendous, metallic clanging sound repeatedly coming from the barn. She flung herself out of bed, hurriedly threw on a tank top and old Starfleet Academy gym shorts, and then went downstairs to go out to the barn.

* * *

Nyota was hit with deafening silence as soon as her shoes hit the walkway from the house to the barn. Of course the animals would stop their cacophony as soon as they got her out of bed. Seeing as she was already up, Nyota entered the barn to see if Spock could use her help. She briefly looked around for Spock, but didn't see him. Wisps of hay struck her in the face then. Nyota looked up and realized that Spock was throwing hay from the loft upstairs down through the portals into the horses' stalls. She spotted a ladder and began to climb up.

Nyota popped up through the opening to the loft, her head swiveling like an owl to find Spock. He was breaking open square bales of hay, bare hands twisting and snapping apart the twine threads that held the bales together, then separating the flakes of hay within the bale. He was also half-naked. Nyota was practically salivating at the sight of rippling pectorals and biceps bunching and releasing as he worked. She loved his form—he didn't have the massive bulk of a professional bodybuilder, certainly (and thank the gods on that, Nyota thought those overblown guys looked disgusting), but Spock was infinitely more sculpted and defined than what she might have originally thought was under those professor tunics at the Academy. (Not that she had speculated about that much when she was his student, mind you). She was getting a little weak-kneed now. Probably not a good thing considering she was standing on a ladder almost a full floor up from ground level.

Spock turned as he heard footsteps on the loft. Seeing that it was Nyota, he was about to ask, "Are you rested?" But he didn't have a chance to speak before he got pounced on.

* * *

Spock found himself pinned up against a tall stack of hay bales. Nyota was plastered firmly to his front, kissing him passionately as she stroked his shoulders and upper arms. Her tongue pressed aggressively against his. Momentary surprise now gone, Spock eagerly reciprocated the embrace. He too, had missed the opportunity for morning lovemaking, something that almost inevitably occurred when they had days off together.

Nyota was a determined woman on a mission for what she desired. She unfastened Spock's jeans, stroking him as she pulled him out. Spock drew one of Nyota's thighs up toward his waist, his other hand reaching down into her shorts to find and cup one bare buttock. Nyota threw both arms around his shoulders, straining closer to that magnificent chest as she continued to kiss him. Impatient, Spock merely shoved the fabric between her legs to one side and then thrust himself up inside of her.

Spock lifted Nyota up and down, holding her with only his two hands and his superior Vulcan strength. Despite the fact that he was supporting Nyota's entire weight while standing upright, he still had the strength to thrust his hips emphatically against hers. "Ohhhh, that's good," Nyota moaned against his lips. She caressed the part of one ear exposed under Spock's cowboy hat. "I think all that horseback riding has improved the flexibility of your hips," Nyota said teasingly. "Do you think I might benefit from some riding lessons as well?"

One corner of Spock's mouth twitched upward into the beginning of a slow smile. "Perhaps," Spock replied. He stopped moving for several heartbeats. "I think we should start now," he said casually as he lifted her off of him.

"WHAT? NOW?" But Nyota had scant time to fume over his response to her quip when, instead of leading the way downstairs to the horses, Spock turned her around and bent her over a lower stack of hay bales. Cowboy boots shoved her feet apart, and then Spock was inside her once again.

"Preliminary lesson," Spock stated in a low voice against her ear. "You should learn the gaits of a horse, how the horse moves so you can stay in sync with the animal. I shall demonstrate the rhythms to you." He pinned her hips against the hay bale with his hands. "The trot is two even beats, 1-2, 1-2..." He gave her long, even strokes, withdrawing almost completely before thrusting back in rapidly. "Count the beats, Nyota."

Nyota's hands clenched into the hay, her teeth clenched into her bottom lip. She was dying to move against him, but the hands on her hips prevented her from doing so. Spock paused his strokes and pulled out. "I said count them, Nyota," he repeated the order. She whimpered and strained to move back, to draw him back inside her. He graciously complied and entered her again, resuming his measured thrusts. "One…two…," she choked out.

"Excellent," Spock hissed into her ear after several measures. "Now, the canter. Three beats." He dipped one hand into the front of her shorts, cupping her between her thighs. "Like the waltz. You taught me that. But faster." Leaning his weight more heavily against her, he ground his hips against her in a cyclical rhythm, mimicking the swinging motion of the canter.

"Count them," Spock commanded again. "One, two-three; One, two-three…," Nyota panted. Spock's middle finger rubbed her clitoris in time to her count, strumming her like a Vulcan lyre. Nyota saw stars as she suddenly exploded around him. Spock bit down between her neck and shoulder, preventing himself from crying out as he released into her.

The two of them lay draped over the hay bales for several minutes while they caught their breath. Finally, Spock withdrew, sat down in the loose hay, and pulled Nyota down to sit cross-wise in his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder as she studied his face for a moment. Reaching up, she flicked the cowboy hat off his head and threw it down next to him.

"I thought you enjoyed the hat?" Spock asked, raising one eyebrow at her. She smiled at him impishly. "I do, but I love your Vulcan ears even more."