Page 12 of His Wilde Little (Saddle Up #2)

It didn’t take a genius, but it had taken me a while during the night to figure out just what Jace was getting at with the reward system. I’d seen it happen in certain dynamics with friends who worked on nearby ranches, and I think I called it.

On occasion, I’d caught a glimpse of Jace’s underwear appearing above his jeans, and at those times, I saw little stars or hearts on them.

I thought it was just a quirk, but this was a lifestyle for him.

That much I was certain of now, squatting in front of him, my hand gently on his knee as he reacted to my words, soft from my lips.

“Good boy,” I said once more and there was something carnal behind the slight welp and moan.

He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “I think I see you now, Jace.”

“I—I—”

“Or I guess not.”

“I should do my morning rounds with the goats and chickens,” he said, standing with the lid of the thermos as a cup in hand. “I—I—I’ll be back later.” He quickly adjusted his crotch region with a thumb and finger right in front of my face before rushing off.

It was just me and the horses now, all of them looking at me over their stalls.

I didn’t know what to say to that, or to them.

I didn’t know what I’d expected from the interaction, but possible something else entirely, maybe an admission from him, and perhaps something from me.

I wasn’t new to dominance or Daddies, I was always that side of it, but maybe I’d misread the entire thing.

Jace could’ve been completely innocent, more innocent than being a sub, if he didn’t know anything about it.

I talked things out with the horses, but they were not responsive to anything I said, probably because they cared more about their daily exercise and feed habits I’d been helping to create with them.

I couldn’t wait until I could let them all out into the field without having to worry they would lose themselves or get spooked.

An hour passed as I worked on giving the horses a little morning exercise, just a gentle trot around the stable before giving them some of the high nutritional feed they still required to bulk out with.

Jace waltz back in through the stable doors with more confidence than I’d seen him in before, walking right up to me at Ashwind’s stall, readying him for a walk.

“Everything ok?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I want to know what your plan is,” he stopped a foot like a little brat, his Stetson jumping slightly on his head. “I need to know if you actually like me, or whether you’re just fucking around with my head.”

The smile on my lips faded. I’d have been lying to myself if I told him I hadn’t been thinking about it.

And I didn’t want him to think I was just playing him, because I wasn’t.

Although playing with him had been on my mind, but since the horses arrived, those ideas had been pushed a little further back.

“Of course, I like you,” I told him. “If I didn’t, I don’t think I’d keep asking you to come spend time with me here. ”

“I thought that was because the horses need around the clock care.”

“They did, the first couple of weeks,” I admitted. “But they need less of it now. Although, I’m still staying here during the night, I think that’s more because I don’t want them to get spooked by any of the storms that hit around this time of year.”

He shrugged. “They don’t happen all that much.”

“More so than where I’m from,” I said. “I’m naturally worried, and you—”

Jace licked his lips before screwing them shut. “Yeah?” he offered up in the quiet as I stared at his face, mapping out the way the light fell gently across his cheeks. He dipped his head, hiding his face with the rim of his hat.

“You’re a comfort,” I said. “You know stuff about me.” Placing a hand on his shoulder, he looked at me, the light from the open shutters behind me splashing across his face once more. Illuminating the glow in his smile as it appeared for me. “Can I kiss you?”

He stumbled over his words. “Can you?”

“I think I can.”

“Then do it.”

I went in for the kiss, the softness of his lips against mine had me closing my eyes as if to embrace them wholly, like I hadn’t been sleeping on the floor of the stable for the past month, and pretend I’d been sleeping in the plump comfiness of his lips instead.

We were pulled away from the kiss when Ashwind let out a noise, wanting me to stay on track and get him outside for his morning walk.

“What does that mean then?” he asked, raising a hand to his mouth and caressing his lips.

“It means you have an answer to your question. I like you, but I don’t know what to do about it. And I should take Ashwind out, if you want to join us on the walk, maybe another gold star for you if you do.”

Jace’s eyes lit up for a brief second before glancing to Ashwind’s head over the stall. “Maybe I should go get breakfast instead,” he said. “I can grab you something as well, or if you want, I can sit over there and you can go grab food, and I’ll wait patiently until you’re back.”

I cradled a hand at his cheek, feeling the soft stubble. “You should go eat,” I told him. “I’m going to start giving these some space, but only because we’ve got a security baby monitor type situation coming in soon.”

He nodded. “Oh, is it—”

“It’s not in yet, but Olivia said she’d ordered it.”

Huffing, he planted a hand on his chest “Ok, good. Well, I’ll go eat and come back. And then I want to talk to you.”

“We can walk and talk,” I suggested.

“No, no, you should deal with the horses, and I’ll—” he paused, keeping eye contact with the horse as he stepped back. “You know, come back later. Do you need more coffee? I can bring more.”

“That’s ok,” I said. “Can I get another kiss before you go?”

“You don’t have to ask,” he said, licking his lips. “You can just take one, or all of them, especially if that makes you call me—call me a—”

My hand sliding behind his neck, giving me more grip to pull him close. There were inches between our faces. “Call you what?” I whispered. “A good boy.”

A shiver wiggled through him, like electricity, it zapped us closer.

Our heads nearly butting, our lips locking and our tongues exploring each other’s coffee tainted mouths.

I wanted my tongue to make a home inside him.

A feeling worsened—or made better with all the caffeine energy swimming around in my mostly empty stomach.

If it wasn’t for the caffeine or dopamine rush, we might not have kissed that first time, we might not have even known there was something there, except for the spark which was undeniable, although mostly because he thought given where I was from and my profession, I would’ve hated him, I guess I had to prove him wrong, and what better way of proving him wrong than by showing him my true colors, even if they weren’t on the outside.

“You’re adorable,” I whispered just before he walked off, his legs nearly buckling at the compliments. I still didn’t have a read on him about the submissive lifestyle, but he certainly responded to the compliments like he knew all about it.

The horses seemed to be interested in the gossip, and I tried talking it out to them, especially Mary. She knew Jace the most, even if he had been absolutely terrified to come toward her that first day. He might’ve strutted right on over, but he was not confident at all in it.

Since the horses were responding well to their stalls and they’ve overcome their need to puddle and pile together.

I was able to leave them alone within their stalls for short periods of time, which was helpful when it came to me going back to the guesthouse, preparing soup when Jace couldn’t, or forgot.

I just hoped the next time we could speak about what happened wouldn’t take an entire month, but then again, that was possibly mostly on me. I was to take on the dominant role, the Daddy, especially giving out stickers for a job well done.

We didn’t discuss what happened in the stable for another couple of days. A Friday. It was a warmer day, and people were arriving at the ranch to view the orange picturesque foliage with a short trip to the petting zoo.

Jace walked into the stables, panting. “I need you,” he said.

I was halfway through brushing Bramble and redressing some of the wounds that had healed but were still a little tender. “You want to talk about it now?” I asked, straightening my back out and standing tall.

“No, not like—” he blushed hard.

“I was kidding, how can I help?”

He sighed. “I need someone stationed at the coop to make sure people don’t try and steal the chickens,” he said. “I’m gonna be with the goats and alpacas, but I think there’s a school bus about to pull up.”

“A school bus?”

He nodded, pulling his hat off to fan his face. “Yeah. And I think we’re going to need all hands on. If you can step away from these guys for like an hour. Maybe.”

“I think I could stretch it to an hour, but you can’t be serious, they can’t be out here tryna steal chickens,” I said.

“Yeah, and my mom just told me about the truck load of kids,” he said.

I finished giving Bramble a brush down and put her back into her stall where she immediately slumped into the pile of hay on the ground. Not the same pile of hay, but it was in that same stall where we’d had that first kiss, and it felt like a million years ago.

The moment of solace with Jace in the stables was quickly squashed by all the loud screaming voices shouting about the animals.

I took my position amongst the chickens as they flocked me, probably in their good graces since I hadn’t been stealing their eggs every morning.

Then there had to have been about thirty elementary school kids rushing the fence toward the chicken coop.

Not much had me startled in scarecrow positioning, but seeing a hoard of kids was one of them. I never dealt with kids back in Texas, mostly because I never had any, and I was always too busy working to ever see my sister’s kids, but they moved to Cali shortly after the third one was born.

“I want one,” one of the kids shouted.

“Can we have an egg?” one of the girls asked, tugging on my hand. “My teacher, Mr. Chu said that eggs came from chickens.”

At that moment, a small man in a pair of bright yellow rainboots approached. “Hi,” he said. “That’s right, they do come from chickens, but they get collected in the morning.” He looked at me, nodding.

“That’s right,” I said, nodding in return. “Every single morning, they sleep in their coop, and—oh god, I’m not sure if they can pick them up.” I saw a girl corner one of the hens and coop her up into her arms. “Yeah, can you not pick them up, please.”

“Sorry, they should know better.”

The poor hen in her arms let out an alarming series of clucks, and I was sure she was being cussedout by the hen in distress. The teacher was quick to rush over, leaving me with the girl pulling at my hand with more questions.

“What do they do when it gets too cold?” she asked. “My mommy said they might not be out because of the cold weather, but I think it’s ok. Maybe not when it snows, I bet they couldn’t come out in the snow.”

I didn’t know. “I think they go into the barn in the winter to stay warm.” It was purely a guess, and I could’ve called over to Jace, but he looked far too busy dealing with the children trying to ride the goats.

Safe to say, that wasn’t something I was going to deal with.

I didn’t want to deal with the kids at all.

I wanted to be with the horses, and just thankful they weren’t going to tour around the stables, otherwise all the word I’d done with the horses could’ve gone down the drain.

They were easily spooked still, especially people who they didn’t see every day, like Diane, and even the dog, Daisy.

It was a grueling hour of working with the teacher to keep the kids from trying to grab the hens or even go inside their coop were most of them went to hide once they got the clucking call from the others that they were seemingly under attack by tiny hands and inquisitive minds wanting to know exactly where the eggs came from.

We could laugh about it later, and we did, outside the stables under the stars. Jace brought over a thermos and before handing it over, he sighed.

“We should talk,” he said. “I brought mulled wine.”