Page 27 of His Wilde Little (Saddle Up #2)

Moving in didn’t happen immediately. Over the course of a couple weeks, Jace brought more things over, until eventually, he stopped going back to get things. It was just before Thanksgiving when he officially called it his home.

We laid in bed together, staring at the glowing star stickers on the ceiling. Jace in his onesie, cuddled against my chest as I tried not to overheat from his body, the clothes, and the duvet around me.

“Do you think we should host the Thanksgiving dinner?” he asked.

“We don’t have the space for that,” I said, stroking his face. “But what about we make a dessert for the meal, because I’m sure your mom wants to host it.”

“You know what, you’re probably right.”

I took his hand and kissed the back of it. “Daddy’s always right baby.”

“Next year though, we will,” he said with some assertiveness.

“Absolutely.” I was still getting used to having his family be on personal terms with me, but next year, I was hoping to be fully used to the idea.

“Plus, you’ve bonded with Bramble, and she demands your attention.

Which means you probably wouldn’t have the time to make a full dinner and get out in the field with her. ”

Since the announcement and proclamation of our relationship, Jace’s confidence had skyrocketed.

It was nice to see, especially around the horses.

He still flinched when they turned too quick, and he wouldn’t let Bramble go faster than a gentle walk.

She took to being saddled and ridden well.

The only one who still resisted was Coal, and that made sense, he was a big horse, probably wasn’t ridden in the past, he had the type of build of a workhorse.

“I think I’ve been forced into that,” he mumbled. “But in the best possible way.” He pushed one of the wooden toys he had close to his chest near my face, unable to see where my face was, he almost poked me in the eye. “She’s just lucky I have this toy that looks just like her.”

“And where are the alpacas?” I asked, giving the horse toy a kiss as he pulled it away.

“They’re in my toy box in their own special area because they can’t be touched.”

“Oh.”

“Yup, you know they’re my favorites, and if they break, I’d cry,” he said, his voice turning to a slight whimper. “That would make me sad because my alpacas mean the most.”

“You think you’ll be able to get more at the livestock show next year?

” I asked him. Slowly, and almost suddenly, I’d decided I wanted to invest in the ranch and give him an alpaca, or two, depending on how much they cost. I felt so strongly about Jace and our future, that getting him an alpaca was a secure investment, and a sign that I wasn’t going anywhere.

But I didn’t want to announce that to him because it was just a thought, and I didn’t want to come off too strong, even if that’s what a Daddy was supposed to do.

He sighed, it was all he spoke about, so he was constantly thinking about getting more alpacas, but every time he’d asked his family, they didn’t seem like they were willing to, not just yet.

“Ideally,” he began, his voice cracking adorably.

“Oops. Ideally, I’d like to get some that will breed so then we can welcome baby alpacas to the ranch, and bidding on those alpacas with all the good genes get expensive, so probably not. ”

I gave the back of his hand another kiss. “I think eventually, you’ll have one of those fields full of alpacas, they’ll need their own barn just to house them.”

He giggled. “That’s the dream.”

I saw it, sitting on a porch, looking out over a sunset, Jace walking home, followed by a baby alpaca that had clung to him, and he’d have to walk back several times, wearing it out just so that he can come home to me.

My dreams were similar to his, although I wasn’t sure about the dreams he had during the night because I would often get an elbow in my chest and a knee to the groin on occasion. But we had a shared dream to pack this ranch out with animals.

Nights turned to mornings, and we lived a scheduled life, waking early, letting the horses into their field, collecting milk, eggs, and feeding the animals.

With it being colder, the petting zoo portion of the ranch wasn’t operational, but there were always deliveries being made into Pineberry with fresh eggs, milk, and cheeses.

I’d started driving the van into town, sometimes with Jace, but mostly alone as I developed friendships with Mason, at the hardware store, and with a B&B owner who kept telling me I had to take a break from all the animals and bring Jace with me to stay in one of their rooms.

I wanted to nurture his little side, to make him feel comfortable to let that part of himself out to play. He carried a lot of anxieties with him which he’d slowly been revealing to me, especially where it came to the part of himself that needed to be taken care of.

Breakfast was now one of my favorite parts of the day. I woke earlier than him now, not that he’d admit it, but he was definitely taking as much sleep as he could, no longer forcing himself to be seen so early in the family home as the workhorse he’d been.

In the morning, I made protein pancakes made from mashed bananas, oats, and goat milk.

I also added in the maple syrup and a helping of scrambled eggs.

You couldn’t go wrong with throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot, whisking it up and pouring them out onto a plate—speaking for both the pancakes and eggs there.

Jace was teaching me too, mostly about coffee.

He’d taught me about fancy beans and how different beans came from different places and they had very different profiles.

It mostly went over my head until I was forced into a tea party setting where he’d brewed small pots of coffee just for me to try.

That was one of the days when he’d welcomed me into his little space.

Today’s coffee was a Colombian roast, his favorite. He was at the kitchen door the moment the coffee hit the cup, keeping me from delivering the breakfast in bed. Jace always looked so cute, even more-so when he was dressed in his onesie with the hood and especially when they had ears on them.

“Baby, come on now, I’ve got to give you this in bed, where you look all peaceful,” I said.

“Last time that happened, I got crumbs in the bed, and you’d just changed the sheets, so I don’t want a replay of that,” he said, flashing me a big smile. He wobbled his head as the animal ears flopped from side to side.

“Fine,” I said, pulling him into my arms and kissing him on the bridge of his nose. His head dipped, aiming for my armpit where he hummed and let out a big exhale. “You all good down there?” I asked. “Because you’re not gonna find breakfast there.”

He looked back at me, pouting. “Breakfast is wherever I can scavenge it from,” he said, his hands on my chest, and then slipping under the tight white tank top. “And I think I found something I want more.”

“You did, huh?” I asked, lifting my chin and letting the stubble tickle him. “Because I don’t think I put your breakfast up there.”

Jace’s fingers moved swiftly, going down, one hand cupped my balls. He gasped. “They feel so heavy, Daddy. You need me to be a good little cowboy and help you empty them?”

“We don’t have a lot of time, but I’d love for you to lighten the load.”

On his knees, he didn’t have to do much work for my cock to spring into an erection.

He worked it for a moment with a hand and then into his mouth it went, slamming it hard against the back of his throat.

I steadied myself with a hand on the edge of the counter, and another on the small breakfast table.

I didn’t last long, but I blamed the way he worked my balls for that.

He’d discovered that little trick, just cupping them and rolling his thumb across them had my toes curling and my cock ready to release.

He slurped it all day, licking his lips. “I like Daddy’s milk,” he said, pulling my boxers up from my ankles. “And I’ve put him back to bed. I’m so good, aren’t I?”

With a finger under his chin, I gestured for him to rise. He stood in front of me, his lips still glossy. I kissed him. “You’re a good boy, but what I wanted to release somewhere else?”

“Where else would you?” he asked with a pout.

“For starters, in that little ass.”

“I guess you’ll have to build it all up again so you’ve got enough to fill me with then.”

I nodded, keeping eye contact. “I guess I will, and so will you.”

“I already had my protein shot, but I guess I could go for pancakes too.”

“Oh, you better, I need my boy all full up for the work we’ve got to do today,” I told him.

With Thanksgiving coming up, we had a lot of work to do around the ranch, and there was also something special coming up the week after the holiday, and I was going to surprise Jace with it on our horseback ride later.

Watching Jace switch from the little he played in the house, to the adult he had to be on the outside was interesting, but there was always that glimmer of the little in his eyes whenever he wiggled his brows at me or made a joke.

“Do you kill any of these for their meat?” I asked as we collected the eggs.

He laughed. “No, god no, these are layers,” he said.

I stood straight and stared at him. “And that’s supposed to mean something?”

“You’ve been here for months, and you’re only just learning that there are two types of chicken,” he said with a giggle.

“You’ve got layers, and you’ve got broilers.

Layers lay eggs which we pick. We only let the rooster near the eggs and the hens to fertilize them when we’re ready to incubate and accommodate new chickens. Usually, we do that in the spring.”

“And do they produce broilers?” I asked, the word only familiar because it’s part of an oven.

“Nope. It’s a different breed of chicken altogether. We don’t have the space for all the stuff needed to have those types of chickens, because you need to kill them, pluck them, and they’ve got a fast lifespan.”

I nodded, learning something new. “Do you ever eat these?”

He nodded. “Once they stop laying eggs, but they’re not particularly meaty. And I never have to do any of that stuff, I don’t think I’d like to be killing them.” A shudder went through him, rattling the wicker basket of eggs on his arm. “Especially since they see me as their friend.”

I noticed they didn’t peck him as much as they did to me, so he was probably onto something there about them seeing him as a friend. “So, you could scale up on the egg production if you had all these eggs fertilized.”

Jace glanced at me and then looked away, slightly rolling his eyes.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s that look for?”

“You’re sounding like Olivia now,” he said.

“She doesn’t get the animals like I do. Well, the animals except for the horses, you can have those.

” Another shudder ran through him from his shoulders down.

“She suggested we should become a more commercial egg laying operation. She was in talks with some Vermont stores, but the figures they were asking for was wild, even so for the Wilde family.”

“I’ve never been on the business side, but surely, if you had a company pushing money in, you could make more barns, more coops, and increase the growth.”

Jace stood straight and stared at me. He hummed, looking me up and down.“Since Olivia discovered you weren’t batting for her team, I bet she’s been chewing your ear off about the business. Hasn’t she?”

“She came by the stables a couple times asking about the stables, expansions, and stuff,” I admitted. “But I’m not saying what anyone should do, I just wondered, that’s all.”

“You’re lucky you’re my favorite person, and you’d always take my side, otherwise, I might’ve thought you were switching up on me.”

I leaned into him with my hand around his back, I pulled him in for a kiss. “I would never switch up on you baby.” I planted a smooch on his cheek as he turned before I could reach his mouth. “I like you too much.”

He giggled and turned to kiss me on the mouth. “I like you too.”

“Good,” I whispered in his ear, scratching the stubble scruff on my chin up the side of his face.

Martha appeared in the doorway of the stable. “Ooh, didn’t mean to sneak up.”

“It’s fine,” Jace said, patting a hand on my chest. “We’re supposed to finish collecting these eggs.”

“We are,” I said.

“I was just coming by because—”

“We’re behind schedule,” Jace finished for her. “I know, I know. And it’s my fault.”

“Might be my fault too,” I added. “I had a lot of questions about eating chickens.”

She chuckled. “Oh no, we don’t have broilers here,” she said. “There’s a big commercial one a little further upstate. Plus, I don’t think—”

“Jace could handle it,” I finished this time. “I see how attached he gets to the animals.”

He blushed, looking away from his mom to me, biting on his lip as he continued to turn red in the face.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said, leaving us with a trail of chuckles.

The chickens around us clucked, becoming impatient with us to finish gathering their eggs and then the reward of feeding them as I was sure they saw it. The rest of the morning was just as chaotic, and Jace was just as adorable.