Page 15

Mina

Her last full day at Rawhide. Which was exactly what she was determined not to think about, because she didn’t want to make herself sad, she just wanted to make the most of it.

Patrick seemed to be on the same wavelength.

She woke to his mouth on her nipples, suckling her milk.

Her breasts were sorer than usual, achy, and they felt swollen and tight.

She could feel her milk flowing into his mouth, the hard suction pulling it from her body, and it made her horny as hell.

As soon as he realized she was awake, he pulled her on top of him again so that she could ride his cock while he suckled from her breasts.

Folgers had nothing on this kind of wake-up call. Better than coffee any day of the week. Though she was happy to drink some coffee afterward while they ate a real breakfast.

“Is there anything in particular you want to do today?” Patrick asked while they ate.

Mina hesitated, but only for a moment. Even though the fantasy was doing whatever Patrick wanted her to do, she knew that she was the one actually in charge.

She hadn’t had a plan for the week, but after listening to the Littles at the petting zoo yesterday, there was one place she wanted to visit that she hadn’t seen yet.

“Could we go to Rawhide Ridge?” she asked.

She hadn’t really paid attention to the description on the website, but after listening to the others talk about it, her curiosity had been piqued.

Master Derek had purchased a neighboring ranch and turned it into a gated community, including housing and a main street with businesses.

She thought it sounded amazing. Another place that she could go as a hucow and no one would stare.

Hopefully. But she felt a lot more comfortable with the idea of going out after yesterday when everyone had been super welcoming and no one had blinked twice at a girl in a cow outfit. If Rawhide Ridge was more of the same, she wanted to visit.

Plus, apparently there was a really good bakery, and if she was a sucker for anything, it was a bakery.

“Sure,” Patrick said, “but there’s a different dress code on the Ridge.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone there is just as nonjudgmental as they are on the Ranch proper, but there are children living there as well as vanilla guests who often stay at the Nest—that’s Robyn’s Nest, a B&B.

Derek told me that sometimes visiting family stays there. ”

“Oh…”

Seeing the disappointment on her face, he grinned.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea.” He stood and went to the closet where he’d unpacked the clothing from her suitcase.

Finding what he was looking for, he returned to her and held a brown-checkered dress up.

“My little hucow just needs a bit more ‘hide’ so to speak.”

Patrick didn’t give her a chance to think.

Instead, he drew her up and slipped the dress over her head.

Chuckling, he bent down a bit to capture the tail as the tip of it peeked out from beneath the dress’ hem.

He tucked it up into the waistband of the tiny skirt she still wore and then winked at her.

“No matter how you look to others, we will both know you’re my sweet little hucow beneath.

Oh, and be a little careful about how you bend over if you want to look at anything lower than your waist.”

“With as short as I am, that can’t be much,” she joked, making him laugh and letting him know she was okay with the quick change of clothing.

As soon as they were done eating, Patrick made a quick call and confirmed that she could still wear her headband. “If people all around the globe can wear cat, bunny, or big mouse ears, I can’t see how a cute pair of ears and horns would be a problem. Ready?”

“Yes!” His solution was ingenious in that it felt almost as if she was wearing another hucow outfit.

Mina practically pranced out to Patrick’s truck.

Was it a little humiliating to need help getting up into it?

Sure, but she was used to being short. It was a lot of fun to be driving so high up.

Almost made a girl want to get a truck herself.

Except it wouldn’t be the same without him.

Nothing would.

Mina shunted those thoughts to the side.

“I’ve got a picnic from Chef Connor, so we can spend the whole day out there if we want to, or we can always come back and have the picnic somewhere here on the Ranch if you want,” Patrick said as he got into the other side of the truck.

“Sounds great!” It did sound great, but her smile felt fake because she’d had the thought of how much she was going to miss him and now she was feeling sad but she didn’t want him to know that. She wanted the melancholy feeling to go away.

But it was hard when she knew that she was leaving tomorrow.

Stop it.

“So, tell me more about the Ridge. Have you been there before?” Talking about it should help distract her.

“Yeah, I live about half an hour from here so I can visit pretty regularly. The Ridge is fairly new, but the Ranch has been here as long as I can remember.” He kept talking as they went along the road.

And it was always nice to listen to Patrick talk.

He had such a deep, smooth voice, she could listen to him talk for hours, and it wasn’t nearly that far to the Ridge.

Really just down a few streets over once they got past the gate into Rawhide Ranch, it was less than five minutes before Patrick was turning onto another street and it wasn’t far past the turn that they stopped at another gate that hadn’t been visible from the main road.

Next to the gate was a large wooden sign that read The Ridge .

Mina couldn’t see much other than the sign and the gate. The road went up a rise that blocked the view of whatever was beyond it. Patrick punched in the gate code and they headed up the rise.

Her initial impression of the Ridge was that it was sprawling. The first building she saw was a huge three-story, yellow Victorian gingerbread-style house with a sign in front that said Robyn’s Nest .

“Ooo, oh my gosh it’s so pretty,” Mina cooed. “I’ve always loved Victorians.”

“Yeah? I live in a Victorian.” Patrick wasn’t looking at her, he was looking out the window when he said it, but her heart did a little flip in her chest. Was he telling her to make conversation or because he wanted her to know that he lived in the kind of house she loved?

And how crazy was she going to make herself today psychoanalyzing everything?

“Is it haunted?” she asked. “It’s not a real Victorian unless it’s haunted.”

“Not as far as I know, but I’ve never really believed in that sort of thing,” he said with a shrug.

Somehow that didn’t surprise her. So he could totally be haunted and just not realize it because he would explain the happenstances in some other, completely logical and much more boring way.

They drove around for a few minutes just so Mina could see the community. She loved how unique each house was. No cookie cutter homes here. Some people might find that chaotic, but it really spoke to her.

Eventually he brought them back to Main Street. Unfortunately, Mina was so excited to visit Angel’s Heavenly Bakery and Chocolate Shoppe that she fell getting out of the truck and hurt her ankle… so their first stop ended up being the Urgent Care Center instead.

Patrick

“She’s fine,” Dr. Nelson reassured Patrick, looking like he was trying not to appear amused. “It’s just a little twist. Some rest, some ice, and some Ibuprofen to help with the inflammation and she’ll be right as rain.”

“I told him that,” Mina muttered, giving Patrick a baleful look. He gave her one right back. She was going the right way for a spanking with that attitude. She’d hurt her ankle, not her butt, when she’d tripped her way out of his truck.

Twisting her head to the side, she twiddled her thumbs, apparently going to pretend she hadn’t seen his look. Little brat.

When they left the office, Patrick insisted on carrying her. Which she wouldn’t agree to until he finally said he was putting her up on his shoulders.

“I’m so tall!” she squealed, throwing her hands up in the air. “Okay, if I could get shoulder rides all day, I think I’d be more interested in being a Little.”

“I’ll give you a shoulder ride,” he muttered. If he just twisted her around so that she was riding on his shoulders from the other direction…

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

He took her to a park where they could eat their picnic before hoisting her back up on his shoulders to go to the bakery for dessert.

It wasn’t a long walk to the bakery, but Patrick wished it had been twice as long because Mina was enjoying it so much. Being taller than everyone on the street was clearly a new experience for her and one that she was thoroughly enjoying… and Patrick enjoyed her enjoyment.

He liked hearing her laugh. Seeing her smile. And he was really going to miss it after tomorrow.

After picking out a piece of cake for her and a cookie for himself, they sat down at one of the little tables in the shop.

He felt a bit big for the chairs, which were more delicate than the ones at the Ranch, but they seemed sturdy enough.

Before he settled in, he made sure that Mina’s foot was elevated on another nearby chair, the ice pack that Dr. Nelson had given them still securely wrapped and taped around her ankle.

“Mmmm, this is good.”

“It is. Do you have any bakeries like this back home?” He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to talk about her going home, but it was happening tomorrow whether he liked it or not and he felt compelled to ask.

“Not where I could be dressed like this, well, you know what I mean. But there’s a pretty good bakery.” She took a bite of her cake, moaning the same way she did when he was sucking her nipples. “Oh my God, this cake is so moist.”

“Can I try a bite?”

“Sure. I’ll trade you for a bite of your cookie.” She held it up with her fork and fed it to him, and then he held out the cookie for her to take a bite.

Behind the counter, the workers were watching them and giggling, whispering back and forth to each other. Patrick ignored them, along with the funny rush that went through his chest. He was pretty sure it was because they thought he and Mina were a cute couple.

But they weren’t really.

“It’s a great cake,” he said, smiling at her, doing his best to hide the ache that wouldn’t go away.

“And a great cookie.” She smiled back at him.

Was he just imagining things or was he seeing his own sadness reflected in her eyes?

Even if he was, was she sad because her fantasy was almost over?

Or because she felt the same connection he did?

“So, what are you going to do when you get back home? About the milk, I mean,” he added hastily. “Now that it’s come in.”

The hand not holding a fork drifted up to her breasts and her gaze averted from his.

“Probably donate it. I did a little bit of research back at the beginning when I was still hopeful it would happen, but it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it since I was starting to think it never would.

There’s a lot of mothers who donate excess breast milk.

I figure it’s basically the same thing.” She shrugged one shoulder.

“I can’t imagine why it would be different. It’s still breastmilk.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have a kid. People can get weird when someone or something is different.”

“That’s too true,” he acknowledged, giving her a rueful smile. “So, you’re going to keep up… um… production?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She shook her head, finally returning her gaze to meet his. “I hadn’t really expected it to happen at this point but now that it has, I think I’d be afraid to stop. What if it didn’t come back?”

“I would say that you’ve done it once, so you can probably do it again,” he teased gently. He didn’t like the idea of her feeling trapped into something that she’d fantasized about now that it was a reality.

“That’s true too.”

Looking at her like this, both of them smiling, felt almost achingly intimate. Just as intimate as everything else they’d shared over the past few days.

“Do you think it’ll affect your dating life?” He couldn’t help himself. He just had to keep shoving that stake into his chest. Maybe he was more of a masochist than he’d realized.

Mina laughed. “What dating life?” she joked. “Honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve had a boyfriend, I be surprised if your dick didn’t clear cobwebs out of my vagina.”

Now it was Patrick’s turn to laugh, but he’d been taking a bite of cookie while he tried to think of how to respond to Mina’s first question, and he ended up choking on it. It took him a few seconds to get himself under control, shaking his head as he cleared the cookie from his airways.

“Oops.” She smiled impishly at him. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault, I just wasn’t expecting that.” He shook his head.

“Yeah, sorry.” She didn’t look particularly sorry though. More amused than anything else. “There’s just not a lot of options around me.”

“How do you feel about long-distance relationships?”

Stupid, dumbass, don’t be ridiculous.

It was an impulsive question. One that he hadn’t meant to ask. Because he didn’t do long-distance relationships. They never worked out. Not that he’d ever been in one but that’s because he couldn’t even imagine doing the work that would be needed to maintain one.

Until now.

“Well, considering where I live, most of my relationships could count as long-distance, one way or another.” She was still joking, but now she was looking at him with such a hopeful expression that it made his chest squeeze.

“Or are you talking long-distance like the distance from the Ranch to Alabama?”

Her bravery, her openness, helped spur him forward.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”