Simone sat up even straighter and smiled.
“Am I doing it right?” she asked.
“What?”
“The ‘sit there and look pretty’ part?”
“World-class looking-pretty,” he said before turning and clucking his tongue at Cupcake. Just like that the horse started walking at Jason’s side. Simone stiffened in surprise as she swayed in the saddle. No wonder Jason had warned her about the possibility of falling off. Even on a pony in a paddock, this was a lot of rocking and swaying and Simone felt like her head was in the clouds.
“You all right back there, Spanky?” Jason said.
“I’m not going to faint, I promise. I didn’t know horses were this, um…tall.”
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
“I think I am,” she said. “Or I’m getting used to staring at your backside while you walk my horse around.”
Jason wiggled his hips, and Simone burst out laughing. Luckily Cupcake was a well-trained pony and didn’t bolt at the sound. Simone, however, nearly slid off the saddle and had to right herself quickly.
“You okay?” Jason asked.
“Your ass is dangerous,” Simone said. “I better keep my eyes off it and on the road.”
“Your ass is gonna get it later for swearing in front of a little girl’s pony.” Jason looked over her shoulder and winked at her. Simone nearly fell off her damn horse again at that naughty wink.
“So you get to threaten me with corseting and spanking in front of Cupcake, but I don’t get to say ‘ass’?”
“That’s right.”
“How is that fair?”
“It’s not. But I’m your master and you’re gonna follow my orders, fair or not. You got that?”
“I got it, sir,” she said.
“Good.”
As Jason led Cupcake around a barrel, Simone saw the smile on his lips.
She almost asked him to give an order right then and there.
She wanted him to order her not to fall in love with him.
A simple order to give.
Maybe an impossible one to follow.
Twelve
They spent a good hour in the paddock, which was probably the limit of what Simone’s backside could handle her first time in a saddle. He sure didn’t want to wear her out. He had plans for that ass of hers later, saddle-sore or not.
He brought Cupcake to a halt and held her steady while Simone dismounted. Soon as her feet hit the ground, she wobbled unsteadily. Jason reached for her and held her against him while she found her footing.
“You all right?” he asked her, happier than he ought to be to have her back in his arms.
“Just have to get my sea legs,” she said.
“You’re on solid ground, Spanky.”
“Then why is it moving?”
“That’s your inner ear,” he said and kissed her quick on the lips. “You hold onto the fence and rest. I’ll put Cupcake back in her stall.”
Simone leaned back against the fence while Jason took care of Cupcake, getting her saddle off and settled in for the day. The pony had done better than he’d hoped. Not once had she startled, not even when Simone had burst out laughing when he shook his ass at her. When Cupcake was contentedly eating her oats, Jason went back out to the paddock where he found Simone texting someone.
“Something going on?” he asked.
“Oh, no, just telling my friend Nora I’ve ridden my first horse.” Simone slipped her phone into her hoodie pocket.
“She, ah…she know you’re here with me?” Jason asked.
“I told her.”
“Did you tell her my name?”
“Well…yes,” Simone said, a nervous smile flitting across her face. “I mean, it’s a rule. When you do kink with a new person, you’re supposed to tell a friend where you are and who you’re with and when you’re coming back. It’s a safety thing. That’s all.”
“She won’t tell anyone, will she? About me?”
“Oh, no.” Simone shook her head quickly. “No, she’s a pro, too. That’s why we use each other as our safety calls when we travel for work. We’re both trained to keep our mouths shut about clients and stuff. She won’t tell a soul.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“Are you embarrassed about being with me?” Simone asked.
Jason realized immediately he’d insulted the girl and entirely without meaning to, dammit.
“Spanky, I’d walk down Main Street America with you on my arm if I could. But if you saw the fan mail I get from kids, little kids, you’d know why I was worried about, you know, rumors getting out about me. When you got kids who look up to you, you have to keep your private life real private.”
“I promise I won’t start any rumors. I’m a professional, remember?” She didn’t sound or look angry, only hurt that he’d think she was the sort to kiss and tell.
“Right. Of course. Never meant to imply otherwise.” Jason kissed her again to clear the air between them. “I know you’re a pro. I just didn’t really think of myself as a client.”
“Client or not, I think it’s safe to say we’re friends now, right?” she said. “I usually don’t do kink or have sex with enemies. I won’t betray your trust.”
“I know you won’t.”
As soon as he said it, he realized he believed it. He wasn’t just being nice. He did trust her. He must, right? He’d told her the one secret he’d never told anyone, the secret that scared even him.
“Come on,” he said. “You need to go give Cupcake a treat. She earned it.”
“What kind of treat?” Simone asked as they walked back into the barn.
“Cookies,” he said. He grabbed a bucket off a shelf and passed it to Simone. She opened the lid and her nose immediately wrinkled.
“These are not Oreos,” she said.
“They’re horse cookies,” Jason said. “Oats, rolled barley, dried apples, and molasses.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad.” Simone sniffed the cookie. “Or maybe not.”
“They’re not shortbread,” Jason said, “but Cupcake likes them. Don’t you, girl?”
Cupcake already had her head out of the stall door and batted Simone’s hand in eagerness. Jason knew how the little pony felt. He’d had a hard time not grinning like a fool all morning while he led Simone around the paddock. She’d been like a kid, so excited to get to ride her first horse. It was good for him to feel in charge like that, to teach her something for a change. And she was a good student, listened to every word he said and did as he asked. If she stuck around he’d turn her into a horsewoman in no time. She already had the most important part down—she wasn’t afraid of horses. In fact, it seemed like his pink-haired lady wasn’t afraid of much of anything.
“Put the cookie on your palm,” Jason said. “Hold your hand out and watch your fingers. She can nip ‘em by accident and then she’d feel bad for days if she bit your hand off.”
“And I might need that hand later,” Simone said.
“You just might,” he said.
Simone did as he told her to and Cupcake lapped the cookie off her palm in one swish of her tongue.
“Agh!” she said and giggled. Her nose wrinkled and it was too damn cute for words. “That felt so weird.”
“Never been licked by a horse before?” Jason asked.
“I’ve been licked by a man called Horse before, but that was an entirely different situation.”
“Do I want to know why he was called Horse?” Jason asked.
“Your first guess is probably the right one.”
Jason was the one bursting into laughter that time. Cupcake took it well.
While Simone petted and cooed over Cupcake, Jason stood by and watched. He could get used to this, having Simone out here in the barn with him, fussing over the horses, helping him out, keeping him company. But he highly doubted that was something Simone would want for herself. People who lived in New York City did so for a reason and you couldn’t ask for
a place more opposite her town than his. Nice fantasy, her staying here with him, but he knew better than to bet money on that. And it was probably just his cock doing the talking, anyway. For the first time in his life he was having the kind of sex he’d dreamed about. They barely knew each other, after all. Just met the day before. He knew people fell in love fast, at first sight even, but he’d never been that guy before. Then again, he’d never met a girl like Simone before.
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “I gotta get to working. You won’t be bored today while I’m out here?”
“No,” she said between little kisses on Cupcake’s forehead. “I have my laptop with me. I can get work done. I have a whole wedding album to organize. That’ll take me two days at least.”
“If you need me, you find me,” he said.
“I’ll find you. Sir.”
She gave him one last smile before turning and walking out of the barn. He watched her go and enjoyed the view. Only view any better was her walking toward him. He stared long enough Cupcake bumped him in the shoulder with her head.
“Mind your own,” Jason told the pony. “I can stare if I want to. She’s mine.”
Cupcake snorted at that.
“Sort of,” he amended. “For now anyway. You think I oughta keep her?”
Cupcake didn’t respond to that question at all except to blink her heavily lashed eyes a few times. Jason took that as a “maybe.”
Franco arrived at ten and together the two of them put the horses through their paces. It made for hard work and a long day even with the two of them, but the hours flew by. When Franco made a passing reference to what a good mood Jason was in, Jason almost told him to “mind his own” before confessing that yes, he was in high spirits. Franco asked him why and Jason stole Simone’s line from her.
“Your first guess is probably the right one.”
Franco left shortly after six, and Jason finished up with the horses not long after. He was just getting Rusty his oats when he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. He pulled it out and answered, too preoccupied to even check who was calling him.
“Waters,” Jason said.
“You asshole,” were the first words he heard.
“Luke Bradley,” Jason said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Did I mention you were an asshole?” Luke said.
“I think we covered that territory.”
“You’re not gonna ask why I’m calling you to tell you you’re an asshole?” Luke asked.
“I’m sure you have your reasons,” Jason said. He had a hidebound policy of not giving people who craved attention the attention they wanted. Drove them crazy.
“Naked calendar. Photo shoot. Yesterday,” Luke said. “You were supposed to call and tell me how it went? Remember? You getting in the raw in front of that sexy-as-hell photographer from New York?”
“Hey, how do you know she’s sexy as hell? You never met her,” Jason said.
“Seen her pictures, man. Why do you think I agreed to be in the stupid calendar in the first place. She’s got a website. I’ve been on it. A lot. I’m on it right now. Oh my God…”
“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to stop doing that.”
“Why?”
“Cuz I said so,” Jason said. “And aren’t you supposed to be in traction?”
“My dick’s in traction after looking at her in her tight corsets.”
“Dude, stop it, I swear to God.”
“Whoa,” Luke said, all joking over. “What the hell is going on, man? I just called to find out if she was as pretty in person as she is in her pictures.”
“Yes, she’s very pretty, and she’s sweet, too. Don’t talk about her like that to me. All right?”
A long pause followed.
“You fucked her,” Luke said.
“I’m hanging up.”
“You dirty dog, you did. God damn, I am killing myself as soon as we get off the phone. I gave that girl to you on a silver fucking platter.”
“That’s not how this works. What Simone and I did or did not do is none of your goddamned business, and if you keep talking about her like that, you’re gonna be in traction for the rest of your life.”
“I better get to be best man in the wedding, son.”
“I’m going to a pallbearer in your funeral if you don’t shut the hell up, son.”
Luke laughed. “I’m only giving you a hard time, man. You make it too easy.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jason said. “I really like her.”
“Don’t blame ya. Just don’t bring her home to your parents unless you want them to stroke out on the front porch. Mama Waters would hit the ceiling so hard the house would have a new skylight.”
“She’s just a pretty girl with pink hair. She doesn’t have a swastika tattooed on her forehead.”
“She’s a pretty girl with pink hair who has a whole lot of crazy hot self-portraits on the internet, Jase. Which I will never ever look at again, I swear, cowboy’s honor.”
“Better not.”
“But I remember…”
Jason hung up before he could say something he’d regret.
Fucking Luke Bradley. And Jason had been having one of the better days of his life before that bullshit phone call. Did the boy not have anything better to do than get online and perv over pictures of women he didn’t know? Well, considering he was in traction in the hospital, probably not.
He returned to the house, kicked his boots off in the mudroom, and went into the kitchen. His nose immediately detected a smell, a good smell, one he hadn’t smelled in a good long time.
Ohh…Simone had baked cookies.
Real cookies. Not horse cookies.
“Is that you?” Simone called from the other room.
“Don’t know who else it would be,” he called back. Simone appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
“I smell ‘em,” he said. “Where’d you hide them?”
“I ‘hid’ them in the cookie jar.”
“Smart,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “Very smart. I woulda never looked there.”
He opened the cookie jar and smiled.
“Shortbread cookies,” Simone said. “You mentioned you like them. And they’re easy to make—only three ingredients.”
“No, you did a very nice job here,” he said, popping a cookie in his mouth. It was all sugar, all butter, and all heaven.
She walked over to him and stole a cookie from the jar for herself.
“I’m playing house,” she said. “My kitchen’s the size of a closet, if that. It’s much more fun to bake when you don’t have to stand in the bathtub to reach the oven.”
“I’ll never understand why you New Yorkers spend so much money on such tiny little apartments.”
“For the city,” she said. “It has everything.”
“Except good-sized kitchens.”
“Except that,” she said. “You have a good day at work, dear?” She grinned, playing house again.
“For the most part. Then it all went to hell in the last five minutes.”
“What happened?” she asked, smile immediately gone. “The horses are okay, aren’t they?”
It touched him she was worried about the horses.
“They’re fine. It’s just ah…Luke Bradley called. Said some things I didn’t like to hear.”
“Luke Bradley? Oh, yeah, the guy who was supposed to be Mister November. What’s up with Luke?”
Jason didn't know how to tell her, or if he should, but he’d already started…
“I’m not one to gossip,” Jason said.
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said.
“But Luke called asking how the photoshoot went. And then he asked me if you were as sexy in person as you were in your pictures.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding. “He’s been on my website, I guess. I have a few of my corset pics on there.”
“Yup. He’s been on it. A lot. He’s a fan.”
“That’s nice of him to say
.”
Jason’s eyes widened. Simone wasn’t being sarcastic.
“Nice? What he was saying wasn’t nice.”
“Did my pics turn him on?”
“He might have implied that.”
Simone leaned back on the counter, a cookie in her hands. She pointed it at him.
“You know when a grown woman engages in something called ‘fetish photography’…she kind of expects some men—and women—will enjoy the view.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“It’s sort of the point. And if you’re a person like me who doesn’t think porn and masturbating are bad things—in moderation—then why would I be offended to know someone got turned on looking at my pictures? That’s what they’re for. If I wanted people to look at my photos and not get turned on, I would post pictures of forests and flowers, not my tits tied up in a corset. I do fetish photography for a reason. And that reason is, A—because it turns me on and makes me happy, and B—because it turns other people on and makes them happy. If they turned your friend Luke on, great. He’s in the hospital, right? I hope I could distract him from being bored and in pain for a few minutes.”
Jason took a deep long breath. “Damn,” he said.
“What?”
“You are something else, Spanky. I almost feel like I should tell Luke I’m sorry for threatening to kill him over him perving on you. I’m not gonna, just to be clear. He was being a real ass. There is a way of talking about how pretty girls are without being as crude as he was. He’s usually not that bad. I don’t know. Maybe it was the painkillers.”
“Posturing,” Simone said, waving her hand dismissively.
“What?”
“He’s a male submissive,” Simone said. “And he’s posturing to hide it.”
Jason’s jaw dropped to the floor and down into the basement.
“You’re kidding me,” he said. “Luke? He’s the toughest guy I know.”
“And the toughest guys I know regularly get the crap beaten out of them by the toughest women I know.”
“You sure about this?” Jason asked, still skeptical.
“I wouldn’t bet your farm on it, but I’m trained to figure this stuff out. When I talked to him on the phone when he was still our potential Mister November, he asked me if I was going to order him around during the shoot and make him do all kinds of crazy stuff. He acted like he was joking, but I could tell he kind of hoped that would happen. I almost told him that I have a dominatrix friend who takes referrals and would happily fly out to Montana to beat the hell out of a cowboy and make him lick her boots.”
Picture Perfect Cowboy Page 10