“Are all pink-haired kinky girls as crazy as you are?” Jason asked.
“No, sir,” she said. “It’s just me.”
“Thought so. Come on. We’re going for a little ride.”
“Car ride? Truck ride?”
“Horse ride. We need to see how Cupcake does on a trail. You game?”
“I’m game.”
In the barn, Jason outfitted her with a riding helmet and leather gloves.
“I’ll walk her,” Jason said. “You just—”
“Sit there and look pretty?” Simone asked.
“Right. And I want you to hang on tight, too. The trail twists and winds and goes over some rocks. Long as you sit up straight and stay relaxed, we’ll be fine.”
Simone greeted Cupcake the way Jason had taught her, by extending her hand for the horse to sniff, then standing at the side of her head for pets and scratches.
Jason saddled Cupcake quickly and led her out to the paddock. This time Simone was able to get on Cupcake without any sudden vertigo. Franco was there already by the gate. Jason had Cupcake by the lead rope and Franco gave her a salute and a smile as they headed toward the dense copse of trees that bordered Jason’s farm.
“You know this isn’t much of a punishment for sending you unsolicited pussy pics. I love riding Cupcake and hanging out with you.”
“When did I say I was going to punish you?” Jason asked.
“Well…I guess you didn’t. You just said I was in trouble.”
“You are in trouble and you’re probably going to stay in trouble for the rest of your natural life. I’ll punish you tonight. I thought maybe we should talk a little first.”
“Talk?” Simone tensed, suddenly nervous. Almost nothing good ever came of the words we should talk.
“Talk,” Jason said.
“Okay, sir. Talk away.”
“Not me. You. You tell me what you’ve been thinking about us.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid of that,” she said. Simone decided telling him she was falling in love with him was probably a bad idea.
“You can tell me anything, you know,” he said. “I told you things I never told anybody. I’d like it if you could trust me, too.”
“I do trust you. I just don’t know if I trust me.” They passed into the woods and Cupcake carefully picked her way along the dirt trail. The bright April sunlight shone through the tall trees. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she’d be having the time of her life.
“What’s that mean?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said, trying to sound airy and unconcerned. Meanwhile she was shaking in her boots. “We’ve only known each other a few days, and I leave tomorrow. And it’s really easy to get attached to someone you’ve been having great sex with, you know…but can you trust those feelings? Or is it just good sex and infatuation? Or something more? And can you ever really know that, or is it the sort of thing you have to wait and see? But since I’m leaving maybe it’s all a moot point anyway and—”
“I want to see you again,” Jason said simply.
Simone replied immediately. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking, too.”
Jason brought Cupcake to a halt and turned around to face her.
“You mean that?” he asked.
“Yes. I texted Mistress Nora today to tell her how I was upset I had to leave tomorrow since I…I really like you. Sir.”
He nodded slowly.
“This is going to complicate both our lives. You know that, right? If things work out, this can’t end with me moving to New York.”
“No, I know,” she said. “But I travel anyway for my work. One airport gets you there the same as any other. What about you? How complicated can it get for you?”
“Pretty damn complicated,” he said.
“Because of your family?” she asked.
He nodded. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said. “Just this one thing—if you were really mine, like for real, and someone tried to take you from me…I wouldn’t let them. I want to keep you, Simone. If you’ll let me, I’d like that very much.”
Simone’s chest heaved. She blinked and wasn’t surprised to find tears in her eyes.
“I want you to keep me,” she said softly, nodding so he’d know she really meant it.
“Good,” he said.
“What do you want to do?” she asked. “I mean…what do you want me to do next?”
“I been thinking about that. My sister’s coming to visit with the girls next week for a few days. Once she’s gone, my schedule’s clear through August. You can come back whenever you want. Sooner the better. And I’d like you to stay with me as long as you can. We’ll go from there.”
“Sounds good,” Simone said. “I’ll check my calendar.”
“Good.” He smiled up at her. “Good.”
He set out walking again, leading Cupcake down the winding trails. Meanwhile, Simone’s heart floated a few feet above her head, following her like a pink balloon on a string. And it followed her all the way into a line of trees at the edge of Jason’s farm. White wildflowers sprouted from thick green grass and a little trickle of water, not even wide enough to be called a creek, wound past them. They were so deep in the little woods she couldn’t see his house anymore. Jason tied Cupcake’s lead rope to a tree branch.
“Why are we stopping?” Simone asked. Jason didn’t answer. He just crooked his finger and Simone dismounted. The second she’d landed on her feet he took off his cowboy hat and hung it on the horn of the saddle before pulling her into in his arms. He pushed her gently back against a tree and now she knew exactly why they’d stopped.
She didn’t speak. He didn’t, either. No words necessary in a moment like that. Their tongues met in a rough kiss that never seemed to end. Jason’s hands slid up her sides to her bra, pushed the cups down and covered her breasts with his warm hands. Simone moaned in pleasure as he lightly pinched her nipples, tugged them, yanked up her shirt so he could lick and kiss them. She ran her hands over his strong broad back, his neck, through his hair. She was leaving tomorrow, and she wanted to touch him and keep touching him until they had to be pried apart. Jason apparently had the same idea.
He pushed her leggings and panties down to her ankles and cupped her between her legs where she was warm and getting warmer. He stroked the seam of her pussy as she pushed her hips into his hand. She grew wet, wetter, and he entered her with two fingers. She looked down and watched him touching her. Her heart clenched at the sight. Simone knew then she never wanted any other man to touch that part of her ever again. Only Jason, now and forever.
“Simone,” he said. That was all.
“Jason,” she said. And that was all. Their eyes met, then they kissed again.
Jason only broke the kiss to unzip his jeans and push them down his thighs. The condom was on in seconds, and then, right there against the rough bark of the tree trunk, he made love to her. His thrusts were deep, slow and deep. He held her upper thighs in his hands as she lifted her legs off the ground and wound them round his lower back. Her arms wound round his neck. They were joined as hard and tight as the tightest knot ever tied in the tautest rope. Jason pumped into her and she took his cock with pleasure and with joy. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her to come back and stay with him, as long as she could, he’d said. She wanted to come and she wanted to cry. Turns out it was easy to do both at the same time when the master of her dreams was making love to her five minutes after telling her he wanted to keep her.
She shuddered in his arms and if it wasn’t the strongest orgasm she’d ever had, it was the sweetest. Jason pumped his hips harder into her and the bark of the tree bit her through the fabric of her shirt hard enough she knew it would leave marks. Good. She wanted to be marked by this moment. She’d remember it the rest of her life—she’d remember Jason’s ragged breathing, the way his fingers dug deep into her soft skin, his thick cock sliding in and
out of her slick vagina…She’d remembered the way his head fell back when he started to come and his muscles tensed and he took a breath in and didn’t let it out for a good long time as his hips pushed and pushed and pushed into her…
As he came Simone kissed his long exposed throat, and a low groan escaped his lips. She’d remember that, too.
Seconds later it was all over. As Jason pulled off the condom, Simone said, “You know, while we’re apart for the next few weeks we could maybe both get tested and then we wouldn’t have to use those anymore.”
Jason met her eyes. “I’d like that,” he said. She would, too. To feel him inside her, nothing between them, to have his come in her…oh yeah, she’d like that.
“And maybe,” she said, “when I come back I can bring all my equipment with me—my kink equipment, and you could try flogging me and stuff?”
He nodded. “I’d like that, too.”
“And um…maybe, if I have your permission, Master Jason,” she said, “maybe it would be okay if I fell in love with you?”
Jason fell silent, completely silent. All she heard in those five long seconds between her question and his answer was the breeze blowing through the new buds on the tree branches, water trickling over stones, and Cupcake ripping grass from the ground by the mouthful.
A smile spread across Jason’s face, wide as the blue Kentucky sky.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that most of all.”
Sixteen
Simone had only been gone for two days and Jason already couldn’t stop counting the minutes until she came back to him. Watching her drive away yesterday morning had been a bigger punch in the stomach than Demented’s horn in his guts. He’d wanted to follow her to the airport, see her off, kiss her until the final boarding call. But she’d asked him to let her go alone. Otherwise, she’d said, she would cry forever.
And he’d rather face Demented again than give Simone cause to shed a single tear.
Unless she was crying from pleasure or a good hard spanking. Those were the only tears he ever wanted to give her.
Jason spent the days after Simone left practically living with the horses in the hopes of staying occupied enough he didn’t go nuts until his girl came back again. He wasn’t sure if it was working, but he had to try. At least he had Aimee and the girls coming to visit for a few days while Aimee’s husband was out of town on business. They always managed to distract him from whatever was on his mind. And he needed all the distractions he could get if he was going to survive until Simone could visit him again.
Simone hadn’t been able to give him a firm date only because she had several bookings that were still up in the air for May. She took her work seriously, and he admired that about her. He was old-fashioned enough he didn’t mind the idea of his future wife quitting her job so he could support her. Thanks to Mr. Ford and Mr. Levi, Jason had more than enough money in the bank to keep a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives. But he also had nothing but respect for Simone’s career. If she wanted to keep working as a photographer, he’d do whatever he could to help her along.
As for the other career, well, that he would ask her to quit. If anyone was going to be spanking or flogging her, it was going to be him. He didn’t think she’d object to that. She’d already canceled the few appointments she had scheduled in that realm, and without him asking her if she would. It seemed they were thinking along the same lines.
Jason strode into the barn on the fourth morning after Simone had left, smiling to himself at that morning’s text message exchange. He’d woken her up with an eight a.m. text, and his innocent “Good morning, Spanky” quickly turned X-rated when he asked her to tell him what she was wearing in bed and she replied with “nothing.” Photos were sent back and forth and before it was all over both of them had come.
Never ever had he done that sort of thing with any woman. Even when he’d wanted to, he hadn’t had the guts to suggest it, afraid of coming off like a sleaze or a creep. With Simone, he lost all his inhibitions, and he had to say, he didn’t miss them one bit. On the outside he still looked and acted the same.
Alone with Simone, he was a different man entirely. A better man, maybe, than he used to be. He certainly felt like more of a man now that he wasn’t living with a weight of shame hanging around his neck. Simone had taught him that what he liked wasn’t for every woman, but it was for her, and if a girl like Simone—sweet, playful, hard-working, and smart—liked it then it must be all right. And if it was all right then he was all right.
Jason went straight to Cupcake’s stall and laughed when the pony stuck her head out, gave a disappointed pppbbbst and stuck her head back in the stall.
“What am I? Chopped liver?” Jason asked Cupcake. He went in and started brushing her down. “I know. I miss Simone, too. But you got to get over her. You’re getting a girl all your own today. Katie’s coming. Let’s get you looking good for her.”
Cupcake shook her mane but soon settled down and let him finish grooming her and picking her hooves. Katie and her parents were already on the way over with their rented horse trailer. He got Cupcake saddled and fancied up with a big pink bow around the saddle horn. He led her out into the paddock just in time to see a lanky eleven-year-old girl in jeans and boots running awkwardly down the path toward them, her mother and father chasing right behind her.
Jason brought Cupcake to the rails and Katie was there in a flash, standing on the bottom rail and leaning over to reach for Cupcake.
“Cupcake, you remember Katie, don’t you?” Jason asked. “This is your new girl. You want to say ‘hi’ to her.”
Jason always marveled at how quiet a little girl Katie was. His two nieces couldn’t stop talking to save their lives. But just because she didn’t talk much didn’t mean Katie wasn’t speaking volumes right then. Her brown eyes were round as quarters and she grinned a huge gap-toothed smile. And when Cupcake bumped Katie’s outstretched palm with her velvety nose, Katie squealed with utter delight.
“That’s Cupcake saying ‘hi’ to you, Katie girl,” Jason said as her parents came to the rails and watched the show. “That’s how ponies say ‘hi.’ They don’t talk much either. But if you wanted to say ‘hi’ to Cupcake, she’d sure like that.”
Katie blinked a few times and took a few nervous breaths, her little forehead furrowed in concentration.
“Hi, Cuppy,” Katie whispered. Her mother put her hand over her mouth and tears ran down her eyes. Her father tried blinking back tears but they ran down his face. Jason even had to look away long enough to wipe his eyes.
With her father’s help, Jason got Katie into the saddle. Jason led, and Katie’s father walked alongside with his hand on Katie’s thigh to keep her from falling. Katie was in high heaven, laughing and gasping and calling Cupcake’s name over and over again. And Jason could have sworn Cupcake was holding her head a little higher than usual, as if to say, “See? She loves me already.”
It would have been perfect if Simone had been there. God, Jason wanted her there so bad it hurt. She needed to be here with her camera, catching every second of this big day on film so Katie and her parents could watch it over and over again. His longing to have Simone there with him was a physical ache, a hunger pain like he hadn’t eaten in a week. And he knew she would have loved to have seen all this—Katie’s parents cheering her after she dismounted, Cupcake butting her head again and again into Katie’s hand, and the joyful shriek of Katie’s laughter when Cupcake licked the horse cookie off her palm.
Jason loaded Cupcake up in the horse trailer, knowing as he did that Katie was watching the entire time, inspecting him to make sure he didn’t hurt her new best friend.
“She’s all yours now, sweetheart,” Jason said as he locked the trailer doors. “You take good care of her.”
“What do we say to Mr. Waters, Katie?” her mother said.
Katie nodded her head twice as if trying to push out the words. But they did come. Took a few seconds but they came.
Jason felt a fist in this throat but he smiled through the pain.
“You’re welcome, Katie,” he said. The trailer drove away and there was Franco, handkerchief out and blowing his nose loudly into it.
“Allergies,” Franco said.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Same here.”
After Katie and her parents left with Cupcake, Jason felt the longing for Simone hit him twice as hard as before. He did what he always did in times of high emotion, when it was either work it out or scream it out. He saddled up Rusty and took him for a long ride through the woods. The woods weren’t Jason’s. Not all of them, anyway. But his neighbors had a hundred wooded acres that the local horse folk were always welcome to use. Jason and Rusty went over every inch of those hundred acres on that May afternoon, talking it out, thinking it out. By the end of it all, Jason decided there was only one thing to do—admit that he was in love with Simone and stop trying to pretend he wasn’t. It wasn't like it was unheard of for two people to fall in love this fast. His own sister said she knew on her first date she was going to marry her husband. “When you know, you know,” Aimee had said. Back then, Jason had thought Aimee was a little crazy. Now he knew exactly how she felt.
When you know, you know.
Jason knew.
He rode Rusty out of the woods and along the long road that led from the Paris Pike highway to his farm tucked two miles down the lane. As he and Rusty were heading back to the house, a car pulled alongside him and the window rolled down.
“Need a lift?” Aimee asked.
Jason pretended to peer into the car windows.
“Can you fit me and Rusty in there?”
Aimee had rented a small SUV. His two nieces Dani and Cassie now rolled down their windows and both of them stuck their heads and hands out to pet Rusty on his long nose.
“Can we ride with you?” the twins asked.
“You two can ride and I can walk,” he said. “Mom has to drive.”
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