The Rapunzel Rodeo

by Sable Sylvan

  Apparently, Matthew, Jason, and Richard had learned how to work together.

  “They are pretty cute,” admitted Olivia, giving the woman her tickets. “You have a nice day now.”

  Around two in the afternoon, Cayenne came out with a lemonade and a sandwich.

  “Thanks, Cayenne, I’m starving,” said Olivia.

  “Nuh-uh, this grub’s for me,” said Cayenne. “Running ‘round the rodeo worked up a real appetite.”

  “Like sitting out here selling tickets didn’t!” shouted Olivia.

  “Hold your horses, figuratively and literally,” said Cayenne, to which Olivia rolled her eyes. “I’m serious. I’m taking over ticket sales while you take a lunch break. Eat with the werehorses. They’re on lunch break, too.”

  “Fine,” said Olivia.

  Once Cayenne was situated, she headed into the rodeo to find the cowboys. Spotting the horse shifters in the food court of the crowded rodeo wasn’t hard at all. The three tall, long-haired men were all sitting at a table covered in a spread of the best eats the rodeo had to offer, from burgers and sandwiches to deep-fried bacon and churros. The only difference was that they had messy, intricate braids instead of their usual ponytails. The only downside of being a curvy girl with a big appetite was that it was all too obvious that the path to her heart was through her stomach. Olivia had to remind herself that a bunch of delicious fair food wasn’t going to prove the men were magically getting along…

  …But as she approached and heard them talking excitedly, she realized maybe they had changed.

  “Hey,” said Olivia, sitting down at the table casually. “What’s all this?”

  “Cayenne told us your favorite foods, so we made sure to get them,” said Jason. “How’s the ticket booth?”

  “Hotter than Hell or balls, whichever is worse,” said Olivia. “How’s the petting zoo?”

  “It’s hot, noisy, dirty, and tedious,” said Matthew. “At least the kids are nice…for the most part.”

  “Oh?” asked Olivia, raising a brow.

  “But, if it was easy, I don’t think you’d believe we’d changed,” said Richard. “Doing something unpleasant, together, and not biting each other’s heads off, that’s hard.”

  “And none of you fought?” asked Olivia.

  “No, but to be fair, our hands were kept pretty busy,” said Matthew. “And, if you haven’t noticed, a bunch of the kids decided they weren’t satisfied to practice their braiding techniques on manes and tails…and decided they needed some hands-on braiding lessons from us, to use on our hair.” Matthew gestured to his braid which looked rough and knotted. Olivia had to stifle a laugh.

  “I’ll allow it,” admitted Olivia. “You guys organized getting every shifter volunteer from the dude ranch?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jason. “We took everyone we could get. Boss man supported it, too. Said it’s free advertising for the ranch. Of course, he made sure Cayenne put up some ads for the dude ranch and gave him tickets to give his guests, given that nearly half his staff is here today.”

  “All right, I’ve forgiven you three,” said Olivia. “But…we still have to talk about this.” Olivia motioned among the four of them.

  “Okay, well—” started Richard.

  “Time and place,” said Olivia. “Not here, not today.”

  “When?” asked Jason.

  “I don’t know. I have some thinking to do. I didn’t think y’all would come through, but you did,” said Olivia. “That throws a wrench in my whole plan to ignore the three of you for as long as I live. Right now, I just want to eat and power through this day.”

  “Got it,” said Jason. “Boys, let the lady eat.”

  Olivia ate food, made small talk with the guys, and headed back to the ticket booth.

  “You’re right, ticket duty sucks,” said Cayenne. “Did you eat with the horse boys?”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said. “You were right.”

  “I know,” said Cayenne. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the question of the fuckin’ hour.”

  Chapter Ten

  Olivia thought about what to do. Should she just go and talk to the cowboys and apologize for not trusting them to change? Should she pretend nothing happened? She asked Cayenne, but Cayenne’s advice was to talk to Grandma Quiggly. It was an expensive option, but Olivia was willing to try anything.

  Olivia paid Grandma Quiggly the sixty-dollar advice fee.

  Grandma Quiggly’s advice was for Olivia to call Grandma Larson and ask for her famous peach pie recipe.

  Olivia couldn’t believe she’d been ripped off. She called her grandmother anyway, got the peach pie recipe, and ended up with some good advice. Unfortunately, it seemed as if the directions for baking the pie would be more difficult to follow than the rest of her grandmother’s advice. What was her grandma’s ‘special baking powder’? What the heck did it mean to use ‘three blue spoonfuls’? What was a ‘mug full of flour’? After lots of texting back and forth with her grandmother, Internet research on baking pies, and many failed attempts at making the pie, Olivia ended up perfecting the recipe. After eating a pie in celebration with Cayenne and Basil, Olivia made three more pies and summoned up the courage to bring them to the three men she had learned to forgive that would hopefully forgive her in kind.

  Olivia went down to the McCarthy Dude Ranch and knocked at the big wooden door. Another cowboy let her in and led her to the den where, sitting around a table, three alpha male werehorses were focused on…

  …Solving a two-hundred-piece puzzle.

  “Hey,” said Olivia. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “It’s puzzle day,” said Jason. “We’ve got a new puzzle, see?” He showed Olivia the image on the box. It showed an icy landscape dotted with tiny penguins. They’d picked a relatively hard puzzle. Only the black bodies and yellow beaks and little feet of the penguins stood out against the blue and white ice...and there weren’t that many penguins in the picture.

  “Got time for a pie break?” asked Olivia.

  “Always,” said Matthew. “Come on. I’ll show you the kitchen while Jason and Richard clean up the den.”

  Olivia and Matthew went to the kitchen and served up big slices of the pie on plates that they carried outside. Olivia watched the pie and shooed away any flies while Matthew made a carafe of peach sweet tea to go with the pie, and finally, Jason and Richard joined them.

  “Sorry about that,” said Matthew.

  “I have to ask…what’s the deal with the puzzle?” Olivia questioned.

  “We knew that we had to get along if we had any chance of getting you back,” said Richard. “So, what better way to learn to work together than by working on a puzzle together?”

  “The first puzzle we did, well…I think one of us threw it away in the trash in anger,” said Jason.

  “We lost half the pieces to the second puzzle because someone flipped the table,” said Matthew.

  “Who?” asked Olivia.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Richard. “Really. It doesn’t. The point is, we’ve worked hard and now it’s fun. We’ve tried doing some other activities, too, but puzzles are nice because we don’t have to talk.”

  “You can say that again,” said Jason. “No offense, of course.

  “None taken,” said Matthew.

  “You guys are getting along after all. It’s not just an act,” said Olivia. “I came by today to apologize. I should’ve forgiven you guys when you first showed up at The Matchstick Grill, hats literally in hand. I’m sorry that I was too proud to forgive, and I’ll be better in the future.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Matthew. “This pie more than makes up for it.”

  “Where did you get this anyway?” asked Jason.

  “My grandma gave me the recipe,” Olivia started. “It was one Hell of a recipe to follow. What exactly counts as a pinch of salt? Or a handful of cinnamon sticks? It took a lot of tries, but finally, I made a delicious pie
. I guess making this pie, well, it taught me a lot. I learned that sometimes, to make something great…you have to try, hard, and give yourself permission to fail hard and fast. Each pie? Well, it’s an iteration on the last, and if you compared the first pie I made this week to these pies, you wouldn’t believe they were made by someone following the same recipe for both. My point is, sometimes, things don’t turn out the way you want, but if you keep trying, if you forgive yourself and laugh it off and let yourself try again, you’ll eventually end up with something great. And if you don’t, well, you’ll never know just how good you might’ve had it.”

  “Olivia…” started Richard.

  “Don’t,” said Olivia. “Y’all weren’t perfect. I know that. But, you made it up to me. You made the rodeo’s preview day a success and helped sell a ton of tickets. You showed you cared about me, my cause, and were willing to put aside differences to work together and do something that mattered to me, to my community. You showed you want to be part of my life. Well, these pies are my way of showing you I want you in it. Guess this is my roundabout way of saying I’m sorry, but, before these pies get cold, you best dig in.”

  Olivia served a slice of pie to each of the horse shifters. Each pie had a perfectly flaky, golden crust, with a warm, gooey syrupy filling in which tender slices of skinned peaches floated delicately, held up by the thickness of the syrup beneath them. The liquid was flecked with freckles of cinnamon. The cooked peaches were infused with the flavors of cinnamon and cane sugar and practically melted in their mouths.

  “This is amazing,” said Matthew. “Best peach pie I’ve ever had.”

  “Are y’all still planning on going to the rodeo today?” asked Olivia. “It’s opening day.”

  “Well…are you sure you want to head straight to the rodeo?” asked Jason.

  “What do you mean?” asked Olivia.

  “We could take a detour upstairs,” said Matthew. “After all, we haven’t exactly…”

  “Oh,” said Olivia, getting at what Matthew was hinting to. “Are you guys sure?”

  “We’re sure. We’re ready,” said Richard. “If you haven’t noticed, we’ve gotten pretty good at fitting things together, putting things in slots. Now, don’t you think it’s time for some horseplay?”

  The quad cleaned up their makeshift picnic and went upstairs. There wasn’t time for a full tour of the dude ranch or its facilities, but the guys had time to explain that the farmhands all shared a large set of dorms. Most guests stayed in one of the taller buildings on the ranch, while some guests stayed in a larger repurposed set of barns and farm buildings dotting the dude ranch’s wide fields.

  Upstairs, the guys introduced Olivia to their place. Ever since they’d become friends, they’d started sharing a suite consisting of four separate bedrooms, a shared sitting room, and two shared bathrooms. Apparently, the owner of the ranch was lax and let the cowboys figure out their own housing situations, and nobody at the farm had wanted to share the suite.

  They went into Richard’s room. It had the largest bed; a king-sized bed covered in black flannel sheets warmed by sunlight streaming in through the windows.

  “So what happens now?” asked Olivia.

  “To find out if we’re your fated mates, we have one thing we all need to do, as a ménage,” said Jason. “We all need to bring you to a climax at the same time. Are you ready for this?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Olivia.

  “You sound nervous,” said Richard. “You want that dessert I promised you, Mistress?”

  Matthew and Jason groaned.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Olivia.

  “This ‘Mistress’ thing,” said Matthew. “He’s such a pervert.”

  “Trust me,” said Jason. “We’ve heard the porn he listens to. ‘Spank me harder, Mistress!’”

  Richard’s face went beet red.

  “I like a dominant woman, okay?” asked Richard. “And besides…I’m not some selfish submissive. I know how to make a woman’s fantasies come true.”

  “Then prove it,” ordered Olivia. “Show me what you promised me on our date.”

  “With pleasure,” said Richard.

  Richard led Olivia to the bed and sat her down on the edge. He kissed her deeply while undressing her, top to bottom, unbuttoning her shirt for her and letting her bra straps fall to the side as he made a trail of kisses down the curves of her body, from her buxom chest to her wide waist and sturdy hips.

  “Perfection,” Richard whispered to Olivia’s curves. “Absolute perfection.”

  Richard kissed a trail down Olivia’s legs, pulling her panties off as he moved his mouth down her body. Then, he traced a trail back up with kisses and moved to the spot between her legs. He separated her lips with his tongue, and then, the cowboy went to town. Richard was kissing at her entrance and licking up toward her clit, swirling his tongue, and writing poetry to her body using only his tongue.

  Olivia leaned back, gripping the soft, warm sheets and lifted her legs up around Richard’s shoulders, using her legs to pull Richard closer to her sex. Richard was more than amenable to that, leaning in so that he was being suffocated by Olivia. If he’d died right then and there, he would’ve died doing what he loved to the woman he loved.

  Richard felt Olivia relax. He smiled to himself. He’d known she would like this. He put a hand down his pants and felt his throbbing manhood. With the other hand, he undid his pants, letting his trousers drop as he stood.

  “You want this dick, now, don’t ya?” asked Richard, wiping his mouth clean of Olivia’s juices and using the wetness on his hand to lube up his cock.

  “Yes, give it to me,” Olivia begged.

  “Come and get it,” said Richard, lying down on the bed, taking his hand off his cock and revealing it to the curvy beauty.

  Olivia’s eyes widened. Richard was hung as, well, a horse! She had thought he was joking about having a huge dick before, but she’d never seen one like Richard’s.

  “What’re you waiting for?” asked Matthew. “Ride that horse, cowgirl.”

  Olivia got up from the bed and started to position herself over Richard, but a hand on her arm stopped her.

  “Not so fast, cowgirl,” said Matthew. “Other way around. You’ll see.”

  Olivia swung her legs over Richard, facing away from him, and Richard helped position his cock so that when Olivia sat, her entrance would be filled by his manhood.

  Olivia felt Richard entering her, inch by inch, and let out a yelp from being filled so fully, a yelp that turned into a moan as she felt Matthew roll her nipples in his palms.

  “Keep riding that cock, darlin’,” ordered Matthew. “You do your thing.”

  “What about you and Jason?” asked Olivia.

  “Trust me,” said Jason. “We’ll get in there. You just be patient, now, y’hear?”

  “I hear ya,” Olivia said. She leaned backward and forwards, rolling her hips over Richard’s crotch and pushing him in and out of her body. She understood why he’d been so interested in her riding him. She was the one in control, which of course, got him off. She also had a sneaking suspicion he enjoyed the feeling of her weight on his body, because, with every push back down onto his torso, Richard let out a deep, primal moan. Finally, it meant she got to control the pace at which she took his cock, so she could go as quickly or as slowly as she wanted.

  While Olivia rode Richard’s cock, she felt six hands roving over her body. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of hands caressing her hefty, creamy thighs, of palms rubbing over her ample breasts, of fingers tracing lines around her neck. She rolled her body to meet the touches of the men that were worshipping at her body, an altar of curves, and finally, she felt something else. It was another cock, this one in her hand rather than her pussy.

  Olivia gripped down on it and rubbed up and down, feeling the hardness of the cock in her hand. She could feel the dick grow slick in her hands, covered with precum. She lifted her hand up to her mou
th and tasted. It was salty, as she expected, and she wanted more.

  Olivia felt someone turn her head gently. She opened her eyes. It was Matthew. He led her head toward his cock and Olivia knew what he wanted. She bounced her head up and down on his shaft, licking up and down, turning his already firm shaft into a harpoon, ready to spike her.

  “You want it?” asked Matthew.

  “Don’t I have it?” asked Olivia, before giving his salty shaft another lick.

  “I mean, inside of you, really inside of you,” asked Matthew.

  “How?” asked Olivia.

  “I’m sure Richard’s made some room,” said Matthew.

  “Is that even possible?” asked Olivia.

  “Trust me, it is,” said Richard. “I’ve seen some…documentaries about it, on the Internet.”

  “I guess it’s worth a try,” said Olivia. “I trust you.”

  Matthew moved to the end of the bed. Matthew positioned Olivia, so her legs were up around his waist, while she was still balanced on Richard’s cock. Matthew pressed the tip of his cock to Olivia’s entrance while Richard was still inside of her and aimed it toward the top of her entrance, which had widened to accommodate Richard. Richard held Olivia still, his cock hard inside of her and not moving an inch, while Matthew entered her.

  Olivia let out a high-pitched squeak as Matthew entered her slowly. It wasn’t from pain. It was out of surprise. She’d thought that Richard’s cock was the biggest thing that her pussy could take, but Matthew’s cock was somehow able to slide right up into her.

  “How’s it feel?” asked Matthew.

  “Weird,” admitted Olivia. “Good, but weird.”

  “I’m sure we can make this a whole lot weirder,” said Jason, who had been stroking himself while watching the show unfold in front of him. A few weeks ago, he never would’ve thought that he would’ve gotten off to watching the woman he was sure was his fated mate get pleasured by two other men, but a lot had changed. One thing that hadn’t changed was his attraction to Olivia. There was only one thing that could make his strong beauty look even better.