Back in the Saddle

by Caitlin Ricci

  I was kind of awake now that she’d woken me up. “What’s up?”

  Cindy popped up beside her. “We were wondering, how much do you want to quit your job and go live with Cameron and work with him on his horse farm?”

  I rubbed at my face. I was too tired for these big hypothetical questions. “A lot. I guess. But we’re in the lease and I’m not going to do that to you, Lyssa.”

  She and Cindy shared a smile. “So...what if we broke the lease? And before you tell me no, hear me out.” Lyssa sat on the bed beside me and I made room for her. I was also quick to pull the blanket around my waist. “I called Cindy after you fell asleep on me and we’ve been talking for the past few hours. I know you have some money saved, and so do I. So what if we both broke the lease, each paid half of the fees, and I move in with Cindy and you go take the job that Cameron is offering you, and if it all goes to hell you can move in with us until you get your own place?”

  Her offer was so tempting. I nodded even before I’d really considered what she was saying. I caught most of it though. We only had a few months left on our lease. Even each of us paying half of that up front, plus any penalties...yeah, we could do it. I nodded again, a little stronger this time. “Before anything else though, I want to talk to Cameron and get everything in order. I’m not walking into that job completely blind.”

  “Good thinking,” Lyssa said.

  Cindy came over and hugged me. “Thank you. I think you and Cameron will be really happy together.”

  And she’d get to live with her girlfriend. I knew they would both be happy about living together. They were with each other as much as possible as it was anyway.

  The next morning Cindy went to work, Lyssa went to her computer to work on a client’s website, and I grabbed some coffee and plopped down on the couch to call Cameron. Before I called him though, I ended up just texting. It was easier, and I didn’t want to interrupt Lyssa’s work.

  Can I come over again? I asked him.

  I was through with my coffee before he answered. Of course you can. Whenever you want.

  If I got in the shower right then I could be there in about two hours. Ten?

  See you then.

  I was on time with a ton of questions in my head as I walked to his front door. He opened it before I could knock though, and the hug he gave me made me wish I hadn’t left him at all. He squeezed me like he’d missed me and like he was glad that I was there.

  “Did you think about Cindy’s offer?” he asked me as we went into his house.

  I pursed my lips. I’d wanted to tell him about their offer. “I should have guessed that you would be told that Cindy and Lyssa want to move in together.”

  Cameron smiled at me and poured me a glass of lemonade. “It’s all Cindy could talk about when she called me on her way to work this morning. She said you wanted to know just what working with me would be like. So I spent a little time this morning and wrote something up. It’s a contract for employment. We can get it notarized if you like, but I don’t think that’s necessary unless you do.”

  I stared at the glass of lemonade in my hands. “I just want to make the right decisions.”

  Cameron came over and kissed the side of my neck. “I appreciate that. And I think you are.”

  I stood there as he ran his hands over my sides and down my hips. Sex wasn’t supposed to be part of what I wanted this morning, but with his hands on me I could think of little else. I pressed back against him, and felt him hard and ready for me too.

  “Please?” I asked him.

  He pulled my shirt off and helped me onto the kitchen island. I loved how easily he fit between my thighs as he pulled me against him. I remembered his kisses, his rush to have my mouth. I whimpered against his lips and struggled to get his shirt off as well. He was all thick muscles and tanned skin. I kissed his shoulder and his chest before he pushed me back and yanked my pants off of me.

  Whatever stone his island was made out of, it was cold against my back and ass as he got me naked. His warm hands on my hips helped some, as did his mouth against my nipples. I lay there trembling, waiting for him to fuck me like he had before, but this time he took it slow with me.

  Maybe it was because we were in his kitchen and not in a bathroom stall of a noisy club, but this time he stroked my cock and kissed my stomach. I felt loved by him, long before he ever slid inside of me, and that was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. This wasn’t fucking as I’d always known it. This wasn’t someone desperate to have me to the point of nothing else. I knew Cameron wanted me by the way he kissed me gently and took my hands in his.

  I lay there shaking and happy as he finished, and even then I was in no hurry to get up. He threw the condom away and cleaned me up and I continued to lay there on his island with a big smile on my face like an idiot.

  “That wasn’t how I was thinking this morning would go,” he said as he helped me sit up.

  “But it wasn’t a bad turn, was it?” I teased him.

  Cameron kissed my neck and held me close. “No. It wasn’t. Did you have breakfast yet? I made bread pudding last night. It’ll reheat just fine.”

  “Mmm yes please.” I didn’t want him to move though. I liked having him there, holding me, touching me. He ran his hands over my nipples and touched my ass as if he couldn’t get enough of me. I reached between us and stroked his softening cock. There was so much of him I hadn’t been able to experience last time. I wanted to spend so much more time getting to know him now.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cameron

  I’d broken my rule for Dion, but he’d been worth it. After a year of celibacy I was surprised I’d lasted as long as I had with him, and now I couldn’t stop touching him. I was an addict who needed more just because I’d had him again.

  But what I wanted still stood. I wanted him to be my business partner, and my boyfriend. I’d worked a little on a contract that morning, and as the bread pudding heated back up, I went to go get it now. It was only a rough draft, but maybe it would be enough.

  “Here,” I said, handing it to him.

  He glanced at it, then back at me. “What’s this?”

  “Partnership contract,” I explained. If he’d really read any of it, he would have seen that for himself. Not that I was really complaining. As he read I came up behind him on the island and put my hands on his hips. I liked holding him there and feeling him warm and soft under my fingertips. He pushed back against me, though if it was intentional or not I couldn’t tell. We needed to be talking business, and not wanting to get back to having sex, but I figured that I could keep touching him as long as we kept our clothes on.

  He read through it, taking his time and, I hoped, paying attention to it despite how my fingers played with the waist of his pants as if on their own. I didn’t even realize that I was doing it until I felt his warm skin against my fingertips instead of his shirt and suddenly found I’d gone under his shirt to touch him.

  “This gives me a guaranteed hourly rate,” he said, glancing over at me.

  I nodded. “You said that you needed security. Unless something happens that drastically reduces the number of horses I work with each month, you’ll usually make a lot more than that. But this way, if I break my leg or something, you still get paid even if I’m not actively training horses at the time. With you here taking care of the business side of things and letting me train, though, I anticipate getting a lot more horses done.”

  “I get my own room too...”

  “Yes.” Living with me as my boyfriend wasn’t part of being my business partner.

  Dion put the contract aside. “What if I don’t want it? What if I want to jump in with both feet? Live with you, share your bed, stop thinking so much and just go with it for once? Like I did that night with you last year?”

  I smiled at him, but as much as I wanted that, I needed him to make the right decision for himself. “We can leave the spare bedroom as a bedr
oom, then if it becomes too much we can step back if you want to.”

  “You’re so sure you won’t be the one who says we need to take a break?”

  It was a fair question, but I didn’t think I would be the one making that call. “I’m the kind of guy that once I’m in a relationship, I’m in it for the long run. I’ve been broken up with, but I’ve never been the one to break things off. All I want is for you to tell me if something isn’t okay. That’s it. Communication needs to be huge for us. That’s really all I ask.”

  He kissed me gently. “I can live with that. So, partners?” He gave me a sexy little smile.

  “Yes. Partners.” Shaking his hand felt wrong given how intimate we were. So I kissed him instead. “You can start whenever. As soon as you want to. And you don’t have to move in right away. You can commute as long as you need to.”

  Dion just leaned back against me. “We’ll work it out. I know we will. For right now, this is everything we need. Just us.”

  I held him. He was right.

  The End

  You may also enjoy the following from eXtasy Books Inc:

  Arren

  Caitlin Ricci

  Excerpt

  “Are there other bears in the pack right now?” Arren asked him.

  It was a strange question, but Cole didn’t mind strange questions from cute guys generally. “I think so.” He didn’t remember what everyone in the pack was, it was too big for that, and many of them rarely shifted at all.

  Arren smirked, then he laughed. “So you’re probably the bear that Bastian had sex with? He was all broken up about that when he texted me this morning. I told him that sex was just sex and not to worry about it. You like rough, he likes...well, a whole lot of not rough at all.”

  Bastian had said that they were friends. Cole just didn’t realize that the two of them had been talking about him. “Well, at least you get it.” He did feel a little bad about not enjoying sex with Bastian more than he had. It wasn’t as if he’d tried to upset the guy.

  Arren just kept laughing. “Yeah, I do. And don’t worry about it, he’ll move on within a week. Or less. It’s not like it’s a small pack, by any means.”

  “No, it’s really not.” Cole pulled into the Indian restaurant’s parking lot and they got out.

  Cole wasn’t really into Indian food, but he ate anyway. Arren, on the other hand, stuffed his face, and then kept going back for rice pudding, which Cole now knew was called kheer, not that he really cared. Arren had gone on about how good it was for a decent ten-minute stretch.

  “Are you done yet?” Cole asked as Arren finished slurping up his fourth bowl of kheer.

  Arren cocked his head and grinned as he licked his lips clean. “Split some oranges with me?”

  Cole shook his head. He wasn’t hungry anymore. But before Cole could tell Arren that, Arren was already up and back with ten orange segments on his plate. With a sigh, Cole sat back and waited for him to be done.

  “I don’t remember you from before,” Arren said after his third one.

  Cole shrugged. “I don’t really remember you, either.”

  “Seems odd. Me being the son of the alpha, you being one of his betas...”

  “I wasn’t always a beta. I only stepped up and decided to take on that role about a year ago. Before then I was just another middle member of the pack.”

  “Ah. That explains it then.” Arren finished off his oranges and licked his fingers clean. Cole followed that simple action far closer than he should have. “Are you done now?” he huffed.

  Arren pushed the plate aside and smiled at him. “Yes, I guess I am.” He licked his fingers again, as if intentionally goading Cole. “Are you in a hurry to get back home?”

  “I was off today. I want to get back to doing nothing.” At least it was the truth.

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go, then.” Arren got up and, after paying for them both, Cole was quick to leave with him.

  They were silent on the drive back. Cole didn’t mind. Arren seemed to be too focused on his phone to care much about anything else either.

  When they got back, Cole parked the SUV, Arren hopped out, and that could have been the end of it. But Cole needed to tell him what his role was going to be in the pack now that he was back with them. “You’ll be in the kitchen starting tomorrow morning. Six AM to make breakfast for everyone. There will be a few others working with you, so you should be fine.”

  Cole had expected some push back. He hadn’t anticipated the absolute look of disgust that Arren gave him. “But I’m the alpha’s son—”

  “I don’t care who you are. You’re in the kitchen tomorrow morning.”

  Arren pursed his lips, then turned on his heel and walked right to his father’s house. He didn’t knock as Cole had. He just let himself in. Sighing, Cole started heading to his own house. He was almost there when Leo’s yell stopped him short.

  “Cole!”

  He turned back around and started heading for Leo’s house, where Leo and Arren stood waiting for him on the front porch. Arren didn’t look smug, so maybe his father had sided with him instead of his son. “Yes?” Cole asked him.

  “Arren will be in the kitchens tomorrow morning, but I’m making it your responsibility to make sure that he’s there.”

  Cole didn’t bring up the fact that Arren was perfectly capable of setting his own alarm and making sure that he was there on time. If Leo wanted Cole to give his son some extra incentive to get there on time, Cole was more than willing to do that. “Within what parameters?” Cole asked Leo, just to be sure. He wouldn’t cross a line if Leo gave him one.

  Leo pushed Arren forward. “I told you he was a lot to handle. You have my permission to do whatever you want to him. Don’t permanently harm him, of course, but if you need to give him a smack upside the head once in a while, go for it. If you need to drag him by his ear into the kitchen tomorrow morning, you can.”

  Arren was looking more upset by the second. His cheeks were red, and he was glaring at Cole. But Cole just nodded. He was glad to know where they all stood. Now it wouldn’t be a surprise to either of them if Arren ran to his father and reported that he’d been spanked for not behaving. Cole didn’t look forward to spanking him, but he knew that if he had to, he would put Arren over his knee in a heartbeat. He caught Arren’s gaze and gave him a nod. Arren seemed to understand this as well, as he set his jaw and stormed away from them both.

  Leo didn’t call his son back. He simply shook his head. “Maybe you can get some sense into him. The kitchen will be good for him.”

  Cole caught was Leo was saying. Arren was his responsibility. If he couldn’t handle the young coyote, that was his problem. Leo didn’t want to be bothered about him again. Cole nodded. “I’ll make sure he’s kept in line.” He wasn’t quite sure how yet, but he would figure that out once Arren crossed the line. It wasn’t a matter of if something happening to push him to the point of having to discipline Arren. Cole knew it would come to that sooner or later.

  About the Author

  Caitlin Ricci has been writing professionally since 2012 and since then has released over a hundred stories including some award winners. Though she writes in many genres, all of her stories are about finding love and happily ever after. She lives on a small farm in Missouri with her dogs, goats, and husband.

  authorcaitlinricci@gmail.com