Chapter 24
twenty-four
saúl
“Is it bad I don’t want to leave?”
Cam had the most pronounced pout after he’d stretched out on the bed only to fall right back on top of me. It was a good thing I’d been awake this time. The guy was one hell of an octopus at night, and very unaware of his own body mass.
It was a good thing my body had learned the lesson to wake up before Cam did at all times if we wanted to survive it. I was sure an untrained horse would give me less bruises than him.
“Why would it be?”
Cam pursed his lips, then stretched once more before he answered the question. “Because I complained so much about coming here?”
That was fair. I wouldn’t call it complaining, but there had been a lot of anxiety and rambling involved.
I shook my head. He’d done good in spite of it.
The first few days were a bit rockier when people asked him about the animals we worked with and how the operation went, but he started to get more confident as the days passed by.
I supposed part of it was that he’d started to become more familiar with the faces.
Not everyone spent the full two weeks here, but it was hard not to run by someone while grabbing food or something to drink, either within the confines of the stadium it was held in or in the diners around.
Cam hadn’t turned into a social butterfly, but I noticed how his demeanor changed when he started recognizing people from getting a flash of them eating with their boys or me introducing them when we happened to be at the same place.
“I’m glad you enjoyed your time here.” I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to be back with the horses.
The event was great, and I made a point to come every year, but damn.
It was the longest I spent surrounded by animals that were corralled or on a tight leash.
It made me antsy. “For the record, I’m glad you didn’t back down. ”
“You thought I was going to?”
I shrugged. Cam had his fingers on my chest, trailing shapes over the dark hairs there.
“It wouldn’t have shocked me if you did.
” There had to be a better place to talk about this than the bed we’d been sharing for the past couple of weeks, but I didn’t want to move just yet.
Cam was a fucking furnace, but oddly enough, I craved the heat.
“You were skittish around me. I wanted to keep you around, but…”
It wasn’t often I didn’t know how to finish a sentence, but I wasn’t used to talking like this, either. It had been a long time, that was for sure. Cam was still skittish, too, even if it took a different shape.
“I’m sorry.” Cam averted his gaze. “I know I wasn’t great. First impressions aren’t my thing.”
“You’re fine, Cam.” It was an understatement. There was only so much I could put on the line. “Everyone’s going to bug you about that chili of yours now, though.”
Dwight had already heard about it. He’d only come a couple of years I couldn’t make it, or we needed an extra set of hands because we knew of an animal or two we were bringing back with us, but he’d left an impression.
That impression translated into others texting him about our new vet getting the prize for Best Chili right away.
“Um. That’s fine.”
The sheer panic in his face belied the words spilling out of his mouth.
I sighed. There was a long road ahead of him before he started settling in his own skin, wasn’t there?
“What do you want to do when we get back to the sanctuary?”
It was as good of a place to start that road as any.
Cam shifted so that he was lying on his side, hands tucked under the pillow.
His hair swooped over his forehead. It wasn’t so long it would get on the way, but I still itched to move it away.
“Um, more of this? If you want to. I know we’re moving slow by anyone’s standards, and you probably want more than I’m doing, and… ”
I definitely wanted more of this, with none of Cam’s apparent concerns about pacing. I was just aware of the thin line between keeping him invested and having him run away.
“If we keep this up, there will be rules.”
Cam gulped. “What rules?”
Case in point.
“For starters…” It was a good thing I’d been thinking about this all night after he slumped down on the bed and made it clear he was out to the world.
The way he fell asleep in all but two seconds rivaled that of all ranch hands I’d ever met and their ability to fall asleep on their feet with little prompting needed.
“No badmouthing yourself. You are going to take your days off seriously, too. And you’re going to make time to decompress as a Little, darlin’. ”
“Um.” Cam bit his bottom lip. “I could be persuaded to do that. If…”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Two weeks in, and you’re already bartering?”
His face said he wasn’t joking, but I wanted to keep the pressure off, to give him something to alleviate what had to be anxiety rising.
“Maybe? But I mean…” He tried to, but he was barely able to hold my gaze for longer than a second.
I didn’t want to grab his chin and force him.
Not when he already looked like he was pushing himself beyond his limit.
“I-I know you’re going to call me out for being a bleeding heart, and like, I’m a vet, I know I can’t keep every animal I help, but Sofía has been keeping me on the loop on Golden and the pups, and they’re still in the sanctuary, and can we keep them?
Everything is fenced, and we work long hours, but they’d be together, and there’s a lot of space in the yard of the main house, and we can even have one of those food bowls that you can schedule with an app.
Or something? I mean, I can also do it? The house isn’t that far from the vet lair.
I can take Mercury with me and go back and forth in no time, and they’d be healthy and free, and I have so much money I’m not using so I can cover all their food and toys and blankets and beds. ”
I kept waiting for him to go on, to speak even faster until all his words were distorted, but he stopped abruptly, blinking up at me with flushed cheeks and parted lips.
“You are a bleeding heart.” I hummed. I’d gotten a feeling that he’d struggle to let the pups go.
I’d thought about addressing it at some point, but Saddle Up had taken so much of my time, I’d forgotten.
I definitely hadn’t expected him to speak up about it or ask me shit.
I should have, though. He might struggle in every other area, but for months, he’d already proved the struggle disappeared when an animal’s well-being was on the line.
“And you’re not going to hear the end of it. But we can keep the mutts.”
“We can?!”
He sat up in no time, bouncing on the bed. He stopped himself two seconds after, but I’d caught on. When was the last time he’d been Little outside of aftercare with me in Damian’s basement?
“Yeah.” I tried to sound put out by it, but he had a point.
We weren’t equipped to have dogs around, but everything was fenced, as he’d said, and there would be plenty of space for the dogs to not get bored. It wouldn’t dip into the sanctuary’s bank account either if he was the one signing on the adoption and covering the cost.
“Eep!” Another bounce on the bed. “Please tell me I can suck you off now.”
I huffed. “We’re already late, darlin’.”
Not that my body got the memo, my thighs tensing and my cock thickening under his watch.
I didn’t think the sheets did a good enough job covering it, either.
“I can be fast, Daddy. If you can’t, sounds like skill issues to me.”
“Keep trying your luck, boy.”
Fuck, I couldn’t stop imagining him bent over my lap, releasing all kinds of whimpering sounds as I turned his ass a dark shade of red.
It was too soon, too fast, too inappropriate for the way our dynamic was shaping up to be.
To distract myself, I lunged for him, my hand tugging the back of his neck to push him down against my cock as I used my feet to kick the sheets away.
“Thank you, Daddy!”
The cheerfulness didn’t completely erase how he skimmed the line or the far-from-innocent thoughts filling me.
It made it way too easy to push into his throat, though, to keep his head still while I lazily fucked his mouth before amping up the speed and force behind each thrust. He kept his fingers curled around my thighs, his tongue grabbing every opportunity to twirl around my head or press against my underside.
Keeping him still so that he swallowed every drop of cum I spilled down his throat was worth having to get our breakfast to go because we were past the hotel’s breakfast time.
It was extra worth it when it gave Cam that dopey smile that he kept through the first hour of being in the truck and only faded because he proceeded to fall asleep against the window.
It was a sweet sight. Sadly, it wasn’t one that kept my head from spinning.
I’d been the one setting tentative rules.
He’d been the one to say he grew attached quickly, that he was bad at pretending things hadn’t happened when they had, and at first, the words had brought relief to every pore of my skin.
Now, I had to question it. I had to question how he was going to cope with everyone’s teasing, with everyone’s looks because they’d all be thinking about Roy.
I’d warned him about it, told him the gist of it, but was it enough?