Epilogue #2
No, it was the reminder of why I hadn’t gone to ride with them the day before.
Yeah, fear of me getting a bruise had definitely not been it.
If anything, it had been more of a case of him knowing that I’d stubbornly do it even when my backside was an almost even deep purple, end up crying in the middle of the trail, and just die of mortification having to explain why.
“Uh-huh.”
Of course, Dwight wasn’t done. He even added some eyebrow waggling to it for some kind of… effect. It just made it hard not to giggle and slip into Little mode when I was already almost there with the thought of my date with Daddy.
“Now we both know that’s not true.”
Yeah. Daddy complained about my poker face, but I should complain more about his mouth.
Sure, it had been years ago, before he’d even known of my existence.
It didn’t matter.
I swallowed before I could turn to face Dwight. “Jealous?”
The look on his face made the effort to not implode totally worth it.
Daddy was going to be so proud of me when I told him, too. He’d been the one to give me the idea to say that.
Maybe I didn’t mind his mouth so much after all.
“Daddy!”
Long were the days when I was too shy to be properly Little around him. Or when I froze with fear that he’d change his mind or I’d become too much. Or even that someone would hear.
Obviously, I didn’t want them to hear—they wouldn’t have consented to it—but it wasn’t born of shame for who I was and what I wanted, and that made a difference. A bigger one than I’d thought, actually.
Anyway, now I only had thoughts for the man feeding his mare—he seriously was going to end up giving her a cavity or worse with all the apple pieces he gave her.
And I was certain he overfed her even more than he told us.
It was the same man who turned his whole body my way and crashed his mouth into mine, apple be damned, so I supposed I could forgive him.
Sofía could he in charge of reaping him a new one if she wanted.
“Good day?” he asked.
He always asked after a therapy appointment. It was cute. He knew therapy was between Dr Blaire and I, and it wasn’t like he fished for details or demanded anything. He didn’t even ask about therapy outright, but he always fretted more after.
“Yep!” No way was I going to tell him about how not ready I was to graduate.
He knew, anyway. And he still dealt with me, even though I wasn’t supposed to think about it in those terms. Whatever.
Therapy time was over. “The hands are taking bets again. And Dwight wants to know what’s gotten into you. ”
Daddy grumbled something I didn’t quite catch before rolling his eyes. I would roll mine in return, because Daddies could be so silly, and everyone knew he wasn’t actually bothered by the scheming or the nosiness, but apparently, eye rolling was reserved for grown-ups. Whatever.
“Do you want to know what’s gotten into me?”
“Um.” I gaped. “Has something gotten into you? Because I thought it was just Dwight talking out of his ass. He kinda does that a lot, no hate.”
My rambling—because what if I was misinterpreted and Daddy thought I had issues with Dwight?
He didn’t talk much about Roy now, after the first few weeks when he kept worrying and comparing and all that stuff, but I didn’t want him to fall back into it because he started wondering if I was doing the same thing Roy did, where he said people didn’t like him or he didn’t like them or whatever else.
Sure, Daddy wasn’t the one who overthought things. I was that.
Whatever.
Daddy’s low chuckle got me out of my thoughts. “I might have been more in my head. Snappier. Although I wasn’t the one who kept fucking up and doing a shit job of mucking the stalls.”
I was not going to say that Daddy complained a whole lot about everyone’s mucking skills, and I hadn’t seen an issue with it any of the times he’d tried to prove his point.
Some of the volunteers at the vet lair helped out a bit with the horses when they didn’t have anything else to do.
More than half of them were scared to death of him.
I found it funny. I didn’t tell either Daddy or the volunteers that.
Survival skills were a marvelous thing.
“Okay…” I spoke slowly. Speaking slowly was what smart people did to prove they were smarter. Or something. It felt hella condescending, though. Maybe I shouldn’t do it. Huh. Back to speaking normally. “Um. So what’s gotten into you, Daddy?”
Daddy took a deep breath, shoulders reaching his ears before he lowered them again. Watching him anxious was disconcerting as fuck. “Remember what I told you about the deal with the kink club?”
“Uh-huh.”
After all the times he’d tried to push me to meet up with the Littles there, I had had the incredibly smart moment of pointing out he could reach out to them if it was so important to him.
There was a high chance I’d added more brattiness to the words, but the point was, he had done it, and no one had hated him as badly as he’d thought they would.
To the point where he now had a contract of some sort with them to provide them with new paddles, and floggers, and leather gear, and furniture.
It made Daddy happy and gave us another sneaky source of income that meant delaying his dad’s petting zoo idea further.
“Next week, you’re moving your free day to Friday.”
I blinked. “I am?”
What did that have to do with—
Daddy nodded. He shifted his hold on Swiftheart’s bridle so that he could move closer to me without his mare choosing to take off somewhere. She didn’t run, but one of the new horses was being a bad influence on her already independent streak.
If he didn’t love the other horse—and all other horses, really—I was of half a mind that he would’ve found a reason to not board him in or send him somewhere else by now.
Alas, he had a soft spot for them, and now Swiftheart provided more of an interesting riding experience.
“You are.” I forgave him all the assumptions and lowkey cocky attitude because he finished it up with a forehead kiss.
I might still be a bit embarrassed about how warm and gooey they made me feel, and Daddy was forbidden to do any of that where everyone could see, but forehead kisses were just superior.
“I already talked with Sofía and she said you could take the day.”
“I didn’t know she was my boss now.”
Did I grumble for the sake of it? Of course I did.
Mercury picked that moment to nudge my shoulder. We were going to pretend he didn’t almost propel me forward.
Look, I would never say a bad word about an animal. I wouldn’t.
That said, Mercury was a brute. A loving brute, but the poor stallion had no idea how strong he actually was. It was a shock to everyone—fine, to me—that he hadn’t thrown me off his back by accident yet.
“But it’s the first thing you would’ve told me if I hadn’t thought ahead,” he pointed out. It worked to get me out of my head. It sucked because he had a point, then. “So. Friday. You and me. Now ask me why.”
“Huh?” Was it me, or had Daddy spoken faster than usual? I moved closer. Mercury didn’t budge, but it was fine. His bridle was long enough, and Daddy had already done most of the work to cut the distance between us. “Um. I mean. Why, Daddy?”
Was that sweat on the sides of his face? Sure, Daddy sweated a lot regardless of the weather, because manual labor, so I was probably reading into this, but… Was he nervous?
He was never nervous. I didn’t know what to do with a nervous Daddy. They didn’t teach you that in Age Play School. Or anywhere.
Oh, shit.
Maybe I should find an excuse to move away and text Kara. She had more experience with long-term relationships. Well, with one. I wasn’t counting the abusive ex. But like, there was more of a chance that she’d experienced this.
Right?
Of course, finding that excuse would be hard to achieve when it was just the two of us and the horses, and no real place to hide.
Ugh.
I supposed I could teach Mercury to feign some kind of emergency that meant we had to run back to the stables. But… That would worry Daddy so much, and he’d follow me anyway.
Shit.
No one warned you about this when you decided to uproot your entire life to live in an isolated animal refuge.
“Because we’re visiting the club.”
“Um. Okay? Why?”
We didn’t go there. Well, Daddy had gone a few times these past couple of months to take measurements and discuss things with the Dungeon Masters, but I was more than fine staying in the sanctuary, thank you very much.
“Because I told you I want to mark you the first day. That hasn’t changed.”
He grimaced, tongue darting out to his lip. I was usually the one who did that because my thoughts ran faster than my mouth. This was all very disturbing.
Oh, shit.
Was this how people felt around me? Was that why people kept their distance? Well, why they had kept it at the beginning? I couldn’t say I blamed them. Part of me wanted to run for the hills just so that I didn’t have to figure out how I could help. If I could.
Could I?
“Um. Please make some sense.”
Was that good? Too pushy? Not enough?
Shit, I was being selfish, wasn’t I? Putting my need for comfort over his or something—
“Breathe, darlin’.”
I did.
A big gulp of air that almost had me choking—it would have, if he hadn’t caught me. If the rumbly quality in his voice, in his command, wasn’t enough to soothe the building, stabbing pain in my chest.
“Okay.”
That was not the right thing to say, was it?
Daddy didn’t say, but he did push me closer to his chest, silencing my next attempt at an apology.
“I’ve made my peace with you staying out of kink spaces, darlin’.” Did he add more of that rumbling to his voice on purpose? I was not going to complain. “But I do want to collar you. And I don’t wanna do it here where someone can call with an emergency. Or where they won’t understand.”
“Um.” My brain whirled to a stop. Suddenly, his closeness was suffocating, and I needed space. Space to look into his eyes and pretend that I was better at reading people’s faces than I actually was. “Collar me?”
“Yes.” Daddy breathed out. “One of the Dungeon Masters has been helping me set it up. It’s all arranged. If you agree to it, of course.”
“Of course,” I repeated.
Part of me wanted to freak out because of how nonchalantly I’d just agreed to the kink equivalent of a proposal. Was it too fast for a collaring ceremony?
I didn’t know.
But I knew that I loved this, Daddy’s building and unfamiliar anxiety aside. I loved that he hadn’t asked me. That he knew. That he had subtly taken away the choice, just let me know of the plan.
I could work with plans.
I could definitely work with this plan—or any plan that made the ground around me more solid and the rope coiled around my chest looser.
“I love you, Daddy.”
The softest smile grazed the lips of the man who had redefined the meaning of safety for me. “And I love you, baby boy.”
Yeah.
He didn’t have to convince me of that.