Chapter 33 – Jace
Later that evening, Cassie and I went to check on the cattle in the east pasture.
Cassie rode on my horse while I rode on Colt’s.
She said she hadn’t ridden since she was a teenager but I couldn’t tell.
She hopped on the back of my horse like it was muscle memory.
She even remembered how to work the reins and knew how to be easy on the horse as we worked our way through two feet of snow.
Other than a couple of barbed-wire fences that had finally snapped in weak spots from the cold, everything seemed intact. The entire herd was holding up just fine. Colt had put out a few extra bales of hay for them, so they’d be set until the snow let up.
While Cassie and I were making our rounds, my phone lit up with an alert.
Blizzard Warning.
In about an hour, this entire field was going to be nothing but snow blasting in every direction. It would probably dump at least another foot on the ground.
“We’d better head back, sugar,” I said, motioning toward the horse stables. “Weather man says it’ll be blizzard conditions in about an hour. We get caught up in that and we’re liable to freeze to death out here.”
I turned the reins so my horse would get moving.
Cassie followed behind me, trudging through the snow as fast as the horses would allow.
I could tell she was getting cold, even if she was too hard-headed to admit it.
She was shaking, even with all the layers I’d convinced her to wear.
The tip of her nose and her cheeks were matching shades of cherry red.
As soon as we stepped onto the front porch, Cassie hurried through the door, basking in the warmth that the fire had filled the cabin with.
“That was way colder than I thought it was going to be,” she finally admitted, tugging her gloves off and rubbing her hands together.
“Next time I can just go by myself,” I said, pulling her into a warm hug. “But I have an idea to get us warmer faster.” I glanced toward the kitchen window that looked out onto the back porch.
“How in the world can the solution for getting warmer be outside?” she asked, laughing as she tried to peek over my shoulder. She was too short to see past me though.
“Because before we left, I turned on my hot tub. Gave it time to warm up. Should be ready for us now,” I said, stepping aside so Cassie could get a better look.
“I don’t have a bathing suit, Jace. Most people don’t wear those to Thanksgiving dinners, you know?”
“Who says you have to wear a bathing suit? It’s my hot tub, which means it’s my rules. And rule number one in Jace’s hot tub was just adopted.” I held both hands up like I had no control over the matter—even though I absolutely did. “If Cassie Blake is in the hot tub, she must be naked.”
“Rule number one, huh?” she repeated, giving me a teasing smile. We stood there for a moment longer, staring at each other.
“Where’s my towel?” she said, holding out her palm.
“Grab one from the linen closet. I’ll meet you out there in a minute after I get my wet clothes off,” I said, slapping Cassie on the ass as she walked away, causing a faint yelp to come from her mouth.
After slipping out of my work clothes and into some swim trunks, I headed for the back porch. Cassie was already in the hot tub, shoulder-deep in the water. Steam curled up around her, the heat meeting the icy air as the blizzard swept over McKinley Ranch.
Her hair was piled into a loose bun, a few strands falling freely around her face. The sight of her sitting in my hot tub struck me hard enough to burn itself into my memory. Under the moonlight––and just like every other moment of the day—she looked beautiful.
“Dang, you got in before me,” I said, giving her an exaggerated frown. “I was hoping for a show tonight.”
Cassie laughed as I slid into the hot water beside her.
“Wouldn’t you like that,” she teased, stirring the water with her hands. The small motion was just enough to push her chest together, revealing the top of her cleavage—the same cleavage I’d worshiped last night, again and again.
“You’ve got your own slice of heaven out here, you know?” Cassie said, taking in the snowstorm and the glow of the full moon sitting at the peak of the mountains off in the distance.
“Yeah, there’s no place I’d rather be than Silver Creek,” I admitted, the memories I’d made growing up here playing back through my mind.
“I’m sure you managed to get into trouble all the time growing up.”
“Way more than you can imagine. All three of us McKinleys definitely kept my parents on their toes,” I laughed, thinking back to the chaos we caused as kids—and especially as teenagers.
“One summer, Colt and I were riding around the pastures, just trying to kill time.
When we rode over to the lake, we were thinking about jumping in while sitting on the dock, talking.
Out of nowhere, a bear came strolling out of the tree line, walking straight towards us.
Colt and I combined our two brain cells and decided the best plan was to charge at it, thinking it would scare the bear off.
“It didn’t. It only got madder—turns out its cub was behind it, munching on some berries. The bear came barreling at us full speed. We sprinted to our horses, barely making it on them in time. Our adrenaline was through the roof.
“Looking back now, it’s hilarious. At the time, we were certain we were about to be bear food. We decided not to tell our parents about that one. They might’ve made us stop riding out in the pastures alone and then we really would’ve been bored all summer long.”
Cassie just continued to smile and shake her head.
“I’m sure you were a good kid growing up,” I said, my mind drifting to what her childhood might have been like. Based on what little I knew, she probably had a lot of freedom—maybe too much.
“I kind of had no choice,” she said, exhaling slowly. “I was basically on my own since kindergarten. My mom spent most of her time at other people’s houses—her boyfriend-of-the-week, or some abandoned house she was crashing at, trying to score cheap drugs.”
“Who watched you when she was gone?” I asked, frustration bubbling at the thought of her rough start.
“Luckily, I had an elderly neighbor, Carol. She was retired, so she was home most of the time to secretly look after me whenever my mom wasn’t around. Honestly, I’m not sure why Carol never called CPS. She probably knew that sometimes foster care isn’t much better than what I had.
“Instead, she’d bring me groceries every week. Sometimes she’d throw in little extras—coloring books, fresh crayons, markers. She’s probably the only reason I didn’t go hungry most nights.”
I nodded, thinking about my own childhood and how different hers and I had been.
She perked up, trying to lighten the mood. “Enough about my shitty childhood. Why don’t we do something else… like play Never Have I Ever?” she said, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips.
“You start,” I said, nodding toward her. She thought for a moment before saying, “Never have I ever broken a bone.”
“That’s not fair. You know I have to put my finger down––because you’re the one who broke the bone.”
She giggled as I splashed water at her playfully, her cheeks glowing under the moonlight. “Your turn.”
“Alright. Never have I ever run someone over with my car.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “This game isn’t very fair if we’re asking things we already know about each other.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s switch it up.” I leaned back, pretending to think. “Never have I ever had sex in a hot tub.”
I watched her closely to see if she’d put a finger down. She didn’t.
Cassie lifted her chin, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “Alright, my turn.”
She dragged her fingers through the water, letting them brush against my knee before she leaned in a little closer.
“Never have I ever,” she said, voice dropping to a soft tease, “wanted to have sex in a hot tub with the person sitting right next to me.”
My heartbeat kicked up as I put my finger down. Cassie put hers down at the same time.
“Interesting,” she whispered.
“Never have I ever had sex in this hot tub with a smoking hot redhead named Cassie,” I said, keeping all my remaining fingers up.
She pushed herself away from the wall and drifted closer, the water rippling between us, her body now just inches from mine.
“Funny enough,” she murmured, lips curving into a wicked smile, “I’m a redhead. And my name is Cassie. So if you want to put a finger down the next time you play this game,” she leaned in, biting her lip. “Just say the word. I can make that happen.”
She leaned even closer, both hands on either side of my hips now.
“Let’s play a new game,” she said, the thin wall of steam the only thing separating us. “Truth or dare? I’ll go first. Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” I said, grinning.
“I dare you to stand up,” she said, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Stand up? That’s it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yep.”
I rose, the water-level now at my knees. I was about to ask her truth or dare when she leaned in closer, her warm body just close enough to mine to make my heart start to race.
In one swift motion, she pulled my trunks down, my cock springing out of the fabric. With every inch Cassie had closed in on me, it grew harder and harder.
She whispered with a sly smile, “I think I’m bored of this game. I have a better idea,” she announced, licking her lips. She was eye level with the part of my body that ached painfully––an ache only she could fix.
She rose out of the water slightly, wrapping her palm firmly around my rock-hard cock, twisting her hand back and forth, finally releasing a small amount of pain that had built up. I leaned my head back, letting out a sigh of relief.
“This is what you needed, wasn’t it, Jace?”
“Yes, sugar,” I replied with a breathy moan, threading her hair through my fingers, tugging gently.
Her breasts were out of the water now, glistening in the moonlight. As I stood there admiring her taut nipples, she licked her lips, then the tip of my cock, almost sending me over the edge in a matter of seconds. My knees buckled, my entire body almost letting go completely.
When she wrapped her mouth around my cock, the tip hitting the back of her throat, I knew I had died and gone to heaven.
“Cassie…” I moaned, her mouth tightening harder around me was her only response. She kept sucking, clearly enjoying every second of this just as much as I did.
I held on to her hair tighter. It felt like it was the only thing keeping me from floating away, pleasure filling up inside of me like air in a balloon.
“Baby, I’m close,” I said, looking down at her in case she wanted to stop. But she didn’t stop for even a second, only gripped my thigh tighter, taking me deeper in her throat then I thought possible.
She looked up, giving me the neediest eyes I had ever seen. Cassie Blake wanted me in more ways than one and she was absolutely going to get everything she wanted as far as I was concerned.
I gripped her hair with both hands now, making her take me deeper, faster. She opened her mouth wider, my tip smashing with the back of her throat. She sucked even harder as my hot seed collided with the back of her throat. I could see the muscles in her neck flex as she swallowed every last drop.
When she finally pulled away, I fell back down into the water, completely spent. She positioned herself on my lap now, placing soft kisses along my collar bone.
“Cassie… baby…”
“Never have I ever sucked Jace McKinley’s massive dick,” she said playfully, putting a finger down proudly.