Pining for Payne (Submissives of Rawhide Ranch #29)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Thorin

“Man, this feels like being back on the bench outside of Mr. Zebroski’s office waiting for him to assign us to oversee another round of mutton busting.”

Glancing over at Wylde confirmed he did look as nervous as he had our sophomore year when we’d let our competitiveness get the best of us during a game of Yuki-Ball and wound up hurting one of our classmates.

“You just had to go there, didn’t you?” I muttered, heaving a sigh as I shook my head at him.

“If there were an adult version of that moment, this would be it.”

“So, the question now is, what did you do, and why am I being dragged into it?”

“Wouldn’t a better question be: why do you always assume it was something I did?” Wylde asked, an unruly lock of chestnut hair hanging in his eyes, the same way it had years ago.

This bench was no more comfortable than that one had been.

Then again, neither was the memory it brought up from back then.

Back almost twenty years ago when we’d been all of sixteen and I’d wanted nothing more than for him to remove himself from my sphere of existence and find someone else to annoy with his golden retriever personality and mossy, beseeching gaze.

Whipping bean bags at him during Yuki-Ball, my sole goal was to knock the adorably bewildered look off his face as he ducked, dodged, leaped, crouched, and spun his way past the maze of barricades that had been erected on the gym floor.

While our class had been divided into teams for what was basically an indoor mix of a snowball fight and capture the flag, the only one I’d dialed in on was him.

In my mind, it was a game of one-on-one that I wasn’t going to let him win.

But had he noticed that I’d declared war against him?

Of course not.

Every time I went after him, he just shot me this look like he didn’t understand why he was my target, while I kept missing like there was an invisible force field around him or some kind of shield of protection.

He winked at me when he captured the flag, slowly smirking in that hesitantly flirty way of his that always caught me off guard and left me wondering if he knew what he was doing to me.

Confusing.

The older we got, the more he confounded the hell out of me.

Every time I thought I knew what his intentions were, he turned around and flipped the script on me.

Being around him was like having one foot in quicksand and the other in a mud puddle.

I was either sinking or slipping, and I didn’t like the feeling of either.

When that new round of Yuki-Ball started, I redoubled my efforts to keep him away from the flag, only to have him spin at the last minute, my beanbag cracking Jimmy Green so hard he staggered, arms windmilling before he hit the ground, clutching his cheek and nose, where the beanbag had smacked him.

At barely five feet, he was the smallest person out there, and so not the target I’d been aiming for when I’d thrown it that hard.

He wasn’t the only one on the floor either.

Wylde’s recklessly evasive spin had sent him slamming into another of our classmates.

I couldn’t remember his name, but he was rolling around clutching the back of his head, while Wylde stood there with a red flush spreading across the bridge of his nose.

One look at our gym teacher’s face and there was no doubt we’d earned ourselves a trip to the principal’s office.

Knee bouncing up and down, I turned to shoot a glare down the bench at Wylde, stunned to see those inquisitive green eyes trained on me. “Do you have to show off everywhere you go?”

“Been told I have a knack for it,” Wylde shot back.

“When you see whoever it was that fed you that line of bullshit again, tell them your ego doesn’t need feeding.”

“Had to do something to avoid those fastballs you were chucking at me. Nice job picking Draven off. That was some phenomenal throwing right there. The look on his face when he spun around and caught one right on the chin was priceless.”

The snicker slipped out before I could rein it in and, of course, it came just as Mr. Zebroski stepped out of his office.

“I’m glad you find it amusing to have sent two of your classmates to the nurse’s office,” Mr. Zebroski said, scowling at us. “Now get in here so I can deal with you two before the next mess lands on my doorstep.”

Resigned, we trudged past him, and I could have sworn I heard the man mutter ‘I’m getting too old for this shit’.

“Let’s cut to the chase, gentlemen,” Mr. Zebroski said, “because I’ve already heard all about what took place in gym class, and the way you two interrupted a history lesson with an inspired, though heated, debate on who was responsible for the Lincoln County War.

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm, your competitiveness is getting out of hand and affecting your classmates, which we can’t have here, so I’ve got a special assignment for the two of you.

Since you’ve proven that you excel at teaming up to cause chaos, let’s see how you fare when tasked with keeping it from taking place. ”

“I-I’m a little behind on a few assignments, Sir,” Wylde replied. “I-I don’t really know if I can fit another one into my schedule right now.”

“You’ll figure it out, or you’ll both spend the next two weeks in detention after school, which I’m sure will interfere with your training time for the upcoming junior rodeo.”

Shit. Score one for Mr. Zebroski. Growing up in a small town was awesome, but one of the disadvantages of everyone knowing everyone was the way our lives intertwined.

Mr. Zebroski wasn’t just the principal of the high school; he was also the vice president of the high school Junior Rodeo Association and a member of the fair board.

Whatever this assignment was, there was no way we were getting out of it.

One glance over at Wylde, and the “oh, shit” look on his face, and I could tell he knew it too.

“Now, as I was saying,” Mr. Zebroski continued, “we’ve been struggling to find volunteers for the Tiny Tykes Mutton Busting event to kick off the rodeo, and that, gentlemen, will be your assignment. To assist Mr. MacMasters with the kids and ensuring that it goes off without a hitch.”

When I’d seen the signup sheet, I’d immediately veered left and headed for the water cooler. Sheep I could deal with. Excited little kids eager to ride on the back of one? That was a hard no, thank you very much.

“So, which will it be? Detention or mutton busting?”

“I’ll take neither, Alex,” was right on the tip of my tongue, which I had to bite to keep from saying out loud.

“Oh man, mutton busting? I’d have signed up to help with that,” Wylde declared. “That’s how I knew I wanted to ride bulls.”

Groaning, I slapped a hand to my face and bit back a curse. Of course he was all for it. Golden retriever energy and all.

“Thorin?”

“Mutton busting,” I muttered.

“Good. Glad that’s settled. Now get to class, and if you can’t get along, then stay away from each other.

I don’t want to hear about another incident between you of any kind, which includes gross-out contests, ice-cream sandwich eating contests, or who can stand barefoot in a bucket of ice water the longest. No more, gentlemen, at least not on school grounds. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” Wylde replied, though that cocky little smirk was back.

And why wouldn’t it be when he beat me in every instance, including a few Mr. Zebroski hopefully didn’t know about.

“Understood, Sir,” I reluctantly replied.

“Good, now git.”

We scrambled out of there like our tails were on fire, and because the universe hated me, we headed down the hall to the very history class in which our Lincoln County War debate had taken place.

Brooding, I couldn’t stop thinking about the last mutton busting event, which I’d watched from my seat in the stands beside the podium, safely away from the chaos of twenty-five little kids dressed in helmets and vests.

Now I was going to be right in the thick of it with no clue how anyone was supposed to keep that many five to seven-year-olds organized.

Meanwhile Wylde snickered and chuckled his way down the hall like we hadn’t just been handed a nightmarish mess of epic proportions to contend with.

“It’s not funny,” I snapped.

“It’s a little funny. He could have made us write a paper on the pitfalls of being overly competitive or the dangers of pegging your classmates in the face with a bean bag.”

Growling, I rounded on him, crowding him back against the lockers and staring him dead in those mossy green eyes. “Why is everything a joke to you?”

“Why you gotta be so serious about everything?”

He flicked his tongue out, licking it over his upper lip and cocked his head while I leaned in closer.

I had a million answers and a list of dreams and ambitions I could have rattled off.

Instead of spitting out words, my mouth decided it would rather be pressed against his, and damn if he didn’t open up and meet me in the fiercest battle of tongues I’d ever engaged in.

The locker behind him rattled when I slammed him against it, pinning him in place, my chest against his, his fingers tangled in my hair, our moans mingling as we made out right there in the hallway.

He was still smirking when I broke the kiss, stepped back and grumbled about him being a menace. Smirking every other time we locked gazes that afternoon, too. Every smirk showing off that dimple in his left cheek, damn him.

The rattle of the door opening drew me back to the present as a blonde girl with splotchy red cheeks scurried out of Derek’s office, rubbing her backside. I’d seen her refilling implement cabinets. She was one of the service subs, though I couldn’t recall her name.

“Thorin and Wylde, you can come on in.”

Wylde hummed a few bars of “Star Wars Imperial March” as we stood, and dammit all, I struggled to rein in a snicker.

Beautiful artwork adorned the office walls, including a depiction of the Ranch in its early years and two men whose looks spoke of their definite familial relation to Derek.

“Thanks for stopping in. I know you guys have things to do today, so I’ll keep it brief.

We received an application from a service sub that was accompanied by a rather unique request. He wants to come to Rawhide as a mail-order housekeeper and live out that fantasy while he learns more about the Ranch and decides if he’d like to become a permanent addition.

He’s twenty-five and his former employment was as a personal attendant, with all the duties that entailed.

In fact, his former employer was the one to recommend the Ranch to him, as he was a frequent visitor before his day job made visiting a challenge for him. ”

“And you’d like us to be his hosts?” I asked. “Our place isn’t messy enough to need a housekeeper.”

“Yet,” Wylde muttered.

Derek’s lips quirked like he was trying not to laugh as he shook his head at us.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to move some of your state of upheaval to one of the guest cabins by the time he arrives on Friday morning,” Derek said.

“I’ve got his folder here, which includes his preferences and very detailed requests.

Once you start going through it, you’ll understand why I’m asking you two to take care of him during his stay. ”

“I’m game,” Wylde said.

“If you think we’re the right hosts for him, then we’d be happy to see to his needs,” I replied.

“Thank you; that’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say,” Derek replied, passing me the folder.

A busy man, and highly respected Dom, he was never one to mince words.

I’d known that when I’d come to work for him at the Ranch as a sort of jack of all trades.

He knew me and Wylde’s history and had questioned me at length about my intentions when I’d asked for Wylde to join me after a train wreck of a bull ride had left him nursing an injured shoulder and busted-up ribs.

At the time, I’d described our relationship as being under repair, and in some ways it still was.

But we’d more than proven how well we could work together to either help erect a temporary dance platform for one of the Littles’ events or to take down a needy sub and ensure they received everything they asked for in a scene.

We left him to whatever was next on his schedule, Wylde whistling “Hakuna Matata” as soon as we left the office, still with that golden retriever energy I’d fallen in love with two decades ago.