Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Her hand fits against mine with ease, like it belongs there. But that’s how it all feels with Riley. I got no business saying that, seeing as how this is our first date and we haven’t known each other that long. If I don’t say it, it doesn’t change that it’s true. But her eyes are heavy with unspoken cares and concerns, all of which I want to hear and help solve. I wanted to before we had sex, but I want to even more now.
I questioned if she’d bail when I showed her my cabinet full of things I’ve made. I even started to concoct some version of the truth to use on Jo Jo if this all trickled out. Small towns are like that.
But Riley Rivers is a natural submissive to my born dominance. She’s comfortable being that way, and embracing that lifestyle. I hear it in her words and I feel it in her body, the way she melts for me, waits for me, desires me.
It’s the exact thing I wanted to feel, wondered if it was real, and longed for while making these toys. So many long lost and ignored urges pent up inside after what feels like a lifetime of solitude. Being a single father who does not date isn’t for the faint of heart. Loneliness penetrates even the biggest of muscles.
I had to simmer and stew over all the desires that pooled in my veins, knowing I wouldn’t be able to explore or exercise any of it for years. I always said I’d never date when Jo Jo was a kid. I didn’t want the instability for her. And eventually that stuck.
My urges, my desires, and my deepest needs as a man who enjoys pain and power exchange—they grew. They took form inside me, and I think they drove me to Riley in some way. I almost have to believe that because the idea of meeting a gorgeous woman who loves my daughter and wants to give herself over to me–that sounds too good to be anything but divine. Fate. God at work.
After a few minutes of silence, where I stroke my fingers along her palm and give her time to think, she sighs.
“Thank you for, you know, just letting me think for a second.”
“I’ve got nowhere to be,” I tell her, and then when I think of actually having to be somewhere else, my body tenses. How can her being here feel so natural so soon? Not even her being here but her and I .
“That was incredible. That was, I don’t know,” she admits, twisting to look up at me again. “It felt like…” She presses her hands to her lower belly, shaking her head slowly, as if she still can’t explain it, but my gut burns because I know exactly what she’s feeling. I feel it, too. “Doing and behaving exactly how I feel. Literally not allowing myself to think what if, or, I don’t know, put up any barriers between exactly what I want and getting it.” Her eyes swim, searching mine before she adds, “I wanted you to inflict pain. To use me. To make me feel pain and pleasure all at once. I wanted that in a way that I didn’t even realize existed until I met you—and it’s easy. So, when you asked me if I was okay, I didn’t wanna say oh, hey, that was actually what I’ve been unknowingly searching for my whole life because that’s… not what men want to hear on the first date.”
At those words, and at the adorable way she nervously bumbles through them, I laugh. “No, it’s probably not.” My laughter subsides. “But I like hearing it, even now, just retrospectively.”
Her smile slips into something more serious, and I take a moment to appreciate her effortless beauty.
“You’re the first person I used those with or… did that with,” I admit.
She lifts a hand, stroking her fingers along my scalp. A tingle runs down my spine, giving way to tightness in my groin. “You told me that, remember?”
My eyes fall to her lips, but I refrain from kissing her so that we can talk. “Yeah,” I remember, “I did. All I mean to say is, you’re the first woman—first since Janie. Period.”
She stills her hand, and her eyes intensely hold mine. “What? Seriously? No one-night stands in ten years? No sex for ten years?”
I shake my head, confirming my ten years of celibacy .
Her eyes open wide. “No way.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t lie about that.” I shrug. “I didn’t want to welcome instability into Jo Jo’s life, so I never dated. I never wanted to sleep with someone just for one night, so I didn’t sleep with anyone. Until you.”
“You’re the hottest and most fuckable cowboy in Bluebell,” she says, breaking into soft laughter halfway through.
I roll my eyes. “Stop.”
She laughs a little harder, her cheeks growing pink. She’s gorgeous when she’s stuffed full of me, but when she’s laughing at me, too? There isn’t a single way Riley Rivers isn’t gorgeous. “No, I’m serious. It’s a thing. And I didn’t make it up. Sadly.”
My eyes drop to her lips, tracing the arch of her cupid’s bow as I remember how those lips looked wrapped around my dick. “Kinda wish you did. Then I’d know how you felt about me for sure.”
She smiles and my cock grows heavy and happy beneath the sheet. “I’m naked in your bed on our first date, and I already told you all about my ex boyfriend. I think it’s pretty clear,” she says, drawing it out, “I hate your guts.”
I nod. “Clearly.”
She sits up, letting the sheet fall away, casually exposing her naked breasts. She doesn’t seem to register or care that she’s nude as she claps her hands together, eyes growing wide. “Oh my gosh, you know what sounds so good? Ice cream.”
I yank the sheet back hastily, exposing us both from the waist down. She shakes her head, letting out a heavy sigh. “God your dick is big.”
I toss her my robe. “I have chocolate brownie and raspberry cheesecake ice cream.” I take a spare robe from my closet and slip into it, and she follows me down the hall. I like the soft patter of our bare feet, sluggish along the hardwood after intense love-making.
I mean, fucking .
“Do you know it’s big? Like, I don’t know how guys are growing up or how men are in general, because why would I, but like, you do know it’s really big, right?” she says, sliding onto a barstool in my kitchen as I flip on another set of lights.
I scratch the back of my head after yanking open the fridge. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
She slaps her palms against the marble, a strand of her flaxen hair breaking loose from behind her ear. Her blue eyes are wide. “You’re fine talking about sex toys and submission but your big dick is off limits?”
I close the freezer door, bringing both gallon cartons with me. “It just feels strange to talk about. I don’t know. Do you go around talking about how perfect your breasts are?” I glance at them then back up at her. She smirks.
“I mean, haven’t other dudes seen you changing and been like, whoa, Jake has a third leg.” She shrugs. “I don’t know, but you get it.”
I level a serious glance her way. “I’m only ever saying this to you, and only this once.” Her smile grows. “And only because you—damn, I wanna give you whatever you ask for, you know that?”
She blushes. “Tell me.”
“I am aware that I am well-endowed. Janie was never with anyone but me, but in high school when I played football, well, the locker room made me aware.” Heat creeps up my spine.
Riley just shakes her head. “So well-endowed.”
I tip my head to the side, more than ready to move on. “Which ice cream?”
She eyes the labels. “Chocolate brownie. ”
I nod. “Good choice. That one’s mine. The other is Jo Jo’s.”
After filling two bowls, I take a seat next to her at the island, despite the fact that I never sit here otherwise. Jo Jo does, to do her homework or eat a bowl of cereal, but I never do. “Don’t freak out,” she starts, spooning a bite of chocolate brownie ice cream carefully.
“What?” I don’t take as much care, and have two spoonfuls down before she takes her first.
Around an open mouth she says, “We just had unprotected sex.”
Unprotected sex.
Jesus Christ. That’s the thing she teaches her students not to do. That’s the thing you’re trained your entire life not to do until you’re married. I shake my head, getting to my feet to collect her face in my hands. “Fuck, I cannot believe I… It’s just… it’s been so long,” I stammer, realizing I was so focused on the way she so naturally endured the toys, how she wanted to be with me in the intense way I wanted to be with her— “I forgot all about that. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous–” I drop my forehead to my hand, but she peels it away.
“It’s okay. I was tested six months ago when Michael and I broke up, and I’m on birth control.” She smiles. “The shot.”
I still can’t believe I did that. She’s– hell, I don't know how old she is but she’s young. Too young to deal with an accidental pregnancy at the hands of a lonely, sex-starved saddler. “I’m so sorry, Riley,” I admit, hoping she knows it’s true.
She pats my chair, and I sit back down next to her. “I didn’t remember either,” she admits. “It’s like, I’ve never had sex before where I didn’t think about it. Ever. But tonight, it didn’t cross my mind. Not until I sat down at the bar here and I felt you leak out, down my thigh. ”
I grip the edge of the counter and squeeze my eyes shut. “That is…” I let out a breath. “Wow.”
“It’s okay,” she promises. “I’ve been on the shot for the last six years. Never had a scare. We’re all good.” She continues eating her ice cream, but all I can focus on is the fact she just told me that my cum is dripping down her leg. That I filled her so full that I’m literally leaking from her, while she wears my robe and sits at my bar.
“What you just said is extremely hot and… I’m not used to hearing that stuff. It’s been so long.”
She nods, and I take a bite as she studies me. “Did you ever want to date? Obviously you’re a human so you had urges to have sex that you didn’t act on but was there ever anyone you wanted to date?”
I don’t have to think about this question at all. “No,” I answer easily.
“Never a dance instructor or school teacher or anything?” she prods, licking a string of creamy ice cream from the back of her spoon. My dick perks up.
“So the guy with the roses,” I start, and even though she was upset about her ex-boyfriend when she arrived, her energy has shifted. When I mention him, her face doesn’t flinch. “He’s insistent on not letting you go, huh?”
She nods. “It’s never going to happen. And when I say never, I don’t mean, never until he does x, y, and z to please me. I mean never. I mean I’d rather be single and have no kids and die alone than spend a single moment with Michael Rhodes.”
“Damn,” I say, slipping off the barstool to move around the kitchen, fixing us drinks. My eyes, though, never leave hers. “What happened?”
She takes her final spoonful as I hold up a bottle of wine. She nods and I pop the cork, filling two glasses. It’s different from what we had at dinner, and I don’t know if it’s good or not because I drink beer. I bought the wine for this date.
“Well, I told you how he and I grew up together, right?” she says, swirling the Merlot around her glass by the stem.
I nod, taking a sip.
“My parents always really wanted me to be with Michael, so when we got together when we were just kids, I thought that I wanted that, because they made it seem like Michael was the only guy I should want. But even from the start, I just, I don’t know. The spark wasn’t there, but the comfort was. And when you’re young, being comfortable and trusting someone is a huge part of it, you know?”
I nod. “It’s a lot of it. You can’t go on dates, you don’t have your own money. Dating in the beginning is really about friendship.”
“Right,” she nods, sipping her wine again. Her blonde hair spills over her shoulders, and the fluorescent lights paired with the white terry robe, she’s glowing at my bar, and even if she weren’t talking, I couldn’t tear my eyes away if I wanted to. “Anyway, fast forward to us being together for like… eight years.” She sets her wine glass down and gets lost in the marble pattern on the floor for a moment and when her eyes come back to mine, they’re disoriented slightly. Kind of dazed. Rueful. “I can’t believe I’m twenty-four and eight of those twenty-four years were spent thinking about Michael.”
“Twenty-four,” I repeat, letting out a low whistle. “I’ve got some years on you, Riley Rivers.”
She dances her brows. “I know and I like it, sir,” she purrs, smirking over the edge of her wine glass. I love that a moment ago she was contemplative and now she’s flirting with me. I can only hope I’m able to bring her happiness that way always. I love her flirtatious little grin, and her coy wink.
“Well, so, you two were together eight years,” I start, continuing her story because I wanna know how this moron fumbled Riley so greatly that she would rather be alone than be with him. She mentioned an STD test, so I’m starting to wonder if he cheated. “Tell me what happened, if you want to.”
Her eyes hold mine a moment longer than usual, seriousness widening her pupils. “Okay,” she finally says, tracing the rim of her wineglass with the tip of her finger. “Well, I started to feel smothered in Willowdale. My parents and his parents were hanging out all the time, and I could never just go to my parents’ house and complain about my boyfriend never doing the dishes or like, using my car and not filling it back up with gas. It sounds dumb, but sometimes I just wanted to see my parents without his parents around. And he was always working. He works in marketing and pawned me off on our parents all the time when he skipped dinners for work obligations,” she says, tossing quotes around the word as if it was alleged.
“There was always some big account, something great coming next and then we’d finally spend more time together.” She chews at the inside of her cheek a minute before her eyes come to mine. “I used to think he took me for granted, because of all the years we had together as friends and family friends before we were a couple. But now, looking back, I don’t think it was that.”
“No?” I ask, envisioning the prick from her doorstep the other day.
She shakes her head. “No. I think he was just a dirtbag, plain and simple, and I think his parents know he’s a dirtbag. If they could match him with a good human like myself then he would look better. After we broke up, they gaslighted my parents into believing that he’s not the problem but that I’m actually the problem.” She takes a minute to sip her wine. “ According to all of them, the reason he and I broke up wasn’t what he did but the way I interpreted it. And if I could just get my shit together and get on the same page as everyone, then Michael and I could be together again and everyone would be fine. They’re just waiting on stupid old Riley.”
I shake my head. “Fuck.”
She nods, her eyebrows raised. “You’re telling me.”
A moment of silence passes between us as we finish our wine. I get us glasses of water next, because we’ve both had a lot of wine in the last few hours without water. She sips hers after giving me a grateful smile.
“What did he do?”I finally ask, because the question has been burning my tongue for too long. “I respect that you may not be ready or you may not want to tell me.”
She sighs. “Well… like I was saying, I felt very limited in Willowdale. Stuck. And I felt… largely unsupported. I wanted to coach at Bluebell High. I became friends with Leah Mitchell after a district event a couple years ago, and we clicked professionally. She called me one day and told me a coaching position opened up, and told me that they needed a health teacher unafraid to teach the curriculum. It felt like the stars were aligning. I’d wanted to branch out and get some space and here was this job in Bluebell, falling right into my lap.”
“Did you and Michael live together?” I ask, trying to sort out how messy this breakup was.
She shakes her head. “No. And I thought we could stay together and I’d come home on weekends. I don’t know. I realize now that if you’re madly in love, weekends aren’t enough.” Her eyes lift from the counter and come to mine. “Weekends were more than enough with Michael, and I hate myself for knowing that and staying anyway. Almost like I deserved what happened. "
“I don’t even know what happened, but I know you didn’t deserve it,” I tell her, tamping down the anger that threatens to erupt in my tone. I don’t like her taking blame for something that I’m sure isn’t hers to own. Her parents and her ex sound like complete fucking assholes.
“I told him about the job in Bluebell, and my idea to go long distance. He freaked out. He said I was trying to get away from him and then he said I could go if he came with me and I told him that I didn’t need his permission to go and that he wasn’t entitled to come. And that’s… that’s when it just… the situation kind of imploded.” She sips her water, but I think it’s more to buy time than to quench thirst, since she nibbles the inside of her cheek again, taking a long pause. I don’t push. I sit, and I wait.
“He put his hands on my shoulders and told me to stop being stupid and ruining everything, and then it happened really fast. He just, hit me across the face, here,” she says, pointing a delicate finger to the edge of her eye, then moving it to point beneath her eye. “I faltered backward a few steps. I grabbed the counter behind me and I looked at him and I was waiting for him to have this moment, you know? This, holy shit I just hit her in the heat of the moment and I’m so sorry epiphany. But after a second, he stepped up into my face, and grabbed my throat and said, ‘I dare you to leave.’”
I am going to kill this motherfucker.
“What happened after that?” I ask, still struggling to maintain an even tone as I clench my hands into fists beneath the counter.
She sits up a bit straighter. “I left. I waited for him to go to work and I packed up my clothes and jewelry, and I got in my car and left. I stayed with Leah for the first two weeks in Bluebell before I got my house. Got my furniture off Facebook marketplace–” she smacks me in the arm. “I got a couch from Coach McAllister, actually!” Her face droops. “Sometimes I think he tries to be unfriendly to me.”
Not ready to drop the topic of her ex but wanting to set her straight about Dean, I say, “Yeah, he does that on purpose. Since you’re both single, if he’s polite to you, everyone will accuse him of wanting to date you.” I shrug. “Small towns.”
She laughs. “Oh believe me, I get it. Willowdale wasn’t much bigger than Bluebell.”
I drop my hand to her knee and give it a squeeze. “I’m really sorry that Michael treated you that way—that’s about him, not you. You know that,” I tell her, adding, “but Riley, I’m sorry.”
She smiles, her eyes growing misty with emotion she ignores. “Thank you, Jake. I think—and this is the part that is hard for most people to identify with—I think what hurts most isn’t what Michael did or who he turned out to be. Truth is, I wasn’t in love with him, I was just doing what I thought I had to do. What hurts most is my parents. The way they put their stupid fucking country club and friendship with the snottiest people ever before me. Their only child.” She looks at me with wistful eyes. “You didn’t date or have sex for ten years to be a good dad to Jo Jo. Mine couldn’t even take my side.” She blinks, setting free a stream of tears down her velvety cheeks that she chooses to ignore. “When I told them what Michael did, my dad asked if I was sure. Like I could misunderstand getting hit and choked. And my mother, a self-proclaimed feminist, said, love has rough patches. As if physical violence is nothing more but a tiny rough patch.”
My hand moves up her leg, rubbing her thigh gently. “I’m so sorry, Riley.” Her watery gaze puts a tightness in my chest. I waffle my hand through hers, forgoing the leg rub. I bring our joined hands to my lap, stroking my thumb over her fingers as I say, “I see a therapist twice a month. Dr. Tanner. I’ve been with him since Janie passed. At first it was to cope with grief and to learn techniques to help Jo Jo through her grief. Then it evolved into just… therapy.”
She smiles. “Maybe I should get his number.” We laugh lightly but she squeezes my hand, whispering, “Thank you for sharing.”
Her eyes still on mine, using her free hand, she opens her robe, exposing her bare torso to me. Her breasts make my mouth water, but when her fingers trace the pink grooves left behind from my flogger, my cock grows hard.
“I liked the pain, and the way pleasure felt through the lens of pain. And now, touching these makes me feel good, because it reminds me of you.” She slips off the barstool and tugs on our joined hands, urging me to stand. “I don’t want to sleep. I want more of you, sir. Please.”
Every time she calls me sir, I find myself a little more smitten with Riley. “God that turns me on so much.”
“Me too,” she says, rocking to her toes to press her soft lips to mine. “And this time, I was thinking about that gag. And that other thing. The long one that looks like a crop but has leather at the end.”
I know exactly what she’s talking about. My modified quirt. Unlike the ones I make for riders to use on their horse, this one features not two but a singular rawhide tail, a bit thicker than normal. It motivates with a sharp sting, and she wants to try it.
“That’s a quirt. Modified.” I lift my eyebrows. “It stings.”
She bites her bottom lip, and my groin tugs with desire. “I want it to sting.”
I love her vigor, and the idea that she wants to explore these things with me, that she trusts me enough to do so is erotic and flattering. “I think maybe we'll save that for a couple hours from now.” I reach out, smoothing my fingertips over the pink marks on her belly. “Let’s give your skin a break. I got something else in mind.”
“It’s gonna be a long time before you’re ready to take me like this,” I tell her, getting comfortable at the head of my bed. I nod toward my armoire, where I’ve placed the rest of the pieces we’re going to use together tonight and tomorrow morning. Jo Jo isn’t slated to be home until lunch time, and I’m gonna make the most of it. “Grab the black velvet bag,” I tell her, reaching for the lube on the bedside table. She lets the white robe pool at her feet before she saunters over.
I got what I needed from my cabinet in the garage and brought it upstairs, putting it out in the armoire before grabbing us water. In the interim, Riley adorably asked if she could peek around the house a little, telling me she was in awe of the place the first time she saw it.
After rejoining me, she made me promise for a tour after I’ve fucked her brains out so she can “really focus,” her words, not mine.
“This?” she asks, slipping her wrist through the stitched strip of leather looped to make a handle.
I nod. She carries it to me, then sits on the bed, playing with the ends of her honey hair as she stares at the bag, waiting for me to open it. “I made this a while ago, honestly never thought I’d use it.” I slide the leather thigh saddle from the bag and place it over the meatiest part of my leg, fastening it with the nylon black straps I’ve sewn in the back. Her eyes track the bottle of lube as I bring it over my leg, squeezing. The liquid runs down the silicone arches sewed into the leather, and when it’s glistening and ready, I smile.
“C’mon and have a ride,” I coax, reaching for her hip. She easily positions herself over my thigh, her knees pinched around each side of the saddle as she lowers herself onto it.
She rolls her hips, placing her hands on my shoulders as she tips her head back, the ends of her hair dragging over my knee. Her spine goes concave as her eyes fall shut, nails carving marks in my flesh as she rides.
“That’s right, Riley, ride my thigh, make yourself come for me. I wanna see it, I wanna feel you,” I tell her. Her head rolls, blonde hair going everywhere before she snaps back, exposing her face and throat. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are dark when she moans, “god, yes, Jake.”
It’s then I realize, I want her to call me sir. Maybe not all the time, but tonight, I crave it. “Sir,” I correct. “Yes, Sir .”
Her eyes pop open, tits swaying as she rocks over my thigh, grinding down on the silicone pieces I stitched in just for the clit. Her clit. I didn’t know it was for Riley specifically when I fashioned it, but now that she’s riding my thigh and moaning my name, I know it was designed only for her—it feels too right for it not to be for her.
“God… Yes, Sir,” she repeats, her tone frayed and raspy as her orgasm creeps in.
I tug my fingers through her hair, and force her head back. She moans, rolling her hips over my leg, the sound of her arousal making my cock stick up straight from between my legs. She eyes my cock as she rides, reaching for it.
I snatch the quirt from the bed and swat her hand, then drag the single tail up my shaft, teasing her. “Fuck,” I groan, seeing her lust for my cock. Again, I move the rough end of the leather over my erection teasingly, making my balls thrum. “My cock feels so good. ”
“You’re so mean,” she pants, releasing my shoulders to tangle her hands in her hair, lifting it off her back. Up and down, she fucks my thigh as her tits bounce and her lips part, naughty words and promises filling the room.
“God, I want that inside me.”
“Your cock is so perfect, sir.”
“Stroke for me, sir, I’m a slut for it.”
Though I’ve teased myself for hours with some of my whips, and edged even longer the few times Jo Jo has been out of town, I’ve never come with such little touch. Yet, as Riley unravels on my thigh, coming in short, deep thrusts, I can’t hold back. The urge hits and it’s way too strong to deny.
I put each end of the quirt in her trembling hands as she comes, and move the handle to my cock, dragging it down, aiming the tip right at her tits. She takes over, using the handle of the quirt to stroke down my cock just once before I groan so loud, I think the walls shake.
“Fuck, Riley, Jesus Christ,” I ground out as my second orgasm in less than an hour hits me, pummeling through my cock like lava. She watches the slit as it opens, spraying my thick, white cum on her in rapid pulses. When I’m panting and spent, she drops the quirt and uses her hands to pump me yet, repurposing my cum as lube.
“Looks like you liked the thigh saddle as much as I did,” she says, swiping her finger through my cum, layered over her core like sunscreen. “I didn’t know that toy was a thing but god, that was hot. And you not letting me touch you just drove me wild.”
“Me too,” I admit, adding, “but watching you—damn, you’re so sexy—watching you writhe as you come, it was impossible for me to last.”
She and I get out of bed, sharing a towel as we clean up. After rifling through my drawers, I pick out a TURNER SADDLERY t-shirt and a pair of sweats that won’t even close to fit, but it’s all I have. I pass them to her and my chest tightens when she brings them to her nose, first smelling them as her eyes close. “God, Jake, you smell incredible. I think I’m gonna get all hot and bothered if I wear these.”
I tug down the sheets and comforter, exposing the insides of my bed. “Get hot and bothered in the morning. Right now, you need rest.”
She yawns, tugging the oversized shirt down over her head. “Thanks for inviting me over tonight. It’s been the most interesting first date ever. I mean, it’s not every first date that you get flogged and fucked, right?”
I smack her ass as she crawls over me. “Don’t forget the brisket.”
She snuggles next to me, her breath flanking my neck and chest. With a sigh, she grows sleepy, whispering, “and the brisket. So much good tonight. So much good.” And in less than a minute, we’re both asleep.