Picture Perfect Cowboy: An Original Sinners Novel Read online

  Simone started packing her gear as Jason went behind the screen again. When he came out she brought his cross over to him and clasped the chain around his neck. She resisted the urge to hug him. He probably wouldn’t have liked that. He didn’t seem like a hugger.

  She had him sign the release form and he did it without hesitation before passing it back to her.

  “It was nice to meet you,” she said. “I’ll let you get back to your life now. The organizers will be in touch soon.”

  She held out her hand to shake and he shook it. Good hands, strong and steady.

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Simone,” he said.

  “It was a pleasure working with you, Mister Waters.”

  He started for the door. Typical shoot. All done. Yet Simone regretted it was over so soon. She almost wished the light had been bad so they would have had more time together.

  Jason opened the door but then he closed it again, turned around and leaned back against it.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  Jason didn’t meet her eyes. He took a long breath and held up a hand. He needed a second.

  “Regretting it already?” Simone asked. “I can delete the pics right now. Every last one. It’s no big deal.”

  “They paid you to fly to Kentucky. It would be a big deal.”

  “It’s no big deal,” she said again. “Just say the word.”

  “That’s not it,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Simone crossed her arms over her chest and waited. “Tell me, Jason. Please?”

  “You said, ah…you still sometimes, you know, do your other job?” he asked, crushing his hat in his hands again.

  “Pro-subbing? Yes? You know someone who needs one?” Simone imagined it wasn’t easy to find kink professionals in rural Kentucky.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me.”

  Three

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jason wanted to snatch them right out of the air and swallow them whole. Simone was staring at him like he’d grown a second head.

  What the hell had he been thinking?

  “Pretend I didn’t say that,” he said. “Have a good day, ma’am.”

  He started to leave right that second but Simone stopped him by running up to him and putting her hand on the doorknob.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Yes. I’m available. If you need a session with a pro, I can do that. Just…don’t run out on me before we can talk about it.”

  “I can’t even believe I said that.” He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, trying to avoid her pretty, worried eyes.

  “I won’t lie, I’m a little shocked myself,” she said. “But not in the bad way. I’m glad you asked. It’s okay if you’re kinky. I am, too. Very.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Not kinky? Usually vanilla men don’t ask for sessions with pro-submissives.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m crazy, too. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’m not crazy,” she said. “Kink and crazy aren’t the same thing, I promise. Can we talk about this? Please?”

  Her eyes were wide and beseeching. So hard to say no to a pretty girl who said “please” like that.

  “I ought to get back to work. I’ve lost enough of the day,” he said.

  Jason didn’t really want to go to work. He wanted to stay with this wide-eyed, pink-haired, smiling girl who said things he’d never heard anyone say before like “Our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of” and “Kink and crazy aren’t the same things.”

  Hell, if she just kept saying things like that to him all day, he’d pay her every penny he had in the bank.

  “We can get coffee. Or I can come over to your place,” she said. Her voice was gentle, like his got when he was trying not to spook a skittish horse. He must look spooked. “I’d love to meet Rusty. And we can get to know each other a little better. Then if you want to try a half-hour session or something, we can do that. I’d really like that.”

  Jason took another long breath. He thought he might pass out. Took a bull horn to the guts and it hadn’t rattled him as much as talking about this stuff did.

  “I never…” he began and he didn’t have to finish.

  “First time for everything,” she said. “You never took your clothes off for a charity calendar before today, right? And it wasn’t that bad, right?”

  She gave him that sweet smile again, the one that went all the way to the corners of her eyes. He’d told her the one thing about himself he’d been scared to tell anyone else in the world and she still seemed to like him. That helped.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to go through with it,” he said. “Paying for you to…whatever you do.”

  “Let’s forget about a paid session then,” she said. “I’ll do what you said and pretend you never brought it up. But we can talk, right? I think we should.”

  “We should?”

  “You have to have questions,” she said. “And you must be feeling pretty lonely if you’ve wanted to do this for a while and never had the chance. People in my—I guess you could call it a ‘community’—we try to take care of our own. Like you and your friend Luke, right? You rodeo guys all got each other’s backs?”

  “We try.”

  “If you have these feelings, whether you’ve ever acted on them or not, you’re part of my community. You’re one of us. I’d like the chance to have your back,” she said. She was still smiling but in a more serious sort of way. She wasn’t joking with him. She meant all that and that meant a lot to him.

  “I guess talking about it won’t kill me,” he said, though he wasn’t going to bet the farm on that. His heart beat hard in his chest and his stomach flipped over and back again. If he puked once or twice before this day was over he wouldn’t be surprised.

  “I have my rental car. How about I follow you to your place if it’s not too far?”

  “Not too far,” he said.

  “Great. Just give me ten minutes to pack up.”

  “You need some help?”

  “Nah. No offense, but I don’t like anyone but me touching my equipment. My photography equipment, that is. Other equipment is negotiable.”

  He pointed at her. “That’s flirting.”

  “Just trying to make you laugh,” she said as she started to take down her weird lighting umbrellas or whatever they were. “Haven’t had any luck yet.”

  “Know any good jokes?” he asked.

  “A couple. Mostly Catholic jokes, though. My old boss, Mr. King, he told those all the time.”

  “I can take a Catholic joke.”

  “Let’s see…” She put her binder in a duffel bag and wrapped up her camera good and tight. “I got it. A priest is driving and a cop pulls him over. The cop smells a little alcohol on the priest’s breath. He says to the priest, ‘Father, have you been drinking?’ The priest says, ‘Just water.’ The cop asks, ‘Then why do I smell wine?’ The priest picks up the bottle and says, ‘Praise the Lord! He’s done it again!’”

  Jason groaned but the groan turned into a laugh. A little one.

  “Now that’s a miracle,” Simone said, pointing at Jason’s grinning face.

  “I heard this one,” Jason said. “A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says…”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Simone said, already ahead of him with the punch line.

  They laughed together. It was a little awkward but good awkward. Kind of nice, too. He hadn’t had time to date or anything since he’d moved to Kentucky last year. The farm needed all his attention, Jason had told himself. A good excuse to avoid facing the reasons he’d left Montana.

  Then the pink lady here had to walk into his life. He wasn’t sure he was one of those sorts who believed in signs, but he couldn’t help but feel he was being given a chance here, and he’d be a damned fool if he didn’t take it.

  Jason watched Simone dismantle her equipment and p
ack it up neatly. At least she allowed him to carry a couple of the bags down to her rental car so he didn’t feel completely useless.

  “I’ll drive slow,” he said. “I’m in that old red Ford over there. Can’t miss it.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she said. “And if you change your mind and speed off, I will follow you no matter where you go. I’ve always wanted to be in high speed car chase.”

  “That’s a 1987 Ford. It’s gonna be a low-speed chase.”

  “Then me and my Kia will run you down. See you at your farm. And don’t worry, for a kinky freak, I’m very nice.”

  She winked at him and he shut her car door for her. As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway, he watched her carefully in the rearview mirror as she followed him. As nervous as he was about her coming to his farm, he was more nervous she might change her mind and drive off, leaving him high and dry. He couldn’t imagine this was going to work out but even if they could talk a little, if she could tell him a few things he didn’t know, that would be worth all the stress and humiliation he was feeling and had been feeling for about as long as he could remember.

  They came to the turn that led to his horse farm and Jason caught himself holding his breath to make sure she took it behind him. After he turned there was a full thirty-second gap before a break in traffic allowed her to catch up to him. Longest thirty seconds of his life. He put his foot on the gas and drove a steady twenty all the way to his place.

  Trees mostly shaded his farmhouse so there was no seeing the place until you’d pulled right into the driveway. He hoped Simone liked his farm. He loved it and had loved it at first sight. He had a sixty-acre spread with two barns, two outbuildings, and four pastures surrounded by wooden fences painted black. The house itself was white, two stories, with a big back deck and red brick chimney on the side. He pulled into the driveway and parked, got out and waited for her.

  She was smiling—of course she was—when she stepped out of her car.

  “Wow,” she said. “This is all yours?” She glanced around her, eyes wide.

  “It’s not much. Sixty acres, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  “My folks have a thousand acres back home,” he said. “Cattle need more room than horses.”

  “I live in a 500-square-foot apartment,” she said.

  “Yours probably cost more than mine,” he said.

  “I wish you were joking,” she said. “Can I meet Rusty?”

  “Sure. This way.”

  They walked down the asphalt path to the first barn. It was a nice day with a blue sky and no clouds, but it wasn’t quite warm yet. Jason slipped out of his flannel shirt and draped it over Simone’s shoulders.

  “Thanks,” she said. She’d been hugging her arms to her stomach to warm herself.

  “Barn’s heated,” he said.

  “I thought the south was warmer than New York.”

  “It is. But you’re not very far south yet. Hope you didn’t pack a swimsuit.”

  “I wasn’t that dumb,” she said. “I did pack a miniskirt though. That was a mistake.”

  “You got good legs?” he asked.

  “Pretty decent.”

  “Not a mistake then.”

  Simone put her arm through his. He liked that. He liked that a lot. So much he glanced up at the sky to hide the sudden smile he couldn’t suppress. Though the day was bright and sunny, he couldn’t help but wish a storm would kick up so she’d be stranded at his house for good long time.

  “So you train horses here?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “Train them to do what?”

  “Behave,” he said. She laughed. “Not kidding. You gotta train them like a dog. They have to learn to trust humans. Then you gotta teach them to take commands. I mostly train horses for barrel racing but we got a couple out here I’m training as therapy horses. A couple more for trail riding. Little bit of everything.”

  “And you do all that yourself?”

  “I don’t work with more than six to eight horses at a time.”

  “Any money in that?”

  “I made all the money I’m ever gonna need. I do this for me. When you’re a bull rider, it’s man versus animal. You’re enemies. But with horses, you’re a team. It’s good for me, getting a horse to trust me, to do what I want. They have a mind of their own, you know. They want to do things their way, and I have to train them to do things my way.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Well, I just show them that when they do things my way, good things happen.”

  “Hmm…” she said.

  “What?”

  “Sounds a little like training a submissive.”

  Jason was about to ask her what she meant by that when his farm manager Franco came out of the barn.

  “You’re back early,” Franco said.

  “And I brought a friend. Simone, this is Franco. Franco, Simone.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Franco said. They shook hands.

  “¿Quieres el resto del día libre?” Jason asked Franco in Spanish. Do you want the day off?

  “I’ll take it if you don’t need me. I have to pick some things up in town,” Franco said.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jason said.

  In English Franco told Simone goodbye, tipped his hat to her, and headed to his truck.

  “Farm manager,” Jason explained as they went into the barn.

  “Nice guy,” she said. “From Mexico?”

  “Yeah, we get horse people from two different countries here in Kentucky,” he said. “Ireland and Mexico. For some reason I can’t quite figure out, it’s only the guys from Mexico the politicians raise a fuss about. They never ask the Irish guys for their papers.”

  “Can’t imagine why.” She rolled her eyes.

  Jason took her to the first stall where Rusty was, face down in his oats.

  “Hey, boy,” Jason said. “There’s a girl here wants to meet you.”

  Rusty kept right on eating.

  “No manners,” Jason said to Simone. “I apologize for this heathen.”

  Simone didn’t seem offended. She just patted Rusty’s shoulder and mane while the horse kept on chowing down.

  “You’re different than I expected,” Simone said.

  “Rusty or me?”

  “You,” she said. “I guess I expected…I don’t know. You didn’t bat an eyelash when I mentioned that my friend Griffin had a boyfriend. Didn’t blink when I said my family was half-Jewish. You didn’t get offended when I said I was a pro-submissive. You speak Spanish well enough to tell your manager he can have the day off.”

  “So you picked that up.”

  “New Yorker,” she said. “Half my neighborhood is Puerto Rican. I should apologize for assuming you were some kind of a…”

  “Redneck?” he asked.

  “I would never ever use that word,” she said. “Even if I might have maybe thought it. But I won’t admit to that.”

  “You New York elites,” he said, grinning at her so she’d know he was kidding. “Facts are…I got too much to do every day to worry about what two grown men are doing with each other in their bedrooms, and if other people do, they need a hobby or a job. I was raised to respect other people’s religions and to mind my own business. I know Spanish because some of the best bull riders in the world are from Mexico, and one of them, Vicente de la Rosa, happens to be my uncle by marriage. As for you being what you are, well, I can’t say it doesn’t bother me, but that’s only because what I am bothers me, too.”

  Rusty finally raised his head from his bucket.

  “Oh, hi there,” Simone said, smiling at the big chestnut Quarter Horse. “You finally finish?”

  “About time,” Jason said. He reached over the stall gate and gave his old boy a firm pat on the side. “I was about to have to take your bucket away. You got to mind your manners when there’s a lady present.”

  “He’s a good boy,” she said. S
he seemed enchanted by Rusty. She kept running her small hand over his shoulder and mane.

  “So what are you, Jason?” she finally asked.

  “Damned if I know,” he said.

  “You must have some idea,” she said. “You have fantasies, right?”

  He sighed heavily. The word “fantasies” had made his stomach lurch. “This is not going to be easy to talk about.”

  “My friend Nora’s a switch,” Simone said. “Do you know what that is?”

  He shook his head.

  “She likes to dominate and submit. She started out as just a submissive, though. Now she’s a dominatrix but she also has a master. She says it took her about ten years to really figure out what she was. And that’s pretty normal for a lot of us. But me—she calls me a natural. Said some people are just lucky to get it from day one. The second I learned what kink was, that was the second I knew I was kinky. And as soon as I knew what submission was, I knew that was me. Once I was old enough to do it, I did it. I loved it. I’ve been doing it ever since. Never lost a wink of sleep over what I do. Kind of sounds like you’ve lost some sleep over this.”

  “A little,” he said. “A lot maybe.”

  “Okay,” she said, nodding. “Let me list a few things for you. You tell me if any of them sound like something you might be interested in trying.”

  “All right,” he said, bracing himself.

  “Spanking, flogging, cropping, caning, dripping hot candle wax onto naked flesh, bondage—rope, cords, silk scarves, chains—slapping, choking, foot worship…anything ringing any bells?”

  Jason only stared at her for what felt like a year.

  “People do that stuff to you?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But only consensually. Why?”

  “Maybe I’m not so screwed up after all.”

  Four

  Simone glared at him. She knew he’d been making a joke but she didn’t want to hear any of that negative talk, even as a joke.

  “You,” she said, poking him in the chest, “are not screwed up just because you have kinky thoughts. I am not screwed up, either. You have to get that stupid idea out of your head. It’s an insult to me, my friends, my world…and an insult to you.”