The Rancher's Little Girl (6 page)

Her fingers in front fluttered against her clit, rubbed, fluttered again, and then, when she pushed just a little with her middle finger behind, she drew an enormous breath and came, biting her cheek to keep from screaming with the incredible pleasure of it. Her knees trembled so much that she had to throw her left hand behind her to steady herself on the dresser as she cupped her pussy tenderly with her right, desperate to make the sensation last a little longer.

She’d closed her eyes the moment she’d opened the cheeks of her bottom, seeing in her mind flashes of the embarrassing things that might happen to a girl who slept in this room. Now she kept them closed, waiting for her breathing to calm and the spasms to leave her muscles, still holding onto the dresser behind her.

Victoria masturbated two or three times a week, she supposed. Though she couldn’t free herself of the feeling that there was something wicked about it—partly that was because it just felt better when you thought of it as wicked—she didn’t feel much guilt. But she had never played with herself just because she couldn’t keep her hands off her pussy: something about having Ross whip her had done that.

As she changed into the big pink T-shirt she had bought that day, something made her not put on fresh panties (since the black ones were now embarrassingly fragrant with the scent that Victoria both loved to smell and blushed at—the smell of her helpless, wicked pleasure). The something that had made her do that became immediately evident once she had climbed under the pink comforter, for her right hand quickly found its way between her legs, and though she didn’t come again that night, she lay awake for a very long time just soothing herself that way and thinking about Ross and whether he was going to spank her again.

If he did, would she call him ‘daddy,’ by mistake? But… what if he told her that she had to call him that? Maybe he would do that. Maybe she would have to call him daddy, or her strict cowboy daddy would take her over his knee and spank her with his enormous right hand.

And… he would take off her jeans entirely, and tell her that she must not wear men’s clothes anymore. No more jeans. In fact…

* * *

When Victoria awoke, she could tell from the angle of the sun that slanted in through the window to wake her that the morning was nearly past. Dammit—that wasn’t the way to get off on the right foot with Ross. She had wanted to show him that she could pitch in on the ranch-work from the beginning, even though he would have to teach her most of what she had to do. She had wanted to show him what a quick study she was, and how she would be able to hold her own—and to keep him at a distance—by means of her intelligence.

All that had apparently come to her in her sleep, and she blushed fiercely when she thought of how differently she had felt the night before after Ross had whipped her. In the light of day, she knew two things: first, the events of the previous night would not be repeated in any way; second, she didn’t want to know anything more about ageplay.

On the sink in the little bathroom with the cute floral tiles, next to her pink bedroom, she found a note:

Didn’t want to wake you. I’ll call on Ross’ phone. DON’T use your cell.

Love, J

Thinking with another hot blush of what she had used her phone for in front of the dresser the previous night, Victoria quickly grabbed it from her room and looked at the display to make sure she hadn’t turned the cell antenna on by mistake. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was still off.

Of course, that meant that Victoria Mason had got herself stuck back in what felt like the nineteenth century here on this ranch, but the reminder of the danger she was in from Bob Austin certainly made the debt of gratitude she owed to Ross all the more apparent. The spanking thing was weird, but she wouldn’t run afoul of his ‘standards’ and they wouldn’t have to think about it again.

She showered and got into her jeans and her T-shirt, noting rather to her distress that her usual taste in panties, as demonstrated by what she had hastily bought on the road the night before, matched too well with the pink bedroom for her complete peace of mind: pastels, all of them—pink, blue, and yellow. Little-girl panties, with a bit of demure lace around the leg openings. She had always worn those kind of panties for every day, even though when she was going out on a date (or to watch a corrupt senator fuck a brace of nubile coeds) her taste ran to lace—why did she suddenly notice now that they were so little-girlish?

Ross was not to be found, but a note from him sat on the kitchen table.

Good morning, Miss Mason. I’m going to let you fix yourself breakfast from the icebox. I’ll be back for dinner around 2:00.

—RM

Victoria frowned over the note for a few minutes. Then she realized that dinner at 2:00 must mean that Ross kept a very old-fashioned schedule indeed—as made sense, she supposed, on a ranch where work needed doing. She looked at the clock; it was just past 11:00. How long had he been up? Would she have to get up before the sun, if she were going to show her determination to have him treat her as more than a freeloading guest? That thought was much less welcome than the cheery, determined thought of pitching in had been, but she had always been a soft city-dweller, and if she wanted to change that, it would require hard work.

In the meantime, the big stove with its enormous burners that looked like you could make pancakes for a whole posse frightened her a bit, so she found some bread—in an actual bread-box—and the toaster, and some butter. There was coffee still in the old-fashioned pot, and thankfully Ross’ brand of traditionalism at least permitted him a microwave. With an infusion of cream so fresh it must have come from cows that lived down the road, the coffee did the trick of clearing her head a bit.

After she had cleaned up her breakfast things, she walked out onto the porch for the first time to see if the view out the kitchen window could possibly have shown a landscape so very beautiful, and found that it was so: miles of gently rolling rangeland, covered with short grass tufting up as far as she could see. The morning had a chill in it; the late summer of the state capital had almost become fall up here in the high prairie. The sun had climbed high into a cloudless sky, and she thought she could see cattle in the far distance. To her left, where the driveway came into the ranch, through a complicated set of paddocks, was a big green hay barn and what must be the stable, looking, Victoria had to admit, disappointingly modern.

Better for the horses, she supposed, as she walked over there.

And the horses did look very happy. There were two stable-hands there, both young men, mucking out stalls and exercising the horses on leads.

“Morning, ma’am,” they both said.

“Good morning,” Victoria answered, wondering whether she would face any awkward questions, but whether because Ross had told them who she was, or to mind their own business, or more likely because they were sort of men who naturally minded their own business, the conversation ended there.

Never had Victoria wished she could ride more than she wished it then. She had been desperate for riding lessons when she was a girl, of course, but her suburban parents, though sympathetic, had not found a way to make it happen, what with schoolwork and music lessons and older siblings’ sports. And then she had passed the age where her friends were riding and though she sometimes looked online for riding programs suitable for adults, she had always felt too embarrassed.

Looking at the beautiful horses—twenty of them or so—stabled here on Ross’ ranch, the longing returned stronger than it had been in years. Maybe if she pitched in—really pitched in—Ross would teach her to ride? Her thoughts strayed to images of him lifting her into the saddle like a little girl, as she patted the nose of a beautiful black mare with a white blaze on her forehead, and she blushed, turned away, and walked back to the house.

Ross tried not to wonder, as he rode back toward the house from where the herd was grazing on the south forty, what Victoria was doing—and what she was thinking about. He failed, of course. He had not the slightest doubt in his mind that the whipping would do her good. The only question was whether she would recognize it now, or ever.

The real problem was that Ross couldn’t stop hoping that she wouldn’t—quite—recognize it yet. The memories from the night before, of her cute little backside with the red marks from his belt, of holding her in his arms for aftercare—heck, of the struggle in which he almost took down her jeans—had bewitched him so thoroughly as he watered the herd and checked on the steers that by the time he rode back to the house, he felt just the tiniest bit unsure of himself, which didn’t represent a feeling Ross MacGregor knew very well.

His face had assumed a wry smile by the time he got the saddle off Marty and gave her a feedbag; to be unsure about being unsure seemed like exactly the sort of problem that could occupy what Ross secretly called his ‘cow mind’—as in a cow chewing its cud—for weeks and weeks. Fodder—that’s what that kind of pointless question worked as: fodder for days in the saddle doing the same thing over and over, with nothing sweet to come home to. He’d chewed over a lot of questions like that since Sally Mae had gone east.

When he emerged from the barn, Victoria stood on the porch, waiting for him. “Well, howdy, Miss Mason. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” She definitely looked very pretty, though she wore the same kind of impractical jeans and really, he would prefer to see her in a dress.

“Hi, Mr. MacGregor,” she said. “I didn’t know whether you wanted me to start something for dinner, so I don’t have anything ready, I’m afraid.”

“That’s alright, of course, Miss Mason. You’re new here. Maybe you can fix dinner tomorrow, but as you’ll see most of the time I don’t eat fancy. Just let me get washed up, and I’ll join you in the kitchen, alright?”

“Alright,” she answered, a look of relief on her face. Jack was right and more than right about her, Ross could see: Victoria Mason was definitely a sweet girl. She really had wanted to make him dinner. Because of the spanking? Well, probably not, but a cowboy could hope.

“Most days,” he said, “dinner is just cold cuts. I got a mess of those in the fridge, and you can keep it that way until you feel like gettin’ ambitious. If you do feel like cookin’ somethin’ special, though, we can save the chicken and dumplings for Sunday this week.”

“Well, I’m a reasonably good cook,” Victoria said shyly.

So after dinner Ross showed her where the important stuff was in the kitchen, and talked her through the use of the complicated stove he had bought for Sally Mae and that mostly didn’t get used these days except for eggs and bacon.

“One thing you could do for me tomorrow is have a pot of coffee on when I get in from the range.”

Victoria looked around, probably searching for a real coffeemaker.

“All you have to do is put the coffee and the water in the pot,” Ross said, “and boil it up. I know it doesn’t taste all that much like what you get in the city, but it’s what I like.”

Victoria nodded solemnly. “I liked it, too, Mr. MacGregor.”

“Alright,” Ross said, smiling. “I think it’s time for you to start calling me Ross.”

Victoria smiled. “Only if you call me Victoria.”

Ross nodded and started to clear away the dishes from the table.

“Oh, let me do that!” Victoria said, reaching out for the plate he was holding.

Ross handed it to her, then he went to sit back down at the table while she cleared and washed up.

“I’d like to pitch in a lot,” Victoria said. “Not just coffee and… dishes. Chores and things.”

Ross chuckled. “Chores and things.” He looked at Victoria where she stood at the sink, her face turned back over her shoulder to meet his eyes. Lord, but it was nice to have a woman in the house. He supposed that from a modern point of view, he shouldn’t be quite so pleased that that woman was in the kitchen doing the dishes, but he had grown up like that, and even without anything daddy-and-little about it, this way of doing things just worked right, as far as Ross could tell.

Victoria had a question in her eyes—about the chores.

“Well, darlin’…” Her eyes seemed to flash just a little at that, and her mouth to purse, but she said nothing. “Why don’t we start with you fixin’ breakfast tomorrow. You’ll have to go to bed early tonight.”

“Okay,” she said simply. “I think I can do that.”

“If you can get on that schedule, we can start talkin’ about things like feedin’ the chickens.”

“Okay. So what time do you go to bed most nights?”

“Nine o’clock.”

Victoria made a face at that.

“What time are you used to?”

“Oh, well… one, usually I guess.”

“One a.m.?” Ross said, incredulous.

Victoria laughed at that. “We come from different worlds, I guess,” she said.

The phone rang right then; Jack Riley was on the other end.

“How’s it going?”

“Just fine, Jack. Just fine. I’ll let you speak to her.”

“Great,” Jack said. “I’m going to get to work on resolving her… issue, but it’s going to take a few weeks.”

“Don’t worry,” Ross replied. “Victoria’s already helpin’ out around here.”

Jack chuckled. “That belt’s some kind of miracle worker, I guess.”

* * *

Victoria did manage to get up, and she did manage to make a good hearty breakfast. Only the burnt toast indicated that she was sleepy as all get out, though of course she looked so adorable in her big sleeping T-shirt, with her hair all frizzy, that it was all Ross could do to keep from patting her backside as she padded around the kitchen in her bare feet.

The feeling he had had, of rightness, when he watched her at the sink the day before, returned even more strongly. And something about the way she wore the T-shirt—the way she moved in it, uncertainly and shyly—made her seem even littler than she had after he had punished her.

The morning went perfectly, but by the time he got back for dinner to find the coffee on just as he had asked, something else had arisen in her face, he thought. Sleepy at 4:00 a.m., she had seemed little and submissive; now, at 2:00 p.m., Victoria seemed to want to take charge. Her reporter instincts, he thought, had kicked in.