Chapter 14
Even though I remembered going to bed with Hunter the night before, it had completely startled me in the morning to have his arms wrapped around me. They felt similar to Deacon's big, strong arms; but they held me differently. He was holding me like he would never let me go and curled into my back with his head pressing into me. I tried wiggling my way out to no avail, so I gave up and laid back down and enjoyed the sunshine that was pouring onto my face.
After a few moments, I began struggling again, to get out of Hunter's arms, and this time they gave way. I slid out from under him and turned my body to see his face. Mostly, just to make sure it was him and not some random stranger. I relaxed my body after seeing his face; seeing how soft his expressions were, like he was a small child holding onto a teddy bear to make him feel better.
Once I was content again about my surroundings, I laid back down. I made sure to at the very least drape Hunter's arm over me, so that nothing looked out of place. I stayed on my side and pulled my phone out. It was still pretty early, so I wasn't expecting very many notifications on my screen. I was met with a text message that was not there the night prior.
'Good morning beautiful, I haven't forgotten about you, and I'll see you in a few days…'
Seeing the text message from Deacon made me giggle a little, which in turn, seemed to wake Hunter up. He moved a little bit starting at his legs, then his arms started moving back and forth into some sort of stretching-like movement. As he slid his arms back to himself, he stopped at my breast and gave a small squeeze. I could then feel movement that was almost like a laugh, but I couldn't quite tell. I rolled over to face him.
He had been covering his face while he was laughing. At least he was playful and knew how to have a good time all on his own. I rolled my eyes at him, then rolled back over to see if there was anything else on my phone of concern. "Oh, come on, that was funny… At least, it was for me," I could feel Hunter beaming his smile from behind me. Cheesing like a little kid who had just gotten his way.
When I finally felt satisfied with my phone, Hunter stopped using me to get a laugh, and the bed started getting cold, I got out of the bed and made my way to the bathroom. I brushed my hair back into place and finished with a high ponytail. I then made my way to the closet in the back of my bathroom and pulled out something sporty but still cute and threw it on. I walked back out to show Hunter, who was not paying attention. I cleared my throat.
He finally looked up after a small pause, and his eyes widened. A smirk began forming on his lips as he reached for the string line in my shorts and pulled me to him. His arms went around me again, this time resting on my hips. I looked down at him, ready to ask a question about how the day would go. He beat me to it, "so what do you think we're doing today that would make you want to put shorts on," he asked in a lower voice than normal.
I put my hands under his chin and replied, "I just wanted to be comfortable until you told me what we were doing today." His hands dropped back down to his sides. He looked defeated and a little sad. I grabbed his cheeks with my hands and added, "don't worry I knew what you were trying to do there, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Agreed?"
He gave a small nod, a wink, and then as I turned around to head back into the bathroom, he smacked my behind and chuckled to himself. After a long pause, while I grabbed my phone from the bathroom, Hunter finally told me that we were going to go on a horseback ride. He started smirking at my shocked expression. "Look, I wasn't expecting grandiose type dates from you two and I'm definitely not used to this type of treatment at all," I began spewing.
~
When we arrived at the rancher's property, I could hear the horses making noise from a far-off distance. There weren't very many fences on the property, which seemed strange, as I thought they would need them to keep the horses in. After meeting and shaking the rancher's hand, I asked about the fences. He told me he owned the whole area, even across the street, and that there were fences just along the property line, which was nowhere close to us.
Doug, the rancher, led us onto his property and past his house to a barn, where the horse noises grew louder. He brought Hunter to a big, beautiful, black horse, then I followed him over to a sweet, speckled horse. Doug put an apple in my hand and told me to feed it to her. He told me her name was Honey Lemon and told me about how he came to pick that name. I watched as she devoured the apple and nestled her big nose into my hands. I slowly and gently rubbed her nose and along her body while Doug grabbed the saddle and it's set up to put on Honey Lemon.
After he finished with the horse I would be riding, he helped me up onto her, then went about helping Hunter get his horse ready for riding. As Doug walked off, Hunter walked over to me and Honey Lemon and began petting her as I had just been doing a moment ago. He told me how he knew the rancher, and which part of his family he was related to. Apparently, I was going to meet the boys' whole family before we even got past the dating. My cheeks began to turn red the more Hunter spoke about how he knew this man who's horses we were about to take off with.
Shortly after we finished up our conversation, Doug whistled over at us and motioned for Hunter to walk over to him. He had finished saddling the horse for Hunter. Hunter jumped on the horse and walked it over to me while Doug walked alongside of him, giving him directions of where to take me on our ride. We rode our horses out of the barn and passed a corridor of other horses who wouldn't be going with us on this unbelievable date.
"So, how fast, or slow, do you wanna go," Hunter asked with a mischievous look on his face. I shrugged my shoulders as he took off ahead of me. I kept at a steady slow stride and just took more of the sun in. Honey Lemon seemed to enjoy taking this adventure in stride with me, but she's a horse so what do I know.