Colton: Howdy, lil lady! You reckon you'd be free to hang out sometime soon? I'm in the mood to celebrate being alive and who better to celebrate with than the gal who saved me!
Colton: Shoot, you don't like being called "lil lady"! Let's just pretend I called you something way better than that then so that you'll say yes to seeing me!
Louise: LADIES, I have a very important question -- how badly do you two want to kiss Scooter Pendragon? 1 being an 'no thank you' and 10 being an 'I'm doing it in my mind RIGHT NOW and damn is it steamy'!
You’re blushing so hard, all I did was say “I love you” in French.”
“Well, excuse me. Now, s’not my fault you sound awful sexy when you speak French, is it?” Colton laughed, still as pink as a pig’s spanked bottom. He got up from his seat at the table next to Lacey Jean to get them both another one of those “never-ending margaritas” that this fancy casino hotel sold. He also needed the space for a minute because while he was wasn’t lying exactly -- it did always get him good and hard when his girlfriend showed off how hot and smart she was -- he wasn’t being totally honest either bout why it got to him more than usual and he needed to go through this particular moral dilemma of whether or not surprises counted as lying to your woman on his own, away from the crowd of Lacey Jean’s friends and their dates.
He’d been having a lot of fun on this wild weekend away from school and life and whatnot but he’d also had something more serious on his mind the whole time and it wasn’t something he could talk bout with Scooter or Squeaky or Lyssa or Louise. It was just something for him, til it was something for him and Lacey Jean both. And maybe her speaking French to him was a sign that it was time to share with the love of his life! Besides, he was never good at keeping secrets, and even if he had been, the five margaritas and counting were going to make it slip out of him, so by the time he was back to his chair, his mind had been made up.
“Here we go, Lacey Jean, something sweet and delicious just like you,” he announced, setting her fancy drink in front of her. Colton took a sip of his own for a little bit of courage and then went in for the kill. “By the way... je t'aime aussi, mon petit jaguar.” His French accent wasn’t all that good -- you could take the boy out of the south but you couldn’t take the south out of the boy -- but the fact that he was speaking French at all was enough to get Lacey J’s eyes all big and surprised just like he was aiming for. “And I gotta let you know that every time you speak French to me now, it makes me remember that I’ve been prepping a real big question for you in the language of love for a while now. I mean, shoot, I’ve been carrying the ring with me for like months now!” He patted his pocket where the box was bulging and took another big swig of his margarita, so happy now that he’d let Lacey Jean in on what he’d been up to.
“Matter of fact, it’s been hard not to ask every single damn time we pass one of them little chapels outside, so uh, would this be a good time to bust out the veux-tu m'épouser or uh....”
Chelsea: College is already so much better than high school! My first class today wasn't until 11 so I didn't wake up until 10! And the classrooms are so much bigger, like big auditoriums!
Chelsea: The only thing that could make it even better is if that beautiful library was outside, under the sun, surrounded by flowers. Do you think we could convince them to do that? Like with a petition maybe?
SUMMARY → The adrenaline starts pumping during a simple horseback riding lesson when the student, Colton, goes headfirst into a river, leaving his teacher, Lacey J, to try and make sure he doesn’t die. They get wet, will they get wild too?
"Yee haw!" Colton yelled, his hands gripping the reins of the horse he was as they trotted a little behind Lacey J and her horse at a leisurely pace as she guided them around the stables. He knew that Lacey J was probably rolling her eyes fondly at the cowboyism but he couldn't help himself! He was too excited to be there, actually on horseback. It made him feel like even more of a cowboy, which wasn't easy to do since he was constantly wearing a flannel and jeans and boots and his signature hat. How lucky he was to have a friend who knew how to ride horses and didn't mind teaching him. Learning didn't come the most natural to Colton, but Lacey J was a smart lady and that made him feel like she couldn't steer him wrong.
"How do I get this here pretty boy to go even faster?" he asked her, adjusting his hat to shade his eyes from the sun better. "Come on, little lady, I survived getting on the horse and getting him to listen to me! It's time to step on it!"
Lacey J quickly glanced down at her watch as soon as Colton started to yell. She’d been making predictions on how long it would take for him to yee his first haw ever since they’d agreed on riding together and Colton had actually outlasted her earliest prediction by a good couple of minutes, mostly because she’d guessed that he’d have started up as soon as his butt hit the saddle but after he’d managed to do that without screaming head off, she was surprised to hear him do it before they could even move on to the fun part of riding.
Even though Lacey J took her teaching seriously and wanted to make sure Colton knew what he was doing on his horse before they moved past a trot, she hated going slow more than anything in the world and was more than eager to speed things up. So when Colton asked how he could make his horse go even faster, Lacey J didn’t even bother to think about it before turning her horse around to show him what he was supposed to do to make the horse speed up.
“I know I’ve told you not to call me little lady.” She reminded him as she maneuvered her own horse to be right next to his so that Colton could see everything he was supposed to do. Once she was finished demonstrating what he was supposed to do, Lacey J looked over at Colton looking to see if he seemed like he understood what she had been talking about. “You got all that, right? Because if you fuck up so bad that he ends up throwing you and then trampling all over your head, I’m just going to laugh because you’ll deserve it.”
The fact that Lacey J could expertly maneuver her horse right next to his wasn't lost on Colton. He found it mighty impressive, the way she'd clearly tamed something so untamable. He was admiring it so much in fact that he almost missed her calling him out on not using her name or whatever and he shrugged, a big smile on his face. "My apologies, ma'am. You're lucky I'm not calling you 'cowgirl' with how natural you look on that filly."
With that, he focused himself on actually paying attention to what Lacey J was trying to teach him instead of just appreciating her on general, and he nodded, not because he was sure he'd understood it all, but because he wanted to get it right on the first try and impress her. "Got it! Don't worry yourself over my pretty head, ma'am. I'm a cowboy, after all." Colton winked at her as he said that, screamed out a YEEHAW, and lifted his hat before following her instructions to make his horse know it was time to run!
It was something that would've been infinitely cooler if he clearly didn't do it wrong. The horse sped up, all right, but erratically, as if being chased by a serpent or something equally insane! Colton held on to the reins as tight as he could, his thighs clenching onto to the horse in a desperate attempt not to fall as his YEE HAW had trailed off into a wordless yell. He was enjoying himself still though, almost, despite it all. He was still smiling as he spotted an upcoming river and he pulled the reins as tight as he could to avoid a watery fate.
Unfortunately, all that did was cement it as the horse finally had enough and bucked Colton off into the rushing body of water, his cowboy hat not serving as much of a helmet as his head hit the rocks.
Lacey J could barely finish rolling her eyes at Colton’s stupid cowboyisms and yeehawing before realizing something was terribly wrong. She tried to take off after him, but even as she started to catch up, she knew the best thing she could do for him would be to make sure he didn’t die when he inevitably did get thrown off. A thought that instantly made Lacey J feel a sharp pang of guilt as she recalled the last thing she’d said to him before he took off. Even though Colton never took her mean words seriously, it wouldn’t matter that much if he actually died.
But before Lacey J could dwell on that thought even longer, Colton was going head first into the river. Dismounting as quickly as possible, Lacey J made sure her phone was out of her pocket before jumping in the water after him.
It was a rough rescue considering that it was a quickly moving river and Lacey J didn’t have any real rescuing experience outside of the lifeguard certification she’d gotten freshman year of high school as a class requirement, but she’d remembered enough about head injuries to hope the entire time she pulled Colton (and his stupid hat) out of the water that maybe having one would be the least of his worries. Lacey J wasn’t confident enough in her head splinting abilities to think that if his injuries extended down to his neck or his spine, he wouldn’t be completely screwed.
Once she got him on land, Lacey J checked for breathing before going into what she hoped would pass for effective CPR because at some point between chest compressions and breathing for him, she’d started to panic cry and could barely see him through her blurred vision. “God Colton, just fucking wake up already.”
Colton had grown up with a dad who hit him on the head any time he said something stupid, which according to his dad was basically every time he talked, so the sensation of his head hitting the river was nothing too crazy or new. It did make him feel weaker though, and it was already hard enough keeping up with the rushing water; he'd never learned to swim, so it wasn't long before the river pushed him down and held him down until he couldn't really see or think anymore. Even that didn't feel so bad. It was almost like falling asleep, to sweet dreams about horses and cowgirls and candy and riding into a giant sunset, before it all just kind of went dark.
And then it was light again, all at once. There was still water weighing his eyelashes down but he saw a blurry Lacey J above him, rising up and away from his face, and for a split second, the memory of everything they'd done that day so far came rushing back to him and a smile washed over him. Then the water he hadn't realized he'd swallowed came back up and he turned as fast as he could to the side so he could cough it all out without getting any of it on her. It took a while but when he was done, he wiped his mouth with his soaked sleeve, not realizing that didn't make a huge difference, since he was covered with water everywhere.
It wasn't the first time Colton had lost consciousness because of some accident or another, not by a long shot, so he wasn't too freaked out by it all, but Lacey J didn't seem as cool and collected as she usually did, so he wondered if it was her first time dealing with something like that. He reached out almost without thinking to grab one of her hands, kind of as a way to thank her, kind of as a way to calm them both down, and smiled. "Well now, who knew you were some kinda superhero, Miss Lacey Jean?" he almost laugh, his voice hoarse still from coughing. "Something tells me I did that last part wrong, huh?"
Lacey J’s relief over Colton’s survival only lasted about as long as it took for him to be able to talk again and basically confirm that he wasn’t a quaddruplegic since he could at least grab onto her hand. Something about his ability to joke about it so quickly made Lacey J really angry and kind of embarrassed for getting so upset, which only made her even angrier. Lacey J wrenched her hand out of Colton’s before picking up his soaking wet hat and starting to hit him in the chest with it repeatedly, her rage completely replacing her previous concern for his spine.
“SOMETHING TELLS YOU? You’re kidding me right? You literally almost drown in front of me because you just couldn’t listen to me and do things right and now you can make jokes!” Lacey J was mostly missing more aims at Colton than making any actual contact, so she was mostly just splashing him but she wasn’t actually that concerned with the violence so much as just making her point. “What is wrong with you!?”
Colton blinked and all but missed the split second it took Lacey J to start hitting him, but he didn't mind it too much. He knew that scared people acted out more than non-scared people did, like his dad who felt all small and weak once he was put on the Isle, and Lacey J had definitely been scared just now. He'd seen it in her eyes. And besides, it's not like it hurt; it was mostly having water sprinkled on his face and a few hits, and after almost drowning, it really felt like nothing.
It did start eventually getting annoying though, and he didn't quite feel like using his voice to tell her to stop, so one of Colton's hands shot up and gripped Lacey J's wrist. "Nothing's wrong with me!" he said maybe a little too loudly, looking right at her face. "Nothing's wrong with me because of you! You saved me and I was just trying to make you laugh because I didn't want you to be scared. After you made sure I was okay, me making sure you're okay is the least I could do, ma'am. My apologies!"
Lacey J was a little taken aback by Colton grabbing her wrist and then a LOT aback when he started talking. When Colton started joking as soon as he regained consciousness, Lacey J had taken it as another stupid boy thing. Like Colton was just being so dumb again that he couldn’t even take almost dying seriously. She hadn’t considered at all that he had been joking to make her feel better. After all who does that? Almost DIE and immediately try to make someone else less afraid? But it wasn’t that hard of a question to answer. Of course Colton would do that! As empty as his head always seemed to be, it was exceedingly obvious that his heart was more than big enough to make up for double the space.
Lacey J opened and closed her mouth a couple times to try and formulate a response to that, but after the third time of trying and failing to produce one word, Lacey J did the next best thing her brain could come up with and leaned down to press her lips against Colton’s. She didn’t know if she was doing it as a thank you, an apology for trying to beat him with his own hat, a weird amount of latent and rather inappropriate horniness or some bizarre combination of them all but she wasn’t trying to figure that out now.
Once she’d finished, Lacey J hopped up, wiped some of the excess river water off of her mouth and semi calmly walked back to where the horses were waiting without trying to help Colton up too. “I think we should just walk them back. I don’t really have time to save you from the river twice, Okay?”
Colton didn't usually yell at people, and Lacey J seemed like she got mighty mad at him even when he was being his regular pleasant self, so he kind of expected her to slap him or something, especially with how much her heart was probably still racing after that rescue. What he definitely didn't anticipate was a kiss, but just because he didn't anticipate it didn't mean it wasn't welcome. He was a healthy, hot-blooded Auradonian young man, and Lacey J was prettier than a cow's eyes, after all. He'd have been hungry for this kiss even if he hadn't almost just died. It took no time at all for him to drop his grip on her wrist and move his hand to the side of her face, guiding them both into a deeper kiss.
He let her pull away, his head almost as light again as when he'd originally been pulled from the river, as a wide smile cracked over his face as she started walking away. Colton pushed himself to his feet and wondered if there was something wrong with him for being semi-hard after nearly meeting the reaper, but then cut himself some slack as he followed her. "Sounds good to me. I'm thinking I've done enough riding for one day anyway," he chuckled, nearing the kind critter who'd bucked him off earlier and stroking her mane before gently grabbing the reins and leading her away. "Though if that's how you save my life every time, it's not that bad," he added, unable to help himself.
“That is not how I’ll save your life every time.” Lacey J rolled her eyes even though she was blushing hard enough to give away that she wasn’t as unaffected by the kiss as she was trying to pretend she was. She led the way back to the stables in silence for a little while before speaking again. “As nice as that last part was, I don’t want to have to save you again. We’re going to have to practice a lot more before I let you attempt so much as a trot.
"Mighty shame," Colton drawled, trying not to get too cocky and failing miserably. The truth was he was all hopped up on adrenaline and whatever other chemicals were released from kissing a girl that was finer than a hog's hair split four way, and her being all pink in the face got him blushing too. He walked after her quietly, which just let him hear how hard his heart was pumping blood all over his body. He wondered if Lacey J could hear it from where she was and found himself hoping she could. Maybe then she'd know how much he liked all this.
"Yes, ma'am," he complied, all but glowing from her calling that last part 'nice'. Nice. It was such a short word but it went such a long way with him, and Colton was sure he'd be smiling all day after this till he fell asleep and maybe even after then because of it. "I can handle a lot more practice, so long as it's with you. Don't know if you've noticed, but I really like you, Lacey Jean. Being round you's a treat and a half for me, no matter what we do... or don't do."
Lacey J did not expect Colton to say anything that came out of his mouth other than the first ‘Yes, Ma’am’ and it practically took all the strength in her body not to let her jaw drop in response. She had NOT noticed that Colton really liked her. She knew he liked her fine enough to let her teach him things and not be completely put off when she was being bitchy to him and she knew he liked her enough to kiss her back without complaint after she basically jumped him. But enough that hanging out with her was a ”treat and a half, no matter what they did” and he had to specifically spell it out for her? That was enough to send a thrill through Lacey J that was strong enough that she was sure she actually shivered a little.
“I really like you too, Colton.” She answered back with an ease that genuinely surprised herself. She didn’t usually admit to liking anyone much outside of like her best friends, Neil deGrasse Tyson and any animal ever. “And um.. when I said I wasn’t going to save your life like that again, I didn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you again. I just meant we could do that without you having to die first, if you actually were interested in doing that again ever, I mean. If you didn’t, I’m more than fine with not doing things ever again too!”
If she couldn't hear his heart before then, Lacey J probably could now, because when she said she liked him too, that damn organ started pounding like a drum. Colton knew in his heart that she had to like him some to spend time around him or talk to him at all -- he wasn't the brightest or best at nothing, so anyone who chose to be around him had to appreciate something -- but he never thought she'd say so, especially not so openly. It made it impossible not to smile wider than a buffalo's backside. "Woooooooo doggie!" he whisper-shouted to himself in celebration, biting his grin so it didn't grow so big that it swallowed his face.
There was no way to avoid the pain of a too-big smile though once Lacey J continued. The red on his face deepened as the blood rushed back up to his head and he had to hold himself back from dropping his horse's reins and taking Lacey J in his arms right then and there. "Lacey Jean, I couldn't be more interested in doing that again. Now, I meant it when I said I'd be fine never doing that again, because hanging with you is good regardless. That said, I also mean it when I say I'd do that or even more anywhere, any time with you if you wanted. Matter of fact, I haven't quit thinking bout doing that or more since we stopped."
If Lacey J could’ve blushed even harder, she absolutely would’ve when Colton whisper shouted like she wasn’t close enough to have heard him clearly. It was such a shockingly nice moment that Lacey J just had to surreptitiously pinch herself just to make sure she hadn’t fallen off her horse and knocked herself out somehow while they just had been trotting around the stables and had been dreaming everything since then.
Even after the pinch it felt so unreal that all Lacey J could offer as a response to everything Colton said was a stupid grin and an even doofier sounding “Good to know!” before she said anything else that would probably make her feel like even more of a simp over a boy that had literally just gotten himself thrown into a river for riding improperly.
As they approached the stables Lacey J felt strangely electric as she anticipated what might happen after they were no longer holding on to their respective horses. Now that she knew that Colton hadn’t stopped thinking about kissing or more since the kiss had ended, Lacey J couldn’t stop thinking about it too. Especially the more part.
Colton felt a surge of confidence rush through his body, warm and prickly like lightning, at that smile of hers. Dang, that smile. Pretty girls were going to be the death of him but damn it if he wasn't going to die a happy man. "Good to know," he echoed, letting it sink in that she didn't seem to have any problems with where his mind was. Maybe that meant hers wasn't too far off from there too. Now, Colton didn't consider himself a smart man by any means, but one thing that he thought he was pretty good at was knowing if the mood was right, and right now it definitely wasn't wrong.
Once they were both in the stables, the fun thick tension between them got even stronger, and he was full of a real jittery energy as he walked his horse back to their stall. It was the kind of energy that came from possibilities and knowing anything could happen. He couldn't just rely on that energy though, not if he wanted to give Lacey J the experience she deserved.
"So..." Colton started, "when I said I'd do that again anywhere, I meant anywhere. A stable included. So unless you'd rather save it for somewhere else, let me know right now, or else as soon as I let go of this critter, I'm picking you up and I'm not putting you down for a good, long time."
Lacey J’s jaw really dropped that time. She was about three thousand percent sure that she’d never heard anything sexier in her entire life and considering she wasn’t above reading all kinds of erotica, that was really saying something.
“Fuck, that was so hot. Why was that so hot?” Lacey J spluttered, as she tried to quickly unsaddle her horse on weakened knees. “But yeah, here works. Here would be great!” As eager as she was to let Colton make good on his words as soon as possible, she could never let a poor horse get neglected in the meantime. Besides, it didn’t actually take THAT long to do, it just felt long because she was much more interested in undoing Colton’s pants than the buckle of the horse’s reins.
Before Colton could tell her that it was so hot because she was so hot, Lacey J had already agreed and it made him speed up the process even more. He'd never unsaddled a horse before but it was almost like a horniness-induced super power that his fingers were able to work fast enough and make quick work of it. In what felt like both no time at all and too much time, he'd left his horse comfortable in her stall with the door closed safely behind him, which meant he was able to focus on more urgent matters. He'd genuinely loved riding the horse but he had a feeling there was about to be an even better kind of riding happening any second.
The horses were both taken care of, which meant he and Lacey J were ready to go. He looked at her and really took a moment to appreciate her as she stood in front of him, all wet and wild and beautiful, before tossing his hat to the side and rushing up to her, confidently recapturing her mouth in a kiss. It felt like it'd been forever since he'd been this close to someone, and his hands worked their way down the curves of her body, relishing in the feel of her and the sparks flying between their bodies as he pulled them closer together.
He pulled back for a breath and started kissing down Lacey J's neck instead as he reached between them to unbutton and remove his flannel he'd been wearing on top of his tank top. He wasn't sure exactly how far they were going to go but he knew he wanted to let her know that if she wanted clothes to come off, that'd be more than fine with him. "Reckon it's a good time to get out of these wet clothes," he sighed against her skin.
With all the time she felt like she’d been taking, Lacey J was surprised to find that she and Colton had finished with their horses in roughly the same amount of time, but she didn’t have much mental bandwidth left to figure out out how that happened because the way Colton looked at her before rushing up to kiss her quickly pushed any thought that WASN’T about how much she wanted him into the background.
Even though she had to stand on the absolute tips of her toes to meet his lips now that they were kissing standing straight up, Lacey J easily melted into the kiss and the feeling of his hands on her body. Colton was such a good kisser and she really could’ve spent the entire afternoon right where she was in his arms, but before she got too comfortable Colton stopped kissing her to make a suggestion that was much more exciting than what was already arguably the best kiss of her life.
“Oh yeah.” She agreed, nodding like it was the most casual thing in the world and her heart wasn’t absolutely leaping from her chest with anticipation at what might come next now that clothes were coming off. “Cold water drains body heat up to 25 times faster than cool air and paired with the fact that you almost drowned in a river with who knows what kind of germs in there, you’d be lucky if you don’t wind up dead anyway.” It wasn’t the sexiest thing in the world she could’ve said, but it was definitely on brand. But before she could completely kill the mood, Lacey J pulled her wet t-shirt over her head, revealing her simple green bralette before she started working on the buttons on her shorts. “But I can think of one way to get you all warmed up before you croak.”
Colton's brain had a hard enough time keeping up with someone as smart as Lacey J on a regular day, but right now, with all the blood rushing down south, she could've been saying damn near anything and it would've sounded hot. He thought she said something about being lucky though, and he chuckled against her neck at what an understatement that was. They pulled apart long enough for her shirt to come off and his eyes widened at the sight of it. "Shoot, lucky's right" he whistled lowly, shaking his head as he peeled off his wet tank top, his muscles beneath glistening with leftover river water. "Look at you. I'm the luckiest boy in the world!"
His fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, hurrying to get it off so that he could pull his pants down as quickly as possible. He couldn't be more excited to be ready to kiss every part of Lacey J his mouth could reach, hold her tight, and show her exactly how wild she drove him. "If that's the way I go, I'm going to die a happier man," Colton promised, reaching down and lifting her up as easily as if she weighed nothing, holding her high and tight as he ravenously kissed her again, fully determined to stay attached to her in one way or another for the next however long he could.
Bran: Apparently telling someone that if they were a bug they'd be a dung beetle is considered rude now?
Bran: I've always considered it a huge compliment, because dung beetles are hard workers! Some species of them can bury dung 250 times their own mass in just one night!
Bran: Anyway, they threw a drink on me. Which makes them much more like bombardier beetles if you ask me.
