A Red Leaf & Ten Orchids Ch. 11

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Kayla and Josh just accept the idea.
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23.9k
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Part 11 of the 17 part series

Updated 10/27/2022
Created 09/22/2011
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TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,930 Followers

The more that I write of this, the more I get the feeling that the relative isolation of the ranch sort of makes the thing feel like a more old-fashioned sort of romance, but at the speed that this pair seem to set for themselves. It's a little odd to me, that's all. O_o

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They both wondered a little just how this was going to work between them. Kayla was cognizant that the whole domestic experience was not the way that a single, recently ex-soldier might have spent his evenings. At the same time, Joshua wondered about the very same thing from the opposite side.

He didn't want to appear to be interested only in Kayla, since he also felt a lot for the child that came with this relationship - and he really wanted to know how to be the male figure to Jillian that Rosie had spoken of.

In the meantime, Kayla and Rose had an invitation, and Kayla needed some advice.

"I just don't know, Aunt Rose. If we go, it means that Josh would have to baby-sit Jilly. They haven't known each other for very long - heck, neither of us has."

Rose rolled her eyes at her niece, "And I suppose that you're worried that he'll grow fur and fangs three minutes after we leave? Look Kayla, I hear the concern in your voice and I also know that you're not terribly worried, other than whether he's up to it. I get that. But you're forgetting that I've known him for a long time. The choice is yours, but if it were me, I wouldn't think on it much. I wouldn't ask him."

Kayla looked at her aunt, her eyebrows rising. "You wouldn't?"

"Nope," Rosie said with a shrug, "I'd just tell him that he's baby-sitting Jillian and that none of my houseplants had better get knocked over, either."

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Josh had never experienced the drama and the give and take that accompanied putting children to bed sometimes. He'd never thought about it before. He thought that you just told them to go to bed, and they went, something like his own childhood.

Jillian was a very well-mannered and obedient little thing, but she was also bright, fun-loving, and talkative. She referred to Josh as the "new guy" and the term caused both of the adults to crank their heads around toward her the first time.

Jillian looked at them both a little shyly and she said that she and Kayla were the "new girls" at Rosie's farm and in town and it would feel like that for her at school. But between them here, Josh was the new one. "I can't call him the new kid, can I?"

As the "new guy", he was being spared a lot. He would have been willing to help if asked, but he had no idea what had to be done.

There was the whole bath thing, which he was very thankful wasn't within his jurisdiction until for the first time in her life, Daisy suddenly felt an intense desire to reverse her normal motivation, and try to get into a bathtub since her buddy Jillian was obviously enjoying it.

Kayla called to him for help, and when he arrived, Daisy had her forelegs in the tub, with Kayla straining mightily to keep the rest of her out. Jillian thought Daisy had a great idea, and was laughing and squealing, until Josh came around the corner, and then the squeals turned to panicked shrieks.

Josh grabbed Daisy's collar and heaved her back while Kayla tried to talk Jillian down from the ceiling. He quickly asked Kayla if there was a spare towel, and was given with the same one that he'd used to cool her off the other day.

Toweling Daisy's legs off, he muscled her out of the room and closed the door behind them. Jillian was very upset, and Josh felt badly for her. He wondered how he could reassure her, and decided that he probably couldn't.

Kayla remembered that they'd lost Jillian's toothbrush somehow between Rose's house and the bunkhouse and mentioned it through the door as she continued to try to calm Jillian. Josh said that he had a new unopened one, and trotted to get it from the loft.

As he left the bunkhouse, Rose asked him from the porch if anything was wrong.

Josh replied, "Other than some damage at the upper range of my hearing, nothing's wrong that Wonder Woman in there can't handle. Daisy tried to get into the tub with Jilly. Kayla called me in to stop Daisy, and Jilly lost her mind."

Rose laughed and said, "Glad I missed it then."

When Josh returned, the bathroom door was open again and they waited expectantly for him, Jillian was in pajamas now and looking at him in a very wounded way.

He dropped to one knee and presented the new toothbrush as though he was a knight, and it was his sword as he offered it to Jillian. "Here you are, Milady."

Jillian took it after a second. She regarded both of them with suspicion, until he said. "Jilly, it's still in the wrapper from the store. It doesn't have my germs on it yet. I didn't get a chance to put any on it. Sheesh! It's yours now, ok?."

Kayla looked as though she was just this side of laughter.

"Fine." Jillian said, stonily.

He returned to his magazine until Jillian came out twenty minutes later as though nothing had happened and asked him if he would like to read her new book to her. When he said yes, Jillian got up and she sat beside him on the couch. He read it to her as she leaned against him. She interrupted him for clarification on a couple of points, before asking him to put his arm around her. Josh glanced quickly at Kayla, and her nod spoke volumes.

After the story, Jillian pronounced to Kayla that Josh was "a good reader", and asked him to tuck her into bed. Once she was in her bed, she hugged him, and asked for a kiss.

As he was about to leave the room, Jillian asked him if he "saw anything". He paused as he turned and thought for a second.

"Yes, I saw lots of things. I saw Daisy, the tub, the water, and some of it was in the air because you were freaking out. I saw bubbles, lots of bubbles, and more bath toys than I've ever seen in my life."

He paused, looking uncertain.

Jillian asked in a shaky voice, "Did you see... me?"

Josh stated, "Well, no. I would have seen you; I was even looking for you to make sure that you weren't drowning, you know, because that's more important than trying to see your little pink butt."

He drew an uncertain breath, "But there was this thing."

"What do you mean 'thing'?" she asked, "What kind of thing?"

Joshua shuddered visibly. "A big thing, it was in the way and I couldn't see around it. It was scary, I have to tell you. It was HUGE, and dark."

Jillian was fascinated, "What was it?"

Josh shrugged, "I dunno, but these horrible sounds were coming out of it, I thought my ears were going to bleed for sure!"

Jillian couldn't help herself and giggled a little as he went on, "I've never been so scared of anything in my whole life!" he told her, his eyes wide. Jillian heard her aunt chuckle and smiled at her a little.

Kayla stopped giggling and interjected dryly, "Uh, Jilly, that would have been your open mouth screaming the house down. It was probably open so wide, that Josh couldn't see you behind it."

She was rolling her eyes. "AND don't do it again please, Josh can only take so much."

"Josh?" Jillian asked, "Thanks for not looking. Good night. I love you."

Joshua was more than a little astounded, but he didn't show much more than a warm smile as he said, "I love you too, Peaches. Good night, sweetheart. You sleep well."

Rose met them at the front door. "I'll take over for a while." They thanked her, and Kayla said that they were "going for a walk or something".

Rose chuckled, "Sure."

As they walked away, Kayla said with a knowing smirk, "You saw everything, didn't you?"

"Yup." he sighed sadly.

"Peripheral vision?" she asked.

"It's a curse sometimes" he groaned while rubbing his eyes with his fingers.

Kayla smirked, "There was no way that you couldn't have seen her, and she knows that because we talked while you were getting the toothbrush. I told her that the world wouldn't end just because you had seen her tush for a second while you were getting Daisy out of there. I told Jilly that it was really a bad idea for Daisy to get into the tub with her and all of the reasons why, too.

But it was important to her to ask anyway, and you reassured her. That's really what she was asking for, and you handled it perfectly. Have you ever considered fatherhood?" Kayla asked.

"How do you mean?" asked Josh.

Kayla spoke with some caution, "Well, I think you and I are getting kind of uh, involved, and I guess I want to make sure that you know what it is that you're getting into here with me. I'm part of a package deal."

She watched his face carefully, and Josh smiled at her and slipped his arm around her shoulder. "I think you're the one looking for some reassurance now, and yes, I've considered that.

We need to discuss a ton of things about all of our futures and I don't have ready answers for a lot of those things. But what you're asking is not in question as far as I'm concerned. I've fallen in love with you, but you didn't get to my heart first, 'mighty Kayla'. Jilly beat you to it. She had a lock on me the first night when I found her lost in the shed and picked her up.

I've been getting little peeks at something that I've never known before the last few days, and while I know that there's a lot more to it than I've seen, I've decided that I like the idea a lot." He hugged her as they walked and kissed her head.

He thought that he could feel her exhalation of relief, but he said nothing about it.

"I'd guess that 'Bath Time' must seem like a daunting thing to a guy like you in a situation like this," she said, "and really, if there hadn't been that bit of excitement, there's not much to it and you don't have any involvement anyway.

Around here," Kayla smirked, "I'd love to just be able to hose the dust off her and send her off to bed. It's not a huge deal like bathing a toddler, since she's not really little anymore. She has her bath, and I hang around and we just talk. Then she's into her jammies, we read a bit and that's it. I guess Daisy felt that she had to add a whole other dimension to things, that's all.

We are going to have ourselves a talk about things, though," Kayla said, "I usually save things like that for our Movie Nights. I guess that we'd better have one soon, her and I."

He looked at her, "Movie Nights?"

"Yeah," she nodded, "It's just something that we came up with between us. We've always loved each other to bits forever, but with her parents gone suddenly, we were faced with a lot of strangeness, if you can imagine it, and we were both so upset over everything. I needed to find a way to connect with her a lot better and I wanted to do it quickly, so I just used something familiar that we'd done whenever she'd stayed with me before, and it's just evolved since then.

We go to rent a movie together, have dinner, our baths, make popcorn, watch the movie and talk." Kayla looked at Joshua and laughed, "It's pure girl time, Josh, you'd feel your poor male soul slipping away from you in agony and boredom inside of about six minutes, but those silly movies and bowls of popcorn helped us bond. We couldn't stay as a kid and her aunt, she was too little, and so we're more like a kid and her mom.

That's how we did it. We could have kept the aunt-kid thing if it had happened when Jilly was a teenager, but she was only four and a half. We both know that I'm not her mom, but for us, it works if we're somewhere between those two relationships. I've already made my adjustment, though. I consider her to be my daughter, plain and simple."

They stepped into the shed, and Josh closed the doors. Kayla asked him if he could teach her how to see in the dark.

"Ok," he began, "you'll need to practice afterward, every chance you get, but you will improve your night vision to some variable degree." he said. "The trick is not to try to see things, but to give them a chance to let themselves be seen by you. It's a more passive process. Think of it that way, and it will be easier.

First off, recognize that the way that you look at things in the light, by looking directly at them, will work against you in the dark. The center of your field of vision is not as useful to you here. Don't try to see things, just be aware of the things that you see. You can see a million things at once peripherally. You have to learn to accept the information from that source. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes, but it's weird" admitted Kayla.

"You'll get used to it." Josh said, adding, "You should already be getting some information by now. Look at something here that you can see, like that handrail for the stairs. Can you see it by looking at it directly?" she nodded.

"Ok then," he said, "Don't move your eyes, but notice that the rail above and below where you are looking is actually brighter. That's the dull spot in your night vision that contains the best receptors for daytime sight. You need to see around that.

Also, don't shift the focal point as much as you do in the light. Passive, right? So now you lead us up the stairs, as slow as you need to go. Also remember that there are things that ought to be here, so make a mental checklist so that you're expecting to find them, such as Sam's bike, and you'll improve your chances of success."

They set off, and Kayla was surprised how much she could actually see by the very dim light of the night sky through the windows. "How come I couldn't do this before?" she asked.

"You could do it before", he said. "We're all equipped for it, we just don't need it much anymore the way that most of us live, so we're forgetting what we once knew instinctively." he said as they reached the loft.

He went for the light switch, but she told him not to.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a few of the condoms that she'd bought. Joshua looked at her and watched as she held the packets in her hand and considered them for a moment before looking over at him with a very soft grin that made him feel almost like a king.

It wasn't the prospect of the evening that he faced, Joshua just felt very fortunate to know Kayla. He could feel it every time that she smiled at him.

She slapped the packets down on the table and looked at him as she leaned forward a little.

"There," she said, "just so you know what we're going to be doing tonight, Joshua, just so you know how I feel about you now."

She chuckled a little as she pointed to them, "There's my hope, my offering, your new crazy woman's desire, and my god-damned need for you all at the same time.

So tell me," she smirked, with a lot of those feelings in plain view to him, "are ya gonna come across, or do I need to get –"

He shook his head, and Kayla could see the very same emotions in his own eyes.

"You won't need a gun," he smiled.

"Well that sure is a relief," she laughed, "But that wasn't what I was going to say. I was about to ask if I had to get down on my knees and beg."

"Only if you want to," he smiled with that soft little boy's smile that made her loins ache now and then, "and maybe later."

"What have you got to drink up here?" she asked.

Josh shrugged, "Water, milk, beer, a couple of those spritzy wine drinks, ..."

"Bingo!" she smiled, "Please get them. I've brought a tea candle," she said, looking around the loft in the dim light that filtered in through the dirty windows. "If I light it and put it there on the counter by the kitchen sink, we ought to be able to see well enough way over here."

"I think that Aunt Rose could very well be watching right now for all I know, and I don't think I'd put it past her, so I want to put it over there. We ought to be able to see well by the glow, but she won't. I wanted to do it this way because tonight. I want you to be able to see me better. I've come a long way because of you, and I'm proud of myself for it," she smiled at him.

Josh brought the drinks to the table while Kayla lit the candle. "Don't sit down just yet," she said as she turned back to him, "Take your clothes off and then sit. With the candle over here, I'm pretty sure that the wall casts that part in dark shadow, but I need to see to make sure. "

She rolled her eyes, "I swear I'm gonna buy a porno movie or two to keep my aunt busy, and then I'm going to smear Vaseline all over the lenses of her binoculars while she's busy watching the movie."

Joshua was amazed at the way that Kayla's clothes came off on her way over. Even her pants seemed to come off in a flash, pretty much. She carefully sat herself down on his lap and slowly pulled his head to her breast. "I keep finding more things about you that surprise me," she said as she kissed the top of his head, "little things that I fall in love with mostly, like the way that you smile just a tiny bit crookedly, and when you do, there's a really small little dimple that I look for on your cheek. It's not there every time, and that makes me look hard for it. I also like to watch everything in your arm move when you do something with your hands."

They sat talking and sipping the drinks for a little while. The loft was still very warm from the heat of the day, and it caused them to sweat a little. Josh apologized for it, but Kayla shook her head and whispered into his ear, "I never used to feel this way, but now I just love it when we're sticky like this and we're alone together."

She licked his ear and then lowered her head all the way down to his shoulder to softly bite his flesh before she licked and tasted him. "I don't mind the heat and I never really did here when I was a kid. I only wanted climate control and air conditioning in Phoenix once I was grown up."

He heard her breath in his ear as she licked her way slowly up the side of his throat, "As nice and civilized as that is," she sighed, "I think it would take something away from it when we do this. I kind of figured that out last night. When we're together and against each other, it makes being with you so much better for me, Josh.

When I'm with you just like this, a little sweat just makes it hotter in such a nice way."

Kayla felt more of the heat in his breath as it came to her against her skin. It made her feel so alive and a rather primal, the way that he did that, and she had a sudden thought, wondering about the men in her past. She knew that what had been missing had been her fault, every bit as much as the failing had been theirs.

There's attraction and then there's need, she decided. She'd just never known the difference before and she'd never been so drawn to any male before Josh. Add some hungering lust toward a man who says very little about his hunger, but shows his own need clearly in his eyes, ...

Josh held her as he kissed and hungrily went after her nipples. He stopped suddenly and she watched those eyes lift toward her own again. He opened his mouth to release her hot flesh with a very soft pop and they looked at each other.

Kayla groaned very softly at what she saw. When he did this, he looked so much like a quiet but hungry beast to her. At the same time, Kayla felt something like a smaller animal who wanted nothing more than to throw herself directly into the teeth of his craving, needing to feel his predation as much as he needed to give in to his longing for her.

What Joshua saw twisted his heart every time. Her eyes seemed to glow so softly with that jade light that he so loved to want float toward.

Those eyes looked at him with such uncertainty in one way, hesitant and hopeful as the light came to him from under those long bangs, as though she was peeking at him from some under some dense foliage. Her mouth was open a little as she breathed and he knew that he could only look at her for so long when she was looking back at him like this.

If he didn't act within the very limited and well-defined period of time that his heart allowed him for moments such as this with her, well, ...

TaLtos6
TaLtos6
1,930 Followers