All the King's Horses (29 page)

“Probably not as bad as you think.”

“You’d be surprised.” She laid her reins behind the saddle horn and reached up with both hands to fix her baseball cap. She took it off, laced her hair through the back of it again, put the cap back on, and then picked up her reins. “I was really bad when it came to not competing. I mean, when Sam and I went on our honeymoon, we were gone for a month, and by the time we got back, I was itching to get back in the show ring. Competing was so deep in my blood I didn’t know what to do without it.” She looked ahead, staring out at the trail in front of us with unfocused eyes. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve missed three competitions.
Major
ones. And I just…don’t care.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “I got burned out on competing a couple of years ago. I’m showing a couple of Ransom’s babies this year, but they weren’t ready last season.” I grimaced. “Can’t say it exactly broke my heart to have a lighter schedule for a while.”

Amy nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”

The trail wound on, and so did our conversation. It was hard to believe I shared so much common ground with the woman who I’d once thought was icy and apathetic. This business liked to suck the life out of people, and sometimes it was good to know it wasn’t just me. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one who could have that competitive itch, that need that was in a person’s blood and never fully went away, and still get queasy at the thought of actually going to a competition. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who could love horses more than I loved some humans and still find myself looking one in the eye and feeling absolutely nothing, which made me feel guiltier about the assumptions I’d made about Amy when she arrived. Hadn’t I been there before myself?

As we loped up hills or let the horses drink from the swollen creeks, I caught myself looking at her the way I knew damn well better than to look at her. What could I do? However she’d been when I met her, something in her had come back to life in the last few weeks. Something she may not have even been aware of that had put a devilish sparkle in her eye that made her suggestion of a race—come on, just
one
won’t destroy all their training—completely irresistible. Something that made her laugh when Mesa splashed Ransom in the face, and she’d laughed like she didn’t just mean it, she’d
felt
it.

And my God, especially now that she had some life back in her eyes, she was beautiful. Out in the bright sunlight with her baseball cap putting a dark shadow over her face, under the sun-dappled shade beneath some of the trees that arched over the trail, with dust on her jeans and sweat on her face, she was just beautiful. Damn it. I knew full well she had perfectly good reasons for backing off, but especially lately, it was killing me. What I wouldn’t have given for the two of us to have met in another time or place where she didn’t eventually have to leave and where she wasn’t haunted by an all too recent past.

As the covered arena’s roof came into view, the slightest pang of disappointment hit me. Every ride had to end, especially when the afternoon was threatening to heat up and we didn’t want to exhaust the horses. And there were still chores to be done, other horses to work, things like that. Still, I wouldn’t have minded if this one had gone on just a little while longer.

We stopped in front of the barn, dismounted, and led both horses into the aisle. Once they were unsaddled, groomed and cooled down, we put them back in their stalls.

Amy latched Mesa’s door and hung up his halter. “Would you believe that was the first trail ride I’ve been on in years?”

“Was it?”

She nodded. “Thank you. I think it was exactly what I needed.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “I usually trail ride alone, but it was nice to have some company today.”

Smiling, she held my gaze. “Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to ride with.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Well,” she said, “if you feel like going riding with company again, let me know.”

How about right now?
“I will.”

There were chores to be done. Things to take care of and only so much daylight left. Separate directions to be taken.

But neither of us moved. My heart beat faster as we looked at each other from across a few feet of packed-dirt floor, and I would have sold my soul to be able to read her mind just then.

Especially when she moistened her lips and said, “I should get back to work.” But instead of leaving, she came a little closer.

I mirrored her, closing some of the narrow space between us. “Yeah, we’ve already taken off half the afternoon.”

“Probably won’t have time to finish everything as it is.” Closer.

“Same here.” Closer.

“We really should—”

She stopped when I put my hands on her waist. I wasn’t sure if I’d done it to touch her or to keep us apart until I could make sense of the moment, but once my hands were on her, drawing her to me became a foregone conclusion.

“Amy…”

“We shouldn’t…” she whispered and wrapped her arms around me anyway.

I didn’t even try to speak. I just pulled her all the way to me, pushed her baseball cap out of the way and kissed her.

Leather. Dust. Alfalfa. Every breath I pulled in through my nose smelled just like the last time we’d slept together, and her kiss tasted just like it always did: like pure, irresistible sex.

And there was a reason that was the last time,
I told myself as she whimpered into my kiss. Amy needed something I couldn’t be, and I wanted more from her than she could honestly give, and we were only kidding ourselves if we thought this was anything other than a bad idea. A breathless, dizzying bad idea.

Amy broke the kiss and pulled back just enough to look me in the eye.

“We shouldn’t.”
Her words echoed in my mind.

What are we doing?
I was afraid to ask.

Amy lowered her gaze. I loosened my embrace.

“I should get back to work,” she said.

“Yeah.” I released her completely. “Me too.”

We both moved back enough to restore the gap between us to something platonic, friendly, maybe even professional, hiding all the evidence to the contrary from anyone who might have looked. From ourselves.

Clearing my throat, I gestured toward the office. “I’d…better get some stuff done. Let me know when you’re bringing in the turnouts, and I’ll give you a hand.”

Amy nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

We started to go our separate ways, but when she stopped, curiosity got the best of me and I looked over my shoulder.

She rocked back and forth from her heels to the balls of her feet, and after a moment, turned around. “I was going to go grab a shower. Want to join me?”

Oh, yes. I did.

Hot water ran over both of us, and Amy ran her fingers through my hair. Her kiss was gentle and calm; the desire was still there, but we kissed like we just wanted to enjoy this moment for what it was and not for what it would inevitably lead to. I still couldn’t believe we were here, that we’d broken the unspoken standoff and had made it back to surrendering to the need for each other that hadn’t even begun to cool since the last time, but now that we were here, I couldn’t make myself rush anything.

This was like nothing I’d ever experienced with any woman before Amy. It wasn’t just lust. Not for me, at least. Maybe I was just kidding myself, but every moment we held each other in the wake of that long, relaxed conversation on the trails, I felt like we understood each other in ways I didn’t think two people could. I’d been in love before, but I’d never felt this close to a woman even though I knew and she knew and damn it
we
knew we had no business getting this close to each other.

She broke the kiss and met my eyes, and if I ever found a way to convince myself this was lust and lust alone, it wasn’t going to be today.

I slid my hand up into her wet hair and drew her into another kiss. My other hand traced the curve of her waist to the swell of her hip, and as my fingertips drifted over her thigh and between her legs, Amy sighed into my kiss. Her legs parted to give me more access, and she pressed her hip against my erection as my fingers slipped into her. I took slow, easy strokes. Her kiss muffled her soft, helpless moans, and her pussy tightened around my fingers. Her hand slid between us and found my cock, and she stroked me just as slowly as I did her.

She shuddered and broke the kiss with a gasp, letting her head fall back against the shower wall.

My hips moved of their own volition, forcing my cock through her tight fist as her pussy squeezed my fingers. I leaned forward so I could whisper in her ear. “Oh my God, I want to fuck you again, Amy.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered. I couldn’t tell what response was from my fingers and what was from my voice, but I continued with both just the same.

“I want to throw you down on your bed,” I growled, speaking just loud enough for her to hear me, “and fuck you hard, and fast. Just the way I know you like it.” I curled my fingers again, stroking and kneading her G-spot as I whispered, “I’ve been wanting you so damned bad…”

“We should take this into the bedroom,” she murmured against my lips.

“Ooh, yeah,” I whispered. “And then I can fuck you the way I think you want to be fucked.”

“Yes, Dustin,
please
.” Three simple words, each released as something close to a sob, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Oh…God…” She buried her face against my neck, and every sharp, hot huff of breath on my skin drove me out of my mind.

I kept teasing her pussy, beckoning against her G-spot and pressing my hand against her clit. Her free hand held the back of my neck, and every twitch of her fingers echoed the catch of her breath, the furrow of her brow, and the unsteadiness of her knees.

“Oh God,” she whimpered.

“Come for me,” I whispered, my own voice trembling now. “Let me feel—”

“Oh God, I’m—” She gasped, and her eyes flew open, meeting mine with a look of such undeniable, unbridled lust, it pulled the air right out of my lungs. Her hand tensed around my cock and it was my turn to gasp. She glanced down, as if suddenly aware of her own hand again. Even through the tremors of her building orgasm, she found her rhythm again, stroking rapidly and
perfectly
.

I groaned, touching my forehead to hers as her pussy squeezed my fingers and her fingers squeezed my cock. Her sharp huffs of breath cooled my wet skin, and for a split second, I wondered how she could still breathe at all. I sure as hell couldn’t. Her touch, her moans, her soaked body against mine, her hand, her pussy…

Her fingers twitched in my hair and on my neck, and each breath was shorter and shallower than the last, until with a violent shudder, she came. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, wishing to God I could have been inside her just then, that her pussy could have tightened around my painfully hard cock the way it tightened around my fingers, rendering them almost unable to keep moving.

When her orgasm subsided, I released her arms, and she let them fall onto my shoulders. We panted in between lazy kisses, none of which did a damned thing to help me calm down.

I pulled her closer to me, and we just kissed in between panting. We kissed until we’d come back to earth. Until the shaking stopped. Until the water turned from hot to tepid to uncomfortably cold.

We were both still wet, but I didn’t care. Neither did she, evidently, as she led me out of the bathroom, or as I pulled her down onto the bed on top of me.

This wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time we’d had each other with nothing in between except skin. She was still hot and flushed from the shower and a couple of orgasms, her unruly wet hair splayed on the pillow beneath her, and I couldn’t remember a woman ever being so goddamned sexy.

I pinned her arms beside her head and bent to kiss her neck, flicking my tongue just below her ear and grinning to myself when she shivered. Trailing lingering kisses down her neck and the center of her chest, I watched her face. Every time her lips pulled into a grimace of frustration and arousal, every time she closed her eyes and exhaled, I had to resist the urge to grab a condom and fuck her like I knew she wanted me to. The temptation was almost too much, but I loved taking it this slow now that she was this wound up. It took everything I had to restrain myself, but it was worth it.
Well
worth it.

And for all I knew, we’d come to our senses after this was over, so every moment between now and then
had
to count.

My tongue parted her lips as I slipped my fingers inside her. Every twitch and tremor registered against my skin, and every catch of her breath changed the way we kissed.

One kiss at a time, I worked my way to her neck, then her collarbone, then her breasts. I stopped to tease both nipples in turn, then continued down her chest to her belly. She moaned when I pushed her knees apart. Trembled when I kissed the inside of her thigh. Cried out when I closed my lips around her clit.

I made soft, irregular circles around her clit with my tongue, and with two fingers, I once again beckoned against her G-spot, electricity prickling the base of my spine with her every tremor and whimper.

Her hands clawed at the comforter, and her back arched off the bed as her pussy tightened, squeezing so hard I could barely move my fingers at times.