Shiver (15 page)

Chapter 19

T
hat evening, we were snuggled up on the couch after dinner, just being lazy and flipping channels on the TV. Well, Ethan was flipping channels. I was reading and had no idea what was going on until my Kindle was plucked from my hands.

“Hey!”

“I was asking if you gave notice on your place today, but I had to remove the porn first.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Yes. I e-mailed. And it’s not porn. It’s romance.”

Sliding the device onto the coffee table, he crawled between my legs and grabbed my hips, pulling me down so I was flat on my back. “I’ll show you romance.” He gave me the panty-dropping smile.

“What if I want porn?” I gave him a saucy wink.

He tilted his head, considering. “I think I can manage both,” he said, pushing my shirt up, exposing me to his gaze. “God, you’re sexy. I love all these curves.”

I shifted a little self-consciously as he traced those curves with his tongue.

He paused to look at me. “What’s wrong,” he asked, confused.

I rolled my eyes. “Nothing. My stupid feminine mind is taking over.”

“I’m a little scared to ask what that means.”

“It means that I consciously fight being a stupid girl about seventy-five percent of the time because I know irrational when I see it. And I hate when I get self-conscious about not being rock hard and stick thin.”

“What happens the other twenty-five percent of the time?”

I gestured to myself. “This.”

“Ah.” He started chewing on his lip. “So are you thinking about Whitney?”

“Ugh. Not directly, no. But you have to admit, she looked better in breeches than me. Breeches are the devil.”

He let his head fall onto my shoulder, shoulders shaking as he laughed silently. “Let me tell you something, beautiful. I love your curves. I love how you’re soft and yet so strong. You’re real and genuine. You’re a woman. Why would I want anything different?”

“You know what’s frightening about most women?”

“I can only imagine…” He looked at me with wide eyes.

“I’m not really worried about you being attracted to me. I actually start to doubt myself.”

“You’re saying that you’re not attracted to yourself?” He laughed lightly.

I just nodded. “Well put.”

“Wow, it’s really not easy in your head, is it?”

“Not much is.” I shook my head.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked, then continued without waiting for my answer. “I’m offended.”

“What? Why are you offended?”

“Because I love you. And you’re saying that you don’t love something that I do.”

“You’re weird.”

“Let me see if I can explain.” He softly kissed my eyes, my cheeks, and my lips. “This face, I love.” He kissed down my neck, my collarbone, and across my shoulder. “Love,” he whispered. He kissed the scars on my arm. “I don’t love that you were hurt, but I love these scars that are a part of you and a piece of our story.” He kissed all around my breasts. “I love your tits.”

I sputtered in laughter.

“I never said I was a poet.” He looked up and grinned. “Now quiet, I’m not done explaining.” He kissed all down my stomach and around my hips. “Love,” he whispered again.

Through my laughter, I felt my eyes flutter shut as his words washed over me and his mouth worked magic in more ways than one, melting away my self-doubt.

He stripped off my boxers (his boxers) and moved all the way down to my toes and back up, settling between my thighs. “I love your legs, especially when they’re wrapped around me. I love watching you ride. So balanced and capable and fluid.” He slid his hands under my back, then lower to cup my ass. “I love your ass. So much.” He pushed into me smoothly and I wondered when he even took his pants off. “I love being inside you because you’re mine. And I love everything about you.” He started to move in a rhythm with his words. “And so when you make comments about yourself, that you think you’re not good enough or that you’re not perfect just the way you are, you’re talking shit about someone I love. And that is offensive to me. Don’t do it again.”

He stilled his movement until I opened my eyes to look at him, and I saw that he was completely serious. His dark eyes held mine until my hands came up to cup his face.

“I love you,” I said, trying to convey the enormity of my feelings into those three little words.

I was rewarded with an all-consuming kiss as we devoured each other, each breathing the other in. Ethan came down to rest his forearms on either side of my head so his hands could tangle in my hair. He tugged my head to the side, exposing my neck, and he nipped down it, the combination of sensations making my body tighten in anticipation. We were as close as two people could be, but when he slid one hand underneath me to pull my hips even closer, he created a whole new meaning to the concept of closeness. Never breaking our kiss, our bodies flush, we built together until our rhythm became passionately frantic, groaning into each other as we found our release.

Sweaty and sated, we lay together for long minutes, Ethan stroking my hair. “I think the world of you,” he whispered.

“You are my world,” I whispered back.

The next few days passed by much the same. The horses were going well, Whitney came daily and was weird and snotty, but fine. But then the day rolled around that I needed to teach her. Ethan had a dentist appointment.

“I can’t believe you’re going to the dentist,” I said, drinking my morning coffee.

“I can’t believe you haven’t been to a dentist in five years,” he responded.

“It’s not my favorite thing.” I shrugged.

He gave me a hard kiss. “You better take care of this mouth. I need it. For so many things.” He winked as I shoved him away.

We rode all morning and then he left for his appointment. Whitney showed up, dressed in her breeches and shiny tall black boots and an extremely low-cut top. Like, even
my
eyes couldn’t look away, her girls were on such display.

“Good morning, Whitney. Are you ready to ride?” I greeted her, maintaining my professionalism.

She eyed me up and down with disdain, and it took all my control not to glance down at myself. I already knew what I was wearing: a long-sleeved, fitted royal-blue schooling shirt and dark brown breeches, brown schooling boots, and my long silver spurs. My sweaty hair was knotted into a bun at the back of my head. “Ben is all ready for you.”

“Yes, well, let me get my helmet. Ethan said I could keep it in his office.”

I raised an eyebrow. “No problem. I’ll bring Ben out to the mounting block.”

I went to get the tall white gelding and lead him out of the barn. I had him optimally placed at the stool so she could climb on with as little effort as possible. I waited for an exceedingly long period of time, to the point where I was wondering what she could possibly being doing in the office. But she eventually strutted out, her hair tucked neatly beneath her helmet and an enormous pair of spurs on her boots. They didn’t… look right.

I opened my mouth to speak but paused before asking, “Have you worn those before?” I gestured to the spurs.

“No, but Ethan and I discussed spurs at length. These are what we decided on.”

I paused again. There was no way that was accurate, but I knew I had to approach this carefully so as not to offend her. “You know, since this is our first time working together, let’s leave them off for today. You can show them to him next time and double-check.”

“Oh, is he not here today?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“No. He had some appointments.” I smiled. “Let’s head up to the ring and get started.”

I turned and marched up to the arena, knowing that the best thing to do was to just keep moving. I walked through the large doors and then to the center of the rubber-and-sand mixture to wait for Whitney to catch up. She walked up a few minutes later, spurs off, sitting on Ben. Her reins were uneven and her hands were also uneven, as well as her seat, her legs, even her head. It wasn’t great.

“Okay.” I clapped my hands with enthusiasm. “Walk a circle around me and let me watch you a minute while you tell me your riding history.”

“Has Ethan not told you anything about me?” she asked, clearly affronted.

Again, I paused. He’d only told me how stiff she was. “He’s told me a bit,” I lied. “But I’d like to hear from you so I can get a real feel for your history and what you’d like to accomplish.”

She stiltedly told me about her brief history in riding and her desire to show and to foxhunt. I sighed to myself—this was not an uncommon response. I asked her to trot around me so I could see some of her ability. It wasn’t horrible for a beginner, but it was a long way from heading out on her own to foxhunt or compete. Her ego was a whole other issue.

Honestly, the lesson was a disaster in my mind. Every time I asked her to steady her hand, she told me that Ethan had said they were perfect. If I asked her to put her heels down, she said that Ethan had told her they were perfect. When I told her to push her chest forward, she smirked and said that Ethan had said her chest was perfect. I rolled my eyes hard as she trotted away, awkwardly posting. The lesson continued somewhat unproductively as I asked her to perform exercises and she made excuses for why she was tired, or she would stop halfway and discuss why I was wrong. All the while I smiled and nodded and pandered to her since that was clearly why she was here. The horse, on the other hand, was phenomenal. And I made a mental note to give him some extra treats later.

Before our hour was up, I made up an exercise that I was sure she could handle so we could end on a positive note. She rode back to the barn and got off the horse, handing the reins to José and walking out to her Lexus without another word.

Wow.

José and I exchanged an amused glance before I thanked him and moved into the stall of one of the young horses. I got him bridled and remembered to take my spurs off before I led him through the courtyard. Just as I was about to get on, Ethan pulled around the corner. I waited while he parked and walked over.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Uh, riding.” I pointed at the horse.

“You’re not supposed to be doing those things by yourself.” He was dressed in jeans and an untucked blue polo shirt and looking a little irritated, his tatted arms crossed over his chest.

I shrugged. “This one is really quiet. I was just going to take him in the ring. Super safe.”

He wagged a finger at me. “No.”

I raised both eyebrows.

“I’ll change and get a pony horse to go with you.”

I plopped down on the mounting block to wait. The “wild” colt stretched his neck to touch noses with me and blew out a breath, making me giggle.

Ethan returned quickly, leading Tango, so I hopped on my ride and we walked up to the ring.

“How was Whitney?”

“Horrific. But fine.”

“How is that possible?” He laughed.

“I mean I gave her a lesson and didn’t push her off the horse, but she argued with me, did nothing I said, and complained constantly. She referred to you no less than a hundred times and told me you said she was perfect.”

He snorted. “Right.”

“No really. She used the word perfect three times.”

“That is weird though. She’s never argued with me.” He shrugged. “But part of teaching is learning how to get through to people. We’ll alternate teaching her so you can practice.”

“I’m not sure it’s my teaching skills that are the problem. I didn’t get the impression that she wants to learn anything.”

He nodded. “Still gotta figure it out. Nicely.”

“I’m nice!”

“I’m just making sure that your twenty-five percent crazy feminine side doesn’t come out on her.”

I rolled my eyes. “It won’t. I can control it. It mostly just lives in my head anyway.”

“That’s right. Bury it deep down inside.”

“Yeah, you have no idea how well I can fake it.” I tried to hide a smile.

That earned me a wide-eyed look. “You’d better not fake it, sweetheart. I would know.”

I just winked and rode off.

The following evening, we pulled up to the Tavern to meet Steph and Paul for dinner. Yes, she was still seeing him. Sort of. I actually thought they’d become a weird type of friends, which was probably good because I hadn’t been around as much. Actually, I’d been a horrible friend, but she got it. We texted.