My head is buzzing on the ride back to the house. That was . . . so much more than I expected.
I knew that Riona had a whole lot of something bottled up inside of her. Anger, or determination, or something . . .
But I had no idea she’d be so fucking wild.
She was raw and primal. Ten times sexier than I expected. And that body . . . fucking hell.
I’ve never seen skin so creamy and flawless. Or a pussy that fucking perfect. Standing in the water, with her red hair all wild and wavy around her shoulders, she looked like Aphrodite. Like a goddess made flesh for the very first time.
And like a goddess, she had a kind of terrifying intensity. Her skin was paler than normal from the cold water. Next to that, her red hair and green eyes looked as vivid as a venomous snake. Maybe more Medusa than Aphrodite.
I would have been intimidated, if I weren’t so fucking aroused.
I had to splash myself with the cold water to keep my cock only semi-hard. Because Riona naked was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever laid eyes on.
I got my erection tamped down, then I looked over at her, and I saw those green eyes fixed on my cock, and I knew she was almost as aroused as I was. I knew I had to have her.
I clarified the little matter of the ex-boyfriend—for Riona’s benefit, not because I gave a fuck about the surgeon. I knew from the second I met him that he wasn’t the right man for her. He didn’t have a fraction of the strength it takes to tame a woman like Riona. To grab hold of her and force her to respect you.
Riona’s a fighter. She’s driven to lock horns with any man who tries to assert his power over her. She won’t be taken gently.
I suspected that she was tired of Dean for a while, and only dragging things out because he was a useful shield between her and me. A way to make me keep my distance.
Hearing that she had already broken up with him told me everything I needed to know. I knew that Riona wanted me, whether she’d admitted it to herself or not.
So I grabbed her and kissed her and buried my face in that sweet shell-pink pussy with its tuft of wild red hair. It was intoxicating. She tasted sweet and spicy, like cinnamon. I could feel her responding to me immediately, her body betraying any restraint she tried to maintain.
And the way she sucked my cock . . . good god, it was like she was starving. Like she needed my cum to live. I never would have thought she’d let go like that. I thought it might take months to dig down to that kind of ferocity. But it was waiting, right below the surface. Dying to be released.
Now I want to be close to Riona. I want to grab Penny’s reins and pull her over so I can rest my hand on Riona’s thigh, and tell her that she’s fucking gorgeous, and sexy, and brilliant, and stubborn. That she drives me insane and I can’t get enough of her.
But I know I can’t do that. Riona will spook.
Already she’s silent and pale, deliberately not looking over at me. Mulling over what just happened between us.
I’ve spent every minute of the last two weeks with her. I’ve gotten to know this woman better than she’d like to admit. I know that it terrifies her to lose control. It terrifies her that I’ve seen through her armor, seen the actual person beneath.
Now that she’s been exposed to me, she wants to clam up again. She wants to rebuild those walls.
That’s fine . . . I’ll let her think that it’s working. That she’s still in control of this thing between us.
And then, when the moment is right . . . I’m going to capture her again. I’m going to find her most vulnerable places, the cracks in her armor, and I’m going to split it wide open. I’m going to grab hold of her—stripped-down, raw, and genuine. And I’m going to force her to admit what she actually likes.
But not just yet. Right now, I need to pull back and give her space. Let her get comfortable again. Let her think she has control.
Meanwhile, I’m just biding my time.
We ride back the way we came, slower on the way back because I’m sure Riona is sore from riding. This is unfamiliar exercise to her, unfamiliar motion.
I was surprised how well she did.
I guess I shouldn’t have been—she’s smart and competitive. Quick to catch on to something new. Wise enough to respect the horses.
When we get back to the house, I see Grady in the round training ring, chasing a brand-new horse. It’s an Appaloosa, probably two years old. Its front half is a smooth, glossy black, while its back is white with dappled black spots, like a rug thrown over its hindquarters. It’s a beautiful animal, with long legs and a well-shaped head. But I can tell immediately that it’s wild and bad-tempered, and totally unbroken. It bites and snaps at Grady when he tries to get near it. He hasn’t gotten the bridle over its head.
I halt the horses a good way back—I don’t want Brutus getting riled up by the sight of the other horse and its fury. Grady tries again, unsuccessfully, to
fit the halter over its head.
I lead Brutus and Penny the long way around to the stable, where I show Riona how to remove their saddles again, how to feed and water and rub them down. She seems genuinely interested in that, not jumping off and wandering away the moment the ride is done, like so many tourists do after their first ride.
Riona is highly attentive to Penny, brushing her coat and patting her affectionately.
“She’s such a good horse,” Riona says.
“She is.” I nod. “So’s Brutus, but you have to remind him of that.”
I give Brutus a good scratch on the shoulders like he likes and feed him a couple of carrots. Penny gets apples, since they’re her favorite.
“What are they doing to that horse in the pen?” Riona asks me. “Looks like Grady is trying to break it,” I say.
“What does that mean?”
“You gotta teach a horse how to accept a rider. That one looks like it’s never had a person on its back.”
Riona goes to the doorway of the stable so she can watch.
She stands motionless, head slightly tilted, watching Grady try again and again to slip the bridle over the horse’s head. It snaps and bites at him, or slips its head away at the last minute, forcing Grady to swing the horse around again, holding tight to its mane.
“How long does it take?” Riona asks me.
“Could be a couple hours. Could be all day.” I chuckle. “Could be forever if Grady doesn’t calm that horse down a little.”
Grady is dogged and tenacious, but he doesn’t always know how to connect with a horse. He treats each one the same. And no horse is the same.
Once Penny and Brutus are comfortably eating, I walk over to the ring with Riona.
The Appaloosa is highly agitated, trying to rear up but prevented from doing so by Grady’s grasp on its mane. The whites of its eyes show as it tries to jerk its head away from Grady’s grip.
“Where’d you get that one?” I ask him.
“From the Fosters. Name’s Star. She’s been running wild with her mother and brother on their land, ‘cause Allan Foster broke his leg and hasn’t had a chance to do shit all with her. Jemma Foster sold her to me cheap ‘cause she says she’s too vicious to train.”
As he’s talking, the horse rips its mane free with one sharp toss and starts galloping around the pen. Grady has to jump up on the rail to keep from being trampled as Star circles round again.
“Fucking hell,” Grady shouts, barely pulling his legs up in time. “You want some help?” I ask.
“You think you’re still the horse whisperer when you barely seen one in three years?” Grady laughs.
“I think I remember ‘em all right,” I say.
I look over at Riona. “You okay if I take over here for a bit?” I ask her.
I know I don’t have to follow her around every minute while we’re on the ranch. We’re in the middle of nowhere, fenced off from the world. She’s safe here.
But it feels strange to leave her alone for any amount of time after we’ve been attached at the hip so long.
“Go ahead,” she says. “Your sister told me I can borrow her laptop. If your internet is decent, I can probably log in to my google docs and get some work done from here.”
“Alright,” I say.
Riona heads back toward the house, and I feel a strange pull to follow after her.
But Star is still galloping around the pen, snorting furiously, and Grady already looks hot and flustered, with the job barely begun.
I slap him on the shoulder. “Go ahead and grab some water. I got this.”
I drop down into the pen, standing in the center so the horse can get used to me. I stay still and relaxed, holding up my hands and saying, “Woah. Calm down, now,” in a low, comforting tone.
Eventually Star drops down to a trot, though she’s still skittering around me, eyeing me warily.
“Relax. Relax,” I say.
As she starts walking, I take hold of her mane, but gently. I let her keep moving, walking around me, giving her the freedom to lift and shake her head as she likes.
Eventually, when she’s calmed down a little, I touch her face and ears, and run my hand down her neck, so she gets used to being touched around the head.
“Alright. That’s not so bad,” I say, patting her cheek.
She’s still not exactly comfortable with me. But she’s calmed down a bit.
I hold the bridle close to her face so she can see and smell the rope. She shies away again, and I wait patiently until she’s accustomed to the pale- blue rope, and the texture against her cheek.
After a long while, I slip it over her head.
She doesn’t like that one bit. She tries to rear up, whinnying, but I gently hold her down, patting her head, rubbing her neck, and speaking softly to her.
Grady comes back out of the house, having gotten a drink and probably some food, too.
“How’s it goin’?” he says.
Just from the sound of his voice, Star rears up again and yanks at the bridle, trying to pull away from me.
“Just stay back over there,” I say to Grady, though using my softest tone so it doesn’t startle Star. “You’re ugly, and you’re scaring her.”
“I’ve heard that too many times,” Grady says, grinning. He stays back, though, out of sight of Star.
I start resting my hand on the horse’s back. Just getting her used to weight and pressure.
She’s never had a rider on her back, not for a second. She’s never carried anything, not even a saddle.
Eventually I start pressing a little harder on her back. Letting her feel a small amount of weight.
She keeps circling round me, held in place by my hand on her bridle. I start to lean on her back, and even pull myself up for a second or two. She startles and skitters away the first couple of times I do it, but eventually the pauses between feeling my weight against her back and her jerking away become longer and more spread out.
I like to break horses bareback, without a saddle. They hate the feeling of the saddle when they’re not used to it. It’s more tolerable to them to feel a person alone, at least to start with.
It’s better for me, too. I can feel the horse’s heartbeat thundering, feel how overheated it’s getting.
So when I finally pull myself all the way up onto Star’s back, I do it with just the bridle and rope, nothing else. No bit in her mouth. Trying to make it as pleasant as possible.
Still, she bolts and starts running. She’s trying to throw me off, though she’s not quite enraged enough to buck or roll. She thinks she can sprint away from me, if she runs fast enough.
I’m not trying to hold her back. Actually, it’s the opposite—I lean low across her neck and I whisper in her ear, urging her on faster and faster.
We gallop around and around the pen. When she starts to slacken her pace, I squeeze my knees against her thighs and urge her to run harder. She’s galloping full out, running faster than she probably ever has before. She was loose on the Foster’s land, galloping around wherever she pleased. But she had no predators, nothing chasing her. She’s never run flat out, with all her might.
Soon I can feel her heart thundering, and her pace slacking.
Horses can only gallop full out for a couple of miles. They can go a long way in a day. But they’re not tireless.
In fact, the animal with the greatest endurance is a human. You could run a horse into the ground, if you had unlimited time and distance to chase it. We’re not as fast as them, or as strong. But there’s no creature more tenacious than us.
Star will tire before I do. I knew that before we started. And that’s why I already knew the outcome of this struggle.
There was no battle between Star and me. I already knew who would win.
That’s why I approached her with gentleness and patience. I wasn’t afraid of her, or afraid she might beat me.
I only had to show her that I’m not her enemy, not her adversary.
I ride Star at top speed until she tires, then I let her canter around and around the pen. Finally she drops to a trot, and then a walk. She’s tired—not beaten and broken down. Just exhausted enough to be at peace with me on her back.
