I was well aware that the man was infatuated with her. I'd known it from the first time I'd met him. It actually pissed me off even more that he'd been nothing but polite to me, as though I was her passing fancy, and he was content to wait me out.
And that was my fear.
When I looked at her, some part of me thought I'd walked into the most beautiful love story. Looking into her eyes, I imagined that there was someone for everyone, and that I had finally found my someone. It made me feel optimistic—and I began to dream that even the severely damaged could have happy endings.
But when I looked at him, or them together, I felt my gut churn and doubt fill me. Perhaps this was their love story, and I was just the passing fancy. I could see Bianca thinking of our tempestuous affair as a brief passionate interlude before she set her feet firmly back on the ground again and found a normal guy. Would that be her happy ending? Is that what would be best for her, in the end? I didn't know the answer. All I knew was that I wasn't unselfish enough to let it happen without a fight.
I spent too long looking at that damned picture—that hand touching her. Abruptly, I picked the computer up and threw it as hard as I could across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying crash.
I'd been wrong. I did feel a little better after breaking something.
Clark burst in the door, looking a little ruffled, though he quickly shook it off when he saw the mess that used to be my computer. He looked between me and the iMac, raising his brows. "Time for another workout?" he asked mildly. He was always happy to hit the gym.
I nodded.
"I'll have that taken care of," he added, nodding towards the mess that used to be my computer.
I just nodded again.
We were nearly to the elevator when my phone beeped at me. I checked it way too eagerly.
Bianca: I'm doing fine. Please stop worrying about me.
It had taken her over six hours to text me back, but I was messaging within five seconds of reading hers.
James: Thank you. I miss you desperately, Love.
As sad as it was, it made my day when she responded right away.
Bianca: I miss u 2.
I was smiling as we boarded the elevator.
POST AND TROT
JAMES
The horses were saddled and ready when we got to the stables. Good.
I outfitted Bianca myself, head to toe, even fitting on her gloves.
I was working on my own gloves, pushing my fingers in, smiling as I caught her eyes, which were glued to my hands.
"I love your hands," she uttered softly. "So much."
I threw my head back and laughed, a feeling of purest joy blooming in my chest.
I put her on her horse myself, and she shifted until her seat was just right, a natural at it.
"Perfect," I told her, meaning it, for so many reasons.
I vaulted onto my own horse, well aware that her devouring eyes were eating up my every movement like it was foreplay.
I took the lead, fingering her collar as I rode past her. I touched the hoop as I murmured, "I should get a lead rope for this, as well."
That stopped her in her tracks, which made me smile. "Follow me," I ordered.
I led her through the woods, anticipation strumming through me in delicious waves. My heart was pounding, breath heavy, though I'd barely exerted myself.
I knew what was coming, had planned it down to precise detail, but she was oblivious. That only served to heighten my own excitement.
I stopped when we reached a smooth dirt road that ran the length of the property. I sent her a sidelong, wicked glance. "How do you feel? Are you sore?"
She shook her head, looking bemused. She knew I was up to something.
I laid my reins across Devil's neck, stilling my mount with a word.
Watching her face, I undid the buttons at the top of my riding breaches, folding them down as I tugged out my thick, throbbing cock, tucking the material below my scrotum.
I shrugged off my shirt, tucking it into one of my chaps.
Her eyes one me were like hungry hands, stroking every bared inch of me.
I smiled at her. "Come here."
Her horse sidled toward me until she was close enough for me to pluck from her saddle to mine. I swung her to straddle me, perching her just in front of me.
"Don't move," I ordered, pulling a large pocketknife from my boot. I worked her higher on my thighs.
I took the knife to the waistband of her thin leggings, cutting towards myself, just a few inches before I put the knife away.
With relish, I used the cut in the material and ripped her pants clean off.
Devil sidestepped at the loud noise, but I calmed him, and focused back on the delicious task at hand.
It was an incongruous and arousing sight, to see her bare from thigh to stomach, the rest of her still covered.
I reached behind her, untying the reins, making them longer, arranging them so Devil could move with just my legs controlling him.
I gripped her hips and lifted her until her wet entrance hugged just the tip of my cock, moving my hips in small circles to tease her.
She moaned, moving her hips, trying to take me deeper.
I couldn't resist for another second. I clenched my jaw and thrust straight in, burying myself to the hilt.
"Oh, James," she cried out, her hips jerking against me.
I moved Devil into a walk, moving my hips with him, thrusting inside of her just enough to tease, watching her beautiful eyes all the while.
"Do you want a posting trot, Bianca?" I asked her roughly.
"Yes," she moaned.
"Beg me for it," I said archly.
"Please, Mr. Cavendish, bring us to a posting trot."
I tsk'd at her impatiently. "That was a sad excuse for begging, Bianca. Now you only get the sitting trot."
I clicked Devil into a trot, keeping my seat smoothly, thrusts barely deepened from the walk.
She made a noise of frustration, gripping my shoulders. "I beg you, Mr. Cavendish," she said. "Please, fuck me at a posting trot. Please, please, please."
I instantly moved the horse into a faster trot. "That is the tone I was looking for. Hold on, love."
I began to move up and down on the saddle, thrusts going longer, harder, deeper with the exaggerated movements.
She fell apart in seconds with the new rhythm. "Come," I growled, pushing her over the edge.
I kept going, driving into her, over and over, relentlessly. I pleasured her again, then again, before I found my own toe curling release.
I kissed her, still buried deep, as Devil slowed to an aimless walk.
This horse was getting a full bag of carrots when we got back.
"Have you ever done that before?" she asked, sometime later, when she'd pulled back from our deep kiss.
I stiffened, anxiety churning in my gut.
"Made love on horseback?" I asked.
Her eyes narrowed. "Fucked someone on horseback," she amended.
I felt myself flush. "I've fucked a woman on horseback before, but it wasn't like that. It was far more technical, almost clinical. It was more about seeing if it could be done, for me, than the actual doing. And I was barely an adult at the time." I hated how her eyes had turned cold, her face shutting against me. I knew what she was going to do. "Please don't try to demean what we just shared."
"Was it her?" she asked, tone horrified.
Fuck.
I squeezed her more tightly against me, burying my face in her neck.
If I could have erased my entire past, I would have, for her. It all seemed so pointless now. Acting out with sex, being with too many women to count.
"Who are you referring to?" I finally asked.
"Jules," she said, stiffening, tone gone glacial.
I sighed. Of all the damned lucky guesses in the world. She must have heard something.
Jules' family and mine had had neighboring estates with stables in upstate New York. We were
the same age and had messed around as kids. Even the term fuck buddy was too kind for us, because we'd never been good friends. She'd been adventurous, I'd been a slut, and we were both accomplished equestrians. We'd done it just to see if we could. Nothing more to it than that, but I had a feeling Bianca wouldn't see it that way.
"It was. But it didn't mean anything. Please don't use her to keep me at a distance."
She tried to move off me, but I kept her flush against me, moving Devil into a brisk walk.
I started to move inside of her again, my cock growing inside of her. The conflict, our position, and my insatiable need for her saw to that.
She gasped, slapping at my shoulders. "You can't use sex to subdue me," she told me.
The hell I couldn't. "You can't withdraw from me every time you get mad or jealous. We need to talk this out. I'm not letting you go until we do."
She pulled my hair, but her body betrayed her. "You call this talking?"
"I call this making love, and yes, talking." I gave her a tense smile, and she yanked hard on my hair. I winced, and let her at it.
"Why do you keep calling it that? Why do you keep calling it making love?"
I shot her a heated look. "You know why. You keep trying to belittle what we have, but you need to understand that it's as new to me as it is to you. I have a past. A wildly sordid past. I can't change it. I would if I could.
I took a few deep breaths, feeling helpless and agitated. It was so hard to make her understand, when I was only still just figuring it out myself.
"You are going to run into a lot of my ex-lovers. That's an unfortunate fact. It will be a lot less painful for you if you can just get it into your head that none of them were anything but a fuck to me. And fucking was nothing to me before I met you. Sex was a bodily function to me before I met you. That's why I call this making love. It means something to me."
I kept moving as I spoke, "I've never even had a girlfriend before you, never even considered the idea. I'm sure it sounds callous, but no woman has ever been anything to me beyond a fuck, a sub, or a friend, occasionally all three, though never all of them for long. They all knew the score. I was brutally honest with every single one of them, without exception. You are the one that I want, the one that I need. So getting upset about my past, or feeling jealous of women I've been with, is unwarranted."
"Unwarranted?" she said bitterly, sounding nothing so much as hurt, which I affected me the most.
"I've years' worth of pictures of you going out with Jules," she continued. "How can you expect me to dismiss that out of hand?"
I thrust harder inside of her.
"Unfair," she accused. "And you are hardly one to talk. I was a virgin when I met you, but you're still jealous of every man I speak to. That's unwarranted."
She had a very good point, but that didn't make it easier to hear.
I was quiet, focused on moving inside of her for a few beats of charged silence.
"When I was about eighteen," I began, "the paparazzi were hounding me relentlessly, printing silly stories that drove me crazy. They were hiding in the bushes when I left school. It was out of control."
I couldn't even tell if she heard me, she was so worked up, but I continued, "You know how I need control."
I clicked Devil into a trot, thrusting harder, then moved into a canter.
This was unfamiliar to her, and she clutched my shoulders in panic.
I continued to move, fucking her in earnest now.
"Come," I ordered, and she did.
I slowed the horse to a walk, but I didn't stop moving inside of her.
"You know I need control," I repeated. "But the things they were doing were completely out of my control, and I realized one day that the press was like a garden hose."
She blinked at me, looking adequately confused by my vague explanation. "A garden hose?"
I smiled at her, my heart in my eyes. "A garden hose," I confirmed. "If you turn it on too lightly, you can't control the flow. It just drips where it will. But if you turn it to full force, you can control the flow, sending it wherever you want. So I began to court the paparazzi rather than ducking away. I encouraged their attention by charming them, and publicly, becoming an open book.
Or rather, making it appear that way. Jules was my best friend's sister, and occasionally, a very casual lover of mine, and we'd been friends for a while. We were seen out and about together, since we traveled in the same circles. I quickly noticed that she loved the attention, encouraging rumors about us shamelessly, even leaking lies to the press about us."
"I see now that it was stupid to let her take it so far, but at the time I couldn't see a problem with it. Other women thought she and I had an open relationship, so no one tried for anything more with me. It saved me from worse misunderstandings, for a time. I see that it looks bad, but I want you to trust me that that's all it was. Jules is not someone you need to worry about."
I lost control as I saw her softening toward me, fucking her with frenzied abandon, finally finishing inside of her.
It was so intense, the feelings between us so enormous, that I saw her eyes getting moist, and had to blink mine repeatedly to keep my heart from spilling out of them.
I leaned her back against my arm, looking down at the spot where we were still joined. Her wetness and my seed were intermingled on the base of my shaft. It was a drugging sight.
"You're so full of my semen right now. You're stuffed full of my cock and my cum. I want to keep you like this forever. I might have gotten you pregnant just now, if you weren't on the pill."
Why had I said that? I knew it would freak her out, knew I was farther along in the acceptance process of this thing we had than she was.
She stiffened, but didn't say anything about my slip. I figured her going into denial mode about it was probably bet case scenario for me anyway.
Because even though she was emphatically not ready to hear it, I'd meant it, every word of it.
BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY
THE WILD SIDE SERIES
THE WILD SIDE
IRIS
DAIR
TYRANT - COMING SOON
THE OTHER MAN - COMING SOON
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IN FLIGHT
MILE HIGH
GROUNDED
MR. BEAUTIFUL
LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR COMPANION NOVELLA)
AUTHORITY - COMING SOON
THE TRISTAN & DANIKA SERIES
BAD THINGS
ROCK BOTTOM
LOVELY TRIGGER
THE HERETIC DAUGHTERS SERIES
BREATHING FIRE
CROSSING FIRE - COMING SOON
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TRISTAN
I'd come to hate my former friend, but that wasn't why I went after him.
I was angry, furious, so jealous I didn't know what to do with myself, but that wasn't why I rearranged his face.
I did it because it needed to be done, and though what I felt was a red-hot hatred for him, it was actually a cold move, calculated.
You see, I knew Milton. I knew how he was with women, had heard him talk about it, knew his philosophy. He didn't see women as people. He fucked around. Lied to them and bragged about it. Used them and walked away.
Just thinking about the things I'd heard him say about other women and thinking about him saying something like that about Danika.
Not fucking happening. No. Just no.
Over my dead body. Or his.
I broke things just thinking about it. Dishes, furniture, walls.
It should be noted that I did try a friendly warning first.
I was never close with Milton. He was friends with Kenny first and would show up to listen to us record our upcoming album. He was a fan of the band, a fan of me, and we were friendly, but I always thought he was a douche.
And yes, I kept tabs on Dan
ika. I knew he'd started sniffing around, knew he flew to Vegas just to see her.
I cornered him the next time he swung by the studio. "You going out with Danika Markova?" I asked him bluntly.
He looked surprised, then his face split into a smile. "Trying. Been asking her out, think I'm wearing her down."
I shook my head, trying to look concerned. "You should really stay away from her."
He cocked his head. "Why is that? She's fucking hot, dude. I've got plans for that one."
Hated. Him.
I tried to smile, but he would have seen through it if he looked down at my clenched fists.
"She has a crazy ex-husband. He is psycho."
He didn't look fazed. "Good to know. Thanks for the heads up, but I can handle myself."
I stood up straighter, folding my arms across my chest. I was taller than he was, bigger. I wanted him to notice.
"You don't understand. This guy is huge. And he knows how to fight. He wouldn't take kindly to her going out with a player like you."
He shrugged. "He'll get over it. If he doesn't, he's welcome to come take it up with me."
He jumped when I swung my arms out, slapping them down on his shoulders. Hard. I grinned into his face. It was an effort, and it couldn't have been a pleasant sight. It felt unpleasant. "I'm telling you, friend, you don't want to mess with this guy. He'd chew you up and spit you out. He's really not right in the head. He might just do something insane, something homicidal, I don't know, maybe stab you in your sleep, or hell, take a bat to you, if you pushed the wrong button. You getting me here?"
The dense motherfucker didn't get me. Not at all. He just gave me wide eyes, made an excuse, and got the hell away.