18. Lily

18

Lily

By the time I’d showered, changed and driven out to the Hollister ranch, it was late afternoon but the temperature had barely dropped. My car had air conditioning but, outside, I knew the hood was probably hot enough to burn skin. The bone-dry weather had left the dirt road billowing with dust. My Toyota was reliable as hell but I still winced at the amount of sandy grit that was getting into the engine. I needed my car to work and not just for going to the store. At the back of my mind, there was always the knowledge that, one day, I might need to run.

I kept telling myself that this was just something friendly. That it was to stop me turning into a hermit, and was nothing to do with the oily finger marks on the front of my panties, or the dream I’d had about him. I’d see the goddamn horses, chat with him and leave. That’s it.

When I pulled up outside the stables, a ranch hand was leaning against the wall. A good-looking guy with soft, black hair and snaking tribal tattoos visible under his shirt sleeves. “I’m looking for Bull?” I said as I got out.

The ranch hand nodded with just a trace of a smirk.

“He’s a friend,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him thinking I was one of Bull’s casual flings. Would he think that anyway? I didn’t look like those girls I’d seen at Lucky Pete’s….

But the ranch hand just nodded again. “Inside,” he said, nodding towards the gloomy interior. “Have fun.” And he started to amble off.

“Thank you,” I called after him.

“Don’t get too sore,” he threw over his shoulder.

“W— What?” I felt my face go beet-red.

He stopped. “Don’t get too sore,” he repeated.

I just stared at him in horror.

He frowned. “You can get sore, you know, if you’re not used to it. Some girls come out here and they can barely walk the next day.”

Jesus Christ! I was going to kill Bull! Had he boasted to everyone that he was going to—”I’m sure I’ll be fine, thank you,” I told him.

“Oh. Okay.” He grinned. “Just that Bull said he thought it was your first time.”

I lost the capacity to speak. I knew guys boasted to each other about sex, but we hadn’t even done anything yet. And to just presume that I was a—

I snapped.

“I am not a virgin!” I said loudly. “I’m quite experienced and I doubt that Bull’s as big as everyone claims so I’m sure I’ll be just fine, thank you.”

“Your first time on a horse ,” said the ranch hand, straight-faced. “Bull said he was taking you riding. ”

I flailed around for a response but I knew there was no hope. Inside, all my hot anger was evaporating while my humiliation doubled, tripled. Only now, I couldn’t blame it on Bull.

Wait...yes I could. This was completely his fault. He’d dragged me out here to this place and seeded my mind with filth—all those wisecracks about the size of his cock and that phone call and...he’d as good as forced me to jump to the wrong conclusion.

I nodded a stiff thank you to the ranch hand and marched into the stables...and stopped in my tracks.

Bull was there, stripped to the waist and leaning over a horse trough as he washed himself. It was dim, inside the stables, most of the light coming from tiny cracks in the ceiling and walls that sent a hundred blades of gold through the room, freezing dust motes in midair. Water cascaded down his naked torso, freezing mountain streams winding down his sun-warmed body. They flowed around the smooth, hard hillocks of his shoulders and biceps. They rippled over the angled ridges of his abs and followed the lines down towards the bulge between his legs, the water falling like rain just before it reached his jeans.

I looked at the hay on the floor, at the saddles on the wall...anywhere but at him. “Did you hear that?” I stuttered at last.

He stood upright and then shook the water from himself, droplets flying like rain. “Not all of it,” he said.

I relaxed.

“Only the part about you not being a virgin.”

I unrelaxed. “Look—” I said tightly.

“You’re wrong, you know.”

That threw me. “About what? ”

“Me.” He smiled modestly. “I am that big.”

Inside, I let out a silent scream. I wanted to run at him and, and—

What? Kill him? Kiss him? Both?

I looked at the line of stalls. Each one held a horse, its head poking out into the main room. ‘You didn’t say we were going riding,” I said weakly.

“You didn’t give me much of a chance. Kept trying to hang up the phone. What’s the matter—you needed both hands free?”

I stepped closer. “You are the most—”

“What?”

I couldn’t speak, I was so angry.

“What?”

We stood there staring at one another, the air growing thicker and thicker between us. The horses watched with interest. I could feel his gaze eating me up and yet his eyes never left mine—it was as if he was absorbing me from the inside out until he owned me utterly. And part of me didn’t want him to stop.

“Why are you so infuriating?” I asked at last, dragging my eyes away.

“Why does it say Department of Homeland Security on your forehead?”

Dammit! I rubbed at my forehead. “Just show me how to get on a goddamn horse,” I muttered, waving at the nearest one.

He grinned. “Well now aren’t you presumptuous? You’re just going to go ahead and get on one? Just treat it like a thing?”

“What, should I buy it dinner first?”

“Don’t you think you should at least find out its name before you try to ride it?”

I folded my arms. “Is that what you do, with those girls at the bar? Do you always find out their names?”

He grinned wider. “Depends how much I like them, Lily. Depends how desperate they are to be ridden.”

I glowered at him, but I could feel the heat washing down from my face and twisting into a dark cyclone between my legs.

“Show me how to get on,” I said again.

“Well, you’re just desperate to climb aboard, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “Didn’t you say you didn’t even like horses?”

I huffed and blew a strand of hair away from my lips. “Obviously you’ve planned this whole thing,” I said tiredly. “Obviously you’ve told everyone on the ranch that you’re taking the”—I almost said fat girl— ”the latest girl riding and I’d hate to disappoint you.”

Now he folded his arms. His voice lost its teasing tone. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

The silk in his voice flowed like liquid gold over my mind, making it difficult to lie. I glanced at the nearest horse. “No reason,” I said.

He stepped a little closer. “You know, there’s only two reasons people hurry to do something: because they’re really eager, or because they want to get it over with because they’re nervous.” He paused. “Lily, are you nervous?” And, though I could hardly believe it, he managed to ask the question without making me feel like a complete moron.

I shrugged and looked at the floor. “Not nervous. I mean, not scared of them like they’re going to bite me, but just…” I shrugged again. “You know. I haven’t been around animals much. And they’re big.”

I slowly met his eyes. He was studying me. His eyes betrayed far more concern than I would have thought him capable of. “Go on,” he said. His voice was gentle, now. I wasn’t ready for that, for how the deep bass throb of his voice would vibrate through me when he spoke quietly.

I looked at the horse. “I don’t know what they’re going to do,” I said helplessly. “They’re just big and...unpredictable. I like stuff to be more...controlled.”

“Always?” he asked.

I nodded dumbly.

“Must make it difficult to have fun.”

He walked towards me. My heart thumped faster with each step he took. I honestly don’t know which I viewed as more of an unpredictable animal, in that moment: the horse or Bull.

He reached out and took my arm by the wrist, his thumb warm against my pulse point, and I went weak inside. I had sudden visions of him putting my palm to his cheek but, instead, he led me over to a horse with a rich, reddish-brown coat. It probably wasn’t all that big, as horses go. But to me, it was enormous.

He pressed my hand to its neck. I drew in my breath at the feel of it—warm and velvet-smooth, yet with the prickly kiss of short little hairs. I expected it to suddenly jerk or rear up or something. I’d realized I’d tensed up and tried to relax.

“This is Caliope,” murmured Bull. “She won’t hurt you. Just say hello.”

I looked up into the thing’s strange, long face. Every time it moved, I jerked my own head back, afraid it was going to side-swipe me. “Hello,” I said nervously.

The horse snorted and licked its own nose. I yelped in mixed surprise and fascination .

“It’s all about trust,” said Bull. “You have to trust it and it has to trust you.”

I turned and gave him a look. Did all those girls at Lucky Pete’s trust him, too, when they gave him their bodies, only for him to dump them the next morning?

“What?” he asked, reading my expression.

I shook my head. I couldn’t put it into words. I began to slowly stroke the animal, the feel of it oddly pleasant. “Now what?” I asked.

“Put your cheek against it.”

I looked at him as if he was mad.

“Nothing will happen,” he said. “Trust me. Or if you can’t trust me, trust the horse.”

I took a deep breath, leaned forward, and put my cheek against the horse’s neck. It watched me out of one eye, but didn’t move away. After a few seconds, it pressed a little closer. I felt my breathing start to slow down. This was oddly relaxing. Why had I been so hesitant?

And then something huge and warm and wet dived into my ear. I yelped and stumbled backward. The horse next door, a huge black thing, had leaned over and licked me while I’d been cozying up to its friend.

I stared at the two of them...and then laughed. Bull put a hand on my shoulder and I tried not to admit how good it felt.

“There,” he said. “Now—let’s go riding.”

He strode off down the room and I hurried along behind him. I still wasn’t sure about any of this. I’d shown up confused and strangely horny. Then he’d been normal, arrogant Bull with me. Now he was suddenly tender. What did he hope to gain by taking me riding—was this something he did with all the girls, like the ranch hand had implied ?

If it was, did that make me one of his girls? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

When I caught up with him, he was putting on a loose white shirt. I watched his tanned body disappear button by button. Not having to stare at that broad chest and those washboard abs made it a lot easier to concentrate, but I started missing them immediately. God, what’s happening to me?

I coughed and focused on what he was doing. He’d picked up a saddle and was adjusting the straps. “We’re using saddles?” I said, trying to seem knowledgeable and interested.

He looked at me. “Why? Would you prefer bareback?”

I couldn’t believe I’d walked into that. I felt the blush crawl up from under my collar, filling my cheeks. Aaand...back to the old Bull. As if he’d never been away.

“ I prefer bareback,” he said. “Feels better.”

I just stared at him, my whole face turning red.

“You can really feel every sensation,” he told me.

I stared back at him as if I was slowly counting to ten, and formed my face into an I’m very offended expression. Not because I thought it would stop the teasing; because I didn’t want him to suspect what was really going on. Beneath the embarrassment, I was imagining the naked touch of him, advancing inch by forbidden inch inside me. I resisted the urge to press my thighs together.

“You should try it, sometime,” he said.

I turned away. The temperature in the stables had shot up ten degrees and I was struggling for breath. Don’t let him know you’re imagining it. Don’t let him know you’re imagining it .

“Are you imagining it, Lily?”

I studiously ignored him. It was okay, I told myself, because he was still only teasing. I could still kid myself he was talking about horse riding.

“Are you imagining being ridden bareback?” he asked.

I spun around, my mouth open. I was expecting to see him leering at me, maybe with his thumbs in his belt loops. But he was just staring into my eyes with a deep, hot lust that stirred me inside, making me shift my weight from my heels to the balls of my feet. As if I might just fall upward if I didn’t hang onto the ground tight. I tried to keep looking him in the eye, but my gaze kept darting off towards his wide shoulders and the swell of his powerful chest under the shirt. He was so... big ….

He took a single step towards me. The room seemed to spin.

Something was going to happen, right here, right now, if I didn’t say something.