“I thought you wanted a morning ride, Lady Aubrey? I’ve had mine.”
She gets into her car and slams the door. Laughing to myself, I lead Cinnamon into the stall and get her settled. Either I’ll never see Lady Aubrey again and be free of her for good, or she’ll come slinking back for more, and I’ll discover how that posh mouth of hers looks wrapped around my dick.
“Either suits me just fine,” I murmur to Cinnamon, as I pat her honey-colored flank.Lady Aubrey doesn’t appear the next day or the one after that. I take Cinnamon out for exercise, because that’s what Lady Aubrey pays for, when she doesn’t come herself. She’s never not come before.
In the evening, I lean over Cinnamon’s stable door, watching the pretty horse.
“Where’s your mistress, huh?” I whisper, reaching out to run my knuckles down her nose. “Too good for us all of a sudden?”
Cinnamon’s liquid eyes gaze back at me. She gives an elegant flick of her tail.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, straightening and pushing away from the stall. “You’re too good for me, too.”
The days keep passing. All the stalls stay empty, and I’m hemorrhaging money. I’m so screwed, but I’m not ready to admit defeat. The bank will have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming. In the meantime, I’ll hope for a miracle.
I hate that the first thing I do every day is check if Cinnamon is still in her stall. A whole week goes by, and then one morning, I walk into the stables and see a shapely figure in tight tan jodhpurs bent over in the palomino’s stall. A smile spreads over my face as I admire Lady Aubrey’s shapely bottom as she checks over Cinnamon’s legs.
Well, well, well. Look who came back.8Aubrey“Come back for more, Lady Aubrey? I’m not sure you could afford my stud fee.”
The sound of that deep, drawling voice makes a thrill shoot through me and bury itself deep in my pussy. As I turn around, Cassian squashes what I think is a genuine smile and replaces it with a mocking one.
“Stud fee?”
He nods at a stallion at the other end of the stable. “I could charge ten thousand for Onyx to service a mare if it weren’t for his reputation. I’m more if you want another seeing to.”
Heat burns in my cheeks. “Don’t be so rude. I’m here to ride Cinnamon.”
Cassian just grins and heads into Aster’s stall. I finish saddling my horse and lead her out into the yard, only to find Cassian following us with his mare. When I mount up, he mounts up, too.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask him.
He sits lazily atop his horse, the reins clasped in one hand. I hate that his rumpled hair looks so carelessly good.
“Riding,” is all he says, with a mocking flash of his eyes.
I head for the trail through the woods, and so does he. If he thinks he’s going to get his hands on me in some clearing, he’s mistaken. I’m never letting anything like that happen again. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. Not the suddenness of it, and not the way he spoke to me and made my body react like that.
My thighs clench on the saddle, confusing Cinnamon, as she takes that as a signal to stop. I click my tongue to get her going again and mutter under my breath, “Sorry, girl.”
“What was that?” calls an amused voice behind me.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
We’ve been walking our horses single file, but the path widens, and Cassian draws up beside me.
“A whole week without riding, Lady Aubrey. Where have you been?” He gives me a lazy grin that makes fireworks explode in my belly.
I was thinking about him almost non-stop. I’m hardly going to tell him that, though. The rest of the time I was terrified that my period wasn’t going to arrive. It finally did, two days late. I’d been imagining going to Daddy and confessing that I’d let the stable owner he’d forbidden me from seeing get me pregnant. Last night, I lay in bed reliving the way Cassian’s muscular body moved on top of mine, and his thick length sliding in and out of my sex.
I brush a strand of hair out of my eyes, watching the path ahead. “I’ve been busy. Missing me, were you?”
“I was worried about you,” he says, still smirking, his eyes slipping meaningfully down my body, “I know how you like your exercise.”
I wish he’d stop it with the double meanings. “Sometimes duty comes first.”
“Buying dresses. Eating cake.”
I glare at Cassian, wishing I could tell him he was wrong, but in the past week, I visited the dressmaker twice and went out for cake three times. I had to fill my days with something while I was avoiding him. Daddy has the King’s Guard to train. Wraye works at the palace every day, liaising with the press. I don’t have anything but Cinnamon.