Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Torin
“This is going to be so much fun,” I say as Riley holds a pitchfork for some reason. “What exactly is the pitchfork for?”
“So it looks like I’m doing something and you don’t ask me to come over and join you,” he replies.
“You do look like a sexy farmer.”
“Yeah? I could show you mine and you could show me yours over there in the corner?”
What a sneaky little fucker. How dare he tempt me? “I would love to… but not right now,” I say regretfully.
He sighs and sets the pitchfork down before he finally joins me.
“So once the saddle pad is down, you need the saddle.”
I hand him the saddle and he tries to put it on my back. “I’d rather ride you over there in the corner where no one will see us. I will take my sweet time—”
“I will not be tempted by you,” I inform him while being horribly tempted by him.
I mean… he really could learn to ride the horse after we have sex, but then he’ll do something like, “Oh, I’m too tired now, maybe some other day.
” And then the bad guys are going to come and he’s going to be all, “Oh no, I’ve fucked up and I regret it. ”
“I do not know what’s going on with your face, but it’s rather concerning,” Riley teases.
“It’s my thinking face. I’m imagining all the scenarios of what would happen if I caved.”
That makes him grin; he’s obviously thinking of different things than I am. “You’d get to come?”
“And then the world would end in ruin.”
Riley gives me a look of disbelief. “What a horrible jump! Like what happened there in the middle?”
“It’s too tragic to talk about. Now we must put the cinch on.”
“You could uncinch my pants and nail me against that wall,” he says.
“I wish I had Mickey’s power to call on Tommy so he could get me some of that ultra-cool stuff called tape, and then I would tape—”
“Me to that wall and nail me until I can’t walk?”
“I need tape! Tape, please… anyone.”
Riley laughs until I cram the cinch in his hands.
“Put it on.”
“We could hang this from the ceiling and create a makeshift sex swing with it.”
I freeze. “Tell me more about this… sex swing.”
“I can do better than that. I can take you to my world and we can go get one.”
“Understood,” I say before shaking my head to clear it. “No! You can show me after we prevent the end of the world. Now let’s get this cinch on.”
“I didn’t think I would have to resort to this, but I’ve been given no choice,” Riley declares before pulling his shirt up. In desperation, I grab it, wrapping it over his face before it can go anywhere.
“Quill! Hurry, bring someone else here before I fall prey to this. I am a weak man,” I say.
Quill bounds off while Riley fights against the shirt wrapped around his head.
“Dammit, Torin! We could have so much fun! Why have you chosen to thwart my plans?”
Vero steps in, looks at the two of us, and curses up a storm. “You vile creatures, fornicating where all can see like the world belongs to you.”
I glance at the despicable man. “It… kind of does belong to me. But I wasn’t disrobing him, no matter how much it seems like I am. I was actually fixing his shirt to prepare him for his first ride, which I think you should witness.”
“I am disgusted by both of you,” Vero says, but he leans against the wall, folds his arms over his chest, and stares at us.
Riley pulls his shirt down, glowers at me—which is just as sexy—and follows me over to the horse.
“His name is Sigma,” he mutters.
“It is? You heard this in the memory?”
“Yes.”
“Hello, Sigma, you are a very handsome fellow,” I say as I scratch his neck. He pins his ears at me, blatantly wishing to tear my head from my body but holding back because his human tends to like me.
I pull the cinch under once it’s fastened on one side and show Riley how to loop the girth on this particular saddle. It’s one I’ve had for nearly six hundred years, but it’s in pristine shape and fits him perfectly.
“You sure I’m fine riding in this saddle? It looks like it costs quite a bit.”
“It’s made from the leather of an extinct species,” I say.
“You sound really proud, but I just find it concerning because it’s going to get scratched up when the horse scrapes me off on a tree.”
“We didn’t kill it for its leather. This one was already dead,” I assure him, but I feel pretty confident that wasn’t his concern.
“I see,” he says while he studies the gems and inlays. I think he’s decided to just stare at things for the next forty-eight hours since we’re getting closer to the riding part.
“I don’t know how you convey to your horse how to move or turn, so we’ll simply slide a halter on him and hook some reins to it.
Halters are generally for leading and they don’t have bits, but I’m not sure whether he works off legs, voice, or just your thoughts.
I have no damn idea. I just feel like stuffing a bit in his mouth isn’t needed, but who knows. ”
“This is going to be fun,” Vero comments, obviously here for the entertainment.
“Now let me help you on,” I say as I examine Sigma.
Wearing the tack I previously had for a horse that I only ever rode on occasion, the animal looks gorgeous. He’s skinny and his coat isn’t as shiny as when I’d first seen him, but that’ll be fixed before long. I feel like just being in Riley’s presence has already given him some strength.
“I like just patting him,” Riley says while looking alarmed at the very thought. “Or maybe even air pats.”
“We’ll start off with you getting on from a higher surface, but you’ll need to learn to get on from the ground in case of emergency.
I love getting to teach you things for once.
Do you notice how different it is? You teach me the ways of your world with tales of magic and testicles, and I teach you how to ride earnestly with love in my heart. ”
Riley shrugs. “I see no difference.”
“Of course you don’t. Now let’s begin by leading him outside. Stand on his left side and grab the reins.”
“Stand near his huge hooves and grab the reins next to his equally huge mouth. Got it,” Riley says with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
Sigma is an angel with him. I can see absolutely no reason for Riley to be so anxious about him, but there he is, leading the horse like he’s dragging a crocodile after him. When he finally gets the horse outside, he takes a deep breath.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“Here, you can step on this so it’ll be easier to get on,” I say as I guide him up onto a bench the horse patiently waits next to.
At least he’s learning to ride on the back of a well-behaved creature.
I learned how to ride on a wild mount that threw me off at least fifteen times.
I was possibly a foolish youth who thought I could tame the untamable, but still.
“Put your left foot in the stirrup then swing your leg over. You’ve done it on Quill. ”
“You’ve mostly just like… tossed me on Quill. Do you think you could ride with me?”
Sigma immediately pins his ears, disgusted by the very question.
“I think that means yes,” Riley says.
“If you think it means yes, Kit really does need glasses,” I joke, showing him where to hold on to the horse’s mane and reins before putting his foot in the stirrup. Riley looks less than thrilled when I hoist him onto the horse.
“Look at my sexy horseman being all badass on his horse,” I say while I back up a bit.
“Ha! You think that’s sexy?” Vero asks as he eyes Riley who is clinging on for dear life. The grin on Vero’s face is not the most encouraging.
“He’s trying his best,” I say, ready to brawl the man for daring to look at Riley in such a way.
“I can hear you two,” Riley grumbles. “What do I do now?”
“Ask him to walk. Have him walk a circle around us.”
“Do not murder me, horse,” Riley says, which doesn’t sound like him asking Sigma to walk at all.
Vero laughs. “It was definitely the right choice to come here and watch this.”
Riley glares at him, but the horse starts walking, which means that he can no longer expend any energy on anything other than hanging on.
“Look at his face! I can’t even tell if the horse is moving, it’s going so slow! Imagine being a badass horse of the apocalypse and having to tote that man around!”
“Vero, I’m going to kick your ass with my new horse,” Riley growls, but it does seem to distract him from his fear, so I leave Vero to it.
“You might be able to communicate through words only. Or do you feel a mental connection with him like you have with Kit?” I ask.
“Not at all,” Riley says.
That’s rather concerning, but I try not to get hung up on it while I watch the horse walk as slowly as he possibly can in a circle around us.
He knows Riley is terrified of him and is doing his best not to do anything that might startle the man on his back.
Although I do notice that Sigma looks nice and relaxed when he rounds Vero but every time he gets close to me, his ears lay flat against his neck, just asking for me to come over so he can bite me.
“Are you sure he’s the horseman? I think we both fucked up.
Actually, all three of us. The horse is wrong too,” Vero says as Riley sits hunched over, clinging to the saddle and just letting the horse do his thing.
He hasn’t picked up the reins once—he seems to have forgotten they’re even there—and is squeezing the horse’s sides like he thinks suctioning onto the horse will fix everything.
If this were a regular horse, it probably would have run off, confused by the mixed signals.
“Looking good, babe.”
“You’re really not,” Vero says.
“Alright, now that you’re feeling a bit more confident, sit up straight. It’ll give you a better seat. And let’s get those heels down. You trying to be a ballerina?”
“I’m trying to count down the minutes until I can get off,” Riley says.
“It doesn’t feel good up there?” I ask as I walk up to him. “Doesn’t it feel like your magic is right where it’s supposed to be?”
He cups a hand over Kit’s eyes so I can’t look into them. “Nope.”
“Liar. Now loosen the grip you have on your legs. For a normal horse, squeezing like that is a cue to get them to run.”