Chapter 4 #2
He’d meant it to sound light and playful. A little flirty perhaps. Not so… possessive. Like she was his Stevie girl. For fuck’s sake, he was teaching her to ride a horse, not staking some kind of claim. And yet, she didn’t shy from the question, pretending he hadn’t asked it in the way that he had.
She didn’t play coy.
She just looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I really hope so,’ and it felt like a whip lash to his chest as he sucked in a breath.
Clay knew when a woman wanted him. The past decade of his life most of them had been pretty damn frank about it.
Stevie was not. But he could see it in those hazy purple eyes anyway and he reached for the strength to resist because he knew what to do with frank women.
He did not know what to do with a woman who wasn’t.
Plus – she was a guest.
Nodding awkwardly, he turned away, striding to the gate post where he’d hung a helmet earlier and returned with it dangling from his fingers. ‘Pretty sure this will fit,’ he said as he handed it over.
She took it from him, inspecting it with little enthusiasm before glancing at him. ‘I’m only going to be sitting on the horse, right?’
‘Afraid it’s going to mess up your hair?’
‘Yes.’
Her glare was a touch haughty which, weirdly, Clay kinda dug. ‘No helmet, no ride.’ The last thing the ranch needed was Stephanie freaking Everhart falling off a horse and breaking her very pretty head. They didn’t need that liability.
‘You didn’t wear a helmet yesterday.’
‘I’ve been riding since I was two.’
‘Yeah, but that horse looked like he was trying to kill you.’
Clay chuckled at her summation of events. ‘She wasn’t trying to kill me.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
He shrugged. ‘She was just scared.’
‘Of what? She looked like she could have slain everyone watching just from the hatred beaming like red lasers from her eyes.’
The picture she painted was vivid and this time Clay full-out belly laughed, picturing Electra with laser beams coming from her eyes. It felt good to laugh after that moment they’d had. He could feel his swagger returning.
Horses he knew. Horses he could talk about. And he liked having his feet on solid ground. ‘She has baggage,’ he said eventually. ‘But if you want to learn to horse’ – he petted Gertie with his other hand – ‘you have to wear a helmet.’
She huffed but took it, passing him her hat as she settled the offending item on her head and fastened it under her chin. Clay didn’t comment as she shoved her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrow; he just walked the half dozen paces to the fence post and hung her hat there before returning.
‘Let me show you a few things before we start.’
Clay gave Stevie a quick once around the horse, pointing out what was what with the saddle and relaying a few fun horse facts people usually liked to know. When they got back to the start again he said, ‘Ready to mount up?’
She nodded, quick fingers stroking Gertie’s neck. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’
‘Don’t be nervous.’
Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes found his. ‘I’m not.’
For what it was worth, Clay believed her. She seemed… excited rather than nervous and Gertie would definitely have picked up on any nerves.
‘I always wanted to learn how to ride a horse.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ He knew city riding lessons weren’t cheap but it didn’t exactly look like money was an issue for the Everharts.
She lifted a shoulder. ‘There was always so much else to do it just… never happened, I guess.’
Clay wondered what the other things were. Ballet? Crochet? French lessons? Vocal lessons? Guitar lessons? But he didn’t ask because what the fuck, dude?
What did he care?
‘You want a mounting block?’ He tipped his chin in the direction of the boxy raised platform that sat just outside the ring. ‘Or you want to learn how to do it without?’
Normally he wouldn’t offer it as an option. A mounting block was safer for first-timers but her disdain over the helmet led Clay to believe that Stevie was perhaps feeling a little reckless. And hell if that didn’t light a fire in his groin.
‘Do you use a mounting block?’
He honked out a laugh imagining what the guys on the circuit would think about a cowboy needing an aid to mount his horse. ‘I do not.’
‘Have you ever?’
‘I have not.’ From the day he’d started riding he’d only ever been lifted on a horse by an adult or boosted up by one until he could mount unassisted.
‘In that case, no.’
Clay chuckled this time at the determined jut of her chin. He knew it. Stevie Everhart wasn’t afraid of doing things the hard way and he admired the hell out of her for it and, bonus for him, if she could mount without assistance quickly then they could skip a lesson or two.
But still, it felt incumbent upon him to point out the level of difficulty. ‘It’s a lot easier to do it with a mount.’
Her eyes met his and there was a deep sadness there that stilled the air in his lungs. ‘Who said life was meant to be easy?’
Clay remembered that while Stevie appeared to have the world at her feet, she’d been through a terrible loss. Something that cut through the soft underbelly of privilege with all the finesse of a blunt machete.
She didn’t elaborate any or wait for a response, though, continuing on as she shuttered the emotion in her eyes. ‘I want to do it the way you do it. Can you teach me?’
Oh Jesus… The request hit Clay low and dirty even though he was fairly certain that hadn’t been her intent – just his oversexed libido and a very long dry spell.
Teach her? Mounting a horse from the ground was just the start of things he could teach her.
He cleared his throat and his brain of images not helpful at this particular moment. He pointed beside him. ‘Stand here,’ he commanded. ‘Watch and learn.’
Clay had no idea how many times he’d leapt into a saddle – or ridden bareback – in his lifetime but it would have to be in the thousands.
He’d done it so often he could do it in his sleep and there was a muscle memory to it that meant he never had to think about the steps.
About where he was putting his hands, putting his feet – he just did it without conscious thought.
And it was that which he drew on as he taught Stevie fucking Everhart, rising country music singer songwriter, ass-to-die-for, to get onto Gertie’s back without assistance.
Which sadly, for him, meant a lot of close contact.
A lot of hands on as she tried and failed, tried and failed then tried and failed some more, slipping from the horses back time after time.
Gertie bore it all stoically which could not be said for Clay.
His hands were all over her body – her waist, her legs, her ass – and he was not okay.
By the time she had her butt in the saddle after twenty minutes of trying, he was sweating up a storm that had nothing to do with the Wyoming sunshine and everything to do with the brush of her hair, the scent of her neck and the feel of her ass in his hands.
Finally, though, she’d managed it and Clay almost knelt and kissed the fucking dirt he was so relieved. He didn’t have unintentionally feeling up a Grammy-winning country-artist on his bingo card this year but here he was.
‘I did it!’
Clay laughed at her jubilation. He couldn’t help himself as relief flowed through him cool and soothing to his overstimulated libido.
In the grand scheme of things, she’d been a quick study – light and bouncy on her feet with a good sense of balance – but anything new took time to master and no red-blooded man should be subjected to that kind of temptation.
Clearly feeling very pleased with herself, Stevie clapped, utterly delighted with her triumph only to accidentally shift her weight too far to one side which caused her to over correct and she wobbled slightly as her seat slid on the saddle a little wrong.
Reacting quickly, Clay grabbed her flailing right hand to steady her as she reached for the saddle horn with her left. He noticed it then, probably because he was at eye level with the slim band of silver on her ring finger, three words inscribed around the outside.
True love waits.
Clay blinked as he stared at the words. A purity ring? Stevie Everhart was wearing a purity ring? Holy. Jesus. He was going to hell.
Considering the shenanigans he’d gotten up to in the past, that wasn’t really in doubt anyway but the amount of impure thoughts he’d had this last twenty minutes had definitely stamped his one-way ticket to purgatory.
Stevie Everhart was a virgin?
Boy howdy. If that didn’t scream keep the fuck away, he didn’t know what did. Sure, he’d slept with girls who’d worn purity rings before, none of whom had been virgins, but had he been a betting man, he’d be betting she was.
Maybe that was judging a book too much by its cover, though? Because while the Stephanie from yesterday had looked at him with a startled kind of hesitancy, Stevie from today had been more sure of herself.
She had manoeuvred her mother out of the way.
Refused a helmet. Refused the mounting block.
Had looked him straight in the eye and told him she’d hoped they’d be friends.
Stephanie had taken a step back yesterday when he’d nodded at her.
Stevie hadn’t objected to his hands at her waist or spanning her hips or supporting her legs and occasionally palming her ass.
Was the Stephanie side of her personality the purity ring and the Stevie part champing at the bit to be rid of it?
The question went unanswered as she snatched her hand away, breaking into Clay’s inertia. Glancing up, he noticed she wasn’t smiling any more and there were two high spots of colour in her cheeks. It could have been from the exertion of the past twenty minutes but he didn’t think so.
‘Shall we get on with it?’ she asked waspishly, barely able to meet his eye.
Which was interesting but, whatever. She was here to learn how to ride a horse and it was his job to teach her.
And even if she was here for something else – Clay didn’t want to be anyone’s one.
The one they’d been holding out for. Their first. He was more than happy to be one of whatever number a woman had under her belt, just not numero uno.
Some guys might be into the whole virgin thing but he didn’t want or need the responsibility. Horse training he could do. Virgin training?
He’d take a big fat pass on that one.