Chapter Eleven
Hallie
Doha, Qatar
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” Sage said as we arrived in my room on the top floor of the hotel Jasper had booked for us. Five star, of course. “It has a living room and a kitchen, Hals.”
I laughed at my best friend. “We’ve stayed in hotels like this before,” I said.
Sage eyed me incredulously. “No, we haven’t, Hals.” She walked to an intercom near the kitchen. “We have a butler here. A fucking butler.”
“True,” I said, then went into the bedroom. I sank onto the bed and groaned. It was like lying on a cloud. Sage ran from the doorway and dived on the bed beside me. “Sage!” I squealed as the bed bounced, and I pushed her away when she licked my cheek. “What’s with you?” I asked, wiping my face.
Sage turned, propping her chin on her hand.
“We’re here, Hals. We’re here, entered in our first five-star Grand Prix and riding epic horses.
All those years qualifying in the Unders, getting in the FEI, fighting for the top spots.
And we’re finally here. In a couple of days, we’ll be on the main stage and then we’re off. ”
Sage’s eyes glistened and her emotional speech made mine water too. “Yeah,” I said in a hushed tone. I reached out between us on the pristine white quilt. Sage put her hand in mine. “We’ll have a good season, then it’s on to Team USA. Together,” I said.
“Together,” she echoed. Sage and I had ridden for Team USA juniors, but now we wanted in the big show. We wanted to wear the iconic red jackets, and we wanted to compete in the Olympics on our home turf two years from now. California.
“Sage?” I asked, after a few minutes of silence.
“Yeah?”
“Why are you in my room?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because I saw Atticus going to his suite, and mine is right next door to his. I didn’t want him to know it.”
“He wouldn’t do anything, Sage. Yes, you have history, but all his antics are just playful.”
“I know . . .” she said, then looked around my room. “Hey! Do you wanna swap?”
I laughed. “Nope!”
“Hals!” Sage groaned pathetically.
“No. Be a big girl and put your history with Atticus to bed. Call a fucking truce. We need to be a team here, and for that y’all need to stop bickering like a ninety-year-old married couple.
” Sage huffed, in a mood. But I knew my best friend, and by the slumping of her shoulders, she’d heard me and agreed.
“Don’t be moody,” I said, poking her in the ribs. “You know I’m right.” Sage squealed, but then knocked my hand away to lean forward, searching my face.
“What?” I asked.
“Are we going to talk about a certain hot moment on the plane?” she said mischievously.
“Nope!” I said, feeling tingles run up my thighs just remembering Jasper’s hard body pressed against them.
He had towered above me, and when he told me he was far from vanilla, I didn’t care if he took me then and fucked me up against that wall.
Fuck the private bedroom; who needed a bed when you had Jasper Knighton pressed against you and a sturdy surface to be devoured against?
“Shit,” Sage said, pulling me from my heated thoughts.
I blinked and tried to calm down. “What?”
“Oh, darlin’,” Sage said, Tennessee accent coming in strong. “You’re screwed.” She fanned my flushed face. “You want to drop to your knees for our boss and suck him until he blows.”
“Sage!” I said, and hit her on her arm. She rolled over, laughing. I pushed at her and tried to get off the bed. She grabbed my arm. “You won’t swap rooms with me because a certain alpha male brooding hunk is right next door to you,” she said. “Am I right?”
I was going to kill her. “No,” I said, but Sage laughed even harder. Clearly, I wasn’t good at bluffing.
“Well, that was convincing, Hals,” she said.
Facing me again, she said, “Can you just fuck him already? I can’t take the tension between y’all.
It’s like seeing a slow-burn novel being played out in real life.
It’s driving me fucking insane! Ride that man like he’s Seabiscuit.
Then tell me all about it. Every. Last. Detail. ”
“Sage!”
“What?” she said, incredulously. “Have you seen that man ride a horse? The power in his legs? He’ll fuck you all night and not even lose his breath,” she said, and I got off the bed.
Vanilla . . . I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, Hallie, but never that . . . Jasper’s hot confession was on a loop in my head. What did that mean? What was he into? And how did I give it a try?
Feeling like I would combust, I pulled on Sage’s arm and yanked her off the cloudlike mattress. “Get back to your room,” I ordered. “We’re going to see the horses in an hour, and I want to get cleaned up first.”
Sage held up her hands. “All I’m saying is that you could go next door and get dirty with our boss instead.” I slapped her ass, and Sage cackled as I pushed her out of the hotel room, slamming the door behind her. But I leaned against the door when she’d left and tried to calm myself down.
Jasper was in the suite next door. I would never sleep on this entire leg of the tour, knowing that we shared a wall. I played back our moment on the plane. I wanted him to lean down and kiss me, then drag me back to the bedroom and fuck me against the wall.
Was that too much to ask?
I beelined for the bathroom and turned on the shower.
The fact was, all this tension with Jasper had me so turned on that my head was spinning.
The competition in a couple of days was high stakes and high pressure.
Usually, my hand did the trick to relieve me of that tension, but since Jasper, that was as satisfying as eating an overcooked steak when you’d asked for it rare.
I opened the window in the bathroom a few inches and welcomed the breeze. It was humid and warm, and the fresh air filled my lungs, helping me breathe. But the pulsing between my legs was getting worse.
Leaving the window ajar, I climbed into the shower and let the water fall over my head when I noticed a second handheld shower on the side.
Taking it from the holder, I turned it on, twisting the nozzle until the water setting was on “Jet.” Nipples hard, I lifted my leg to the ledge of the shower and let the spray flow against my clit.
I groaned as my legs instantly started to shake, and like every time I touched myself, I pictured Jasper there with me.
This time, he was walking into the shower behind me.
I closed my eyes, and as if it was real, felt Jasper’s hands running over my ribs until they cupped my breasts.
I moaned as his rough palms caused shivers to travel straight from my nipples to my clit.
“Jasper,” I moaned, as one of his hands slipped down my stomach, dropping farther until he cupped my pussy and pushed a finger inside me.
I moaned loudly, the sound echoing in the shower stall, and my hand slapped against the slick tile wall.
“Fuck,” I hissed as my hands began to shake. “More,” I said, only for Jasper to bend me forward, pushing on my back. Then in one swift move, he slammed inside of me. I screamed as he filled me completely. He gave me no time for reprieve; instead, he used his muscled, strong legs to take me apart.
Jasper pounded into me so quickly that he had to keep me standing by wrapping one hand in my braid, holding me up with the other around my stomach.
“Fucking take it, Hallie,” he rasped into my ear, and I felt pressure building at the bottom of my spine.
My face flushed and goose bumps ran over every part of my body as Jasper and his unrelenting movements broke me into pieces.
Screaming, I came so hard that my legs collapsed from under me, and I dropped to the shower floor.
My hand steadied my fall as my orgasm continued to play out.
I came back to the present in drips and drabs. Blinking into the water cascading from above, I dropped the handheld shower and sat down. Breathless, I stayed there for several minutes, just catching my breath.
“Fuck,” I said, placing my hand over my pounding chest. That was intense. Closing my eyes, I still felt the fantasy of Jasper around me, inside of me. I laughed to myself. If that’s what my imagination could conjure up, what the hell would the reality be like?
“I wouldn’t recover,” I said aloud into the steamy bathroom. “I wouldn’t fucking recover.” I had to get up and get ready, but in the aftermath of daydream-Jasper screwing me into oblivion, I grabbed for the handheld shower again and got back to my feet.
I had time for one more.
“Hello, my baby boy!” I said and ran straight for Huxley, who was watching me approach his stall.
“Have you been okay? Was the flight comfortable for you? Are the other horses being nice to you?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him on his nose.
Stepping back, I checked over his dark coat and body to be sure he was still in one piece.
This boy had utterly stolen my heart.
“He’s good, I promise,” I heard from behind me. I turned to see Mila walking up our private section of the yard with a bucket of Huxley’s specialized feed in her hands. Near the competition, we changed his grain ration to give him more energy and spark on the course.
“Mila!” I said and wrapped her up in a hug.
I’d bonded well with Mila. She was the best groom I’d ever had.
She was efficient, an excellent rider, and didn’t feel put out that I was more hands-on than most. In fact, she wanted to learn from me, which I loved.
Plus, she was a total sweetheart, so that was a relief too.
Sage came next to us after checking on Fefe, her arm linking through Horatio’s. Just like Mila and me, Sage and Horatio were joined at the hip. “Tell Hallie,” Sage said to Horatio.
“What?” I asked.
Horatio went to open his mouth, but Sage beat him to it and said, “Dillon Matthews from Team USA fucked Mary Van Dousen from Holland two nights ago.”
“Isn’t Matthews married with kids and about fifty years old?” I asked. “And Mary is only, what? Twenty-eight?”