Saint
I watch her eyes flutter half-shut as my thumb hooks the waistband of her breeches. Her bare breasts brush the shirt beneath my open jacket with every quick rise of her chest.
The sight of her like this snaps something primal loose in my chest.
“I sent my sister into town,” I tell her, my voice low. “Told her we were short on wormer paste.”
The smile that curves her lips lights a match under the last thread of my restraint.
My hands move faster now, dragging the jeans down her hips in one rough pull. Denim and cotton scrape over her skin together, and she steps out of them on instinct to help.
“You drive me fucking insane,” I growl against her ear, palming her ass to lift her. “Been hard since breakfast thinking about bending ya over every surface in this yard.”
I hoist her onto the counter and position myself between her thighs, then work on unbuckling my belt. In a hurry, I shove my jeans and boxers to my ankles. My cock springs out, thick and aching, already leaking at the tip.
I fist myself once, rough, then notch against her. The cotton of her panties is drenched, and fuck, the ache inside me ramps up. With one finger, I hook the material aside and drag the head of my cock through her folds, watching her hips jerk, listening to the needy little whimper she makes.
“Feel that?” I mutter, voice thick. “That’s what you do to me. Every time you look at me, every time you fight back. It makes me wanna pin you down and fuck ya until you scream.”
Her nails dig into my shoulders. “What about that line in the sand?”
I continue to slide my dick through her slippery heat and rub her swollen clit with the head. “Do you think an invisible line is gonna stop me now?”
I drag it to her entrance and slide all the way in with one stroke. She cries out, and her walls clamp around me.
Fuck.
The sensation is so tight, so hot, so fucking perfect it whites out my vision for a second. Her skin is warm under my hands, goosebumps rising where I hold her. I sense every flutter, every pulse as she adjusts to me stretching her open again.
“You love this, don’t ya?” I growl, voice gravel-rough. “Love knowing I couldn’t stay away. Couldn’t stop thinking about touching ya all over again.”
I pull back so my dick almost slips out, then slam home again. Harder. Deeper. The counter rattles with each thrust and the wet slap mixed with the filthy moans spilling from her mouth is like music to my fucking ears.
She moans, the high pitch of it desperate, and it tells me she’s ready to let go. Even though my balls are tight and dick is throbbing, I can’t have everyone on the yard hearing her detonate.
I haven’t quite figured out why the hell I’m screwing her again, when I told myself to back off.
I cover her mouth with my hand and get a kick out of seeing her pretty eyes blow wide.
“Come for me,” I bite out, hips snapping faster, relentless. “Soak my dick, Keira Harrington, before I come inside ya.”
After a beat, she shatters first—back bowing, thighs locking around me, a dirty moan tearing out of her throat, barely muffled by my hand as her inner walls pulse around my length.
The sight of her falling apart for me rips my own release out of me.
My hands move to her ass, and I push in deep one last time, grinding against her clit, and spill inside her with a deep groan, hips jerking through every thick pulse until I’m empty and panting.
She finds her voice first, wrecked and teasing. “I thought you were away all day.”
I pinch her jaw between thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up to meet my eyes while my dick stays buried inside her.
“Spoke to people I needed to and left the rest to Dane to handle,” I mutter against her parted lips, then I kiss her. “I needed to get back to the yard.”
She scrapes her nails across my chest, dragging over my nipples just to make me hiss.
“Oh yeah?” Her voice is soft, taunting. “What’s so important back here?”
I let a slow, crooked smile curve my lips—the kind I know makes her squirm.
“A new horse,” I say, deadpan. “That’s all.”
I swat her ass, pull out and lift her off the counter, setting her down before me. I tell myself this is about proximity and pressure and too many days in close quarters.
But fuck, I’ve been telling myself that since the gala and it’s getting harder to believe.
“You’re finished working for the day,” I tell her, voice dropping low again. “Go back to the cabin. Grab a shower and relax.”
She sways for a second, legs unsteady, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bruised. My cum is already starting to leak down her inner thigh, and fuck, I like that thought more than I should.
But I force myself to step back, even though every instinct in me says to pull her in again and lock the door for another hour.
“Have you heard anything from my father?” she whispers.
I drag a hand through my hair, grounding myself. “We’ve set up a meeting to talk.”
“When?”
“Later this evening.”
She bends to retrieve her discarded clothes. The motion makes her breasts sway, nipples still tight and taunting, and I hate how easily my focus shifts from strategy to skin. I watch her every move as she steps into the denim, shimmying them up over her hips.
“What about your panties, princess?” I ask when she doesn’t put them on.
“They’re wet,” she says, meeting my gaze without flinching. “And I’m heading back to your place to get naked again.”
This woman is the fucking pulse in my veins. The war and the land and the deal all blur when she looks at me like that.
“So after tonight this will all be over?” she asks, reaching for the damp cotton and bundling it in her hand.
“Yeah.” The word comes out blunt, harder than I mean it to. “You’ll be in your own bed tomorrow night if your da plays nice.”
She pulls her t-shirt over her head and rolls it to her waist. It molds to her breasts, outlining her nipples and slender waist.
I’m still half-hard, cock slick with her when I drag up my jeans, tucking myself away with a hiss at the friction.
She’s watching me now, lips red, hair mussed from yard work and sex, eyes searching for something I can’t give.
“And this…”
I turn toward the door and fix the collar of my shirt, buying myself a second. “This was me and you being something more than enemies, but nothing more than that.”
For a second, her eyes darken with an understanding of how things have to be. Even after what we just did.
Then she nods.
“And what if my father refuses to sign?” she asks. “What will your family do to me then? What will you do to me, Saint?”
My spine goes stiff, and I pull back my shoulders, not knowing the answer to her question.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Is that the same bridge that broke when I tried to cross it?”
The memory flashes—the snap of rope, the rush of icy water, her scream.
I glance over my shoulder to find her furrowed brow. “And didn’t I jump in after ya?”
“I hate how much I like you, Saint.” She wraps her arms around her middle in a self like hug, as if she’s holding herself together.
I turn away and stand at the door, fists clenched at my sides, because if I look at her too long I’ll undo everything I just said.
“Yeah,” I mutter, low enough only she can hear. “Well, I hate how much I can’t stop.”
I don’t hang around long enough to hear her answer, marching out of the feed room and into the yard, letting the cold air slap my face. The regular noises I’m accustomed to rush back in—horses’ hooves, metal gates squeaking, the murmur of staff getting on with their work.
Order. Structure. Things I understand.
The meeting with her old man is set for tonight at the auction house a few miles east.
Alasdair Harrington will sit across from me and pretend I haven’t got his balls in a vice. After decades of resentment, he’ll be forced to scrawl his name on the dotted line.
That bastard and I will never see eye to eye.
There will be no amicable alliance or even an honorable handshake that means anything.
I button up my jacket and head for the horse stalls to find Shay, not looking back to see if Keira has left the feed room yet.
Truth is, she’ll be tucked up in her own bed, safe behind Harrington gates and back where she belongs after her da signs.
That’s always been the plan.
But a quiet, treacherous part of me knows that if Keira Harrington ever knocked on my door to ask for anything—I’d open it without needing permission from my family or anyone else.
Alasdair Harrington and I might never stand on the same side of anything.
But his daughter would always be the exception.
Fluorescent lights hum overhead, bleaching the concrete floor in a hard white glare while young stallions and broodmares are walked in quiet circles outside the ring, their coats brushed to a shine, ears flicking at the echo of the auctioneer’s voice.
The chemical smell of disinfectant does little to mask the manure in the air.
I stand with Dane and Rafe near the entrance to the sales ring, pretending this is business as usual.
It’s shortly after seven, and Alasdair Harrington is not fucking here yet. He set the time.
“He’ll show,” Rafe says under his breath, scanning the doorway for the third time. “He knows what’s at stake.”
I scan the crowd the way my father taught me to watch a field before a storm. Harrington never travels alone. He always rallies a circus of muscle who usually arrive long before he does.
This evening, the regular guys he uses haven’t appeared and my temper is fraying.
I check the main entrance again, then the side door.
The auctioneer rattles through another lot. A chestnut mare is pushed into the ring. Bidding rises and falls in clipped numbers. I nod at a neighbouring landowner as he passes, keeping my posture loose, giving nothing away.
Dane checks his watch. “The fuckers ten minutes late.”
“We’ll give him five more,” Rafe says. “Then we go to his place and toss a fucking grenade.”
I keep my eyes on the entrance. “He’s playing games.”
And I’m not in the mood to take part.
“Saint,” Dane says after a moment, lowering his voice, “I have a bad feeling about this. I don’t think he’s coming.”
“Me either,” I grit, pulling my phone from my jacket pocket to call Shay.
It rings off and goes straight to an automated voicemail service. Shay never misses a call, not even if the guy is taking a piss.
I hang up and dial Sera.
The line doesn’t even connect and my blood boils.
For a second, the chant of the auctioneer fades behind the thunder of my blood in my skull. The building narrows.
“Harrington moved us,” I say.
For one brutal second, I see the shape of it.
The false meeting. The late evening timing. The yard stripped of men.
They drew me out.
And I left Keira wide open.
“The fucker set us up,” Rafe growls as the three of us head toward the exit.
“Fuck.” I push through the doors and into the night air. “The bastard is going after Keira. If they take her before—”
My chest tightens and rage feathers my vision. Shay and Sera are the only ones holding the yard tonight.