29. Tess
Tess
“ W hat are you talking about?” Jacinthe asks. “What girl doesn’t like long romantic walks to the tack shop?”
She jumps out of the passenger seat before I have a chance to answer and rushes around to my side of the truck. After pulling the door open, she bows at the waist and holds her hand out with a flourish.
“ à votre service, madame .”
I can’t help but laugh at the French butler routine.
“I just feel like such an idiot,” I tell her. “How did I not realize the restaurant is closed on Mondays?”
We’re in the mostly deserted parking lot of the local tack shop, on the outskirts of Saint-Jovite.
We were supposed to get dinner at a nice pasta place in town.
I figured we wouldn’t need reservations for a Monday, which turned out to be correct, seeing as the restaurant doesn’t bother to open on Monday nights at all.
The buzzing neon sign in the tack shop window indicates we’ll at least be able to get in here. Jacinthe suggested we make this pit stop on our way back to La Cloche.
The place’s logo features a drawing of a barrel and a cartoon grinning horse racing around it. The long, tin-roofed building has a huge bulletin board on the front wall featuring ads and notices put up by all the local horse people.
We’ll be able to put an ad up there ourselves very soon.
This morning, we wrapped up our final meeting with the lawyer who made all the legal documents for Balsam Inn.
Creating the contracts for a boarding stable was a lot more straightforward, especially since La Grange Rouge is already an established business.
They just have a new co-director of operations signed on now.
Tonight’s dinner was meant to be a celebration, but more importantly, it was supposed to be our first real date.
In the two weeks since I left that note on Sam’s saddle and prayed Jacinthe would be up for the ride, we’ve put our focus on creating the business and letting the dust settle before taking the next step towards us.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jacinthe says, guiding me out of the truck once I’ve unclipped my seatbelt. “The tack shop will be much more romantic.”
I give her a look. “The tack shop will be more romantic than the cute Italian restaurant?”
“ Ben ouais ,” she says, practically skipping as she drags me by the hand to the shop’s door. “We can look at all the shiny new saddles and the fancy riding clothes. We can try stuff on! You would look sexy as fuck in some chaps.”
I tell her she has a weird sense of romance, and she beams at me as we walk through the door. A bell chimes above our heads, and the scent of leather and pine fills my nose.
A bored-looking middle-aged woman behind the cash register calls out a greeting and then returns to reading the romance novel she has propped on the counter.
There are only a couple other people wandering around the aisles filled with saddles, bridles, and every kind of horse care accessory known to the equestrian world.
Jacinthe takes us straight to the back of the store, where there are a few racks of clothing for sale. They have everything from pristine show jumping jackets to cozy polar fleeces and—to Jacinthe’s whooping delight—a few pairs of full-length leather chaps.
“You have to put them on,” she says, yanking a dark brown pair with fringed edges off the rack and thrusting the hanger into my hands.
I try to give them back, but she backs away with her hands up.
“Why me?” I protest. “Why don’t you put them on, since you like them so much?”
“I want to see you in them,” she insists.
Then she gives me a mischievous wag of her eyebrows that I know means nothing but trouble.
“ Just the chaps,” she adds. “Nothing underneath.”
I make a face.
“That is unsanitary,” I inform her. “I don’t think the store would appreciate me going commando in a pair of chaps I have no intention of buying.”
She balks. “Um, I am definitely buying these if they fit you.”
I shake my head and end up cracking a smile.
“Do you have a secret leather fetish or something?” I ask.
She crosses her arms.
“ Calice, là . Can’t I just think you have a great ass that would look sexy in these?”
I feel my cheeks heat up at the compliment. Even after everything we’ve been through, she can still make me blush with just a few words.
I fold the chaps over my arm and give them a pat.
“Okay. You win. I’ll try them on.”
There are a couple changing stalls in the corner. I head into the closest one and tug the curtain shut behind me. I hang the chaps and my coat on the hooks screwed into the wall and then contemplate my options. I’m wearing date-worthy slacks and a button-down.
Jacinthe and I both walked out of the house tonight wearing our houndstooth blazers as a nod to Thanksgiving and then spent at least five minutes laughing about making the same joke.
We ditched the blazers in the truck, since we figured two butch lesbians in identical outfits eating pasta together might look like something out of a sitcom and attract a little more attention than we wanted.
The slacks are going to look ridiculous under the chaps, so after pondering for a moment, I end up sliding them off and then pulling the chaps on over just my underwear.
That, of course, puts my ass on full display in the back.
“Do they fit?” Jacinthe asks from behind the curtain.
I crank my neck around to get a glimpse of my butt in the wall mirror.
I have to admit she was right. I do look pretty fantastic.
“I think they do,” I answer, “but I definitely cannot come out there.”
She swears under her breath. The curtain twitches like she’s brushed it with her hand.
“Then you’re just gonna have to let me in.”
I bark a laugh. The silence I get in answer tells me she’s serious.
There’s no way we haven’t attracted any attention by now, but I suppose I did ruin our dinner plans. She probably deserves at least a peek before we put these back on the rack.
“Okay, you’re allowed to have a quick look before I take them off.”
The words have barely left my mouth before the curtain shifts back and Jacinthe shoves her head into the gap.
Until this moment, I’ve never been scared someone’s eyes might actually pop out of their skull.
“Fuck. Ing. Hell,” she breathes.
Her jaw has gone slack. A flush is already creeping up her neck. Her gaze is glued to my ass in the mirror.
Meanwhile, she’s got the curtain open wide enough that anyone walking by would get an eyeful too.
“Jacinthe!” I snap. “Close that!”
Instead of stepping back to draw the curtain shut, she scoots inside the stall with me and tugs the fabric closed behind her.
I’m about to tell her that is not what I meant, but as soon as my eyes lock with hers, all the words die in my throat.
I’ve never seen her look so hungr y before—which is saying something, considering we’ve been maintaining our commitment to the whole ‘going slow’ thing and haven’t done more than make out with our hands under each other’s shirts for the past two weeks.
It’s been a struggle not to rip all her shirts in half and have her up against a stall door every morning we’re out doing chores.
The way she’s sighed my name against my lips every time we force ourselves to break apart tells me she’s been wanting me just as much, but the look on her face now is a whole new level.
It’s like she wants to eat me alive.
She’s panting, and I realize I am too. We’re not even touching, and I’m already aching to have her inside me, to let her fill me and empty me in any way she wants.
She leans in towards me, her hands reaching for my hips.
Someone coughs from across the store.
We both freeze, but no other noise follows. No footsteps approach the changing stalls. There’s just the tinny sound of a country song playing at a low volume on the shop’s speakers.
“You are going to get us thrown out of this store,” I whisper, “and maybe arrested too.”
Jacinthe’s thumbs hitch around the waist of the chaps.
“I don’t care what they do to us,” she mutters. “Not when you look like that.”
She toys with the leather fringe and cranes her neck to get another look at my reflection behind me.
“You’re really into this, huh?”
She snaps her gaze back to my face. “I’m really into you.”
She says it fiercely, proudly, like she’d jump out of this stall and shout it to the whole store if I asked her to.
I don’t need that, though. I don’t need proof.
She proves what I mean to her every day, in everything she does.
She fixes my coffee just the way I like it.
She tells me I’m hot even when I’m covered in dirt and stinking of sweaty horses.
She spends hours teaching my kid to play guitar even when she’s already had a hard day at work.
She fits me. She fits like a piece that’s been there all along.
I cup her face in my hands and kiss the tip of her nose before pressing my lips to hers.
She stays still for a second, like she wasn’t expecting me to go this far, and then she’s kissing me back, gentle at first but then with a growing heat that sparks between my legs in a matter of seconds.
I slide my hands to the back of her neck. She moans into my mouth.
I break the kiss, still panting as I try my best to muffle a nervous giggle.
“Okay, we are absolutely getting banned for life if we do not stop right now.”
Her eyes are just hazy slits. Her grip on my hips tightens.
“It would be worth it.”
I titter again and shake my head.
“We co-manage a boarding stable together. We can’t afford to get banned from the only tack shop in the area.”
It takes a moment, but eventually, my point seems to sink in.
She glowers and lets her hands drop to her sides.
“Hmm. I wish you weren’t right.”
I give her another peck on the tip of her nose and then motion towards the curtain.
“Go wait out there, and then maybe I’ll let you buy these for me.”