Page 16 of Silks

“In this position, Ophelia, I could do anything to you I wanted,” he countered, bending down to my throat.

When he bit me there, his teeth pulling at my flesh, I struggled as hard as I could, feeling a brief overwhelming panic as my nipples hardened at the contact with his bare chest.

“Come with me to the stables,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”

“What, and get attached to another horse Dad is going to get made into dog food?” I asked. “No, thank you.”

“Barrington Stables doesn’t work with kill buyers anymore,” Teddy said.

“Since when?” I asked, panting and finally giving up and relaxing my arms against his iron grip.

Damn, Teddy was strong. It was impossible to get away if he really wanted to trap me.

“Since I became the Director,” he said. “I made them stop.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

For a moment, Teddy looked at me so intensely that I felt my skin prickle uneasily.

Then the doorknob to the room rattled and I heard my mother’s voice.

“Come on, you two! It’s breakfast!”

*

FRESHLY SHOWERED, I walked down to breakfast in their big, spacious dining room, shuddering briefly as I passed the huge oil painting of my parents riding bareback on a centaur.

Mom knew about Dad’s mistresses, of course, but with the Barringtons it was always about appearances.

I greeted Grandma, who smelled like she had just put out a cigarette, and went and sat down.

I didn’t see Teddy there.

“Do you still want some veggie bacon?” my parents’ French personal chef Maurice asked me agreeably.

At one point in my college years I had been a very militant vegetarian. I wasn’t anymore, but I loved that Maurice remembered.

“I’m fine,” I said laughingly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Maurice said, hurrying back into the kitchen.

I smiled and sat down, but the whole discussion of veggie bacon amused my various dickhead mouth-breathing uncles, and they began to razz me about eating vegetarian food and my efforts to help retired racehorses.

“Hey, Maurice!” my uncle Don shouted, calling back over his shoulder. “I think this little lady misspoke. She actually wants some horsemeat steaks. I think if Mintmaker doesn’t do good at the Derby he might magically end up with a broken leg and we’ll all get to eat Mintmaker for supper. Would you like that, girl?”

“You’re disgusting,” I said hotly, trying to tamp down my temper. The loss of my beloved racehorse Snakehandler was still way more raw than it should be after 10 years, and I looked down at my plate of eggs to fight my emotions.

“Circle of life, baby,” Don chuckled. “Don’t be a little bitch.”

I jerked my head around to yell at him, but I was startled to see my brother there already, his big hands around our uncle’s neck, twisting his tie viciously.

“You want someone to fuck with?” he said contemptuously. “I’m here, fuck with me.”

You could have heard a pin drop; the only sounds in the dining room were the gurgling rumbles of my uncle getting strangled.

I waited for Teddy to let him go. Uncle Don was a big man, but nobody was as strong as my brother.

“Ok, Teddy, god,” I choked out as my uncle’s eyes began to bug out of his head, feeling my own breath catching in my throat.