Page 22 of Texas Kissing

He looked at me. “Why? Would you prefer bareback?”

I couldn’t believe I’d walked into that. I felt the blush crawl up from under my collar, filling my cheeks.Aaand...back to the old Bull.As if he’d never been away.

“Iprefer bareback,” he said. “Feels better.”

I just stared at him, my whole face turning red.

“You can really feel every sensation,” he told me.

I stared back at him as if I was slowly counting to ten, and formed my face into anI’m very offendedexpression. Not because I thought it would stop the teasing; because I didn’t want him to suspect what was really going on. Beneath the embarrassment, I was imagining the naked touch of him, advancing inch by forbidden inch inside me. I resisted the urge to press my thighs together.

“You should try it, sometime,” he said.

I turned away. The temperature in the stables had shot up ten degrees and I was struggling for breath.Don’t let him know you’re imagining it. Don’t let him know you’re imagining it.

“Are you imagining it, Lily?”

I studiously ignored him. It was okay, I told myself, because he was still only teasing. I could still kid myself he was talking about horse riding.

“Are you imagining being ridden bareback?” he asked.

I spun around, my mouth open. I was expecting to see him leering at me, maybe with his thumbs in his belt loops. But he was just staring into my eyes with a deep, hot lust that stirred me inside, making me shift my weight from my heels to the balls of my feet. As if I might just fall upward if I didn’t hang onto the ground tight. I tried to keep looking him in the eye, but my gaze kept darting off towards his wide shoulders and the swell of his powerful chest under the shirt. He was so...big….

He took a single step towards me. The room seemed to spin.

Something was going to happen, right here, right now, if I didn’t say something.

19

Lily

“How about we get going?” I said weakly.

He held my gaze for a second longer and then nodded. Marching past me, he opened the stall of the brown horse I’d already met and strapped a saddle onto it. Then he did the same with the huge black one next to it.

“I’ll take Apollo,” he said, nodding at the black horse. “You take Caliope.”

The bareback conversation seemed to be over. Thank God. I mean, obviously Thank God. Though I had a feeling I was going to come back to it again when I was safely on my own. My reaction to what he’d been suggesting required further analysis. And possibly a long bath and my waterproof vibrator.

I cleared my throat. “Are they safe?”

He’d stopped with the teasing tone again. “About as safe as it’s possible for a horse to be. These two know the area better than I do. Hell, you won’t even have to do anything, just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

I nodded. And then there was no more delaying it.I looked for a sensible way up. Was there a ladder, somewhere?

Bull watched me patiently. “Put your foot in the stirrup.”

I looked blank.

“The thing that’s dangling from the saddle,” he said.

I put my foot in.

“Yourotherfoot. Unless you want to sit backwards.”

“I’m from New York!” I snapped, swapping feet. “Maybe we should do a cultural exchange, and you can try to hail a cab at rush hour in the rain!”

“Why did you leave?” he asked mildly.