Reining Her In Read online

  The muscles in the back of my neck ache with the tension so thick between us, but I step forward with her. She stands just to my shoulders. I’m close to six foot five inches, so I’d guess she’s about five six herself. Perfect size, with curves up top and an ass that has me ready to speak in tongues. It’s full and ripe, and the way she flutters her eyelashes when she looks at me, then just as quickly looks away, has this new, inner, dominant beast in me ready to guide her onto her knees.

  My cane keeps time with our steps as we snake our way through the crowd, making steady headway through the throngs of other humans and animals. I squint at the bright sunlight. It’s a stunning day. Puffs of white clouds slowly make their way from west to east over the late summer sky here in Michigan. Announcers on loudspeakers fill the air; the hooves of horses clomping by mix the buzz in the air which is no match for the buzzing inside my body.

  She flips her head to look at me and finds me looking back at her. Her eyes questioning, then focusing, and her lips drop open slightly. She draws a quick breath then just as quickly lets it go and I want so badly to feel it against my skin.

  She pulls her lips to the side, and I count the seven freckles that dot the middle of her swooping nose. Her face reminds me of a Romanesque marble statue. Breathtakingly beautiful and round in all the right places. Cheeks like ripe peaches fill as she smiles. “You’re Reed Sawyer.”

  It’s not a question, but the sound of my name on those lips reminds me that my heart's purpose is not simply to move blood through my veins.

  “Yes.” Immediately I feel like a dolt for not introducing myself properly. This little angel has me forgetting my manners when I need them the most.

  Her fingers come up to cover her lips, a shy, sweet awe spreading over her face.

  Her hand lowers from her mouth to tug at the high collar of her white shirt. “Wow. The great Reed Sawyer almost broke my nose before my first international competition. I think that’s good luck.”

  The crowd thickens around us; pushing in as we walk the worn grass path to where my student Nancy is ready to mount up and enter the ring.

  Before I reply, a man’s voice shouting through the noise of the crowd and I flip my head around to see Travis flapping a hand in her direction with an irritated scowl.

  “Ugh, see? He’s very particular. I need to go.” She jogs forward a few steps, and I’m losing her. A lump forms in my throat as the space between us increases.

  A new sensation courses through me. Jealousy. Something I don’t ever remember feeling before. My fingers turn to fists, tightening with every step she moves closer to him.

  “Wait, what’s your—“ I manage before she cuts me off with a disarming smile that sends drops of cum soaking into my underwear. Thoughts of pushing my face between her legs and breathing in her scent for hours on end tumble through my addled brain.

  “It was nice to meet you.” She says as she scurries forward. “Maybe you’ll get to see my ride. Might be good luck. You want to be my good luck charm?” She crinkles her nose again and rubs it playfully between two fingers before turning and skipping away from me.

  She breaks into a run, turning fully away, so I only see the back of her... The sound of Travis’s shouting at her to hurry up from down the grass track has the hairs on my neck on end. I want to go lay him out, shove my cane down his fucking throat for speaking to her like that.

  For knowing her at all. Why him?

  I shake my head and grip the top of my cane so hard my knuckles crack.

  She’s out of earshot when I finally answer her last question. “I don’t want to be your good luck charm; I want to be your everything.”

  C H A P T E R T W O

  Constance

  “Are you part of this team?” Travis snaps at me the moment I open my mouth to apologize for being late.

  “Yes. I just had an accident. Sort of,” I mumble as my fingers move unconsciously to my nose.

  My face is still flaming hot, and there is a vibration coursing through my body that is highly unfamiliar. My nose is throbbing a bit, but it’s drowned out by all the other unfamiliar feelings I’m processing. Before I even knew who it was that’d whacked me in the nose with his cane, I felt giddy looking at him from my place inside the practice ring.

  He’d stood there watching me do my walk through, and from the second I looked over his eyes were on me. It was like being thumped in the heart with something hard and soft at the same time. A kind of jolt that nearly sent me out of my tack.

  “You had an accident? Can you ride or not? Is your head in the game, Stanzie?”

  My name is Constance, but ever since I was little most people call me Stanzie. It was okay when I was younger, but I don’t much like it now. But try telling that to Travis Houghton. He’s not so great at listening, but he’s good at developing champion riders, so I am lucky he took me on.

  “My head is in the game.” I nod my eyes down as I kick at a tuft of grass.

  Even as I say it, I can’t help but turn my head, and my eyes betray my words as they follow the figure of Reed Sawyer, working through the crowd toward his mounted student.

  I recognize her, the woman on the stunning warmblood. Nancy Morgan won silver at the last Olympics and was a top professional Grand Prix rider. Not too long ago, she took a bad fall that sent her to the hospital and rehab for a month. Now she’s back, and after only six months in Reed Sawyer’s training program, she is the favorite to win the level nine at this international competition on her mount Grand Teton.

  Travis puffs up his chest before he speaks. “Good, if you are part of this team, you win. You understand? We win.” Travis sweetens his voice and brushes a lock hair off my forehead. I wince at the contact. His touch feels like an invasion. I would never just touch someone whenever I liked, not unless it was a very different kind of relationship.

  Travis looks like a Ken doll less the friendly smile. I know many of his students have blurred the lines between a professional and personal relationship with him, but I don’t see the appeal. I suppose if you were able to gauge simply his attractiveness based on his physical features alone, he’s technically attractive, but as a human, he’s not. But, like I said, I’m grateful to be part of his team. A good student must trust their trainer and do as they say.

  Travis’s eyes are stuck on my chest. He often does that, and I clear my throat trying to break his locked gaze. I’m nervous about my practice ride on Ruby, and he is my trainer, so I pluck up my courage and tell him what I’m thinking.

  “Ruby seemed a bit off in warm up.” The words come out less confident than I would like. I feel like my hat is always in my hand with him.

  “Off? Off how?” He cocks his head sideways with a condescending reply and a forced sweetness. “Be specific. If there’s a problem, tell me now, and I’ll go pull you from the roster. My instincts told me you might find a reason to pull out from competition today. I’m not convinced you’re ready.” With a dismissive sigh, he turns to step away and my stomach sinks.

  “No.” The pleading sound of my voice only makes me more upset. “I’m ready. I’m just saying, she seemed a bit jumpy. Spooky is all. Not like her usual self. She was shying at things and even bucked a little at the mounting block.”

  “Well, if you want to be a pro, then learn to handle it. Horses get excited before a show; you should know that by now. This isn’t some B level show with your grandma in the crowd. You want to be here with the big dogs, then nut up. I’m telling you; there’s nothing wrong with that horse. I checked her over myself earlier, and she was fine. I breezed her around a few low jumps just to be sure this morning, so the problem is not the horse, sweetheart.” He pinches my chin, and I flinch, then jerk my head from his touch.

  With that, he drops his fingers, and he’s shouting at another member of our team who is mounting up and on deck for her course. He steps away, then just as quickly spins his head back to look at me with something in his eyes that makes me cross my arms and pull one shoulder to
ward me ear.

  “Your parents came to see me a few minutes ago. Your father is very excited to see you win today. His expectations for your performance are high. Don’t let us down.” Travis has sucked up to my parents since I started with him, especially my father.

  The sucking up to my family is nothing new. I’m used to the way people change around me and especially around my father.

  The fake smiles, the overly flattering words. Everyone wants to be my father’s friend, not for friendship sake, but because of the number of zeros in his net worth. Forbes published their list in last month’s issue, and my father was there for the seventh year running.

  I reach around to try to find my backbone. Metaphorically of course, but that’s something my father likes to say to me.

  I guess when you move up to this level of competition, the kiddy coddling is over. Travis has been tough on me since I started with him eight months ago, but I’m also a better rider for it. I think.

  Yes, I am. How else would I be here at this kind of competition? I’m one of the youngest in my class.

  My father, on the other hand, he’s been tough on me since the womb. He’s bigger than life, and I want so badly to make him proud. But I always seem to fall short.

  My chest is constricted, and I know if I’m tense Ruby will feel it too. I guess it was probably just my own nerves making her jumpy earlier. I step over to the team tent and pick up my riding crop and stuff it under my arm.

  When I do it, my mind immediately thinks of how Reed stood watching me with his cane under his arm. With a shake of my head, I’m back to reality, thinking of Ruby and what I can do to be sure she is in the best frame of mind for our ride.

  My temples thump with a growing. I’m nervous, and I’m lucky that Travis is letting me ride Ruby in the first place. She’s a champion in my amateur riding career. She hasn’t shown what she can do here at this level, but I love her. We have a special bond and even when Travis encouraged me to try a new horse under his training program, I stood strong. I trust her, and she trusts me.

  Ruby was plenty expensive when my parents bought her, but the horses Travis would like to see me on now? We are talking millions. Yep. For a horse. It’s crazy, and my parents would probably pay it, especially my father if he thought it would make me a ‘winner.’

  But, I’m sticking with Ruby. She and I will show them what we can do.

  I know Ruby was close to a million herself, but my parents have always indulged me and my love of this sport. I was so thankful for her, but today, my mare just felt odd. I’m going to trust that Travis thinks it’s me and try to take some calming breaths before my groom brings her back out for my course.

  There are sounds and voices from behind me, I turn to see a rider and horse needing some room, so I move out of the way. Even as I slip between some other grooms and trainers, I catch another glimpse of Reed in the near distance, and my stomach feels like a herd of tiny buffalo are stomping all around.

  He’s standing tall and solid, an energy around him causing an invisible ring where no one steps inside. He’s facing away from me, and my eyes trace up and down, drinking him in from a safe, anonymous distance.

  His perfectly pressed, white, button down oxford spreads across the back of his shoulders like a tight sheet. His carved wooden cane is tucked under his left arm just like my riding crop and for some reason it makes me shiver. The immaculate trim of his dark hair follows just above the shirt collar and up around his ears. I knew he was tall; I’d watched him ride in competitions and on TV for years before he got hurt.

  But in person, he’s a presence unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I barely came up to his shoulder. I felt like a little kid looking up at their father when he spoke to me.

  His features were intense, but there was a deep kindness there as well. The gray of his eyes was rimmed in a black thread that made me think he only looked at me that way. Silly and stupid, but they were glistening like a moon reflecting off a still lake.

  The way he looked at me made me want to tell him things. He spoke without words. When he licked his bottom lip, I realized how beautiful his mouth was. Full and soft, not tight and thin like Travis’s.

  And yes, I imagined kissing him.

  Even now, with my eyes pinned to his back, unable to break my gaze as I side-step and inch toward where my Ruby will be coming out any minute, I’m hypnotized by the way he stands. How can standing be sexy? I swallow hard because standing is definitely sexy when Reed Sawyer does it.

  I’d say his body is lean, but still thick in all the right places, and he radiates a calm power, standing nearly a head above most people that move in that wide berth around him. When he looked at me for that first moment in the practice ring, I honestly thought my knees would give out, and he’d be picking me up off the dirt floor of the riding arena.

  It takes effort but with a huff, I turn away and stand straight getting my mind right. I need to get to Ruby, so I try to get my head in the game and move forward, leaving the vision of Reed Sawyer behind.

  I’m younger than most riders in my class here as well. From the first moment I got a leg over a horse when I was four, it all just made sense to me. I worked my butt off in school because my parents always told me the only way I could ride was if I kept my grades up. And, if I brought home less than an A+ my father would probably kill me. At least that’s how it felt.

  Well, I did more than that. I skipped second grade, and by the time I was fifteen, I’d graduated high school and then finished college in the next three years with a double major in Micro-Biology and French Literature. It didn’t leave much time for friendships outside of my fellow riders, but I figure if my equestrian career ever fails, I’ll become a vet. But as of right now, I just turned nineteen last month, and my riding career seems to be on the right path.

  My parents are most likely in one of the VIP tents. They are good folks I suppose by most standards. Pillars of the community types. I’ve heard more than once how lucky I am to have such wonderful and adoring parents. My dad works all the time, so the mere fact that he’s here today only adds to the pressure for me to win. Failure is not in our family’s DNA – he’s reminded me of that enough times over the years.

  When I started showing, there was one competition I’ll never forget. It was raining, and my pony stalled at a jump, slid in the wet sand and I toppled over face-first into the mud.

  Disqualified.

  Instead of a reassuring hug and words of comfort, my father informed me that if I embarrassed him alike that again in front of the crowd, he would not come to any more of my shows.

  My mother, of course, fluttered around and tried to minimize his harshness because that’s what she does. But dad’s a perfectionist. It’s gotten him to where he is today. That’s what he tells me, at least.

  He sits on the board of directors for multiple Fortune 500 companies. He is still the largest shareholder in Montgomery-Bristol, the equities firm he founded twenty years ago. He lunches with Warren Buffet and is a collector of Picasso and all things flawless and priceless.

  With the image of my father held firmly in my head, I tug my blazer down straight, pull my shoulders back, and take one last glance behind me. I see Reed Sawyer’s cane meet the grass, and he steps forward, speaking encouraging words to Nancy as she stops to look down and listen to him before she enters the ring to ride her course.

  I should look away and be on my way, but I’m mesmerized.

  Nancy nods and smiles. Nods again, straightening her back, pulling her shoulders back as he speaks.

  The last thing Reed does before Nancy nudges her mount forward is lay a hand on the shoulder of her horse; he bows his head for a moment and then just as quickly looks back up at her. He nods again, tipping his head toward where she will enter the ring for her ride. She looks peaceful. Whatever he’d said to her calmed and centered her. A hot flash of jealously burns inside me. Not because I see anything other than a professional trainer and his student, but because I want
all of those moments with him. As though they belong to me already.

  I long for the clear connection and the trust she has with her trainer. It would be an honor to be his student but thoughts of what else I’d like to be with him burn in a different part of my body.

  As Nancy’s horse eases forward, Reed squares his shoulders and takes his proud stance; his attention intently focused on his student. The flock of butterflies that have taken up residence inside my stomach take flight again.

  I swallow hard. The contrast of his hulking, ominous presence being soft and gentle in such an anxious moment, right before a competition, sends a quiver down the indent of my spine.

  Travis’s style is more sandpaper than silk, although he throws in the occasional “sweetheart,” “honey,” or some other thinly veiled offer for our relationship to be more than professional, I’ve managed to keep my distance from all that. My experience with dating has been minimal at best, and the experience I do have frankly sucked...

  This part of my life takes up nearly every hour of the day, so boys or men have been a low priority for me. The few dates I’ve had over the years were pitiful. No, they were painful.

  The last one ended with a disgusting grope at my left breast, and a thick tongue jammed between my lips. I figured if that’s what dating is all about, I’ll stick with horses, thank you very much.

  But, something tells me today that things could be very different with the right man. I’m suddenly a giddy schoolgirl, the thought of Reed Sawyer, the famous rider, and teacher, has thrown some kind of seductive pixie dust on me. I take one last look at his broad form, standing tall and straight, as Nancy circles her mount outside the waiting gate.

  The fluttering from my stomach moves lower as his long legs, and a behind that created the word sexy, step back. He settles his cane in front of him, and a wet spot grows in my panties.

  C H A P T E R T H R E E

  Reed