It was a question led by impulse and his own want.
Her eyebrows gathered, and she opened her mouth, his fate on her tongue.
Before she could speak, a loud, insistent series of barks sounded in the near distance. She startled, and the moment passed—his fate stayed.
Her head whipped around. “Bathsheba!” she called out. Bran released her and glided back into the water. She scrambled to her feet, her gaze casting about. “Bathsheba!”
At last, the dog came bounding from the woods, tongue lolling and tail wagging from her adventure. A laugh bubbled up and spilled over from Artemis. “Finished giving the squirrels a fright, old girl?”
Relief pulsed through Bran.
Now wasn’t the moment for fated conversations.
But the time was coming—soon.
Artemis reached for a stocking, and Bran took that as his cue to dress. He waded over to the rocks where he’d left his clothes in a neat pile. As he stepped out of the water, there it was—the heavy return of gravity in his body, the weight a dull pain in his right leg. Familiar, but also not.
The pain wasn’t different.
Hewas different. Or perhaps he was able to view it from a different angle. He wasn’t sure. But one thing he did know was that it felt somehow alleviated.
From the edge of his vision, he caught the subtle movement of Artemis’s head. She was sneaking glances his way.
Let her.
Again, there was his cock beginning to throb into life.
Once he’d pulled his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers, he met her gaze and lifted a single eyebrow as if to say,Like what you see?
Caught out, she blushed and turned on her heel. The sound of laughter drifted over her shoulder as she made her way to the tree where her horse was tethered.
He followed. Though he’d vowed not to let impulse be his guide, he found his mouth opening to speak aloud an idea that hadn’t yet fully formed in his mind. “What if …”
She glanced over her shoulder, her brow lifted in question. “What if?”
“What if we rode together?”
The instant the words were out of his mouth, his body demanded he take them back. His heart hammered and his chest went tight and sweat pinpricked every inch of his skin.
Artemis’s brow gathered. “Are you certain?”
He nodded. “Yes.”No.“Quite.”Not.
Yet he wanted this.
He wanted to ride.
What made it feel safe was that Artemis would be there with him.
“I’ll sit behind you,” he said.
She gave him a long look, then nodded. “I’ll need your assistance.” Without a block, it would otherwise be impossible for her to mount.
He came behind her and placed his hands on her waist as she reached for the pommel of the saddle. Then he was lifting her until she could get her boot into the stirrup and gain her seat in the sidesaddle. From her perch, she said, “You don’t have to do this.”
A strange logic presented itself to him. Somehow, that permission to not do what he’d determined to do made it possible for him to do it. He didn’t understand why this helped, only that it did. It created a freedom of choice in his mind.
He reached up and grabbed hold of the saddle, placing his left boot into the stirrup and praying his right leg would holdstrong enough for him to launch off the ground. Then, within the space of one second and the next, he was mounted.
