"It's after four in the morning."
"I don't understand your point."
"I'm taking you around Candy Creek. It's compulsory. It needs to be done in person, and I don't want to fail on a technicality like this."
"What are you talking about?" I groan.
He doesn't answer. Instead, he walks away, confident I'm going to follow. Dammit. I follow because what the hell is he doing, and where is he going?
Then the infuriating man walks toward a horse—one of two, mind you. A whole beast of a horse.
"Come on," he says again, as if he wants me to get on the horse. I think not.
"Nope," I say, turning around and heading back to my bed, where a few more hours of blissful sleep await me.
I don't know how he moved so fast or so silently. One minute I'm wobbling away from him—still sleepy—the next he comes charging toward me on the other horse. He scares the hell out of me, and I scream loud enough to wake the dead ancestors of Candy Creek. Then he leans down, scoops me up as if I weigh nothing, tosses me onto the saddle, and plants me right between his thighs.
I'm too far from the ground; I'm going to fall. Also, I'm on a horse. When the girls at my posh boarding school played polo or did anything equestrian, I signed up for chess. There was no chance of a chess piece biting me.
Now I'm sitting on one. The sheriff has one arm around me, his hand splayed across my stomach, his pinkie resting on my bare skin under my cropped sweater, while he holds the reins in his other hand, guiding the horse into a trot.
I'm digging my nails into his forearm, revealed by his shirt sleeves rolled up. He's so ripped with muscle that I wonder if I'm going to break my nails.
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," I cry.
"I got you," he says into my ear, his breath whispering against me as he draws me closer to him, nestling me deeper between his thighs, his hard cock pressing against me, making my pussy throb immediately.
The searing contact of his breath on me and his body against mine creates a new storm inside me, confusing my body completely. I'm in lunge-or-liquefy mode.
"I won't let you fall," he says softly.
Chapter Eleven
Marlowe
I trust him, perhaps foolishly, because the way the man looks at me suggests he wants to drown me in Candy's creek for disturbing his peace.
Well, if he wants to, he can throw me off the horse. Instead, he releases his reins—thankfully not me—reaches behind him, and hands me a flask.
I take it immediately. There had better be alcohol in it, or I'm not surviving this. He slows the horse to a near stop while I take a swig and discover it's coffee. With milk, and lo and behold, sugar. Okay, not a lot of sugar, but enough to make it palatable.
Did he make coffee especially for me since this isn't his preferred tar? I don't know what to make of it, but I'll be dissecting this further when I'm not airborne on a horse.
After two healthy sips, we're on the move again. I taper my breaths, and while I'm not actively trying to sever his skin with my nails, my fingers are still clutching his forearm like it's my lifeline, the same way my other hand is gripping the flask of coffee.
Streams of light breakthrough in the sky, lighting a path ahead of us, and he seems to know the terrain with a casual confidence that makes me a little too hot.
He knows what he's doing, and I let him. I settle into the horse's gait only because of the solid, warm body against which I'm cradled.
"Where are we going?" I ask after what seems like a long silence.
"There's a trail around the perimeter of Candy Creek," he says as he pulls back the reins, and the horse comes to a stop. I hadn't realized we were on a cliff, overlooking the valley of Candy Creek.
But beyond that... a sunrise so spectacular it takes my breath away. I gasp in wonder. I had never seen anything like it. I didn't know those colors existed and couldn't name them if I tried—variations of orange and purple, streaks of violet and mauve.
"It's... magnificent," I say softly.
"It's a rite of passage," he replies, and I understand. Guess you have to see a Candy Creek sunrise to belong here.
