“Your leg.”
“Is fine,” he whispered against her lips. She didn’t see he had his eyes open and spotted her queen-sized bed, which was bigger than the twin he slept on in the spare room. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, making sure his hands cradled her ass and walked toward her bed. He still held her as he lowered them to the bed and closed his eyes to continue kissing her.
“Are you sure?” she asked when he laid his hand on her firm stomach beneath her tee.
“Yes, are you? We barely know each other.”
“I’m one hundred percent sure, but what about your leg?”
“It’s fine, and if it bothers you that much, you can be on top,” he said with a grin. “You know, ride me like a horse.”
Faith looked at him in shock, then threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah, that could be done.” She reached up to bring his head back down, but had to wait until he removed his shirt. She reared back to study him.
“What?”
“Before we go any further, do you have condoms?”
“Yes, I picked some up on a couple of gas stops on the way here. I was hoping. That’s all. I like you, Faith, I feel comfortable with you. I know you might not want to hear something like that, because no one wants to be considered comfortable.”
“Actually, yeah, I do. I know what you’re saying. I don’t feel like I have to put on airs when I’m around you. You’ve accepted me for me, and the cherry on top?”
“Yes?”
“Not once have you questioned my profession. Not once have you tried to tell me I couldn’t be a jockey. That means a lot in my book.”
He stared into her eyes for a few seconds, then leaned down and gently kissed her nose. He moved her hair from the sides of her face. “Being a jockey is you, I knew it the second you said why you were at New Double. I think without that, you would be lost. I see the excitement, and joy on your face when you talk about it. I saw the same in Pedro’s face. It’s in your blood, both of you. I only have one concern before we go any further in this relationship, because I want us to have a relationship.”
“Me too, what’s your concern?”
“You can slap me, but have you and Pedro ever had sex before.”
“Eew,” she wrinkled her nose and lips like he had said something foul. “He might not look it, but he’s twenty years older than I am. He’s like a father to me, or a much, much older brother. He didn’t today, but when we worked together in the past, he had a pet name for me.”
“Which is?” Shay asked between clenched teeth, and sighed when she reached up and massaged his jaw.
“He used two names for me, he either called me Kid, or Squirt.”
“Yeah, sorry, nothing sexy about those two names.”
“Exactly. We have one hell of a working relationship. We have to in order to know what the other is thinking and the horse is our number one concern. I know the horse from riding it, he knows the horse from observing how the two of us mesh, and he knows the stats, or numbers.”
“Like a well-oiled machine? One can’t work efficiently without the other.”
“Right, and remember, it’s a three-way. The horse, me, and Pedro, or horse, jockey, trainer.”
“The owner stays in the background and accepts all the glory.”
“Right, some of them, they don’t interfere with the training.”
“What’s better? Having a hands-on owner, or a standoffish one?”
“Everyone is different, but in my personal experience, the hands-on one was better. They knew the problems or not that we faced, they knew how the horse reacted to certain things, they were in the know, from the very beginning, and the standoffish ones would boast in front of their buddies at the track, in their owner’s box, and only come down to see the horse if it won. Those type of owners have no clue what the jockey and trainer had to go through to get the horse to that position.”
“Ah, I totally understand.” He nodded, and studied her. “Thank you,” he said softly, then leaned down and kissed her again. All thoughts of horses, trainers, or owners flew out of his head with the taste of her in his mouth. He took the hand on her flat stomach, and slowly inched it beneath her shirt, and sighed when he felt her small, but firm breast. Once he took one firm globe in his hand, they weren’t so small after all. They fit his hand perfectly, and that was all that mattered to him.
With a hand on her breast, and his lips covering hers, he sighed in contentment when she reached up to wrap her arms around him, and ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. Since getting out of the military, he’d been letting it grow, but he had a long way to go before there was enough for her to tug on when he made love to her. He gave himself a mental slap to concentrate on what he was doing. It had been years since he had a woman in his arms, and he wasn’t about to mess it up with him concentrating on his thoughts, and not her.
He lifted his head so they could both get air, and enjoyed the expression on her face. If the closed eyes and smile on her slightly swollen lips were any indication. He moved so he could remove her shirt, and when they were bare chested together, he sighed when she reached up and ran her hands through the hair on his chest. He suddenly slipped to the side and brought herwith him. He propped his head on his hand and looked down at her.
