The mare shifts to the far side of the stall, unbothered, already drowsing.
The stall is warm—deep bedding, the sweet smell of shavings and hay, the amber light from the fixture overhead casting everything in gold.
I cross the space between us.
Three strides.
My hand goes to her jaw and tilts her face up.
Her eyes. Dark. Wide. Not afraid—alert.
The look of a woman who has been waiting and is watching the waiting end.
“This isn’t like last time,” I say. Low. Close enough that the words land on her lips. “Last time I couldn’t stop. This time I’m choosing.”
“Choosing what?” Breathless. Her hand comes up to grip my wrist—not pulling away, holding on.
“You.”
I kiss her.
Not like the tack room. Not the desperate, starving crash of two people losing control.
This kiss is deliberate.
I take her mouth the way I take a road I’ve planned—measured, certain, knowing exactly where I’m going.
My hand on her jaw holds her where I want her.
My thumb traces the line of her cheekbone.
I kiss her slow and deep and thorough and I feel the moment she stops bracing for the retreat that isn’t coming.
Her body softens against mine.
The tension she carries—the armor, the readiness, the braced-for-impact posture of a woman who learned early that the people she loves leave—dissolves under my hands.
She opens to me.
Her mouth, her body, the fists she’d been holding against her chest loosening and sliding up to my neck, my hair, pulling me down into her.
I walk her backward to the stall wall.
Not rough—controlled.
Every step a decision.
When her back meets the boards she gasps and I swallow the sound and press into her and let her feel what she does to me—the full, hard evidence of how much I want her, deliberate against her hip.
Not hiding it. Not apologizing for it.
Letting her know exactly what’s happening and exactly what’s about to happen.
My hands go to her shirt.
I undo the buttons one at a time.
Not rushing. Looking at her the whole time—watching her face as each button gives, watching her chest rise and fall faster as the fabric parts, watching her eyes go dark and liquid when I push the shirt off her shoulders and let it fall.
