My smile grows uneasy. “And what, precisely, is that?”
“That she’ll need to carry us both.” Before I can protest, he adds, “Because someone feels she’s above riding horseback without a saddle.”
“Someonedoesn’t need to travel by horseback where someone’s from.”
“Ever?” He looks genuinely taken aback. “Well, someone will tell me that story as we ride.”
He whispers to the other pony, pats its back, then lengthens the reins until they’re long enough for the animal to graze.
“Uhh, maybe I didn’t make it clear. I really am not a horse girl. Or a pony girl. I don’t do Highland ponies, or donkeys, or mules, or really anything that requires a saddle.”
But Callum ignores me and continues his nonchalant preparations, backing the gray away from the thicket, adjusting her saddle blanket, checking her bridle.
“’Tis just as well.” It sounds like he’s giving up on this riding idea, so why is he walking toward me? “You’d muss that pretty frock of yours.”
The way his gaze has locked on mine paralyzes me. So much, that when he does what he does next, I’m too shocked to stop him. It just happens.
He reaches me. Reachesforme. And swoops me into his arms.
I gasp, caught between surprise and exhilaration. With a couple quick, deft movements, Callum swings me sideways onto the pony and vaults up behind me. He settles me in his lap, like we’re two puzzle pieces slippinginto place.
“And now, I get to dothis.” His arms cinch around me, solid and unyielding. He leans in, lips brushing my ear. “Very scandalous.”
The way he says it, each syllable lingering on his tongue, sounds likeverrra.
“Verra,” I mimic, my throat dry.
He adjusts my cloak and his plaid, swaddling us in wool, securing everything tightly under him, until it feels like he’s everywhere—behind, around, beneath—a cozy nest of Callum.
As he nudges us into a walk, his hips move in time with the pony’s gait, and the heart attackthatcauses must make my body go rigid, because he only snuggles me more deeply into the warm burrow of his body. My every sense is filled with him. His warmth, his scent, the steady solidity of his body.
“Be at ease, Rosie-love. I’ve got you safe.”
I manage a nod. His body is touching mine more than it isn’t, with a steady solidity that’s giving me hot, quivery sensations like I’ve never experienced.
I mean, sure, I’ve been held by guys before. But I’ve nevertingled.
And this tingling…it’s happening very, very high off the ground.
I consider protesting, but I don’t get the chance. As we reach the base of a long, smooth valley, he cinches his arms more tightly around me and kicks the pony into a gallop.
I yelp and cling to his arm like he’s a cliff I’m hanging from, but it still doesn’t feel like enough, so keeping one hand gripped on his forearm, I lower my shoulder and carefully slide my other arm around him.
His arms instantly snug more tightly around me. “That’sthe notion.” His grin tells me he’d been waiting for me to do just that.
“I’m going to kill you,” I shout over the thudding hoofbeats.
“I’m already dying a slow death here.” He adjusts me even closer, and I feel more than hear his throaty chuckle.
That silences me.
Too soon—or not soon enough—he’s slowing the pony to a trot, then to a walk. As we reach an outcropping of trees, Callum untangles us and slides off. I tense, but the second his feet hit the ground, he wraps his arms around me and gently slides me down.
I sag close to him, unusually close, but my legs—and maybe my will—are incapable of budging.
It’s too intense. I can’t meet his eyes, so I look around instead. “Where are these bluebells?”
“They’re not in season.”
