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I gasped, spun on my heel, and bolted for the door like the barn itself had caught fire, my heart pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it over the water.

Behind me, I heard his sexy laugh echo through the stall.

And I did not slow down.

“I promise I don’t taste good,” I announced nervously to the horse in front of me. I was brushing it as a way to distract myself from the peep show I’d given myself earlier…one I may or may not have gotten myself off to right after in my own shower. “You’re better off eating literally anything else.”

“The horse’s name is Dante,” Sterling commented.

I jumped in surprise because I hadn’t noticed him come in. I glanced over, and he was leaning against the stall door, mercifully dressed, his arms crossed with his flannel sleeves pushed up so I had to stare at all of his delicious forearm candy. His eyes were on me, dark and intent, and the air seemed to shift, pressing in until I felt it in my lungs.

“He’s very gentle,” he said gruffly.

Dante chose that moment to shove his nose into my chest, huffing hot breath down my shirt like he was trying to inhale my soul.

I squeaked. “Is that part of being gentle, or is this how ranch life weeds out the weak?”

Sterling’s mouth twitched, almost reluctantly, and he pushed off the door and stepped closer, his body aligning with me until his warmth pressed into my back. His hands slid over mine to steady the brush. And I felt it, the unmistakable weight of his dick against me, hard through his denim, impossible to ignore.

“Like this,” he murmured near my ear. His breath grazed my skin as he guided my wrist, showing me how to move the brush in long, steady strokes along his flank.

“I can do it myself,” I said, the pitch of my voice betraying me immediately.

He let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, but something darker…sexier. “Hmm,” he said. “But me helping you is probably a lot more fun.”

And heaven help me, my body agreed.

“Have you ever ridden a horse?” he asked suddenly, the question abrupt enough to feel like some kind of distraction tool.

My mind traitorously supplied me with an image of riding something else entirely, a thought I absolutely did not need in a barn full of hay and leftover sexual tension, and I shoved it away with both hands before it could take root.

“No,” I said quickly, a little breathless. “And if this is where you tell me it’s a piece of cake, I’m not going to believe you.”

“You should try it.”

I shot him a look over my shoulder, trying to step forward and get a little space between me and that dick of his. “You did see me with the goat earlier, right? I don’t think there’s anything about me that screams ‘natural equestrian.’”

He stepped close again until I felt pinned between the giant horse and his giant…

“He’s patient. And I’ll be right there,” he said.

“That feels like something people say right before an ambulance is called.”

Sterling’s smile softened, and it was maddening that my panties were wet from just that.

“Trust me.”

My breath caught. Not so much because of the words—but because of the way he said them.

I eyed Dante, then him, then Dante again. The horse blinked at me, slow and placid, still chewing like nothing in this barn was charged or dangerous.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Or maybe it was a good one. If I went with him, I might figure out what had him so tense.

“Okay,” I said finally, squaring my shoulders like that might help. “But if I fall off, I think we need to come to terms with the idea that I was not made for small-town life.”

His smile turned unmistakably pleased. “Oh, I think small-town life suits you just fine.”