Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel) (7 page)

By the time he’d hit the shower at 5 a.m., it had seemed inevitable. The naked Mindy in his mind preceded him, knelt under the spray, waited for him to give it up in her mouth—which he did in an embarrassingly short time. That was just his life now, he guessed, jerking off to thoughts of Mindy the Actual Submissive.

For all that, he really would have been fine—if Mindy hadn’t been saddle-sore.

She kept
wincing
, was the thing. And putting a hand to her ass when she thought nobody was looking. And avoiding sitting down. And the whole thing was so exactly like the way a sub would act the day after a heavy scene that Logan wanted to react just as he would in that scenario. Specifically, he wanted to walk up behind her and pinch the hell out of that sore flesh and relish every gasp and whimper she tried to stifle. He wanted to find the exact spot that hurt the most and
press it
when she couldn’t get away. Then remind her of all the wicked things he’d done the night before to make her that sore, and how clearly he remembered every single bruise and welt, no matter how modestly she might be dressed at the moment. If, that is, he’d been the one to cause the pain, instead of a horse.

Even worse, the worst of all, was when he realized her surreptitious ass pats weren’t an attempt to massage the pain away. She was pushing her fingers into the flesh and leaning into the pressure, and at least once he caught the expression on her face when she did it. Rapt, blushing, all but biting her lip. Then looking around, making sure nobody had noticed what she was doing. She liked the pain itself. Seemed—unless Logan’s radar was completely broken—to be getting off on it.

Nobody noticed. The whole crowd—five guests, with Ethan breaking trail ahead of them—were focused entirely on the wildlife. It was a birding-and-wildflower-spotting hike, and everybody else was actually watching the birds and looking at the foliage. Mindy was lost in her own world of furtive pain-slut gratification, and Logan was having trouble paying attention to
anything
other than Mindy’s butt as she struggled up the rough trail. He was bringing up the rear, but his focus was definitely on only one rear in particular.

Robert and Diego, manning the coolers and grill at the “campfire” destination the guests had been hiking toward, might have had a clue. But they appeared too busy to care that the newest unofficial staff member only stayed at the picnic table long enough to devour a burger, then jumped right back up.

Soothing ointment. That was probably what Logan ought to be offering her. Some Epsom salts for her bath. Some more Tylenol, maybe. Normal things.

Nope, no use. He wanted to apply the soothing ointment
himself
, with Mindy naked, facedown, over his lap. After some additional beating. And probably with no soothing ointment, because really, that would be defeating the purpose. She clearly wanted the pain. He wanted to give her more of it. As much as she could take.

A service-oriented submissive who was a pain slut? With an ass straight out of his dreams and a smile he couldn’t help but find adorable, no matter how hard he tried? At least as far as the kinky side of things was concerned—and he couldn’t think past that side right now—she was everything he’d longed for and more. All the things he’d been missing.

He lasted all the way through finishing his burger and throwing his paper plate in the garbage bag hanging from a tree near the grill. On the other side of that tree, pretending to consult her laminated quick-reference guide to Central Texas wildflowers, was Mindy. With one hand in her back pocket.

Gripping
.

Too much. It was too damn much.

From where Logan stood, a few feet away from Mindy, he could see that the tree trunk and his own body would provide all the shielding he needed. He scanned the handful of guests. Ethan was entertaining them with a story, and they all seemed enthralled. Sufficient distraction to buy him a few seconds.

It would be a gamble, though. And he ought to strike while the iron was hot. Mentally crossing his fingers, he murmured just loud enough for Mindy to hear him, but not Robert or Diego.

“Don’t turn around. And don’t make a sound unless you want me to stop.”

She froze—except for the slight trembling of the hand that held the field guide. “I . . .”

He gave it a second, to make sure she wasn’t going to follow up. When she exhaled without saying anything further, he took the final step, closing the distance between them and pulling her hand from her pocket, letting it fall to her side. He smoothed his hand down the curve of her ass until he could grasp the fleshiest part of it between his forefinger and thumb—right where the denim was softest and most faded, at the spot where buttock and thigh met. He pressed, not enough to hurt, and paused.

“Nod if you want me to do it.”

She bobbed her head twice, almost before he’d finished his sentence. When he squeezed his fingers together, he heard the air hiss between her teeth as she processed the pain. Heard the tiniest beginning of a moan, so quickly swallowed he could have almost thought he’d only imagined it—if he hadn’t know what it was. If he hadn’t felt it himself in his lower belly and groin. Mindy started to rise to her toes, bowing her head in counterpoint, and he released her so suddenly she almost fell over.

“You about ready to head back?” he asked more conversationally, crossing his arms to resist further temptation and stepping past her toward the mesquite scrub she’d been pretending to examine a few moments earlier.

“Yeah.” High-pitched, breathy squeak of a voice.

Logan chanced a look back at her face.
Big mistake
. Her eyes were closed, her soft, light lashes fanned down and pointing toward the delicate blush illuminating her cheekbones. She looked like a sunset. And he was
desperate
to fuck her.

Over her still-trembling shoulder, Logan could see the two couples and one extra woman—he needed to figure out how to remember all their names—standing, stretching. The pair who had also gone on the trail ride the day before were seasoned riders who hadn’t felt a twinge this morning. The Gordons, saddle-sore like Mindy, had opted out of the hike.

Logan had insisted Mindy come along. She hadn’t argued very hard against it, and now he could guess why.

“Masochist,” he whispered at her as he strode back toward the tables.

She laughed as if she’d been caught off guard, and called her response to him aloud. “Duh.”

He turned around, raising his eyebrows, noting then studiously ignoring Robert’s snort in his direction. Yeah, that particular ship of gossip had clearly already sailed. Logan tried to stare Mindy down with a cold Dom face but could feel himself failing miserably. She was just too
cute
to glare at.

But he could still call her out. “Brat.”

The budding smile melted from her lips, and her eyebrows flew up in the middle like a cartoon face illustrating worry. She shook her head, then lowered her gaze to his boots. “
No
. I’m really
not
.” She added, “sir,” in a whisper he would never have caught if he hadn’t been expecting it.

Well, that wouldn’t do. “Hey, look up.”

She looked up, her eyes scanning past him as if she was recalling their potential audience. Her sheepish grin was too wooden to pass as natural.

He gave her what he sincerely hoped was a reassuring smile. But his heart was in his throat. If he offered, and she said no, he really didn’t know how he’d walk away after misreading her so badly. “Nod if you’re gonna prove it to me later.”

She licked her lips, blinked a few times . . . and nodded.

Oh, her ass was
so
his.

L
ater
, he’d said. Prove she wasn’t a brat,
later
.

Mindy had assumed he meant later that day, probably after dinner.
Later
, later. The anticipation would have practically been as good as foreplay. But Logan apparently wasn’t content to allow anticipation.

He’d started on the walk back down the hill.

The lineup was the same going down as it had been coming up—Ethan leading the way, with Mary more or less by his side asking about the flora and fauna. The Jacksons following, and after them the couple whose names Mindy couldn’t recall but felt too embarrassed to ask for again. Then Mindy. Then Logan.

Right behind her. Plotting.

She assumed he was scoping her ass, and she was cool with that. She wondered whether his pinch—
Lordy
, the man had some long, strong fingers—had left a bruise. Some kind of lingering mark. If it hadn’t, maybe he would do something else to leave marks.
Later
.

But later came sooner than expected, in the form of a tap on her hip. She looked down, startled, reaching to brush away whatever had landed there, only to find it was the tip of a stick. Or really, more like a switch. She glanced over her shoulder. Logan held the switch at arm’s length, keeping a distance between them. He must have grabbed the slender branch and stripped the leaves off it as they walked.

“Eyes front,” he told her. “You wouldn’t want to trip.”

Reluctantly, she turned her head and tried to focus on the trail. On a nearby rock formation. On the plaid shirt and white straw cowboy hat of the guest she was walking behind. On a grackle in the nearest tree, hopping up a few branches as the group passed by. On anything other than the looming possibility of whatever Logan might decide to do to her already aching haunches with the switch.

Gentle taps, at first. A touch here, a slap there, at irregular intervals. He was gauging the distance, it seemed like. And probably the potential for noise. They couldn’t do anything to draw attention to themselves, to alert the other guests that anything was happening. Mindy couldn’t make a sound no matter what Logan did, she knew that much. She didn’t have to be told that even a squeak would end the game.

It was a recklessly stupid game, but she didn’t want it to end.

The first harder tap came lower than she expected, right across the back of her left thigh. The denim of her jeans blocked some of the sting, but not all, and tears sprang up as quickly as the heat between her legs. A faint whipping sound announced the next one, over the seat of her pants. She clenched her teeth and kept walking, praying the others hadn’t heard the
swish
. Nobody turned around. Ethan had started talking again, about the likelihood of spotting various owls if anyone was interested in a short post-dinner nature stroll.

A truck engine rumbled in the distance—possibly Robert and Diego taking supplies from the picnic ground back to the main compound. The noise masked any warning sound for the next blow, a stripe of fire over her right hip. She exhaled sharply, biting her lips to keep silent.

Gravel crunched louder behind her as Logan approached. Wary eyes on the backs of the others, he muttered at her quickly, “Hook your thumbs in your front belt loops, I don’t want to hit your hands.”

He was even sexier when he was being practical.
Unfair
. He dropped back and she slid her thumbs into her belt loops and waited. But not for long.

A burning stroke on her hamstring. Another on her butt. Then a pair of searing swishes, back and forth across her waistline, inches above the protection offered by the denim. She stumbled, catching herself before she fell, and Logan was by her side again in an instant, a hand on her shoulder.

The guy in the hat—Gene? Jeff? Jerry?—turned and gave her an encouraging nod. “You doin’ okay back there?”

She gave him a thumbs-up. “Fine, fine. All good. Tripped over my own foot. Too busy looking for birds to watch where I’m going, I guess.”

Logan patted her shoulder then his hand fell away. She resisted the urge to grab it and put it back. Hat Man was already staring into the trees again, oblivious to the kinky scene he’d nearly witnessed playing out a few yards behind his back.

Not a scene
, she corrected herself. This was nothing so involved. They were just screwing around. Playing, not
playing
. Specifically, Logan was fucking with her head because he knew he could, and she was letting him because . . . because she liked it, but in the circumstances she could lie to herself a little bit and pretend it was because she felt guilty about the whole trying-to-seduce-his-ranch-out-from-under-him deal.

It wasn’t
entirely
a lie. She did want to atone. But the pain was melting into warmth, into pleasure, the new sharper spots pulling focus from the all-over achy tension of the saddle-soreness. Mindy could
feel
everything, feel every inch of her damaged skin as if it were being stroked. The friction of her snug jeans over her crotch was nearly too much; her pussy and clit were so sensitive and ready that even the act of walking seemed like enough stimulation to make her come.

Or maybe that was the weight of Logan’s assessment. She could feel him, too, sizing her up. She wished they were alone on this trail, that she was naked, that he was switching her back to the barn to tie her up in the tack room again. Or cross-tie her in the open corridor between the stalls, maybe. Where he would fuck her roughly. Then he would wash her off as gently as he would any of the other livestock, before bedding her down for the night in a stall.

She was so caught up in the unexpectedly hot sex-pony fantasy she forgot to anticipate the next swat. Straight up between her legs, fast as a rattlesnake strike, not so much hard as purely startling.

“
Oh
.”

Logan cleared his throat, and she bit her lip again.
Shit
.

Her legs were trembling. At this rate, she was never going to survive the last fifteen minutes of the hike without falling flat on her face. She turned quickly and made a slashing motion across her throat, then shrugged an apology.

Logan didn’t play fair. Not one little bit. He pushed his bottom lip out into a pout. And then,
and then
, the absolute rat bastard made puppy-dog eyes at her.
On purpose
.

It was horrifyingly effective. It took every bit of steel in her not to turn back around and let him do whatever he wanted. Although the fact she was still horny enough to hump his leg might have played a part. She mouthed a clear “
no
” instead, flicking her gaze forward only long enough to make sure she wasn’t about to walk into a tree or granite boulder or coral snake or something. The trail held only oblivious guests and snake-free dust.

When she looked back to Logan he sighed, exaggerating that every bit as much as he had the pout, and held up the switch in both hands, clearly about to break it in half. That would never do.

She echoed his pout and soulful eyes, masterfully suppressing a giggle-snort as she did so.

He grinned and broke the switch anyway, tossing it into the brush. Then he raised his eyebrows at her and if she hadn’t already been wet, that would’ve done it.

Ethan said something enthusiastic about rose poppies, and Mindy dutifully trained her eyes on the swatch of land to the right of the trail, where a scattering of vivid cerise blooms completely stole the show from the few early bluebonnets. Within a few more weeks, the whole thing would probably be bright cobalt and white. Then yellow and red as the season progressed and other flowers had their moments. It was magical, a fairy-tale landscape, lacking only a mythical jackalope to complete the picture.

Maybe the jackalope was hiding right behind that stand of oak trees. Or there could be Hill Country rock fairies crouched atop that limestone ridge. These were smarter, safer fantasies to focus on than the barn sex thing. By the time the group reached the first of the old stone outbuildings near the main house, Mindy had populated the entire place with imaginary playmates.

Logan’s voice startled her from her reverie. “Hey, Ethan, I’m gonna stop here. Diego said something about the wall behind the old shelves needing repointing. Mindy, can you help me out for a minute?”

Smooth
. The rest of the group didn’t bat a collective eye, they were all so eager to get back to their cabins or whatever else now that the hike was at an end.

Logan worked the heavy iron latch on the oak door, held it open for Mindy to enter the dim, single-roomed stone building, then closed the latch, securing them inside. A second later he had her back to the wall, his knee between her thighs, his hands gripping her hips like vises.

She expected a kiss, but she didn’t get one. Logan studied her face instead, through the gloom, then moved his hands. Pulling her closer, nudging her up his thigh until she was straddling it, almost on her toes. Then rocking her against it, hard. His fingers curved around her ass, pushing her into a rhythm.

“Keep going. Ride me just like that. Don’t stop.”

“I . . . God. Okay.”

He slapped her thigh, hard. “Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.” And
oh
, it felt good to say it.

“Don’t come.”

His telling her not to made it approximately a thousand times more likely to happen. She ground against his leg, finally letting out the groan she’d been holding back most of the way down the trail. When she squeezed herself around him, her legs sang with pain and her entire body responded.

“I’ve been rethinking some things,” Logan said, raising one hand to lift her shirt in front and yank down the cups of her bra. “Since you’re here for a few more days, and it’s pretty fucking obvious we’re both into it, I think we should throw this professionalism and restraint thing out the window and do all the things we’d like to do instead. What do you think?”

Think?
That was the last thing she wanted to do. Thinking might result in making a smart decision, and at the moment Mindy only wanted to make the dumbest possible decision when it came to Logan. She humped his leg harder. “If you throw restraint out the window, we can’t do
all
the things I’d like to do. Sir.”

He pinched her nipple, hard. “You’re not exactly showing me what a brat you’re not.”

It was almost too much stimulation, nearly enough to put her over the sharp edge she was currently walking. Her orgasm swirled into range, hers for the taking. She wanted it. She wanted his permission more. “I’m sorry, sir.”
I’m really not a brat, I’m just at the end of my rope here
.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” He pinched harder. Mindy nodded, unable to get the words out. Logan made a speculative noise, deep in his throat. “Don’t come.”

She whimpered, but he just laughed shakily and pulled his leg away. He pointed to the floor.

“Do we need barriers for oral?”

The conversation yesterday suggested strongly there was no need. They were both disease-free, right? She shook her head.

“Good. Knees. Now.”

Didn’t need to tell her twice. Wincing at the way it abused her already-tortured muscles, she dropped to her knees, breath still coming too fast.
So close
.

“Hands behind your back. Keep ’em there.” He ran his thumb over her lips, then pressed the lower one until she opened up. “Good. Stay there. Don’t move.”

He stepped to the door and double-checked the latch, then walked over to the back wall, where light filtered through an aged four-paned window covered with shutters that more or less matched the door in rough-hewn construction. Each of the shutters had a heart-shaped cutout in the middle, and apparently the view from there revealed the coast was still clear. Logan returned to stand in front of her, sliding two fingers into her mouth, playing with her hair as she suckled.

Mindy’s eyes drifted shut. She licked around Logan’s fingers, scraping as gently as possible with her teeth. Wanting it to be his cock. This was a place she knew, a role she knew. Why couldn’t everything in life be as simple and direct as this?

She wanted him to keep petting her forever, and was sad when his hand left her hair. But the next thing she heard was a belt being unbuckled, and she sighed as a fresh surge of dizzying want swept through her. When he took his fingers out of her mouth, she opened her eyes just enough to watch him unzip his jeans and pull out his cock.

One part of her mind couldn’t help but assess it clinically. Cut, average length, nice girth. The other part of her brain had gone primal, overridden by want. Taste, fuck, serve, do whatever he wanted. When he took himself in a firm grip and stroked up and down his length, she licked her lips then opened her mouth a bit wider than before.

Somewhere outside the building, a bird trilled. Inside, the only sound was breathing and the soft
creak
of denim being pushed aside, the scuff of Logan’s boot on the dusty stone floor as he stepped in and brought his cock to her lips. She breathed him in, the afternoon smell of him, knowing that musk would linger on her face, marking her as surely as the stripes he’d probably left on her legs and ass.

He didn’t need to say it, but he did, as he flexed his hips forward and pushed his tip onto her tongue. “Suck me. Yeah, take my cock.”

She hummed around him, swirling her tongue to get him wetter. He didn’t give her much time, he put his hands on her head and held her in place and worked his way into her mouth whether she was ready or not. She caught up when he pulled halfway out, licking frantically to get him wetter before he slid back in again, deeper than before. She tasted a hint of pre-come, welcoming the extra lubrication. Her distressed whimpers as she struggled to accommodate him only seemed to excite Logan more; heaven knew the whole situation was exciting Mindy right out of her mind, so that seemed only fair.