London Lace, Series Complete Set

by Catou Martine

  As the sand below sped by in a blur, she tried not to think about falling. If she bounced out of her saddle going this speed she would end up broken, she was sure of it. The element of danger made the ride all the more thrilling, but also very real. Eliza felt tremendously alive. She was in the moment, balancing precariously in her stirrups, trusting this animal beneath her, at one with the environment around her, intimately connected to the man ahead of her, powerful and vulnerable in the moment; all of it combined made her feel utterly alive and completely free.

  Todd guided Fanfare toward an incoming wave and suddenly they were racing and splashing through the water. Eliza screamed, giddy with excitement and fearful that Honey would lose her balance with the extra resistance, but she didn’t, not at all. She adapted easily, keeping up with Fanfare, and even once trying to nip Fanfare’s tail. They’re playing, thought Eliza. They’re having fun! Just like we are.

  They were more than halfway along the length of the beach now. Todd led them out of the shallows and began to slow down.

  “Oh my god, that was amazing,” squealed Eliza, trembling all over.

  Todd beamed. “I thought you might like that.”

  She more than liked it, her body felt electric! And energy was pulsing through every part of her. Especially the part that had gotten all riled up in the Range Rover. She giggled to herself as she thought of how the invention of cars was inspired by horses, and how engines were described in terms of horsepower.

  Wriggling in her saddle, she said, “Todd, that was practically orgasmic.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Do go on.”

  A wave rolled in and swirled around the horses’ hooves.

  “If I go on I just might go off.” She winked.

  Now it was his turn to shift in his saddle. He licked his lips.

  “You had your appetizer but I didn’t.” He gave her a long sexy look.

  “And I was just thinking I wouldn’t mind slipping out of these breeches. They’re a bit wet.” She didn’t elaborate on all the damp spots. Splashing through the sea must have soaked Todd as well. Eliza was glad for the privacy of this beach and the warm sun rising higher in the sky. The tops of the bluffs were windy but the beach was quite protected, and now that they were near the far end, there were clusters of black rocks here and there. Perfect drying rocks.

  Todd guided Fanfare toward the soft, dry sand and then slipped off.

  “Good boy,” he said rubbing his muzzle. He reached for Honey’s reins and led Eliza, like a Queen, across the golden sand. He stopped not far from a low stand of rocks and reached into the saddlebags. After dropping a bunch of stuff onto the sand, he then helped Eliza down and took more things from Honey’s saddlebags. He handed one of the plaid blankets to Eliza and took one for himself.

  “Let’s lay these out side by side. For our picnic,” he said.

  She giggled, knowing she would be the first course.

  Todd took the reins of both horses and led them higher up the beach toward the brambles and shrubs that covered the slope leading up to the bluff above. He roped them up and pulled more items from the bags. Fanfare and Honey started munching on something Todd offered. He also filled a collapsible dish with fresh water from a jug.

  Eliza laid out the other items: the towels, food containers, linens, cutlery, bottles of water and juice. In the pocket of one satchel she found her mobile. She saw that she had missed a call from Carmen. She considered calling her back but her mobile didn’t pick up much signal here. And she couldn’t do much about work sitting on a beach, in wet breeches no less.

  She started yanking her boots off. Her legs were beginning to feel itchy and she wanted these breeches off. Todd was smiling at her efforts as he walked back to the blankets.

  “It’s easier if you have help.” He reached for her foot. She gave it to him. He loosened the heel with a little lift and tug and then, pulling swiftly, he yanked the riding boot off. She wiggled her toes with relief and lifted her other leg. With both boots off, she peeled her socks off, too. Todd dropped down onto the blanket beside her and began wrestling with his own boots. Eliza hopped up, her toes digging into the warm sand.

  “Let me return the favor.”

  Todd smiled and leaned all the way back on the blanket as he lifted his leg. He squinted up at her as she wiggled and pulled but it was not as easy as he’d made it look. Biting her lip and furrowing her brow, she put more strength into her effort. When the boot finally slid away from Todd’s calf and heel, Eliza stumbled backwards, her wet bottom suddenly buried in sand. Todd laughed loudly. But he also stood up, one boot still on, to help her up.

  “I’m fine,” she said fiercely, getting up on her own and pushing him back down to the blanket. “Give me the other one.”

  This time she spread her legs, one behind the other, for balance. She loosened the heel, pulled slightly downward and then curved up, drawing the boot away from the calf smoothly… but still too forcefully. Todd’s boot sailed out her hands and landed on the sand behind her. She rolled her eyes.

  “Takes some getting used to,” said Todd with a smirk. He pulled his socks off and dug his toes in the sand like Eliza had done. She retrieved his boot and set all four by the rocks.

  Then she peeled off her breeches.

  “Whoa,” said Todd. “You really are eager.”

  She rolled her eyes his way. “I’m just wet and uncomfortable.”

  He patted the blanket next to him. “Come over here then and let me make you wet and comfortable.”

  Eliza laid her breeches in the sun to dry. Over her shoulder she said, “Aren’t yours soaked from all that splashing?”

  When she turned around for his answer she saw that he was already out of his breeches and handing them over to her.

  “Oh, please, let me help you with those,” she said facetiously as she took them from him while he lay down on the blanket, face to the sun, happy as a clam.

  She followed Todd’s suit and slipped out of her jacket so that she was only in her short sleeves. She stretched out on the blanket, face down, and let the sun warm her bare arms and legs. Oh, it felt divine.

  “I hope you haven’t lost your appetite,” she murmured.

  “I’m lying here anticipating my first taste,” he said. “Can’t you tell?”

  She glanced down the length of Todd’s scrumptious body. There was a distinct mound beneath his boxers. He rolled over on his side and kissed her nose. He stroked her face from her temple to her chin.

  “You are so beautiful.”

  She was sure she was wind blown and ruddy-cheeked.

  “They say that love is blind,” she joked.

  He frowned. “They’re wrong. Love makes you see how the world could be.”

  His sea-blue eyes bore deeply into hers, pushing back any more self-deprecating remarks. If she risked being honest with herself, she had to admit Todd’s gaze made her feel like a goddess. It was almost too much to hope for, to hang on to, but for the moment, she let his words and eyes caress her as the sun caressed her skin.

  “There you go,” he said sweetly. “You let it in that time.” He smiled happily and leaned back again, staring up at the sky.

  What did he mean, ‘that time’?

  She pushed herself up onto her elbow. “Todd. What are we going to do?”

  He put an arm behind his head and half turned to her.

  “Well, soon we’re going to make wild passionate love, then enjoy a delicious picnic, and eventually ride back to the car unless we decide we’d like to live on this beach forever, like the last man and woman in the world, in which case we’d probably have to go foraging for firewood and small game if we’re to survive. Oh, and hay. We’d have to search out hay for the horses.”

  She smiled and swatted him lightly on the chest. “You know what I mean.”

  He rolled toward her, took her in his arms, and said, very seriously, “I do want to stay with you here forever. I don’t much want to forage for firewood, but I want us t
o be alone, together, here. I want to be blind to the rest of the world because you’ve made me see what my world could be. Do you understand, Eliza?”

  The breath went out of her lungs. Words wouldn’t coalesce in her brain but she felt what he wanted her to understand with her body—her gut felt hollow, her heart achy, her mind buzzed, her knees felt weak, and her toes twitched, as if she were preparing to run.

  Almost without realizing it, she had pushed away from him, was sitting now, looking out to sea, and gauging her escape routes. Why?

  Todd held onto her wrist. Giving her space but unwilling to let her go far.

  “What is it? Why are you so afraid?” he said.

  She turned, not feeling afraid, but angry. Surprisingly angry.

  “How dare you come along and turn my life upside down!”

  Where was this coming from? She couldn’t stop herself. “You think you’re some prince on a white horse trying to rescue me, turn me into Cinderella?”

  Todd looked crushed. But she was on her knees now, yelling at him. He’d let go of her wrist.

  “I have built myself up from nothing! Does that turn you on? Poor girl makes it in the big city, earns rich friends, influences fashion. But really she is nothing. It’s all a façade, a house of cards about to come tumbling down!”

  Tears were tumbling down her cheeks now. Her lower lip trembled. “And then you come along like the icing on the cake. A cake that is going to smash to the floor and get trampled on.”

  Todd looked stricken and then some understanding seemed to dawn on him. He sat up next to her.

  “It’s not me you’re afraid of, is it? It’s everything. It’s your whole life. Everything you’ve created… Or what you think you’ve created. You don’t think any of this is real do you?”

  Through blurry eyes she stared at the horses resting at the back of the beach. What was Todd going on about?

  “You’ve got this tough exterior that protects this raw feeling inside, this feeling that you’re an imposter and one day everyone’s going to find out.”

  It was as if he were putting puzzle pieces together. But what did it have to do with her? She wasn’t an imposter…

  “You think you’re the only one who feels that way? You don’t think I wake up everyday surrounded by the things I have and wonder: why me? Or the times I think about all I’ve lost and ask the same question? When my mother died when I was little, and then my father a few years ago? Even now, when Tatum and his family want to hand me a business to run and I scratch my head and wonder why they think I could do it, when I really don’t know anything? You don’t think I feel like a fake? Like everyone’s going to find out what I’m really made of and leave. Leave me all alone?”

  His chest was heaving and his fists were clenching and unclenching and he was blinking a lot, as if tears might erupt any minute but he would do anything to keep them down. Eliza pushed her tears off her cheeks and stared at him.

  “You feel like that?”

  The fight seemed to go out of him suddenly. “I’ve been trying to tell you that in different ways. But you haven’t wanted to hear it. You’ve been too caught up in your own illusion of inadequacies, all the more because they’ve been hidden behind your bravado, your cultivated confidence. We’ve both lost a lot in life, Eliza, and it wasn’t our fault but we’ve had to deal with it. And it’s hard to do that alone.”

  He was right. “I’ve never had anyone to do it with me,” she said.

  “Me neither. Until now. Or at least that’s what I thought… What I hoped.” He looked away, out to sea. “I’m used to being alone, but it doesn’t make me happy. I gave up on being happy a long time ago. Until I met you.”

  Eliza’s tears were streaming again now, but for a different reason.

  “Am I really that tough?”

  He nodded. “But the hardest horses to break are the ones with the hearts of champions.”

  Her temper flared at that. “I’m not a horse you can break, Todd! How dare you think you can try to tame me like that?!”

  Todd looked surprised for a second, then angry, then defeated.

  “You don’t understand. “I’m not saying you’re a horse, or that I want to break you. But my experience with horses has taught me that the wildest ones, the most stubborn ones, have the most powerful passion, the deepest love, that special spark that sets them apart. And given training—which is not much more than patience and love and belief in their potential—they channel their energy into what they were made for: excellence.”

  “None of that applies to me.”

  “Maybe not. But you have excelled in your life, and succeeded in your field, created deep and lasting friendships with people you didn’t expect to meet. People who respect you. Who love you, because you love them, despite your tough exterior.”

  “Why does it seem like you know me so well?”

  “Because I don’t think we’re all that different.”

  Eliza laughed. She still thought they were totally different. He was rich, she was poor (or she used to be), he had an aristocratic background, she was a bastard mongrel (if she wanted to be blunt about it), he was a man and she was a woman (though she didn’t mind that so much). She supposed these were mostly superficial differences, the things they couldn’t really control, the things they were born to, but some of the other things he’d said, if she let herself consider them, were rather similar: lost or missing family members, having to carve out their own lives, believing they were alone, and the fears that sometimes comes with believing you’re not measuring up, or worrying people will discover you’re not who you pretend to be.

  “But I think we’re different enough to be able to help each other,” added Todd “It’s not that I think we’re the same.” He glanced briefly at her breasts. “In fact, I’m really glad we’re not.”

  Eliza laughed. “Me, too. But what about the horse thing? The hearts of champions and all that?”

  “The stronger the armor the more valuable the treasure.”

  She watched him quizzically, waiting for him to say more.

  “You still have so much inside you, Eliza, so much energy just waiting to be released. Energy that, I think, if redirected from self-protection and pretence, would pour out in another form.”

  “Like what?”

  He swallowed, looked in her eyes, looked away, took a deep breath, and then looked back, staring softly this time.

  “Like love.”

  She put her hand to her mouth. She closed her eyes, melted, surrendered.

  Whispering, she said, “That’s what you were trying to tell me last night…”

  Quietly, he said, “Whether or not it’s me you love, doesn’t really matter.” He gulped with these last words. “I mean, it matters to me, but what matters more is that you can love someone like that.”

  She shook her head. Back and forth, back and forth. Soon she was shaking so violently she was making herself dizzy.

  “Not someone, Todd. You. Only you. If, after all this, you still want to let me.”

  He was looking down at the blanket, tracing lines of the plaid with his fingers.

  Had he heard her? He must have. Was he thinking it all through? Trying to deal with all he had offered and the little ray of hope she had handed back to him? She knew it wouldn’t be easy. She would have to learn to stop putting her guard up all the time, learn to trust her own feelings of love and not quickly turn away from them for fear. But together… Maybe together they could navigate this new territory?

  She reached for his fingers. She pulled them close to her, up to her cheeks, to her lips. She kissed the back of his hand this time, and then turned it over to kiss his palm. He slid his hand across her cheek until he had cupped her face, and then he drew it towards him. His eyes were wet but he was smiling, and this smile was wide open and full of love.

  “Yes,” he said. “More than anything I want to let you love me.”

  He kissed her long and deep under the blue sky. Wrapped in ea
ch other’s arms, the sun enveloped them with warmth.

  “I can take the heat of your anger, Eliza but I can’t bear the coldness of your fear, and how it makes you run away from me. Promise me you won’t run anymore?”

  How could she promise to not do something that felt like second nature?

  “I can promise to try,” she said. “And I can do my best to tell you when I feel like bolting, so you can do your best to redirect me. But I can’t promise I won’t make mistakes sometimes.”

  “I can live with that.” He kissed her neck, trailing his tongue down to her collarbone. She sighed.

  “Are you still hungry?” she asked.

  “Very.” He slipped his hand up her shirt, unhooked her bra. Her whole body had been trembling from her spent emotions but she was beginning to relax after everything Todd had said. She wrapped her legs around his waist so they could hug chest to chest. He hoisted her up a bit so that she was sitting in his lap, her legs around his back. His erection pressed deliciously against her pelvis.

  “Are you still angry?” he said, stroking her bare back and kissing her neck.

  “No.” His kisses, his hands—his understanding—had taken her to a completely different state of mind. And body. At the moment, she barely remembered why she had flown off like that. All she could think of was the pleasure-missile humming under his boxers; she hoped it was heat-seeking.

  As she kissed his soft lips, her tongue dancing with his, she pushed down against him. Her panties and his boxers made a frustrating barrier between the skin-soft parts desiring contact. But she didn’t want to pull out of this intimate embrace either.

  He had erased all her doubts, tended the cracks in her heart, revealed the rough neglected edges of her soul that, with his help, she would smooth over and make shine. She wanted to hold him so close and never let him go. She wanted to be as close as two bodies could ever be. And she wanted that closeness now. Her earlier whispers to herself of ‘later’ and ‘patience’ were blown out of the water in the face of her all encompassing desire to unite with this man, whose fearlessness of heart had calmed her own fears.