He exhaled. “Jesus.”
Daddy was the only other person who had seen me completely naked since I was a baby. And I had never seen a naked boy—man—except Daddy.
Under my hands and mouth, Will’s skin was smoother and tauter, and the hard runner’s muscles in his thighs were leaner. His hands glided over my body, cupping my breasts, sliding over my hip, as if he were sculpting me. He kissed and sucked my nipples gently and then harder as I pushed my breasts against his mouth. That was okay, wasn’t it? And was it okay that I opened my legs wider and tilted my hips upward against his hand? Were these learned responses or natural ones?
Will kissed my stomach and then moved lower. “Okay?”
“Yes.” This. This was where I could lose myself.
He kissed me gently between my legs, and then, with more concentration, used his tongue until I was swollen and wet and wanted him inside me. If we did this, there was no undoing it. There was no more Daddy’s girl. He’d no longer be my one and only.
“Will,” I said. “Now.”
He crawled up my body, his knees between my thighs. I reached down and touched his penis. It surged in my hand, and I guided him inside me with a moan.
He froze. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The feeling of deceit was strong, but I drew his head down to mine and whispered, “It’s okay.”
I wished he’d been the one to hurt me. I wished I’d never felt any of this before. A few thrusts, a sharp cry, and he was done. If he’d lasted longer, I might have come.
I trailed my fingertips down his spine and back up again.
He kissed my shoulder and cleared his throat. “It’ll be better next time.”
“It was perfect this time.” Good enough, anyway.
“I know the first time for a girl—”
“Will—” Telling him it wasn’t my first time would lead to a very dark place, and right now, this was as close to perfect as I had any right to expect. “I’m glad it was you. I always wanted it to be special, and it was.”
A hard knot closed my throat. He kissed me, and tears slid from my eyes, but I had them under control before he even noticed—until I sobbed in his mouth.
“Roan?” He withdrew, a loss I wasn’t ready for. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” My voice sounded like air squeezing out of a balloon. “Sorry.”
“Sorry we did this?”
“Oh—no. I’m not sorry about this. I’m just emotional.” It was better if I didn’t talk.
He held me, one arm circled around me. “It’s okay, you know. Cry if you feel like it.”
I could have, thinking about everything I’d lost with Daddy, more than I could measure, but my tears dried up. I’d found something with Will, and at the edges of my mind glimmered the thought that it might be beyond measuring, too.
- twelve -
NOW THAT WILL knew the way, I gave him the gate code. He came to the house the next two nights. We didn’t get as far as my bedroom before we had our clothes off. The kitchen counter, one of the leather chairs in Daddy’s study, even the stairs—joyful, passionate, and fun, sex was possible anywhere.
Still, we were careful. The first night, he took the empty pizza box with him so Gertrude wouldn’t find it in the trash. The next night, he brought condoms. Condoms had never crossed my mind. Daddy didn’t use them; he’d had a vasectomy after I was born.
“Should’ve had these last night,” Will said, “but I didn’t know things would go that far.”
“Really?”
“Really. Did you?”
“I hoped they would,” I said.
He lacked Daddy’s expertise, but the learning process had its own rewards. Under the guise of exploration, I showed him what I liked and led both of us to discover what he liked: everything.
Sunday night we faced each other over a cloud of fluffy white lavender-scented bubbles in the big clawfoot tub in my bathroom.
“Why did you stop dating Sass?” I asked. “Was it because she wouldn’t… you know.”
“No. I mean, she wouldn’t, but that was kind of okay. We only went out for a couple of months. But the more I got to know her, the less I liked her. She was shallow, you know?”
“Oh, and I’m deep?”
“You are,” he said seriously. “She talked about people. You talk about—”
“Horses?” I slid my foot up his thigh.
He laughed. “Life. Ideas. Goals.” He caught his breath as I worked my foot underwater. “At first I thought she was fun and cute, but she turned out not to be who I thought she was.”
He grabbed my wandering foot at the ankle and yanked me toward him. I slipped under the bubbles with a shriek, water sloshing everywhere, and came up sputtering.
Sex in the bathtub threatened to drown me so we went back to bed.
He had learned to slow down, prolonging his pleasure and mine—and I did find pleasure with Will, although I’d come only that first night when we were both fully clothed. It had happened once; it would happen again. We were still getting used to each other.
We lay breathless in the damp, twisted sheets.
“What do we do now?” he said.
“I’ve read about a few things we could try.”
He laughed. “We’ll come back to that, but what I meant was, what do we do now that your father’s coming home?”
I’d known what he meant.
“I don’t want to think about him,” I said.
The silence stuttered between us. I was never eloquent, but maybe that was weird, what I’d said.
“I mean,” I said, “I’m going to miss this. That’s all.”
“Me, too.” He propped beside me on one elbow. “Everything’s changed since we were at school on Friday. How can I see you and not do this?” He lowered his mouth to my nipple. “Or this.” He kissed my stomach. “Or this.”
The pleasure was intense, and soon he’d brought me right to the brink of coming, and I held my breath, straining for it.
The phone rang.
Will groaned. “Are you kidding me?”
I reached for the handset. “Sorry.”
After last night, when I’d flown down the hall to grab Daddy’s call before the phone stopped ringing, I was keeping the handset nearby. He’d already called once tonight, shortly before I’d run the bath. I’d hoped for more distance from him this weekend.
I clicked on the handset. “Hello.”
No reply.
“Hello.”
Someone sighed.
Gross. I was not having phone sex with my father.
“Daddy?”
There was a click and then dead air. I hit the off button.
Will looked up from between my thighs. “Wrong number?”
I pressed Caller ID. Since I’d assumed it was Daddy, I hadn’t looked at the screen when I’d answered. Anonymous. So, not Daddy. His cell number showed up when he called, as did Gertrude’s and Eddie’s and the number of the phone in the barn.
“Wrong number with bad timing.” I replaced the handset on my nightstand.
Will kissed my thigh. “Doesn’t matter. I could do this all night.”
“We don’t have all night.” I stroked his hair. “What if I tell you about that thing I read?”
“What if you show me?”
Some time later we raided the refrigerator and carried the food back to bed.
“I love it that you’re so well-read,” he said around a mouthful of cold chicken.
He wouldn’t love it if he knew I’d never read about what we’d just done. It was a variation Daddy liked now and then. If Sass had turned out to be someone different from the person Will had thought she was, what would he make of me?
As he dressed, I gathered the condom wrappers and put them in the paper bag that held the evening’s used condoms.
“When will your father go away again?”
“He only does a couple of clinics a year.”
“We’ll figure something out,” W
ill said.
He helped me take our dishes downstairs. I handed him the paper bag, the top folded. He put his arms around me. I could have stood like that forever, in a warm, thoroughly fucked, post-sex trance, but after a lingering kiss, he left in a gust of cold air from the porch, and his truck rumbled away.
I washed and dried the dishes. As I put away the platter that had held the chicken, I remembered Gertrude’s comment yesterday afternoon when she’d come up to the house to make sure I didn’t need anything: “My land, sugar, you’re eating enough for two people.” Since Friday, she’d been astonished to see the disappearance of a sun-dried tomato torte, a nutty rice pilaf, bunches of grapes, a loaf of homemade olive bread, and an assortment of cheeses. Tomorrow, she would discover that I had apparently eaten an entire fried chicken. Will could pack away mountains of food.
“Your fault,” he’d said last night as he scarfed down the last brownie from a batch Gertrude had made in the morning. “You keep making me work up an appetite.”
I debated whether to fry more chicken—I’d baked replacement brownies at midnight last night—but the raw chicken was frozen. I decided not to, since no one suspected me of sneaking a boy into the house, but I’d better make sure there was no evidence he’d been here.
I checked the house room by room. Everything was normal except for my bedsheets, a mess of spots and splotches. I’d tidied up each evening after Will left, and I’d made my bed every morning as usual, but I’d have to wash the sheets before Gertrude saw them.
The grandfather clock began to chime, twelve rich, resonant strokes.
Tomorrow, I thought. Monday was laundry day, and Gertrude wouldn’t think a thing about it if I started the wash except that I was helpful. Nothing unusual about that.
Before I put on my nightgown, I checked my body front and back. Will hadn’t left a mark on me. I looked exactly as I had the last time Daddy had seen me. I didn’t feel the same, though.
Sore and tired to the marrow, I snuggled under the quilts and hugged myself, trying to capture the physical memory of being in Will’s arms, but in its place was an old familiar void, and into that void I fell asleep.
* * *
AT SCHOOL THE next day, I felt the truth of Will’s observation: Everything had changed. We’d have been discreet even if the school didn’t strictly forbid public displays of affection, but every time I looked at him I felt warm inside, like a chocolate bar that had been left in the sun. Love was making me gooey.
At one, he walked me to the front door of the school, where Gertrude waited outside in her Subaru, reading the newspaper.
“We’ll find a way, you know.”
He had no idea how hard it would be, but I said, “I’ll take your word for it.”
My heart wasn’t in my lessons, and Eddie, always more lenient than Daddy, let me go early.
“You and Vigo could use some time in the hills.”
Vigo was getting bored and stale with only dressage and jumping to occupy him, and I needed some time to make the transition from being with Will to being with Daddy. How great would it be to come home and find a message from him that he’d missed his flight?
Fat chance.
By the time I returned from my ride, dark clouds were crowding out the sunset. I couldn’t tell whether they’d bring rain or snow, but the wind cut through my jacket. I rode around the side of the training barn and found Daddy talking to Mateo.
He’d gotten some sun in California. “Hey, darlin’.” He gave Vigo a pat. “Rub him down and let’s go up to the house. Teo, have someone muck her stalls.”
I put away the tack and groomed my horse, but it hadn’t been a hard ride. I blanketed Vigo for the night, rolled the stall door closed, and looked in on Jasper. I wanted to join him in his stall, press my body to his and disappear, like a chameleon. Become part of him, invisible and safe.
“All done?” Daddy said.
As we walked up to the house, he told me about the clinic and asked me about school. The wind made my eyes water. I flicked a tear from my cheek. We went in through the kitchen, where Gertrude was making gumbo; it would be ready when we were. I hung up my jacket, the same one I’d worn Friday night.
Since the gumbo was only simmering into further tenderness, Daddy told Gertrude to go home before it started to rain. Thunder had begun to rumble.
“I haven’t made the salad.”
“We can manage that, can’t we, darlin’?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gertrude relented and took her coat from its hook.
“Do you want a ride?” Daddy asked.
“You’ve been traveling all day. I like the walk, and if I get rained on, I’m not made of sugar.” She buttoned her coat. “Glad you’re back.”
When she’d left, Daddy turned off the flame under the gumbo. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“I have a ton of homework.”
“Come on.” He reached out to brush back a strand of hair that had come loose from my ponytail.
I pulled my head back. “I don’t want to.”
“Since when?”
“I never want to.”
“Right. Come on.”
My heart kicked in my chest. “No.”
“You don’t want to play this game, darlin’.” He reached out again, and when I took a step back he took a bigger step forward, pushing me up against the heavy butcher-block table. He caught my chin and his mouth came down on mine. With both hands on his chest I tried to push him away.
His mouth was all over me, lips on my neck, teeth nipping my earlobe. Damn—I’d gotten that earlobe thing from him. Of course I had. Everything I knew came from him. His hands were everywhere, one hand gripping my hair to keep control of me, the other pulling my shirt up, stretchy sports bra with it, and then diving down the front of my jodhpurs. He pushed a finger inside me and chuckled. Then he pulled my jodhpurs down to my knees, lifted me onto the table, got his own pants down, slammed into me.
He was hairier than Will, more heavily muscled, confident where Will was eager, deft where Will was unpolished, sure of himself, and sure of me. He knew where to touch me, how to touch me, when to be gentle and when—now—to be forceful.
My climax was so strong that I couldn’t breathe. It swallowed me whole and went on and on, and somewhere in the middle of it he came, too.
He kissed me. “So much for ‘never want to.’ I know you better than you know yourself.” He pulled out, pulled up his pants, and turned away.
My bra was hitched over my breasts, my jodhpurs hobbling me around my knees, my naked butt on the table. I put myself back together and walked unsteadily down the hall to the guest bath to clean up. So much for “never want to.”
I hadn’t wanted to and it had happened, anyway, but that didn’t mean nothing had changed. I’d changed. He just didn’t know it yet.
* * *
THE WEATHER WAS so foul for the remainder of January that I went for days without riding out, and when I did, Daddy accompanied me. I was training hard on all three horses, dressage every morning, jumping every afternoon. Daddy recorded the lessons, and we reviewed the videos after supper.
Because the broodmares were getting ready to drop, I usually did the evening walk-through with him. When I didn’t, I paced the floor to keep myself from calling Will. I didn’t want Daddy catching me with the phone. Anonymous had called a few times, and the hang-ups were raising his suspicions. He wasn’t always in the house when the calls came, so he didn’t know how many there really were, but one evening in his study after he’d fielded one, he turned to me.
“Is Will Howard harassing you?”
Hearing him say Will’s name stunned me. Neither of us had mentioned Will since Thanksgiving.
I tried to look indifferent. “I don’t think so.”
“Did you get your sweater?”
What sweater?
The one I’d left in Will’s truck. I’d forgotten about it.
“He gave it back. I keep it in my locker.”
“I’ll ask him,” I said, “and if he’s doing it, I’ll tell him to stop.”
“If he’s doing it, you’ll tell me. I almost hope he is.”
“Why?”
“You’re in the public eye, darlin’. You’re a potential target. I’d rather deal with some snot-nosed high-school punk than a real threat.”
Cyber predators, kidnappers, and the like were Daddy’s official reason for curtailing any small freedoms I might otherwise have had. Considering who he was and what we did and how his mind worked, he’d taken a couple of big steps in letting me go Christmas shopping alone and stay by myself at the house. Things like that gave me hope that one day he’d allow me to step into my own life.
I knew Anonymous wasn’t Will, and I didn’t think it was a threat. I thought it was Mama. After the first few calls, I’d stopped hanging up immediately. Instead, I stayed on the line and strained to hear anything that would tell me she was on the other end. Once I’d said, “Mama?” The call had disconnected instantly. That wasn’t much to go on, but the lonely, abandoned part of me saw Anonymous and thought Mama and wanted the connection, even if it was only the sound of her breathing. If I told Daddy, he’d change the number or get rid of the landline.
By the first week of February, foals were being born. Most of them came late at night, often after midnight, so I rarely was present for a birth, but no matter how many hours Daddy spent at the barn, he always had time for me.
Gradually the days started to warm, and Gertrude’s hyacinths and jonquils poked through the earth. On a sunny Saturday before Valentine’s Day, Daddy was in his study working on entry forms for the spring shows. He waved me off toward the barn.
“Ride out, darlin’. Have a good time. Wear your helmet.”
I was still in riding clothes from my morning lesson, so I went straight to the barn, suppressing the urge to skip. I hadn’t ridden out alone in the month since Daddy had returned from California. This presented a rare opportunity.
I called Will from the phone in the office, keeping an eye on the aisle to make sure no one overheard me. “Can you meet me?” I asked without preamble.
Dark Horses Page 14