Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  Morgan finally texted at 9:20. I’m here. Ordering room service. Come over?

  He was at the Mirror Lake Inn Resort and Spa. The most expensive hotel in the area, of course.

  She made herself wait a full ten minutes before replying that she’d head over.

  In all her years in Lake Placid, Zoe had never been inside the Mirror Lake Inn. The interior could have doubled as a millionaire’s hunting lodge—wood-paneled walls, stone fireplaces, and mounted trophies. Morgan’s suite had a similar decor. She imagined what it would be like to stay at the best hotels at every horse show and get there often by private plane. It seemed pretty appealing.

  After opening the door to let her in, Morgan sat back down at the table by the window, returning to his half-eaten steak.

  “I got you soup,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d want anything. I’m sure you already ate but soup’s always good. You can order something else if you want?”

  She felt oddly touched that he’d ordered her soup, or anything at all. “What kind is it?”

  He took the cover off so she could see. “Vegetable barley. It looks pretty good.”

  He handed her a spoon and poured her a glass of wine. Maybe it was pathetic that ordering her one bowl of soup felt like a tremendously caring gesture. But it made her feel hopeful about their relationship. They could be like the reverse of the couple in The Best of Me. She’d be the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who ends up with the popular, rich guy.

  The soup was still steaming hot and tasted delicious, maybe just because after a long day of riding all she’d had was an energy bar and an apple and she’d spent the last hour sitting in the dark in her car.

  “How’s the show?” he asked.

  “Great. I was champion in the high performance hunters and John and I are about to sell a horse, and I’ve been helping Linda with Dakota.”

  “Who’s John?” Morgan asked.

  Zoe took a moment to remember she hadn’t seen or talked to Morgan in weeks and that he really knew nothing about her life. “He’s the guy who owns the horse I do in the high performance and the derbies.”

  Morgan wiped his mouth and placed the napkin back on the table. “Is he gay?”

  “Are you jealous?” She cocked her head.

  “Should I be?”

  “He’s not gay,” she said. “And we’re just work partners.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I have no claim on you. What you do when I’m not around is your business.”

  It felt like more of a statement on what he did when she wasn’t around. He might as well have said, I sleep with whoever I want and you should too.

  The soup had made her feel like Morgan might actually care about her, and now she felt certain he didn’t care about her.

  Zoe stood up and walked around the expansive room. She picked up the TV card that listed the channels. “Wanna watch a movie?”

  “You mean porn?” He came up behind her, positioning his hands on either side of her waist and drawing her close, essentially grinding his crotch against her ass. He put his lips to her neck and she felt his teeth against her flesh.

  Please let him just be rubbing his teeth against me, and not about to bite me, she thought.

  She turned to face him. It wasn’t altogether easy to wriggle out of his grasp. “I actually meant a real movie, like a romantic comedy.”

  “I thought maybe you wanted to watch porn together.”

  “You wished I wanted to watch porn together. I was talking about something fun, like where the girl’s marrying the wrong guy or something.”

  “No thanks,” he said coolly. “I’ve got things in mind to do with you.” He looked at her suggestively. “Are you wearing one of those tiny thongs?”

  Damn it, she was, and now she wished she wasn’t. She wished she was wearing baggy grandma undies the size of a pillow case. She wished she was so unsexy and they’d be forced to do something other than just fuck.

  But it was all he wanted to do and she realized that resisting or trying to stall the inevitable was pointless. She let him kiss her. His kisses were all consuming, taking nearly her entire mouth in his.

  His sexuality was overwhelming, like he didn’t have a dimmer switch; it was either full on or nothing.

  Her last sexual partners had been Donnie and Étienne. Donnie, she figured out, had a problem getting it up and much of the time with him at first was spent getting him hard, or dealing with the fact that he was only half-hard. Then he started to compensate by spending most of his time pleasing her. It was his way of avoiding the fact that he couldn’t perform, which for a man who prided himself on being first in the show ring, was clearly intolerable.

  Then there was Étienne. She had expected the sex to be totally hot since he was foreign. That he’d be sensual and able to make her orgasm just by licking her breast or something crazy like that. But in fact sex with him was rote. Lots of missionary that went on forever since the drugs he was on must have made him unable to climax. Half the time they ended up stopping.

  Zoe’s last two partners had been basically a sampling of sexual dysfunctions.

  At first Morgan’s attack-mode sensibility seemed appealing but now she felt too much like prey. He grabbed at her clothes again. To avoid him ripping them she pulled off her own shirt. He buried his head in her breasts. She ran her hands through his hair, and he groaned.

  She relaxed for a moment, let her guard down, because right then their foreplay seemed normal, regular-unleaded. But she shouldn’t have relaxed because suddenly he whipped his head up, scaring her with the sudden movement alone. Then he twisted her arm behind her back. She turned so he was behind her again, trying to get him to loosen his grip.

  Instead he pushed her toward the wall and then slammed her against it. What was with him and walls? This time, it was her shoulder that took the brunt of the hit. He had let go of her other arm and she rubbed her throbbing shoulder.

  “What the hell?” she said.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She studied him, trying to assess whether he was serious. “Yes, it fucking hurt. When you slam someone into a wall, it usually hurts.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, genuinely.

  He hung his head in his hands for a few moments and it looked like he was crying. His shoulders were shaking. She couldn’t believe he might actually be crying.

  He looked at her, his eyes full of tears. “I am so sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

  She felt numb, unable to figure out what to do next since things were happening so strangely and out of sequence that her brain felt scrambled and she couldn’t find the appropriate emotion to have. What emotion should she feel when one moment he was slamming her against a wall, and the next he was crying and apologizing?

  It was sexual whiplash.

  He led her back to the bed, gently this time. He laid her down and slowly, carefully kissed every inch of her. He kept mumbling, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s fucking wrong with me. I’m fucking shit.”

  She shouldn’t have felt badly for him but she did. She found herself mumbling back, “it’s okay,” when it really wasn’t okay. The guy needed help.

  And people thought she was messed up?

  No one at the horse show would ever believe the shit Morgan had pulled with her. At the horse show he was the guy everyone liked. Some of the wealthiest people at the shows had professions that the rest of the show world barely understood. “Something to do with money management,” was often an explanation bandied about for where so-and-so’s money came from.

  Morgan’s wealth was easy to comprehend. His money came from his family owning a Major League baseball team. Not only was it concrete and quantitative, it was also pretty damn cool.

  Anytime someone from the horse shows was in the real world and the Mets came up, they could say, “I actually know the owner’s son. He rides.” And people would be all impressed.

  Then there was the fact that Morgan was a very g
ood rider and had a gregarious personality. It was only alone with her that he was mercurial.

  Everyone thought he was just a regular guy. Anyone who hadn’t gone to bed with him, that is.

  Or maybe he saved his dysfunction for Zoe.

  For a while he’d dated the daughter of a wealthy real estate scion. It was hard for Zoe to believe he’d pulled this kind of shit with Blythe.

  He was kissing along her hip bone now, moving lower.

  She thought to herself, what the hell is this? Should she stop him?

  She tried to relax and at least get something good out of this ordeal. She soon learned he was actually really adept at giving oral sex, which she felt was all wrong for someone as self-centered as he was. He was full of incongruities.

  He knew how to bring her right up to the point of orgasm and then back off just ever so slightly. Not enough as to leave her stranded but just enough to make her cry out for him to keep going.

  After she had finally come, he kneeled over her and went to work on himself, getting himself off. She wondered if she should ask him whether he wanted her to help but then figured he could take care of his own damn self. Plus, he seemed pretty into it.

  He came onto her stomach and then lay down next her and sighed like the sequence of events that they’d been through was typical and not completely messed up.

  He just slammed me against a wall, cried and apologized, went down on me, and then left a puddle on my stomach. Zoe’s head was spinning. Just when she thought her life was getting slightly more stable and mundane, she had to go and get involved with Morgan Cleary.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Zoe slipped into the hotel room past midnight, trying to be quiet so as not wake John. When she got in bed she listened to his breathing to try to tell whether he was awake. She was pretty sure he was.

  She woke the next morning to a text coming in and when she rolled over to get her phone her shoulder screamed with pain. She sat up and tested out moving her arm, grimacing as she tried to establish whether she’d be able to ride. It killed but somehow she’d make it happen.

  The text was from John saying he’d gotten up even earlier and was at the show. She checked his bed—empty. Clearly he hadn’t wanted to see her.

  A shopping bag sat on the table by the window. Zoe couldn’t resist seeing what he’d bought for Molly. She peeked inside at a plush, adorable stuffed moose. Her heart cracked a little at how sweet and normal he was.

  She downed three ibuprofen and took a hot shower. Pulling on her shirt was a process. She only hoped the meds would kick in.

  At the show the aisles in the tent felt suddenly narrow and she was hyper aware of trying to leave room between her and John as they passed. They spoke only of facts and logistics, what horses needed what preparation, who was showing when.

  Things had changed.

  The ibuprofen took enough of the edge off the pain so Zoe could hack Gidget. Still, she rode a lot to the right because it was the left shoulder that hurt. Going to the right, she could rely on her outside rein.

  The outside rein was always the most important rein—something people just learning to ride didn’t always understand. It was the rein that balanced a horse, that kept them regulated.

  She passed Morgan when she was walking back on Gidget from the hunter schooling ring and he was walking up to the jumper ring on one of his beautiful horses.

  He nodded casually at her like nothing had happened between them the night before and Zoe would have wondered if she had made the whole thing up if it weren’t for her arm.

  Dismounting back at the barn, she forgot about her shoulder for a moment and jumped off normally, hitting her shoulder against the saddle coming down and sending a wave of pain shooting through her body. She felt dizzy and the world blurred. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead into the saddle flap for a moment, waiting to come back to herself. Thankfully, Gidget stood still, happy to relax for a moment.

  “Are you okay?” John said, startling her.

  She pulled away from Gidget, taking the reins over her head. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, trying to ignore the pain and steady herself.

  “Did something happen while you were riding?”

  “Um, no.” She tried to figure out what she could say happened. How could she explain this? “I just, this morning, you know when you wake up and you don’t really know where you are? I had one of those moments and on the way into the bathroom I slammed my shoulder on the side of the door.”

  John narrowed his eyes at her like there was no way he was buying that one. “You hit your shoulder on the side of the door?”

  “Don’t you ever wake up and not know where you are? Like you’re not sure if you’re at home, or in a hotel, or a camper?”

  “No, not really. I can’t say I’ve ever had that happen.”

  “Well, that’s because you don’t go on the road all the time. I sleep in a different place like almost every five or six days. Sometimes I have no idea where I am anymore.”

  Her lie was gathering steam. It actually made sense that she wouldn’t know where she was some nights given her crazy nomadic horse show life. She felt nearly proud of herself for coming up with such a good cover and selling it so convincingly. Well, she thought it was convincing; maybe John didn’t.

  “I think if you ask anyone what it’s like living this life, they’d get what I’m talking about. Like Linda . . . she’d understand.” Zoe led Gidget into the aisle and to the grooming stall.

  “What would I understand?” Linda said, coming out of the junk stall.

  “How when you go from horse show to horse show and hotel room to hotel room sometimes you wake up and have no idea where you are.” Zoe prayed Linda would corroborate her story.

  “That’s happened to me from time to time,” she said. “It’s really kind of freaky.”

  “See?” Zoe said to John.

  “Do you ever hit your shoulder on the doorframe of the bathroom so hard that you’re wincing and holding back tears when you get off a horse the next day?” John said to Linda.

  Linda gave John a confused look, like she was realizing what she’d stumbled into was more than just a casual survey of the hazards of the horse show life.

  “Um, I guess, no, that’s never happened to me. But I usually just stay in bed and wait till I remember where I am.” She glanced at Zoe. “You hurt your shoulder?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine, though. I’m fine.”

  “It looks fine,” John said, raising his eyebrows and nodding sarcastically. “I’m going to get coffee. I know Zoe wants one. Linda?”

  “No, thanks,” Linda said.

  When he was out of the tent, Linda said, “What the hell? You didn’t really bang it on the doorframe. Please tell me this wasn’t Donnie Rysman.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I promise you. I’m never having anything to do with that asshole again.”

  “Okay? So? Then what happened?”

  Zoe looked at the white ceiling of the tent. If there was anyone she could talk to, it was Linda. But she didn’t even know how to go into some of the stuff that happened last night.

  “It was a different asshole,” she said.

  Zoe double checked the aisle to make sure Dakota hadn’t arrived yet. Zoe knew she had totally broken their pact. But breaking the pact seemed like the least of her problems right then.

  “I was with Morgan Cleary. He’s kind of rough in bed.”

  “There’s a little rough . . . and then there’s injured-rough,” Linda said in a concerned voice. “Honey, this kind of rough is not okay.”

  “I know, I know. He was sorry after. He said he was sorry like a million times. He cried—I mean actually shed legit tears—when he realized he’d hurt me.”

  “That still doesn’t make it okay. Please, trust me, I’ve been with guys like this. I know he’s Morgan Cleary but he sounds fucked up and you need to stay away from him. You deserve so much better.”

  “I know,” Zoe said. “I just tho
ught like maybe it would work out between us and I know it’s so shallow but can you imagine never having to worry about money ever again?”

  “No, I can’t,” Linda said ruefully. “But trust me, I know so many people in this business who are loaded and are so unhappy. I thought maybe you and John? I thought I was picking up some vibes between you two?”

  Zoe shook her head. “That’s a totally no-go. He’s not interested.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I practically threw myself at him and anyway I’m not ruining what we have professionally.”

  “Well, that’s probably smart, actually. So just stay away from Morgan and guys like him.”

  “I will. I’m going to.”

  “Are you really okay to ride?” Linda asked.

  Zoe scrunched up her nose. “Could we put Midway on the lunge instead? He’s perfect no matter what.”

  “Sure, we can.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Linda reached out and hugged Zoe.

  “Gentle,” Zoe said.

  She tried to detect whether she could feel Linda’s baby bump. She was nearly three months pregnant but not showing as far as Zoe could tell, although Linda was often secretly complaining to Zoe how tight her breeches were and joking about whether maternity breeches existed.

  “Sorry,” Linda said, loosening her embrace.

  “You’re going to be such a great mom,” Zoe said as they let go.

  “Thank you,” Linda said.

  “Speaking of which . . .” Zoe said. “Have you told him?”

  Linda had been going out nearly every night with Eamon and he often popped over to their tent to say hi and hang out for a few moments.

  Zoe felt suddenly selfish that she hadn’t asked Linda about whether she’d told him.

  “No,” Linda said.

  “I thought you were going to.”

  “I was. But then I began to think, what if he wants to marry me?”