by Loki Renard
She felt so naughty, doing exactly what Sam had told her not to do. But the incredible sensations ricocheting through her body right now would make any painful chafing tomorrow worth it. Taxi ambled along slowly behind Sam because the rough trail was too narrow for anything other than single file, but every now and then Sam would turn in his saddle and look back at her, making sure she was doing okay. The graceful way he moved his hips so just his upper body turned did delightful things to her insides. She squirmed a bit more in the saddle, clutched the reins a bit tighter in her fingers, and worked her clit furiously against the leather, moving in time with Taxi’s steps, each rocking motion taking her closer and closer to the edge. Her breasts tightened, aching, to match the throbbing in her pussy. Throbbing that changed and turned and tingled with each step.
Tangling her fingers in Taxi’s mane, she gave a small cry as she shattered, holding on for dear life as wave after wave of intense pleasure washed over her.
Sam turned in the saddle. “Are you okay?”
* * *
“Y… yes,” Marnie stammered.
From her rapid breathing, flushed face, dilated pupils and weird voice it wasn’t hard to guess what Marnie had been doing. The naughty little minx! Sam hid his smile. She’d gotten herself off on the bike, too. Riding things clearly agreed with her. He needed to teach her a lesson.
The stubble on his jaw scratched his fingers as he rubbed his chin, deep in thought. He couldn’t bring himself to spank her again, not after whipping her so soundly on the way home, but at the same time, he couldn’t let her go unpunished. Still, there was more than one way to skin a cat. An evil grin slowly spread across his face as the answer came to him.
“You’re doing well, little girl,” Sam declared. “Come on, let’s trot.”
He waited until the trail widened up ahead and there was room for them to ride side by side before he urged Fred into a trot. He was fairly sure that trotting wouldn’t make Marnie fall off, but he wanted to be sure. He wanted to punish her, but he didn’t actually want her falling and hurting herself. If she wasn’t used to coming off horses, the ground was a long way down.
“You ready? Squeeze your legs tighter around him, click to him with your tongue, that’s it. Good girl.”
Sam sat easily in the saddle to the two-beat gait, but beside him, Marnie was bouncing around, which was exactly what he’d intended to happen. She yelped every time her bruised rear contacted the saddle. He’d forgotten just how bouncy Taxi’s trot was; Fred’s gait was far smoother.
Marnie’s yelps grew more and more desperate. A quick glance across at her face told Sam what he already knew—this was torture for her. She looked close to tears, and totally miserable. It was clear she’d been punished enough.
“You’ve got the hang of that really well,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll teach you how to rise to the trot now, you’ll find it much more comfortable. You ready?”
Marnie nodded miserably.
He demonstrated on Fred, using his thighs to propel him upward in the saddle with the movement of Fred’s legs. It was simply a matter of finding the beat, and rising up with it. A bit like dancing, really. That was something else he’d have to do with Marnie, spin her around on a dance floor. He had a feeling she’d be a natural at that, too.
“See? Now you try. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.” He guided her, watching Taxi’s legs so he could tell her to move at the right time, but he needn’t have bothered; she picked up the rhythm really quickly.
Sam watched the relief wash over her face. Her bottom was still impacting the saddle, but in a more controlled way instead of just bouncing. Already, she held the reins lightly, along with a handful of mane, and he was pleased to see she kept her heels down in the stirrups, just as he’d taught her. He smiled broadly. Maybe Marnie would be far more useful to him than he’d first thought.
After a few minutes of trotting, Sam brought Fred back to a walk. Taxi followed suit. For her first ride, Marnie had probably done enough. He didn’t want her so sore tomorrow that she was put off riding completely, not when she was showing so much potential.
Edging Fred up to a gate, he leaned down and opened it, ushering Marnie and Taxi through.
“Just over that rise there is the barn,” he said softly. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”
* * *
Riding was much more fun than Marnie had imagined it would be, but it hurt more too, especially on a sore ass. Sam had known the state of her rear when he made them go faster. He’d wanted her bottom to hurt. Sadistic bastard. She’d been on the verge of bursting into tears until he finally let her slow down.
She should hate him, but now that the pressure was off and the pain of trotting had receded, Marnie found herself with a secret little smile on her face. She kind of liked that side of Sam. There weren’t many men who could put up with her when she was at her worst. Sam didn’t just meet her where she was, he outpaced her, raised the bar, and made her realize that she really didn’t want to mess with him.
Taxi plodded back toward the barn, almost as if he was automated. He knew the way better than she did so Marnie sat there, more a passenger than a rider, and looked out over the countryside. The sun was starting to get low in the sky and red flares were starting to break over the horizon, casting a red glow over the land. It was stunning out here. There was no denying it. She had gotten lucky in being able to come out here. There were still so many people back in Christchurch dealing with ongoing aftershocks and endless insurance issues. None of those mundane practical concerns seemed to touch this place. It was almost as if the land itself were enchanted, a place apart from the modern world with all its nonsense.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Sam bringing up the rear. God, he was so impossibly handsome with his hard body framed in silhouette against the sky. Her movement in the saddle pushed her hips forward. She noticed that she could feel a tingle between her thighs, but unlike usual it was not an entirely pleasant one. Maybe she should have listened to him when he told her not to ride with her hips tilted forward, but it was too late now.
Taxi parked himself next to the tie point and Marnie swung her feet out of the stirrups and slid off on his left slide. As she dismounted, she felt a sharp pinching sensation between her thighs. Oh, yeah. There was chafing. And it was much worse walking than it had been riding.
“Ow,” she mumbled as she walked bow-legged around Taxi, loosening the buckles that held the saddle on.
“I tried to tell you, little girl,” Sam said as he rode up. “You’re going to be sore. Be careful when you get in the shower tonight. It’s going to sting like hell.”
“How do you know? Does riding hurt your vagina too?”
Whap!
Sam belted his crop across her ass. He didn’t even have to leave Fred to do it, and the extra distance gave that devilish leather tongue even more sting than usual.
Taxi flicked an ear as Marnie gasped in pain and clenched at her ass. “Ow! Sam!”
He smirked down at her. “Feel like being a smart mouth again?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“Good,” he said. “Unsaddle Taxi and then give him a good brush down.”
Horses were a lot of work, but there was a certain satisfaction in removing the saddle and then taking a rubber comb and working it over the area where the saddle had been rubbing. The hair beneath was a little sweaty from where Taxi had been working, and he seemed to appreciate her efforts to make him feel better, nickering in a contented way. There was plenty of discomfort out here, earned and unearned, but Marnie reckoned she could get used to this.
Chapter Seven
A week passed. Marnie learned how to ride. She wasn’t perfect at it, but she got to the point that she could rise to a trot and even stand up in the stirrups so her butt didn’t meet the saddle at all. Sam said he’d teach her to canter soon, but he wanted her to get comfortable at the walk and the trot first and she was okay with that. There was no rush to go faster, and she didn�
�t think Taxi would probably go much faster anyway. Getting him to trot at all was sometimes a bit of a mission, and he’d slow down as soon as he was allowed to. He was a lazy old man in every sense of the word.
Sam kept his word in so far as staying away from her in an erotic sense, but that was okay because about two days after her first ride, she got her period. No wonder she’d been so snippy and short with Sam from the beginning. Her PMS was pretty bad sometimes, and since the quakes her periods had been hard to predict.
Riding seemed to help the cramps though, especially the gentle strolls through the countryside. Sam took her on one almost every afternoon or early evening, to get a sense of the terrain they’d be working customers over once the season kicked into full swing. They’d had a few visitors already, small groups of two to four people who had gone out with Sam after Marnie helped saddle them all up.
Sometimes people asked her questions about horses. She didn’t even pretend to know, just directed all the questions to Sam by repeating them. He seemed to be okay with that, and she learned a lot from listening to the answers he gave. She was getting used to the horses too. They all had their own personalities, likes and dislikes. Most all of them liked to be brushed and loved on, and they all liked apples and carrots. Marnie was even getting used to picking out their hooves and clearing out stalls. It was dirty work, but it wasn’t as humiliating as it had seemed at first. It needed to be done to look after the horses, and she liked looking after them. It was nice to have something to care about. Since the quakes she’d mostly worried about herself.
One afternoon Sam was out with a small group and Marnie was picking up around the stables, wheeling a barrow of manure to the pile out the back. As she worked, Trixie came prancing down the fence line, her head high, her tail raised. Sam hadn’t taken her out on the ride either.
“I know, we’ve been left behind,” she said to the horse. “It’s not fair, is it.”
Trixie whinnied and shook her head, watching curiously as Marnie upended the barrow and sent the manure into the stash. She wasn’t sure what it was used for. Some kind of fertilizer, maybe. When she was done she went over and said hello to Trixie. The filly liked to have her nose rubbed and Marnie did that until Trixie started nibbling on her. Every chance Trixie got to misbehave, she took.
“Okay, that’s enough. I got more stalls to do,” Marnie said, returning with the barrow. Her legs were starting to tire from standing up and working for so long. She needed to sit down. There weren’t a lot of places to do that. The barn was a work area, not designed for human comfort. There was one place where she knew there had to be a chair though—Sam’s office.
It was a little room at the back of the barn, not much more than a boarded-up stall, but it seemed to do the trick. She’d been in there once or twice to handle client paperwork and she knew there was a chair in there. She could sneak away for a few minutes and take a load off her feet, she figured. Sam wouldn’t even know.
Smiling to herself, Marnie returned the wheelbarrow to its usual place and went into Sam’s office. An old but comfy leather chair awaited her and she sank into it with a sigh of relief. All the horse trek work was crazy physical, and the early mornings didn’t really help either.
She sat back and closed her eyes for a bit, just enjoying the rest. Oh, yeah. This was nice. She should do this more often. She half-opened her eyes and looked around the office casually, just taking things in. As she did, something caught her eye. A piece of paper sitting on Sam’s desk, marked with red lettering.
Marnie instantly knew she shouldn’t look at it. That would be snooping. It wasn’t any of her business. But letters in that typeface with that angry red stamp above them just demanded to be read. She sat up a little taller in the chair and squinted her eyes to look at the letter. The logo on the upper right hand corner told her that it was from the bank, but she couldn’t read the writing until she got up out of the chair and looked at it a little closer, glancing over it quickly.
There were some terse words and some very big numbers. She didn’t have time to really take it all in, but the gist was clear. The business was deep in debt. No wonder there weren’t any trained staff around. No wonder it was just her and Sam. No wonder her aunt had been so keen for her to help out. In an instant, everything fell into place.
Just as she got done reading, footsteps outside the office startled her. Was Sam back already? Usually trekkers made lots of noise when they returned, but maybe it wasn’t as audible this far back in the barn. It was too late to get out of the office. Marnie froze, which was probably about the worst possible thing she could have done. She stared at the door, hoping that Sam wasn’t coming into the office.
A second later his tall shadow fell over the door, and then he was standing in front of her, a quizzical and unimpressed look on his face.
“What are you doing?”
“Uhm…”
He was blocking the doorway. There was no way out.
“I was just looking for a pen,” she lied.
“A pen? Why?”
“So I could write my phone number down before I forgot it.”
Stupid! She could have said anything. She could have said one of the clients asked for one. She could have said she wanted to write in her diary. Hell, she could have said she wanted to shove it up her butt and it would have been a more plausible explanation.
Both Sam’s brows rose. “Little girl, that makes no sense. Why are you in here?”
“I was tired. My legs hurt, so I looked for somewhere to sit down…”
His eyes dropped to the piece of paper she had been looking at. “And you went through my financial records.”
“It was right on top! I couldn’t help seeing it. I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. “Seriously, Sam. I am sorry. I’m sorry for looking and I’m sorry this place is in trouble. I had no idea.”
“You still have no idea,” he said gruffly, stepping forward to shove the bank’s notice beneath a pile of other papers. “And it’s not your concern. Get out of here, Marnie. This is off bounds to you.”
The office wasn’t a very big room. Getting out of there was going to mean going right past him and she really didn’t want to risk his hand on her rear. He hadn’t properly punished her since the day she’d acted up in Culverden. Part of her was glad for that—and part of her wasn’t. Living in the same house as Sam, being woken up by him every day, working by his side, it was all a type of torture just barely mediated by the fact that she was sexually out of operation anyway.
“Out. Now.”
“You’re in the way.”
He stood to the side and let her go past. Marnie put her head down and scurried by, putting her hands back over her butt to cover her rear. She heard him snort as she zipped by him, and before he could change his mind about punishing her, she escaped back to the farmhouse and took a shower. Magda would probably have tea ready soon. Usually Marnie would go down once she’d gotten changed and chat with Magda and tease Sam, but after getting cleaned up, she stayed in her room until Magda called and then she made her way downstairs for tea.
It was kind of uncomfortable. Sam was much quieter than he usually was. He avoided even looking at Marnie though he made plenty of polite conversation with Magda. With that sick feeling in her tummy that told her she was in trouble, Marnie ate quickly and moved to clear up the plates. Doing the dishes gave her a reason to escape the tension until she heard Aunty Magda make her goodbyes and head off to the little granny flat out back.
She and Sam had the house to themselves. Usually that was a good thing. Most nights they just watched TV until Sam sent her to bed—something that galled her, but wasn’t worth arguing about. Tonight, she kind of wished Magda was around. She had a sense that the conversation about the bank statement wasn’t over yet.
Sure enough, when she was done with the dishes Sam was waiting for her. As she went to leave the kitchen she found him sitting at the dinner table, drumming his fingers on the top. There was no way to go ups
tairs without going past him. Marnie dried her hands and tried to sidle past him anyway.
“Come here,” he said, before she could get very far.
Marnie slid into the chair opposite him, avoiding his hard gaze. Sam was sexy when he was stern, but she really didn’t want the lecture, or the punishment she knew she probably had coming.
“What you saw today,” he said. “I want you to forget about it, okay? It’s not your problem. And it’s not Aunty Magda’s problem either. I took over this place and I’m going to turn it around.”
Marnie nodded. “Well, I’m here to help, so…”
“You help by doing what you’re told,” he said firmly. “And staying out of my papers. I should spank you for getting into my office like that.”
A flash of heat ran through Marnie and her ass broke into a sweat. She hadn’t known it was possible for just one part of her anatomy to react, but Sam’s habit of taking his displeasure out on her rear had quickly trained her bottom to expect the worst.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, hoping to avoid punishment. “I know I shouldn’t have looked. I was just going to sit down and rest my legs and I saw it and… I am sorry, Sam.” She raised her eyes to him plaintively, hoping he’d forgive her.
“If I catch you in my office again, you’ll pay, understand? I’m letting you off now because you’ve been really good the last week. Great with the clients, and with the horses, too. You’re really coming along nicely, Marnie.”
She couldn’t help the broad smile that flashed over her features. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really. And it’s getting you out of trouble this time, but it won’t work again. Now get upstairs and get to bed.”