Dangerous Ride

by Vonna Harper

  She was his. She belonged to him. If he wanted, she’d spend weeks and maybe months naked with his restraints on her.

  Once again the sense that he was out of control washed over him. In the past, once he’d finished with a woman, he wanted her gone and out of his life. He knew his reaction was his way of emotionally separating himself from someone who’d exposed everything of a sexual nature about herself to him. He’d never tell the women this, but once they’d degraded themselves—or rather he’d turned them into something primitive—he’d felt a measure of disgust for both giver and receiver of climaxes.

  Today he studied Maita and thought of a superb horsewoman long accustomed to living life alone and on its own terms. He admired her. That was it! He admired her—surely nothing else.

  Although her movements were awkward, she took the glass and drank deeply. When she was done, she indicated she wanted him to sit next to her. Not sure why, he did so.

  “I want to tell you how I feel about what happened,” she said. “But I can’t sort things out yet. Maybe after I’ve had time to think—” She tried to rotate her wrists in the restraints. “I haven’t felt anything like this for so long,” she whispered. “I thought I’d put it behind me.”

  He picked up the chain and used it to draw her toward him. As he did, he studied her expression. She had the familiar spent look of a woman thoroughly fucked, but he also recognized intelligence returning.

  “So long? What did you think you’d put behind you?” he asked although he sensed he shouldn’t.

  While he gripped the chain hard enough to cause his fingers to cramp, Maita explained that her father had been killed in a motorcycle accident when she was five. She lived with her mother for a couple of years after, mostly in a series of trailers where she pretended to be asleep while her mother made her living by spreading her legs. Then her mother had been arrested for something, maybe theft but maybe drug dealing, and while she was in jail awaiting trial, a man who said he was Maita’s uncle had gotten custody of the child. For a couple of weeks, Maita had thought of little except how wonderful it was to have a full-sized bedroom and silence at night.

  Then the uncle had rented and filled a moving truck, told Maita to climb into the passenger’s seat, and started driving. They were on the road for days, sleeping at rest stops and eating at fast food restaurants. He’d finally pulled up at a derelict house near the outskirts of what she eventually learned was Dallas. The house didn’t have air conditioning or a yard and apparently the school system didn’t know about her because she didn’t remember going for several years.

  “I don’t think he was my uncle,” Maita said in an unemotional tone. “I might have been nine when he got custody of me—if he really did. We didn’t stay in Dallas long. Every few months we’d pack up and move again.”

  “Weren’t you a burden to him?” he asked although he knew the answer.

  She shook her head. “I became a valuable commodity. I earned him a lot of money.”

  “He turned you into a prostitute?” He had to force the question.

  “No.” She’d been staring at the floor. When she looked at him, he found remnants of the helpless child she’d once been. “There’s a lot of money in child porn, Kade. My uncle became good at exploiting me, damn good. I try not to think about that time and what I was forced to do, so don’t ask. As I got older, I became less valuable to him in that department. Fortunately, by then I had a pretty good idea what would come next. That’s when I ran away.”

  “Did you have him arrested?”

  “No.” She sounded surprised that he’d asked.

  “Why not?” Anger against a man he’d probably never see knotted his muscles. What he did was one thing—considered reprehensible by all except the consulting adults involved—but to exploit a child took someone unworthy of the term human being.

  “It wouldn’t have changed what happened,” she told him. “Believe me, I wanted him to pay for what he did to me, and if I’d thought there was the slightest chance he’d do it to another girl, I would have run to the police.”

  “How can you be sure he’s cleaned up his so-called act? A leopard doesn’t change his spot.”

  “This one did.” She clenched and unclenched her fingers. “He’s in prison—for income tax evasion and identity theft.”

  “White-collar crime,” he said as he picked up the key and released her hands. “I’m surprised they didn’t give him a slap.”

  Not taking her gaze off him, she began massaging her wrists. “I attended the trial. I’d sit in the back of the courtroom, saying nothing but with my eyes on him the whole time. I learned I could scare him. The feeling was incredible! To finally have a semblance of power over him— He’d made the mistake of trying to steal a judge’s credit cards.”

  Kade laughed and took Maita in his arms. “How long did he get?”

  “Ten years. He’s only been in three.”

  “Did hearing the sentence give you a sense of closure?” he asked although the last thing he wanted to do was pull her any further into the past.

  “In a way.” She laid her head on his shoulder in a gesture of trust—and maybe something else he didn’t remember ever having been on the receiving end of. “But I’d gone on with my life. He couldn’t touch me anymore. I didn’t want to care anything about him.”

  He embraced her while her words worked their way inside him. The rest of the world no longer existed. There was only the two of them and the revelation she’d just handed him. “Is that how you survived having to do what he wanted?” he asked, because he needed to peel away yet more of her layers until, maybe, he found her beating heart. “You disassociated yourself from what was being done to your body?”

  “I, ah, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Did you?” he repeated and increased his hold on her.

  “I must have. Kade, you don’t want to hear about this.”

  “Yeah, I do. And you need to talk about it.”

  “Maybe,” she said on the tail of a sigh. He ran a hand over her naked thigh, but she gave no indication she’d noticed. “When he posed me… When he made me do certain things, I’d pretend I was somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “On horseback. Riding with the wind.”

  “Fantasy kept you sane.”

  “Maybe it did. No matter what was happening to my body, in my mind I’d be on that horse—the fastest and strongest in the world. I’d cling to his back and urge him on until his hooves no longer touched the ground. We flew. I’d feel his strength and heart and those things would become mine.”

  He held her at arm’s length so he could again look into her eyes. “And did you do the same thing just now?”

  She started to nod, then shook her head. “I think I could have if I wanted to, but I didn’t try.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was different with you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Maita took a shower in the bathroom off Rylan’s master bedroom and slipped into a short white terrycloth robe she suspected belonged to Ann. After towel-drying her hair, she followed her nose into the living room where Kade was scrambling eggs. As they ate, he told her he’d be gone most of the coming week because of a Canadian rodeo. If possible he preferred to get to the grounds a day before the rodeo was set to begin, both so his horses, bulls, and calves could rest up from the trip and because that gave SPCA officials time to inspect his animals. No, he said in response to her question, he’d never been fined by any agency charged with protecting animal welfare.

  Although she’d seen enough of his stock to know he took good care of them, she hung on his every word. The contrast between the slave master role he assumed when it was called for and his dedication to animal welfare intrigued her. How could a man who willingly gave up sleep to care for a lame horse switch on another personality?

  The simple answer was that dominating women gave him a sexual thrill and probably made him rich.

  Only, sh
e knew there was more to it. What eluded her was the why.

  “Are you going to be home tonight?” she asked as she cleaned up after them.

  “I think so. Why?”

  “Alone?”

  After a short pause, he nodded.

  “I’ll be there after dark,” she said. She followed up her promise by giving him a peck on the cheek. Then before things got out of hand, she went down into the dungeon for her clothes.

  * * * * *

  Not bothering to knock, Maita turned the knob and stepped into Kade’s ranch house. Even before she’d closed the door behind her, the smell of leather and wood touched her senses. No one was in the living room so she stood in the night-dark room and listened. She caught a faint hum of voices and followed the sound down a short hallway. Even before she reached the room with light streaming from the cracked door, she realized the voices came from a talk radio program.

  She pushed the door open a few more inches and looked in. Kade sat at a massive desk that held a laptop, fax machine, and several stacks of paper. He was writing and stopping occasionally to sip from a bottle of beer. He’d taken off his shoes but otherwise looked dressed for a day of physical labor.

  He’d told her the truth. He had no woman in here tonight.

  “Are you going to come in?” he asked without turning from his work.

  “You heard me?”

  “Maybe. I just knew you were here.” He wrote for a couple of seconds, then swiveled his chair around to face her.

  She’d thought she’d be ready for the sight of him. The lamp on the edge of the desk was bright enough that his rough edges showed. He wasn’t a handsome man. The elements hadn’t been kind to him.

  “I’d like to ask you something,” she said. She’d thought her voice might give away her unexpected nervousness, but it sounded the same—calm and direct. Because she wore an oversized T-shirt, she wasn’t sure he could tell she hadn’t bothered with a bra. If not, he’d soon find out.

  “What?” He stood but instead of coming closer, he leaned against his desk.

  “Do you ever allow the tables to be turned? Has a woman ever tied you up?”

  “No. Never!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want it.”

  “Want? Or are you afraid of being helpless?”

  He clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowed. “What is this about?”

  She’d seen this defensive stance in a wild horse. Despite the rope around its neck, the animal refused to back down. “I thought you might want to put yourself in one of your subjects’ positions. It could be a way of improving on your technique.”

  “Are you complaining? You want to go another round, see if I can up the ante?”

  Not tonight. I’m still finding me. “You’re avoiding my question, Kade. You really don’t have any interest in letting a woman take charge?”

  “None.”

  His response had come quick and had been hard-edged. Once again she was struck with the nagging feeling that he was throwing up barriers. “All right,” she said and shrugged as if no longer interested in the subject. “Unless I get a lot stronger, there won’t be any reverse role-playing. I’m not going to be able to subdue you and throw you over my shoulder, am I?”

  “What’s this about?”

  Good question. Instead of putting voice to what had brought her there tonight, she unceremoniously pulled her top over her head and exposed the breasts he’d already touched and tasted and owned.

  “Earlier today was about me,” she informed him. “Tonight is going to be about you—what I can do for you.”

  “Why?”

  Why? The question probed deep. “It’s what I want to do,” she said. “Can’t we leave it at that?”

  No, his eyes said.

  “What are you afraid of, Kade?” she challenged.

  “Nothing.”

  Liar. “Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me something. When’s the last time a woman pursued you instead of the other way around?”

  “What the hell are you getting at?”

  “You’ve erected a wall around yourself, don’t try to deny it. As long as you call the shots, you convince yourself it’s the way you want your relationship with women to be. But what if someone—me—refused to play according to your rules?”

  He took on a wary, wild animal look, but although she might have been able to force her way past his defenses, she didn’t try. Being alone with him reminded her of what she needed from him—and what she’d vowed to do for him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and slid nearer. “I should know the ground rules, shouldn’t I?” A few more steps brought her so close he could have touched her if he wanted. His clenched fists told her how much self-control it took to keep his hands off her.

  “The first time I found myself in a corral with a horse, nothing mattered except getting on his back and riding.” She tugged on his western-style shirt. After freeing it from his jeans, she ran her hands under the hem and pressed her fingertips against his waist. “I wasn’t afraid. Fear never entered my mind.”

  “Then you were a fool.”

  “So I’ve been told. But even when I’m thrown, I have no qualms about doing it again.” For the better part of a minute, she didn’t try to organize her thoughts. Instead, she concentrated on memorizing the feel of him and learning her reactions to his heated flesh. “Being thrown has taught me to do everything I can to anticipate when and how and under what conditions a horse is going to buck. I’ve also learned how to hit the ground.”

  “Unless you’ve been knocked out.”

  “True,” she acknowledged and smiled. He didn’t. Wondering what was behind his somber expression, she unbuttoned his shirt and without fanfare pulled it off him.

  “You’re beautiful,” she told him with her palms pressing against his nipples. “I know. A man doesn’t want to hear he’s beautiful, but you are. You’re made for what you do—both with animals and women.” Although she hadn’t had enough of the feel of his hard nubs, she slid her hands down his sides, demonstrating the lack of extra flesh. “If I was to design the perfect man, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  “What about the scars?”

  “I have enough of my own. They prove we’re alive.”

  “There are many kinds of scars, Maita. Not all are on the surface.”

  “If you’re talking about my so-called childhood, I’m well aware of the impact it left on me.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him. When he didn’t respond, she settled onto the balls of her feet and studied him. “It took a long time, a hell a lot of lonely horseback rides, but I finally convinced myself I wouldn’t let that bastard rule the rest of my life. What he’d done to me was in the past. I was going forward.”

  “And you have.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Where are you?” she asked. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You’re an incredible woman,” he muttered after a too-long silence. “There isn’t a thing you’re afraid to tackle, is there?”

  Hadn’t he already said that? And had her approach to life really been on his mind? “I don’t know. What kind of thing did you have in mind?”

  “What I did to you didn’t frighten you.”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “You brought out reactions I never thought possible, ones I had no control over. Wonderful as the climaxes were, they also unnerved me.” She indicated his desk. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “Nothing I didn’t want to be interrupted from. I’m expecting a phone call. Other than that—” He finished by running his hands behind her and pressing lightly on her shoulder blades.

  She hoped he’d say he was at her disposal for the rest of the night, but when he didn’t, she reconciled herself to the message behind his silence. He wasn’t a man who turned himself over to any woman. He kept his core under wraps.

  Could she change that? Did she want to?

  “I love the smell of your place,” she told him. She hooked her hands around his
waistband and tugged him toward her. To her relief and delight, he came willingly. “Masculine.”

  “No argument there.”

  Fingers still inside the waistband, she entertained both of them by rubbing her knuckles against his belly. Soon, soon, she’d have access to all of him—and he to her. “Did you decorate it yourself?” she asked. “Maybe you had help.”

  “If you mean was a woman involved in choosing the furniture and other stuff, no.”

  “Why not?”

  His fingers stilled. When she looked up, she saw he was frowning. “I knew what I wanted. Besides, there was no woman I wanted to consult with.”

  No woman important enough to have input in creating this sanctuary? Unnerved by the question of where she stood in the scheme of his life, she briefly struggled with the possible answers and then shoved it all aside. “Well, you’ve done an awesome job,” she said as she worked his snap loose. “Everything about it says this is the home of a man’s man.”

  “A man’s man?” He pulled her against him which trapped her hands between them and left her without enough freedom of movement to tackle his zipper. “Is that how you see me?”

  “I’d never try to put a label on you, Kade. And I hope you haven’t done that with me.”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  The three words held depth and mystery, but as long as his cock pressed against her, she couldn’t concentrate on them. His half-erection brought her back to the reason for her visit. Although she loved feeling him from breast to belly, she strained against his arms. His grip slackened, but he kept his hands on her waist. Putting her mind back on her plan, she dispensed with the zipper and slid his jeans down over his hips. She left them clinging to his thighs and turned her attention and fingers to his cock. A moment later she slipped it through the opening in his shorts.

  His cock looked disembodied, separate from the rest of him, an organ designed for only one thing.

  Her legs felt weak. Instead of fighting her reaction, she sank to her knees in front of him. As she did, he ran his fingers into her hair which she’d left free, but didn’t try to stop her. She wanted to put her mouth around him, but the pleasure could wait while she fulfilled other fantasies.