by Cassie Cole
The danger of the situation sank in as I watched the ground race by. The horse was growing more wild with every stride. Suddenly the ranch foreclosure didn’t seem so important.
Moaning with fear, I held on for dear life.
32
Daniel
Cindy’s words were like daggers into my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I watched her trot away on the quarter horse numbly, until the horse suddenly shot away at a sprint. Cindy barely held on, but I could see she wasn’t in control.
And considering that horse’s temperament, she was liable to end up with a broken neck.
“Damn it all to hell,” I muttered while pacing the barn. I didn’t know what to do. I needed Landon and Chase to help, but they were out with the herd. My last glimpse of Cindy was her bouncing roughly in the saddle, disappearing on the other side of a low hill.
Acting without thought, I grabbed a saddle from the rack and strapped it to Earnest, the next fastest horse. He was a good appaloosa with chocolate and white coloring, and friendlier than most on account of all the carrots I gave him. He was my best chance.
I tightened the straps under his belly, then hesitated.
That day was still fresh on my mind. It was almost a year ago, when the days began to shrink and the weather was finally hinting at autumn. I was herding the four cows along easy, not even paying attention. It came so naturally I didn’t have to think; I just did, as if the animal were an extension of myself. I kicked it along faster, toward the right side of the cows to guide them to the left.
The gunshot split the air like a thunderbolt. Normally unflappable, the horse reared up and caught his hoof in a bush. We fell agonizingly slowly, allowing me to realize what was going to happen before it did, and unable to do anything to stop it.
The pain was so intense I fainted. When I woke my leg was a ruin underneath me, crushed by its weight. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
Physical wounds healed over time thanks to modern medicine and physical therapy, but the mental wound had left a scar worse than my limp. Just thinking of that day terrified me, leaving me trembling in front of Earnest like I had the flu.
But Cindy was in danger, and that cut through my fear like a knife.
I put one foot in the stirrup, testing the weight. It was tough not to imagine this mass of flesh suddenly falling onto me right here in the barn, but I ignored that and trusted that it would hold my weight as I stepped up, throwing my other leg over the side. My heart raced. I was breathing like I’d run a mile in the Texas sun.
I can do this, I thought. I gathered my nerve slowly, taking the reins in my gloved hands. They felt right.
I can do this.
I kicked the horse into motion.
We went slow at first. That’s all I could bear without dissolving into a whimpering puddle of a cowboy, and Earnest seemed to understand my reluctance. Every stride threatened to throw me from his back. I could feel the abyss tugging on me, trying to yank me out of the saddle. It was a physical thing, thick like soup. A phobia I couldn’t shake. But with Cindy in danger, I was able to defeat it—or at least ignore it. I got the hang of it quickly, falling into the easy groove of muscle memory. Gradually, we went up to a trot. Then a canter.
Then a full gallop.
The wind blew back my hair and felt like freedom. My confidence grew with every stride, and soon we were racing across the land after Cindy, who was a small cloud of dirt ahead. I hoped she was still in the saddle.
I hoped she didn’t end up hurt, like me.
I was still terrified. The fear never left; it was just pushed down beneath the other, more immediate, emotions. It flared up with every bounce or turn, but it was manageable. I dug in my heels, and Earnest reacted like the smoothest horse in the stable, racing across the ground to follow the runaway quarter horse. I leaned over his neck and whispered every prayer I knew.
We closed the distance. The quarter horse was good for sprints, but blew his load too fast to keep the pace for long. Cindy was still mounted, I saw with relief, though she was still bouncing wildly in the saddle. 100 feet away. 40. As we came up alongside them the horse turned away from us, eyes wide and mad with exhaustion. Earnest knew what to do, following along, trying to bring us alongside.
The eight hooves were a thunder in my ear as we finally pulled next to the runaway horse. I knew I was going to fall. Hit the ground and be trampled by their hooves. My eyes stung from the wind and kicked-up dirt but I ignored it all. My entire focus was on Cindy. Getting her safe.
That was more important than my own well-being.
Cindy’s eyes were clenched, and her knuckled were white on the reins. I reached over, then pulled back as I lost my balance in the saddle. A second try, this time leaning more recklessly. My finger brushed the leather, coming up short.
I can do this, I thought, stretching one last time.
33
Cindy
I was certain I was going to die until Daniel appeared next to me.
He leaned in close to grab the reins, but I didn’t dare let go. He gave them a soft tug, then a harder one, increasing the force each time until finally the horse tossed its head in defeat. Kicking up great clouds of dirt, it dug in its hooves into the terrain and slowed to a walk.
I didn’t open my eyes, though. All I could do was keep them clenched shut and pray I wasn’t dreaming.
Daniel’s hand never left mine as the horses slowed to a stop. He dismounted, then put his other hand on my thigh.
“Gunna need ya to climb down,” he drawled. “Shh. It’s alright, now. Come on, Cindy.”
I opened my eyes to find him looking up at me from underneath his hat, calm as could be. The steadiness in his eyes woke me from my trance, and I slowly obeyed.
I hissed with pain as I swung a leg over. He grabbed my waist and lowered me to the ground. “Cramps?” he asked.
“Feels like my thighs were pulverized…”
“Sit down a sec.” He lowered me to a patch of grass, which was wonderfully soft. He then tied the reins of the two horses together, calming my horse with a hand on its neck. “Shh. Just relax. Not gunna go anywhere, so ya might as well calm down.”
With the horses taken care of, he crouched next to me.
“It’s okay. Just relax.”
“I’m not a horse,” I grumbled, though his words were comforting. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have gone riding. I’m so stupid.”
“Hear that?” Daniel said, putting a hand to his ear.
“What?” I heard only silence.
“That’s the sound of nobody disagreein’ with ya.”
He grinned at his own joke until I punched him in the arm.
“We were tryin’ to get that quarter horse to calm down,” Daniel explained. “Was all worked up in a tizzy in his stall overnight. Chase was gunna come wear him down, ‘til you took him.”
“Wish I’d known that before I hopped on.”
“I mean, I tried to tell ya…”
I waved him off. “I know, I know, it’s my fault.” I was flustered from the foreclosure date being set. Shit. I didn’t want to think about that right now.
I winced as my legs seized up again in a tight cramp. Not caring that Daniel was there, I began unbuttoning my jeans.
“Want me to, uhh, turn around?” he asked.
“I don’t care.” As soon as I kicked my jeans off and the cool air hit my skin I felt a thousand times better.
“At least they’re not blistered,” Daniel said with a reassuring grin. “You need to massage the muscle. Work the knots out.”
I held up my hands. “My fingers are too stiff from gripping the reins to do anything.”
Without hesitation, Daniel slid over in the grass and took one of my meaty thighs in his fingers. Before I could protest, I was sighing and leaning back on my elbows. “That. Feels. Heavenly.”
“I’ve been in your boots before,” he said. “If ya don’t massage some blood back into ‘em, it’ll hurt a lot more later
.”
I closed my eyes and enjoyed his fingers digging into my leg while the sun warmed my face. The smell of grass and dirt combined with Daniel’s massage was wonderfully aromatic. Like a West Texas spa.
I felt something tickle my leg: his head was bent low, the raven-black locks of hair matted down by sweat. His hair brushed my skin as he gave me a tender kiss above the knee, then looked up into my eyes.
“Feel better?”
“Getting there,” I said, not wanting him to stop.
He read my mind. Gently, his lips kissed my thigh again, a little bit higher this time. Kiss me, I begged with my mind. Touch me.
His fingers stopped massaging and started caressing up my thigh, gripping my waist instead. His fingers curled underneath my panties…
“Hey,” I said softly. “What about your stupid pact with your brothers?”
“What about it?”
“I thought you three agreed to stay away from me. Like I’m a slice of cheesecake in the fridge you were saving.”
He grinned up at me. “Fuck the pact. Unless you think I should obey—”
“No,” I practically hissed. “I don’t.”
He removed my panties quickly and buried his face into my belly, kissing the flat of my stomach. His lips kissed lower, over the ridge in my waist left behind by my panties, until his chin brushed against my tuft of hair. I gasped as he lingered just above, so damn close to what I wanted, torturing me.
“Yes,” I breathed into the clean ranch air. “Please…”
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“You.”
“Be more specific,” he said with a evil grin.
Oh, you’re cruel. “I want you to touch me.”
“Touch ya how?”
“Kiss me. Lick me.”
“Lick ya where?”
“You know where.”
“I wannna hear ya say it.”
His chin brushed against my clit. Just the barest amount of friction, but enough to make my entire body shudder. “Lick my clit.”
As if my wish were his command, his tongue licked down through my pubic hair and across the hood of my clit. I clenched every muscle in my body at the intense pleasure, which melted into a satisfying warmth as his tongue licked back up like waves crashing against my sexual shore.
“Ya like that?”
“Fuck yes, I do.”
His fingers slid along my vertical slit, which was drenched and ready, but he didn’t go any farther. He worked at my sensitive bean for a few more moments before going lower. His entire mouth sucked over my lower lips, tasting my juices as if they were delicious. His fingers pried me apart so he could stick his tongue inside, a hard wedge that went in and out and in.
I was lost in my lust, completely consumed by his face and mouth and fingers. His thumb returned to my clitoris, wet from my own juices as it rubbed me in a circle, pushing with just the right amount of pleasure. Combined with the tongue-fucking, I found my orgasm rushing toward me.
Louder and louder moans escaped my lips as I looked down at his head, a mess of black hair devouring me alive. When I screamed my orgasm to the world it was high-pitched and desperate, and even the horses looked over in concern.
*
“You rode a horse.”
We were laying in the grass next to each other, arms behind our heads to stare up at the blue sky and passing tufts of cloud. I was still nude, though I’d draped my jeans across my waist in a vague attempt at modesty. Daniel didn’t move when I made the comment, but I thought I could feel him tensing.
“You rode the horse to save me.”
“Didn’t have any other choice,” he said simply.
“Sure you did. You could have let me fall and break my neck. I would’ve deserved it after barging in there and taking the horse before you could stop me.”
“No,” he said, rolling his head to lock eyes. “I couldn’t do that.”
“So are you gunna spill the beans?”
He jerked his eyes back up to the sky. “About what?”
“Don’t play dumb. About why you couldn’t ride a horse. Because it looks like you rode one just fine.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Sure, I can understand that,” I admitted. “But you’ve nothing to be embarrassed about now that you rode one. Right?”
He rolled over, pressing his body against mine. “Can I distract you to avoid answering?”
I smiled. “You can try.”
We kissed slowly, passionately. Like two lovers who had all the time in the world. I could taste myself on his lips, a reminder of his earlier activity, and the memory turned me on all over again.
I pulled away from our kiss. “What if your brothers see us?”
“Let them,” he said, hunger in his eyes.
He threw himself into our kiss, reaching a hand underneath my body to cup my ass, squeezing it with need. I slid a hand between us to find his own sensual flesh, hard and stiff underneath his jeans. I wanted to repay him for what he’d done to me, to push him back and take his cock in my mouth and give him a taste of his own medicine.
Before I could, he surprised me by rising off my body, then spinning me sideways onto my belly.
“Ohh!” I said as he kissed along my spine, moving down to the small of my back. He paused and squeezed my ass cheeks, and I could feel him taking a moment to admire me.
He planted a kiss on my left cheek, then my right, then spread my legs wide with his thighs. He leaned over and put his hands over mine. I held my breath as I felt the tip of his cock touch my outer lips. He guided it around with his hips, then pushed forward with the tiniest amount of pressure, burying the head inside the shallows of my pussy.
But no deeper.
I was desperate for him. I craved it with a desperation that would entertain nothing else: I had to have him inside me, all of him, right fucking now.
“Hurry,” I said. “Fuck me.”
Daniel gave up trying to hold back: he lowered his entire body onto mine, plunging his cock all the way inside.
Yes.
His moan drowned out mine as he pinned me down into the ground, his lips kissing the back of my neck. “Feel good?” he whispered in my ear.
I responded by grinding my ass up against him, begging him with my body. Daniel planted his feet and began pumping with awakened strength. The pressure from this angle was intense, but I was wet and ready for it.
He moved steadily for the first dozen strokes, making love to me in the grass. But soon his motions became frenzied, driving himself into me harder and faster and yes, deeper with every thrust, as if I were a wooden post being driven into the ground.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuuuuck.”
My eyes rolled back into my head as I neared my sudden, forceful climax; the euphoric waves washed over me as his cock spasmed inside me, filling me with his hot load.
“Ughhh,” he moaned into my ear, pushing me down with all his weight while he came. I clenched my pussy lips as tight as I could for him because I wanted him to feel every inch of me, inside and out, as he trembled and was spent.
“So,” I said as he nuzzled his nose in the back of my hair. “You’re an ass man.”
“What can I say?” he said, voice soft with exhaustion. “You have a great ass.”
34
Cindy
We walked the horses back because my thighs were still too sore to ride. And because we both needed to get the blood flowing to our legs, otherwise we might have fallen asleep in our saddles.
“Thanks again,” I said, playfully bumping his shoulder with mine. The Daniel that had fucked me flat into the ground was gone, replaced by the sheepish one from before. He looked confused.
“For…” He cleared his throat. “For the sex?”
My laugh was rich. “Sure, that too. But I meant for saving me on the runaway horse.”
“Like I said: I had no choice.”
“Now that you can’t distract me, how about you expla
in what happened?”
He was silent for a long while. Over a minute, at least. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, he did.
“I was a fine cowboy,” he said, staring off at the house in the distance. “As good as Chase or even Landon, I reckon. Better at some things, too. I could show-ride, though I hadn’t done it since I was a boy. Anyways, we were workin’ a ranch last fall. Been there six months, gettin’ into a groove with the owner. Findin’ our place. Owner was kind, but had a teenage son with a mean streak. Named Percy. Curious kid. Liked doing things that were cruel. Heard rumors he’d stick the cows with needles to see how loud he could make ‘em moo. Stuff like that.
“One day, I’m drivin’ some stray cattle back to farm for a weigh-in, on account of it was two weeks ‘til they were gunna be sold. Percy tagged along cause he had nothin’ better to do. He was more bored than usual that day. Shoulda been my first warning.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“He pulled his daddy’s revolver from its holster, rode up behind me, and pulled the trigger.”
My mouth dropped open. “He shot you?”
“No, but he might as well have. He fired it into the air to scare me. A prank. Spooked my horse so bad he turned his hoof in a hole and fell. Landed on my right leg. Broke it in about 20 places. Complications nearly killed me.”
“Oh my God. Daniel…”
“Took three months of surgeries to get everything set right. Then the better part of a year of physical therapy before I could put weight on it.” He hesitated like he didn’t want to go on. “We started workin’ at a new ranch, and at first I just avoided horses. There’s always plenty to do around a ranch without needin’ to mount up. But then it came time to move the herd into paddocks for inventory, which required all three of us. And…”
He shook his head, defeated.
“I couldn’t do it,” he whispered. “It was like forcing myself to jump off a building. I couldn’t even come close.”
