Open Invitation?

by Karen Kendall

  Hostility shimmered in the air between them, and again, he didn’t understand why. Had he insulted Ms. London by asking her to do something unladylike? Well, too bad. If she was that uptight, then she was doomed to her narrow life, getting old before her time.

  Or was it that she’d finished with him, now that he’d gotten her off a few times? Had she decided, like his own mama, that he wasn’t good enough for her?

  The thought burned like acid in his belly. Goddamn pretentious, shallow, uptight women.

  Dan sat in her fussy wing chair and eased off his Ropers. Then he wrapped the legs of his jeans around his ankles and jammed his feet into the stupid English riding boots. He was Dansy the Pansy again, for Christ’s sake, and he just couldn’t wait to learn how to “post” in a bloody, sodding English saddle to please bloody, sodding English Nigel and Mama and Claire.

  “Fine, let’s get this over with,” he growled at Lilia. She followed him as he stomped out of her office and out to the Mustang.

  Was that a snort he heard, coming from the evil blond Amazon’s office?

  AT CENTRAL PINES Stables, a pleasant, green farm outside Avon, Dan swung himself into the ridiculously small saddle on a seventeen-hand gelding named Tricks. The instructor was a middle-aged woman with graying hair named Dorothy, who showed him how to hold the reins English style: one in each hand instead of both in one hand.

  The saddle just felt plain weird. But he could actually feel the horse between his legs instead of just a lot of leather and blanket.

  “Don’t kick Tricks to urge him forward,” Dorothy warned. “He’ll take off like a bat out of hell. Remember, you’re going to gently squeeze with your calves when you want to urge him on. You don’t need a crop with him—he doesn’t like them and won’t respond well.”

  Dan nodded and walked Tricks along side her until they got to a covered riding ring with a floor of sand.

  “I understand that you’re an experienced horseman,” Dorothy continued.

  “Yeah.”

  “But to ride English style, we’re going to do some things differently. First, we’ll teach you how to post.”

  Dan grimaced. The only way to live through this was to think about all the kids he’d give real riding lessons to next summer. He might be forced to the dark side for now, but he’d get his revenge. None of his boys would post or sit in a sissy English saddle.

  “Then we’ll warm up a little more and start taking some small fences.” She looked at him. “Jumps,” she clarified. “We’ll start with that little in-and-out over there. Remember that you’ll lean forward in the saddle, poised over the horse’s withers.

  “You’re going to move your hands forward on Tricks’ neck and do not pop him in the mouth when you take the jump. In other words, don’t yank back on the reins in reflex. Keep your hands steady and easy, move with him as he jumps. Okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “Go ahead and trot him around the ring, then. And post. By that I mean get your heels down in the stirrups. Then, using both your knees and your feet in the stirrups, raise your seat with every other step, then sit. You’ll get the feel for it. Pelvis forward, then back. Keep your lower back soft, to move with the horse, but your shoulders straight.”

  After a little practice, Dan decided that the rhythm of posting was not unlike the rhythm of sex. Forward, back, forward, back.

  “Heels down! And your legs are swinging,” Dorothy called.

  Except that during sex nobody critiqued his posture or his form. His partner generally vocalized things along the lines of, “Oh, yes!” instead of snorting and drooling green foam. Of course, he generally didn’t have his women harnessed, with a bit in the mouth, either.

  Miz Lilia sat in the small bleachers outside the ring, glancing up occasionally from her laptop to check on his progress.

  He felt like a damned fool in the boots and the helmet, wiggling his butt around for all to see. The bloody English strike again. He should show up in London with a chaw of tobacco in his mouth and his Western saddle. He’d teach the pasty-faced snots how to ride like real men. Maybe I’ll rope and tie Lovely Nigel and toss him in a pile of manure. I’d really enjoy that.

  They warmed up the horse—and him—for a few more minutes and then Dorothy directed him over the two jumps that she’d called an “in-and-out.”

  “Lean forward,” she called. “Hands higher on his neck, heels down!”

  Tricks sailed over it, Dan flying with him. It was real fun, until he lost his balance slightly and popped himself in the balls on the forward edge of the saddle.

  “Gyaaahooow!” Dan reflexively pulled back on the reins. Tricks didn’t know quite what to make of the sound or the signal, so he stopped dead, right before the second jump. Dan, now clutching his balls with one hand and holding the reins in the other, sailed right over his neck, bounced off the rail of the jump and landed ignominiously in the sand of the ring.

  Tricks backed up a step, twitched his sizable nostrils and then snorted smelly green spit-foam onto his rider.

  Dan scrambled up and shot a glance toward Lil to see if she’d noticed. Great. She was running toward him, laptop left on the bleachers.

  “Are you all right?”

  Dorothy ran over, too.

  Dan wiped the green horse-spit off his shoulder and chest and wished he could wipe the red off his face, too. “I’m fine,” he growled. “I haven’t lost my seat on a horse since I was—”

  “Fifteen years old.” Lil nodded.

  “You popped him in the mouth,” said Dorothy, shaking her head.

  “Yeah, well, the saddle caught me in the— Never mind.” Furious with himself and embarrassed as hell, he could barely speak.

  Even the damn horse seemed to look at him sideways, the equine message loud and clear. And you call yourself a horseman?

  He stalked over to Tricks and swung himself right back into the saddle. He couldn’t believe how many times he’d now made an ass out of himself in front of Lilia London. Bad enough that he sucked at her refinement lessons. But did he have to look incompetent on a horse, too?

  Stiff with embarrassment, he said to Dorothy, “Okay, let’s take it again.”

  He circled the ring at a slow canter and then urged Tricks toward the jumps for the second time. As they took the first one, a loud, disgusting, rumbling noise came from behind him and the horse swished his tail. Dan’s grouchiness faded into amusement at the look on Lilia’s face: Tricks backfired yet again over the second oxer and Dan almost collapsed laughing on the animal’s neck—which didn’t help his form any.

  “Sit up,” Dorothy called. “Shoulders back! Heels down!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dan said. “You may have a fainter on your hands, there. Miss Manners has never seen a horse fart.”

  Two bright spots of color appeared at Lil’s cheekbones. “I’m nowhere close to fainting, thank you very much! Oh, eeeeuuuuuwwwww!”

  Dan heard solid little plops behind him in the ring and grinned. “How do you like them apples?” he called.

  Lil packed up her laptop and retreated to the stable’s air-conditioned office, where she didn’t have to see or smell such things.

  “Priss-pot,” Dan muttered under his breath. “Can’t handle a little horse poop. Can’t sit on a man’s face. What exactly am I doing with this woman? Oh, yeah. Making an ass out of myself. How could I have forgotten?”

  Dorothy directed him to take a higher jump, setting wooden rails into position on a frame.

  He started Tricks toward it.

  “Come in faster for this one—it’s bigger and you’ll need the momentum.”

  Dan squeezed the horse’s sides with his legs and they picked up speed. He began to lean forward as they approached, putting all his weight into his heels in the stirrups.

  “Good,” Dorothy called.

  Tricks lived up to his name and veered to the right at the last possible moment, almost unseating Dan. This time, though, he moved with the horse, swung him around sharply and to
ok him right back to the fence. They were up and then airborne, coming down in perfect form on the other side.

  “Great work, Dan!”

  He nodded his thanks, automatically looking around for Lil to see if she’d actually witnessed him do something competent outside of the bedroom. But no—that’s right. She’d gone to the office. It was Murphy’s Law.

  She’d continue to think of him as a well-endowed moron with only one talent and no style. Dan sighed. I might as well go on and get that pouch of Red Man, wad a big ol’ chaw in my cheek and really impress her. I’ll spit in one of her fancy-ass china tea cups. She won’t mind a bit.

  He finished his English riding lesson with a lot more aplomb than when he’d started, but it didn’t matter since she wasn’t around to see.

  13

  SHANNON’S REVENGE was not pretty. It sat on Lil’s desk, Day-Glo orange with…dear God…several attachments. They all radiated from a bouquet of fake plastic daisies in a Windex-blue vase.

  Unfortunately there was no doubt whatsoever as to what the object was, although Lil had never actually seen one before. She clutched at her throat and the blood drained from her face as she came nose to nose with a vibrator for the first time in her life.

  She shrank back, aghast, at the attachment with bumps, the one with a curved tip, and the one with—ugh! ugh! ugh!—two protrusions for simultaneous penetration of two different orifices.

  Lil didn’t even want to touch them! Did women really… No, surely not? It was depraved, indecent, horrifying! Oooh, but what was that particular attachment there? It had a wider head, and might feel good on a girl’s—

  Lilia Lisbeth London! Are you possessed by a sexual Satan? How can you even think such things? Did she need to have an exorcism?

  “Shannon!” She didn’t yell, as a lady never raised her voice, but she infused it with enough annoyance and acid that she felt sure the point got across. “Did rice cakes really deserve this?”

  Shan poked her head around Lil’s doorway and grinned lasciviously. “One hundred percent. I had skipped not one but two meals when I spied that Krispy Kreme box. I was desperate for fat, sugar, sustenance in general. And then to open it up and find cardboard! I almost cried. Ask Jane.”

  Lil pointed without speaking at the awful device on her desk. “That’s…obscene. Vile. Gross!”

  “Oh, bullshit. You need one, Lil. Every modern woman has one.”

  “I’m not touching it. Please remove it from my desk and take it away. Joke’s over.”

  Down the hall, they heard the front door open.

  “That better be Jane!”

  Shannon turned and looked.

  “Haaaaaaaaa,” came Dan’s voice.

  Lil paled and stared at the vibrator bouquet. “Shit!”

  Shannon’s head popped back in. “Did you just say—”

  “Shit! Yes!” Lil peeled off her suit jacket in record time and flung it over the bouquet. She couldn’t possibly let Dan Granger see that. She would simply die if he did.

  Not that it would shock him—his request of yesterday was far more shocking—but he would probably try to suggest a play date with the items! And that was one thing she simply could not handle.

  “Haaaaaaa,” Shan mimicked. “How yew doin’ thar, Dan?”

  Lilia clapped a hand to her forehead. “Has it ever occurred to you that it’s bad for business to insult clients?”

  “Oh, just peachy, thunk you, Miss Shane. And you?” Dan said it in a flawless, stuffy Long Island Lock-Jaw.

  Lil burst out laughing, and Shan did, too.

  “I should like my wardrobe returned, you evil vixen,” he added, still in Lock-Jaw.

  Shannon smiled serenely. “I feel your pain, Dan. But no. I’ve put together a much better wardrobe for you. You’ll love it.” She turned to Lil. “Everything’s in my office. I’ve got to go to an appointment, so help yourself. Oh—” she winked “—and don’t forget your jacket when you leave the office. It’s a little cool out this morning.”

  Lil looked daggers at her. “Thank you, hon.”

  “No problem. Ta ta!”

  “Mornin,’ Lil,” said Dan.

  “Good morning,” she said with a gracious smile. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, please. Though I’da rather have had it in bed with you.”

  Her smile vanished. “Cream or sugar?” she asked woodenly. She had to end the physical part of their relationship. That was clear.

  “Just hot ‘n’ black, darlin’. Say, isn’t it bad manners not to remember how someone takes their coffee after you’ve been extremely, uh, intimate with him?”

  “Yes, but it’s worse manners to point that out,” said Lil, coloring but standing her ground. She changed the subject. “So are you suffering any ill-effects from your fall?”

  “Just a bruised shoulder and a terminal case of shame.”

  “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

  Dan grunted. “So what’s on tap for today?”

  “We have another English riding lesson for you, another dance lesson and we’ve got to try all of those clothes on you that Shannon purchased. We’ll also have lunch and dinner at elegant restaurants so that you’re able to practice your table manners some more.”

  “You’re not gonna make me eat any more of those hairy salad weeds, are you?”

  Lil shook her head. “No, but you have to promise not to grunt like a caveman.”

  “When—”

  “Just now. When I told you that you needn’t be embarrassed about the fall.”

  “Like a caveman?”

  Her lips twitched. “Perhaps the sound was more warthog than actual man.”

  “Hey, now, Miss Manners! You’re fallin’ off your own high horse. That ain’t so polite.”

  She shot him a rueful glance. “Oh, dear, you’re right. My apologies…” She wasn’t doing well this morning, was she? She’d cursed and she was now behaving like Shannon. She sighed.

  “And maybe we should talk about the animal sounds that you make, say, in bed.”

  Heat swept over her face and she was bereft of speech.

  “I won’t go so far as to say warthog, but there’s definitely some kitten in there, and some—”

  “Mr. Granger, let’s please drop this subject immediately!”

  He grinned. Then he cocked an eyebrow at her. “We’re back to Mr. Granger, are we? That’s not what you called me the other night, Lil.”

  She put her hands up to her incinerated cheeks and ran to shut her office door. She took a deep breath before she turned to face him again. “We need to put that night behind us, Dan. I can’t function in a business relationship with you while also…ah…being intimate. It just doesn’t work for me. I hope you can understand.”

  His jaw tightened and his lips flattened. “Sure. Even we unsophisticated country boys can comprehend when we’re gettin’ the brush-off. I do apologize for shockin’ your delicate, uh, sensibilities with my terrible request that you sit—”

  “Dan!”

  He stopped. “But I was only trying to give you pleasure. And as a guy who’s often up to the elbows inside a cow, trying to deliver her calf, it just doesn’t seem that outrageous to me.”

  Up to the elbows in a cow’s—ugh! Lil swallowed.

  “It’s part of life,” he added.

  Not part of my life. “Thank you, Dan. I—I appreciate that.” But it also illustrates why we should just cut this sexual liaison off right now, before it gets any messier. Because we have nothing, absolutely nothing in common.

  “You appreciate that?” He blinked at her. Then his expression got even darker.

  Too late, she realized that her attempt to be polite had delivered a rude slap to him.

  “No, Lilia. You appreciate a man holding the door open for you. You appreciate a word of thanks. But you don’t goddamn appreciate a man’s desire to give you oral sex.” He expelled a short, unamused bark of laughter. “It just ain’t the right word, darlin’.”
r />   “Dan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Even to a country boy, that sounds patronizing and dismissive. So you can just keep your appreciation to yourself.” He got up and headed for her door.

  “Dan, please! Where are you going?”

  “To get my cup of hot, black coffee, Miz London. Do I have your royal permission?”

  “I’ll get it,” she said, moving from behind her desk to put a hand on his arm. The moment she touched him, even through his shirtsleeve, she knew it had been a mistake.

  He stared into her eyes, breathing heavily in his anger. She stared into his, with regret and hot awareness. What she wanted to do was kiss him and run her hands over his naked, furred chest. Feel all of him inside her again.

  He broke the eye contact first and shifted away from her touch. “I don’t want you to wait on me. I’ll get the coffee myself—unless you’re afraid I’ll break some more of your dishes.” Dan opened the door and headed down the hallway to the kitchenette.

  There was nothing to do but follow him. They each got their coffee in silence and then she suggested that he try on all the clothes in Shannon’s office before they headed over to see Jean Pierre.

  Dan shrugged. “Fine. But I hope she’s got a suit of armor in there so the French fruitcake can’t touch me.”

  “Maybe you should take his interest in you as a compliment.”

  “Huh.”

  Lil gave up on that angle and walked to the small rolling rack in Shan’s office, where her partner had hung Dan’s new clothes. She fingered a beautiful charcoal cashmere sweater, some shirts that were works of art in terms of fabric and tailoring, and three pairs of casual slacks that looked as if they’d each cost more than her monthly car payment.

  Shan had also bought him silk T-shirts, a couple of casual but expensive blazers, gorgeous leather belts and shoes.

  Dan made the mistake of looking at a couple of price tags during the process and almost passed out in shock. “There’s a down payment on a piece of real estate, here!”

  “Not quite,” Lil said, passing him a shirt to try on. To her chagrin, Dan whipped off the one he was wearing before she could leave the room, and she was faced with that quite edible chest again. The saliva in her mouth evaporated and refused to return, even with repeated swallowing.