There was a roar from the crowd, followed by another unemotional announcement from the loudspeaker, and people clapped. Auberon had jumped clear, too. All eyes watched as he came cantering out of the ring.
He tipped his hat as he passed her, his face flushed now more from his energetic clearing of the fences than his memories of their night of passion.
‘Good luck,’ he said among his breathlessness.
Full of confidence, Penny thanked him and dug her heels into her horse’s flanks. She could do no wrong today, she thought. It was almost as if she could fly.
Like a dream, the driving muscles of the grey propelled her over the first jump. With difficulty she controlled the urges that the stable-boy with the green eyes had aroused in her. More concentration was needed to ride this animal than the chestnut. Timing of take-off was imperative and had to be gauged by the rider more so than the horse.
The hoofs thudded beneath her. Just by their sound, she could judge their pace and analyse when timing was perfect.
She gathered the reins, and with the assistance of every muscle in her body, she pushed the mare on, lower legs working incessantly to take her up and over each obstacle.
All were cleared without difficulty except the last. It loomed high and wide before her, a triple-bar spread. Briefly she glanced at those watching, threw a smile in Auberon’s direction – then wished to God she hadn’t.
Fool! Bloody fool! She cursed that smile, cursed her own conceit.
In that one split second of relaxed concentration, she’d covered too much ground. The fence loomed up, yellow-striped and large. If she did clear it, she’d be lucky. There was also the chance of landing awkwardly. Inside, she prayed. Then she narrowed her eyes.
There was no time to draw out, to pull on the reins and head off. Whatever happened, she must land safely.
A deep moan roared from the crowd and hollow echoes of falling wood crashed behind her. Her hat fell to one side, and she lost one stirrup, but she was safe and so was the horse. Softly she swore under her breath. It was her fault. A moment’s glance and she had messed up.
‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ The words spilt in time with the horse’s slowing gait.
As she slowed down and came to a clumsy halt, she ran the back of her hand across her brow. Her hair clung damply to her head but, despite the fact that she had not jumped clear, she was satisfied enough to sigh and strain a smile towards Nadine.
‘Diabolical!’
Nadine’s mouth was as straight and unyielding as a letterbox, her eyes hard.
Effort had tired Penny. She was hot, she was tired and so far she’d done pretty well. It was only one mistake. ‘But I landed safely . . . ’
‘Inexcusable!’ said Nadine coldly. ‘Horse could have been injured. You could have been injured!’ The usually colourless eyes were as cold as steel.
Over the top of Nadine’s head, Penny could see Auberon steadily getting redder. His mouth was opening and shutting as though he were trying to tell her something.
A flush of rebellion stirred momentarily in Penny’s breast. ‘But they’re my horses!’
‘No!’ exclaimed Nadine, her fingers holding Penny’s knee in a vicelike grip. ‘While you are here, everything is Beaumont! You will learn that!’
Penny opened her mouth meaning to deny the statement, but Nadine did not give her the chance.
‘I will pass on your feelings. No doubt we will speak later about this. Punishment will be in order, I can assure you.’
Breathlessness curtailing her feelings of rebellion, Penny rose to the trot back to the shiny blue and gold horsebox. It was parked in the coolest place possible, which happened to be beneath an ancient oak at the perimeter of the show ground next to a hawthorn hedge. On the other side of the hedge was an untamed meadow and copses of scattered willow, sycamore and birch.
The oak tree dappled her hot face with cool shade, though inside she was seething and oddly confused. Why was it that Nadine made her feel like a schoolgirl? And why was it that she obeyed meekly, her rush of passionate outrage buried beneath all the reasons why she should keep her cool.
Beneath the tree her own chestnut and Auberon’s other horse had been tethered. It was cooler there, and the horses plucked leisurely at the fresh green grass of the county show-ground and the longer more lush stuff sprouting through the fence from the field next door.
Stephen was sponging and brushing her chestnut. He was bare to the waist, his shoulder muscles rippling as his arm pushed the brush in wide, circular strokes over the horse’s back and flanks.
His skin gleamed, a faint film of sweat lending greater definition to his moving flesh. She could smell him very faintly – pure testosterone, fresh and mingled with the pungent thickness of damp leather, sweating horse flesh and sweet summer grass.
Nadine’s rebuke and talk of punishment were easily forgotten, and her attraction to Stephen remembered. As though he were a rare delicacy presented prior to a main course, she licked her lips. Like a hungry child she eyed the lean torso, the fair skin and the sweep of russet hair as it caressed his naked shoulders. Her spirits were lifted, and another wetness mingled between her legs with the fresh sweat of her riding.
‘Can you manage?’ he asked once he’d become aware of her presence. ‘I can always help you out,’ he said with obvious meaning. ‘You only have to ask.’
‘I always can manage,’ she said with a smile. ‘And I never refuse a service if I can possibly avoid it.’
The smell of damp leather and sweating flanks was strong in her nostrils as the saddle slid off the grey and into her arms.
‘That’s what I like to hear. A woman who can always manage.’ It was no accident that his hands brushed against her breasts as he took the saddle from her.
Over the scent of leather she could smell him better now he was closer; a lingering sensation of fresh male perspiration and the earthy closeness of warm-blooded animals.
He turned his back to her and placed the saddle in the tack area of the horsebox.
Enamoured of the day and the boy before her, Penny let her senses take over from her sensibility. Stephen was one prize that she was going to have today.
‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she said, stretching her arms once she’d taken off her hat, jacket and cravat and undid a few more buttons than she had done before. She looked up at the sky, then over the stile to the green field and clumps of trees. Her desire was strong and getting stronger. This boy was good-looking: young, of course, no more than nineteen. But she needed him. Her ego needed massaging, and he seemed just the man to do it.
‘Too beautiful for working,’ he replied as he turned towards her.
She saw the boldness in his eyes and the front of his jeans moving as his cock responded to what his mind was thinking and his tongue had only touched on.
‘Now what else could we do on a day like this?’ she asked.
His smile was knowing and the swelling in his jeans more obvious. This was no Auberon, she thought to herself. Young he might be, but he’d no doubt had his share of pussies willing to welcome his vigorous lust. She glanced downwards where his rising penis formed a curved mound as it thrust for release against his soiled jeans.
He reached out and cupped her breasts. There was desire in his eyes, and a deep hum of ecstasy escaped his lips as he bunched her breasts towards each other.
‘They’re so firm,’ he murmured, ‘so beautiful.’
‘Flattery,’ she told him, ‘can get you anywhere.’
As her hair broke free from its net and tumbled down her back, she reached for him, touched his cheek with one hand and his neck with the other. They drew closer; both murmured unintelligible sounds of pleasure as she rubbed her body up against his. His arms wrapped around her, his hands hot against her back.
There was unfamiliar pleasure in feeling a fully-clothed body against hers, a kind of innocence as his hands travelled to press the stickiness of her blouse over the fullness of her breasts.
His lips were hot, his tongue just as experienced as she had expected. Hot skin shivered as though touched with ice beneath her searching palms as she explored each young, tight muscle.
‘We can’t stay here,’ he said, drawing back and holding her at arms’ length as though she were potentially dangerous. ‘Too public. But we can go through there,’ he added with a wink and a jerk of his head towards the meadow and trees beyond.
The wood of the stile was rough and dry, the grass on the other side sweet, green and cool against their hot bodies.
One pair of soiled white riding breeches and one pair of grass-stained jeans were soon lying in a single heap.
She lay beside him in the coolness of the grass, aware of the smell of wild flowers and the buzzing of insects. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes sparkled and her body was still except for her breathing and the slight undulations of limbs created by sexual need.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, and sounded as though he meant it. Just hearing him say such things made her feel as though she were melting. Beautiful words made her feel beautiful.
‘And you,’ she responded, ‘are quite memorable.’ The words she said she meant. Her eyes drank him in from head to toe. There was a fairylike whiteness to his skin. Around his mighty member, a cluster of red hair circled like a dark-gold crown.
She was filled with a strong desire to run her fingers through that feathery nest. His eyes caught hers. They were bright and they were happy. They were also excited and eager to elicit the utmost from their experience.
They kissed and caressed. Then Penny, without any urging from him, got to her feet, and walked to a tree-trunk that had fallen amidst the clump of trees. She bent over, hands resting on the broken patches of bark. Stephen followed and came up behind her. No one could see them here, not that she’d be too worried if they could.
She felt the heat of his body as he came up behind her, and trembled with delight as his hands traced down over her back and clasped her buttocks in the wideness of his palms.
He opened the cleft between her buttocks with his fingers, as though studying her tiniest orifice. She groaned appreciatively and wriggled against his fingers. She closed her eyes and in her mind she entered her own sensuous world where everything she received was more intense, more electrifying, than the giver of such delights could ever imagine.
As he ran his hands down between her legs and opened the more fleshy cleft of her sex, she moaned in ecstasy. His fingers went on to draw imaginary lines around her pussy and dip briefly into her burgeoning wetness.
Then against her sex she felt the warmth of his breath as he sucked at her outer lips, her inner lips, then dipped his tongue where his fingers had been.
Wanting to miss nothing of this experience, she opened her eyes and took deep breaths of fresh air, revelling in the swishing of the leaves as the breeze took them, the buzzing of the bees and the sweet smell of summer flowers.
There was a gap in the bushes and trees in front of her. From here she could look out at the mass of people milling around in the bright sunshine. And here she was, shaded in a small copse, hands on the rough bark of a tree, bottom dappled by sunlight and pubic hair rustled by a kind breeze. If this was the Garden of Eden, then she was Eve.
‘Ride me,’ she pleaded breathlessly, her head back, eyes closed again.
He didn’t answer for a moment, as though he were thinking about it, weighing up the pros and cons of doing so. Then, with a laugh in his throat, he nuzzled her neck and sucked at her earlobe.
‘You need breaking in first,’ he murmured.
Then his lips went down over her behind until his tongue licked the shiny division between each rounded cheek.
She felt his body come up to cover her. His chest was warm and hairless against her back, his lips wet and soft against her neck. His hands followed his words. They pulled at her breasts, held them almost as if he were weighing them, then let them go. His fingertips tapped lightly at their pink nipples, causing them to rear with unbridled desire.
Lost in the whirling currents of her own delight, Penny murmured, moaned and purred with each sensation. She wriggled her hips and tilted her bottom, knowing that the tousled hair of her sex would be peering out at this young man from beneath the heart-shaped perfection of her arse.
‘Put it back in me,’ she pleaded. ‘Please. Anything. Anything at all!’
Lightly, as if in answer to her pleading, she felt the silken head of his penis kiss her fleshy lips before he pulled back.
Mewing with pleasure, she felt his fingers pull back the glowing petals of her sex again, first the outer lips, then the inner ones. Like the head of a curious snake, his finger probed further, sliding along her slippery flesh, finding the hot nub of her clitoris, and teasing it to full height, before burrowing again into the torrid humidity of her widening vagina.
His finger had been only the scout. Now the head of his erect and readied penis followed, widening her lips as it followed the same course his finger had taken.
Pleas for more escaped her throat as the exploring penis continued to slide the whole length of her slit from nest of pubic hair to throbbing portal.
‘Say please,’ he demanded through his own gasping breath. ‘Say please and I’ll ram it home.’
‘Please,’ she gasped, her breath, her mind and her body lost in ragged whirls of pleasure. ‘Please, please, please!’
The heat of his thighs met hers as his length of engorged flesh pushed its way into her welcoming sex. Possessed by desires that she had no control over, she writhed and pushed back on to it. Her dewy lips sucked noisily at the hard shaft as if it were draining it of all its strength.
How can it be, she asked herself, that something so hard can be at one and the same time so soft, so warm . . . and so welcome?
There was no answer. Only the fact that it was what it was and she adored its contrasts, its mix of pleasure and pain, softness and hardness.
She let loose moans of sheer enjoyment as his balls slapped in tempo against her, his pubic hairs tickling like a mass of goose down against her silken thighs.
She wriggled on him more, determined to get the last ounce of enjoyment from the experience. Her bosoms continued to swing in time, one slapping against the other like wads of heavy silk as she moved forwards with each shove of his member. All the time her throat sang to his tempo, each breath tinged with a moan and a sigh.
The warmth and hardness of his chest rested on her back as his hands sought to restrain her swinging breasts. She howled in ecstasy as his fingers squeezed her nipples, then groaned, almost pleading, for her climax. His breath was like steam against her neck, and his breathing began to quicken, strangled gasps of joy like warm wind against her ear.
She sensed the immediacy of his release and began to panic, fearful of him leaving her unsatisfied on the pinnacle of her own sexual arousal.
Perhaps he felt her sudden tension, a tightening of her vaginal muscles around his cock. Anyway, his hand travelled over her hip to between her legs. His finger charged through and, with deft strokes, he began to manipulate the shiny wet head of passion that prodded so forcefully from her folds of flesh.
She closed her eyes, her fists clenching more tightly over the rough tree bark as ripples of orgasm spread deliciously outwards, tingling her body, flooding her mind so she barely heard his cry mingle with her own. Bodies relaxed and senses swam in floods of ecstasy before he drew himself from her.
‘I much appreciate your attention to my needs,’ she said softly once they were disentangled and lying on their bellies again in the sweet coolness of the meadow grass.
‘I aim to please.’ He reached for her, pulled her to him and hugged her to his chest. They kissed; warmth remained where a moment before there had been only the urgency to climax.
She drank in the feel and the smell of him. Then she detected another smell, then the sound of a twig snapping. She started. The faint aroma of expensive tobacco carried on the
breeze.
‘My, my, Stephen. You really are quite a stallion. And you, Miss Bennet, are quite a mare!’ Penny, still naked except for her crumpled white blouse – which she pulled on hastily – spun round and found herself face to face with Nadine. A half-smoked cheroot hung from the corner of the tall woman’s lips.
It was difficult not to blush. But Nadine had a bold look about her. There was a sneer around her mouth. The pale grey eyes stared and made no apology for so doing.
Penny glanced over at Stephen. He was already getting dressed, though not rushing it.
Penny bent down and picked up her clothes, aware at the same time of the scent of sex upon her and the glistening droplets of her own bodily secretions that clung to her nest of pubic hair. She was also aware of Nadine eyeing her naked belly and thighs. They glittered with undisguised pleasure and more than a hint of desire.
Stephen went silently, as though his service had indeed been done and there was no need for him to stay.
Nadine folded her arms across her chest. Penny reached for the rest of her clothes.
‘Never mind your clothes.’
Penny froze and clutched her shirt around her. Her breeches dangled from one hand. Nervously she glanced towards the gap in the trees.
‘But there are people around. What if they should . . . ’
‘See you . . .?’ Nadine’s eyebrows arched in the manner of an old-fashioned headmistress. ‘It didn’t worry you just then. Why should it worry you now?’ Her voice was hard; hollow, even. Her sneer only half-disturbed her face.
Penny shivered. Passion induces heat, but spent passion tends to leave one feeling cold, she thought, especially if it has been spent outdoors. Goose bumps were erupting all over her body.
Penny held Nadine’s gaze for just a moment of defiance before she remembered all that was at stake and lowered them. But the wager and her place with the Beaumont team was not the only reason Penny lowered her eyes. Just the fact that Nadine was here, that she had spoken, was enough to crush Penny’s spirit and to make her feel as though her will was not her own and neither was her body. Strangely enough, the combination in her character of sensuality and the desire to please added an odd thrill to the experience. Even now, with Nadine eyeing her naked pussy, she wanted to show her more, wanted her to do more.
The Stallion Page 10
