The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  Yeah, definitely not.

  Oh fuck, hot girl flying! Don’t break your hotass face, baby. Or your hot ass either, actually.

  She’s moving, that’s a good sign, right?

  Blonde girl just lost ten hot points for being a bitch.

  “No thanks to you idiots,” she said, and he got twitchy on the inside. There was hot-bitchy, and then there was straight up I-wanna-cut-you-bitchy, and the blonde was the latter of the two.

  He stepped forward, arms draping over the fence rail. “Is she okay?” he repeated. “Should I call 911?”

  “I’m fine.” The brunette sat up, and she was knock-him-out gorgeous this close. Even as she winced, took off her helmet, and stroked a hand across her sweaty, mashed-down hair. “I’m fine.” Her gaze lifted, and her eyes were blue.

  Really blue.

  Without warning, Aidan felt attraction tackle him. Not the subtle, easy attraction of seeing a beautiful woman and wondering what he could get her to do. But the visceral need to have this woman’s legs around his waist.

  In a flash, he was over the fence and offering his hand down to her. “Here, let me help. I’m so sorry about all this.”

  “Then tell your friends not to rev their engines like they’re in a freaking race,” the blonde said.

  Aidan ignored her. The brunette gave him a strange look, then grasped his hand. He saw her blood-red manicured nails, felt the softness of her skin, and he was sunk.

  ~*~

  Emmie wasn’t actually angry with the Dogs. She was angry at the very real possibility that her richest, best-paying student would be so pissed off that she moved her horse, or worse, started making demands around the farm.

  Tonya, in a very unlikely move, let the dark-haired biker with the killer grin lead her up to the barn on the premise of “making sure she was okay,” and Emmie caught Chaucer, took him inside, untacked and hosed him off. She was putting him away in his stall for a hay snack and a calm-down when the two blondes from before approached her.

  Both were beautiful in different ways. One had the masculine, pretty-boy features of a former athlete and ladies’ man. The other had a funky haircut, lots of piercings, even more tattoos, and that almost hid his delicate feminine prettiness.

  The pretty one spoke, as she was latching the stall door. “Look, we didn’t mean for the horse to get scared and do that. Sorry.” He sounded and looked sincere, a graveness etched into his clear-cut features. “Is she okay?”

  Emmie sighed, braced her shoulder against the stall, and focused all her weak patience into offering them a halfhearted smile. “I didn’t mean to snap before,” she said. “I’m…kinda hungover. And situations like that with the horses can be so dangerous…” She’d seen horrible accidents, yes. And she had been upset in the moment. But her new reality involved bikers, and if she had to choose between noisy tailpipes and no Briar Hall at all, she’d pick tailpipes in a heartbeat. “Anyway,” she said, “it’s alright. The horses will eventually get used to the sound of the bikes.”

  Obvious relief in both of them.

  “We don’t know anything about horses,” the younger, more normal one said. “So…yeah. Sorry.”

  “Makes me wonder why your friend bought a horse farm,” she said, and didn’t mean it as an insult, was truly fishing for answers, because Walsh was a puzzle she wanted to solve.

  “Because he does know something about horses,” Walsh’s distinctive English accent said, and she glanced sharply down the aisle to see him approaching. “He was a jockey, actually, so he knows a lot.”

  The sight of him set her face aflame. The skin heated until she knew her blush must be visible, even from this distance. Laying eyes on him – his blue and white plaid shirt, the battered jeans, the bedhead thickness of his hair and the narrow blue eyes – sent a keen awareness shooting through her. He’d touched her, carried her, been in her apartment, been next to her bed.

  Her dream from a few nights before tumbled through her mind and made the blushing worse.

  She cleared her throat and watched the other two guys step back, perplexed and amused expressions lighting their faces. They could feel the attraction coming off of her, and she hated that, but had no idea what to do about it.

  “A jockey, huh?” she asked, and her voice sounded unnatural to her ears. God, what was wrong with her? Had to be the hangover. She didn’t get like this with men. Ever.

  He met her flickering glance with a solid stare that told her he knew exactly how much her insides were churning at the moment. “Till I got too tall for it.”

  “That’d do it.”

  He shrugged.

  “So you swapped to bikes instead.”

  “More or less.”

  This was stupid, inane chatter, on both their parts. Stupid, she told herself. She hadn’t expected anything to be different today. But had she wanted it to be? She wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on that; it felt too painfully like she was hoping for something, and given what had just happened with Tonya, that wasn’t a good idea.

  Still…

  She was suddenly more feminine, more lonely, more achy inside than she had been years, and for some reason, her body wanted this man. Maybe it was because he’d saved her farm. Maybe because of the way his shirt sleeves fit over his shoulders. Either way, she couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t wondering what his mouth tasted like.

  “So you’ve met Tango and Carter,” he said, like he was getting things back on track. “Boys, this is Emmie, and you’re obviously bothering her, and you know what I said about that before. So.” He lifted his brows expectantly and both younger men lurched into action.

  “Right,” the one he’d called Tango said. “We’ll go see if Aidan’s ready to leave.”

  In the wake of their departure, Walsh closed the distance between them, hands going in his pockets, gaze raking over her in a calculating way. He was cold and hot all at once in his regard, and it stirred up a deep tug in the pit of her stomach. It was a horseman’s gaze, she realized; it had been all along. His mixture of intrigue and analysis was the careful, thorough look of someone used to measuring horseflesh.

  And now he was measuring her, and trapping her back against the stall.

  And Lord help her, she liked it.

  “Problem with your student?” he asked, and his eyes were fixed on her mouth.

  “Nothing an ice pack won’t solve. And you can tell your boys to be more careful driving in and out.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  “You’re the vice president; they have to listen to you, right?”

  “They do.”

  “You put me to bed last night,” she said quietly. All the logic was fast draining out of her head, and she was powerless to make a last grab for any of it.

  He stared at her a long moment, then tilted his head toward the door. “Take a walk with me.”

  ~*~

  Dolly walked alongside them, her panting a sound that grounded them in reality, and in the farm. A sound that kept Emmie’s brain from going too far afield. Walking side-by-side, she could smell the remnants of shaving cream, and the tang of morning cigarettes. A dozen personal questions bubbled to life in her mind, things she wanted to ask Walsh about his past, himself. But she held her tongue, because he had something he wanted to tell her; she could sense it.

  “Richards should have been paying you more,” he said as they moved slowly down the long outside of the barn.

  She hadn’t been expecting that. “What?”

  “I’m giving you a raise. All of you. Most of Richards’ cash was going…somewhere else. You ought to be paid more.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’m fine with my salary.”

  Walsh shot her a sideways glance. “He should have been paying you a lot more.”

  She frowned, and some of the arousal fog began to lift. “You looked at the finances?”

  “This place could do better than it does, and I want you to make suggestions.” He halted, and she turn
ed to look at him, shocked. “I’m guessing Richards didn’t take advice too well, am I right?”

  “No, but…” She frowned. “He was a grumpy old man. Why are you doing this?” she added quickly. An unpleasant idea dawned. “You’re not trying to buy my favor or something, are you?”

  God, that would suck if he was that shallow. If he resorted to all those lame tricks the men she’d known before had used.

  He twitched a half-smile. “No, love. I don’t buy favors from pretty girls.” He leaned forward, close enough for her to see the dark filaments in his eyes. His voice: low and thick, sending shivers across her skin. “I want to fuck you, trust that. And it would be very, very good for you. But I won’t try to trick you into it. You’ll have to say you want it.”

  Oh God, oh God.

  He pulled back, totally composed, calm, dug a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and went about the business of pulling one out, lighting it. “Think about it,” he said, like he’d suggested she get her oil changed, or invest in a new lawnmower.

  “Think about…” Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t repeat what he’d just said, too stunned.

  “How much of a raise you want.” He flicked her a blank, heatless look. “Okay?”

  “O…kay.”

  The sound of a car door slamming drew both their attentions toward the parking pad in front of the barn. Amy Richards, dressed to the nines, sunglasses masking half her face.

  “I wanna talk to you,” she said, and it was almost a shout.

  Emmie gathered her composure and started forward.

  “Not you,” Amy snapped, dismissing her with a wave. She aimed a jeweled finger at Walsh. “You, biker boy.”

  ~*~

  Aidan had never really understood those Penthouse horse trainer fantasies. He didn’t see anything sexual about horses.

  But he was rethinking that thanks to the woman sitting across from him. They were in the “tack room,” she’d said it was, in the AC, on folding chairs facing one another, and he would have been having a much easier time unwrapping the Band-Aid in his hand if he hadn’t been so busy staring at her.

  Holy shit, she was hot.

  Tonya, she’d said her name was, with an O. Yeah, he could see that. He wanted to make her say “Oh!” Movie star perfect, all legs and tight-fitting clothes, her makeup flawless despite the dirt smudges, she looked exactly like the sort of girl who belonged on the back of his bike.

  “You really didn’t have to help me,” she said. “I’m capable of putting a bandage on my face.”

  She was snippy, and he liked that. He imagined she’d be feisty between the sheets, the kind of chick who’d be just as into the sex as him.

  “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to play doctor.” He gave her a wide grin and finally got the Band-Aid open.

  “Wouldn’t want to deprive you of that, would we?”

  “Nah, that’d be cruel.”

  She had a small split at her hairline, where her helmet had banged into her head, and it had only bled a little, but Aidan had insisted on patching her up. Mainly as an excuse to touch her.

  “Alright, hold real still.” He leaned forward, bandage held by both edges, getting closer, closer, there, smoothing the little strip down onto her skin. Skin that was satin-soft. He could imagine the smell of it, its texture beneath his tongue.

  He had to have her, there was no way around it. And lucky for him, he had ten years of chick-catching experience.

  “Come out with me,” he said softly, in that voice that always worked for him. He met her gaze head-on, the intent shining in his own.

  “Come where?” she asked, and unlike so many of his conquests, she wasn’t taking the bait so easily.

  He grinned. “Anywhere you wanna go, baby.”

  ~*~

  Amy Richards was a pretty woman. The trouble was, she was the sort who knew it, and gave off the vibe that she’d used her looks to her advantage repeatedly. The cruel twist of her mouth, the dark misery in her eyes – this was a woman who bargained with her body, because there wasn’t much of use between her ears.

  When Walsh settled behind her dead father’s desk, she tossed her Coach bag on top of it and squared off at him, hands on her hips. “The movers were supposed to take that out today.”

  “Too much for one truck. They said they’d be back tomorrow.”

  She snorted. “They said you and your buddies scared them shitless.”

  He lifted one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. “There’s a lesson in not moving a couch when a man’s sitting on it.”

  “Alright, cut the bullshit.” The pinched look of her face suggested she didn’t like bantering. Probably because she couldn’t keep up. “What do you want?”

  He made a show of looking around the office. “A vodka’d be nice, but I’m trying to cut back on the day drinking.”

  Her lips peeled back off her teeth – thick coat of red lipstick, white-white teeth, but an unsteady hand with the lip liner. Little smudges at the corners of her mouth. The aggression in her had a buzz to it, a frenzied, reckless energy.

  But then she took a deep breath and worked the snarl into a smile. “Mr. Gannon and his people,” she said in a brittle, cheery voice, “still want to buy this place. You and I both know that you didn’t buy Briar Hall by yourself. This was the club. So what does the club want with it? And what will it take to get you to sell to the developers?”

  He leaned back and let the cushioned chair hold the weight of his head, taking an even more detailed look at the woman in front of him. There was something else. Some other motive. Something that had to do with the energy rippling through her. This was personal – her wanting the developers to have the land.

  “Your inheritance will be the same either way,” he said “I buy it, they buy – you get paid the same.”

  Her jaw tightened.

  “So what I can’t figure out is why you’d want your farm to get turned into condos.”

  “This place is a money pit,” she said, and he could see the way the lie drew out the veins in her throat. “I don’t want to watch anyone waste their time trying to do something with it.”

  “Concerned citizen, yeah?” He gave her an insulted glance. “Give the poor stupid biker more credit than that. No,” he said, enjoying the way her eyes widened. “You’re worried about you, Amy. Daddy was cutting you and your worthless whelp a check every month–”

  “How did you–”

  “ – and that means whatever your plan, it involves keeping that allowance of yours. It means you” – God, he could get high off the rush of deduction – “are somehow gonna get an allowance off Gannon’s people. It–” His eyes widened, a blast of triumph hitting his blood like coke. “Ohhhh. I got it now.”

  Amy gave him a peevish frown, but he saw the fear rattle through her, the doubt. “What?”

  He felt a satisfied smile tug at his mouth. “Amy, where does this new fiancé of yours work?”

  She stiffened. He had her.

  “In Kentucky.”

  “No, I mean which company? Which…development firm?”

  Her aggression did ugly things to her face, carved deep lines in it. “You don’t–” She started to shout, then thought better of it, clamping her red lips together, drawing in a deep breath through her nostrils. She glanced up at the ceiling, smoothed her hands down the front of her cropped white linen jacket…and undid the top button.

  “Did Em put you up to this?” she asked. “Is this for her?”

  When he made an inquisitive sound, her gaze dropped down to his, and she undid the second button. “Are you fucking her?”

  “How would that be your business?”

  “It’s not.” Amy shrugged as she undid the last button, and the jacket slipped down off her shoulders, slid off her arms, so she was in a black see-through camisole that clearly had nothing underneath it. Her nipples were pebbled against the fabric. “It’s just, I can’t imagine how bored you’ve gotta be with her. Little good girl Emmie? Yeah
, snore.”

  She hooked her thumbs in the straps and drew them down, pushed the camisole past her breasts and left it bunched at her waist. “Someone like you, living the life you do.” Her voice was a deep purr now. “You’ve gotta want something more than that little snoozefest.” She leaned forward, braced her hands on the desk, let her breasts dangle before his face. “I’m sure we can work out some kind of deal,” she whispered. A heavy, overdone sex whisper. “So we both get what we want.”

  Walsh stared at her without reaction. “Have you ever been to one of the club parties over at Dartmoor?”

  She cocked her head, scrambling to get a read on him and keep up her seductress façade. “No…”

  “If you had, you’d know about all the strippers, the groupies, the poor lost lambs who turn up every time. Darling, I’ve seen everything and done everything. More than you can even imagine. Put your tits away; you’re embarrassing yourself.”

  She exploded like a cat that had been hit with water: jumping back, covering herself, tearing at her camisole to get it back in place. “Fuck you!” she spat. “Fuck you, asshole!” She bent to retrieve her jacket, breathing in furious deep draws. “I want my dad’s stuff!” she shouted as she stomped off in her stiletto boots. “All of it!”

  “Talk to the movers,” he said calmly.

  His stomach didn’t unclench until the front door slammed, and then the shiver that went through him was nothing short of revulsion.

  ~*~

  After the day’s minor excitement – and the swirling remnants of last night that wouldn’t leave her mind – Emmie was glad for a chance to spend time with Apollo. Her gelding had his eyes shut in bliss as she curried his satiny coat, groaning occasionally and twitching his upper lip when she hit a favorite spot.

  “There?” she asked, glad of the chance to laugh as she dug the brush into his withers and he arched his neck in reaction.

  Grooming was one of those therapeutic exercises – for human and horse. The repetitive brush strokes and the rich scents of dust and horseflesh were better than any drink or any pill.