Every Second Counts

by D. Jackson Leigh

  She sighed. “Marc, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Ryder’s smile was bitter. “Good thing I’ve got a thick skin. But I always finish what I start. I told Karen I would be here next week to pose again.”

  “I won’t need you next week. I’ve already promised someone else the job.”

  It was a small lie.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She rubbed her temple. “Look. I don’t usually know the models personally, and I realized tonight that I don’t want you up there naked in front of my students. It makes me uncomfortable.” Her earlier euphoria evaporated. She suddenly felt tired and deflated. “You make me uncomfortable.”

  “I like the way you say Marc,” Ryder said softly.

  Damn it. She wasn’t listening.

  “I don’t want to go out with you. I don’t want to sleep with you again. Please leave me alone.”

  This was a big lie.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her feet, refusing to meet Ryder’s gaze. There was a long silence.

  “I won’t bother you again.”

  She stayed propped against her car until she heard the diesel engine of the truck parked nearby rumble and didn’t look up until she was sure Ryder was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Well, well, well. You must be the big bad bull rider the children are all talking about.”

  Ryder turned from brushing Wind Walker to study the attractive redhead who was assessing her, undressing her with every sweep of her gaze. “I’m Ryder.” She brushed her lips against the back of the woman’s hand. “At your service.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Not from the children, I hope.”

  “No. They wouldn’t know of such things. But your reputation has preceded you.”

  “Has it?” She stepped closer. The woman’s perfume was expensive. Her riding breeches hugged her curves like a BMW on a mountain road. “And you are?”

  “Alexandra.”

  Ryder’s interest—and other parts—swelled. A redhead with big tits, the impulse control of a two-year-old, and the sex drive of a teenage boy. She cocked her head, letting her gaze settle on Alexandra’s full breasts. “Exactly what does the rumor mill say about me?”

  Alexandra traced her fingers along the muscled shoulder exposed by her black racer-back tank. “That you are strong and a fantastic rider.” Her hand trailed down and tugged at the waistband of Ryder’s jeans. “Rumors say you can give a lady a good ride, too.” Alexandra’s smile was predatory. “But maybe I should find out for myself.”

  She moved closer, forcing Alexandra to step back. “A lot of rumors aren’t true.” Another step and Alexandra was against the side of the stall. “But I can guarantee that one is.”

  Alexandra lifted her chin, her eyes challenging. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Ryder thrust her hips forward, pinning Alexandra against the oak paneling. She drew the shimmering red hair back and lowered her head so that her words, her breath washed over the pulse throbbing in Alexandra’s neck. “I think I should be the one to judge. I’ve heard a few things about you, too.” Alexandra’s neck arched toward her, as though seeking her kiss. But she denied her, keeping the sliver of distance between skin and lips.

  The tables had turned between predator and prey, and Alexandra whimpered. “What have you heard?”

  She slid a thigh between Alexandra’s legs and pressed against the heat of her crotch. “That you are one bad girl.” She rolled her hips and nipped hard at the plump earlobe. Word around the barns was that this one liked it a bit rough. “Bad girls sometimes need to be punished.” Another whimper, accompanied this time by a deep shudder. “Are you a bad girl, Alex?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “I’m very bad. I cheat on my husband because he doesn’t give me what I need.”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  Alexandra seemed hesitant, her voice breathy. “I need to be spanked. I need to be pulled across your lap and spanked. Then fucked, hard, really hard.”

  She bit down on the soft flesh of Alexandra’s neck and encouraged the jerking hips with her hands. “I can give you what you need. I can redden your ass and fuck you until you can’t sit down.” She abruptly stepped back, leaving Alexandra to thrust against empty air. “But not here. I need privacy and a bit of equipment.”

  Alexandra’s face was flushed, her expression briefly stunned. She stared at Ryder. “I know a place. It has everything we need.”

  *

  “This is good, Bridgette. I like it.”

  Leah surveyed the series of sketches Bridgette had taped to the wall.

  “When I was watching Sure get the best of the larger colt, I thought maybe this could be a lesson on dealing with bullies or a story about learning to accept who you are, use the talents you have, it takes all sizes and types to make a team. Something along those lines.”

  Leah nodded and pursed her lips. “The bully theme is important but a little overdone. I like the team idea. It’s more positive.”

  “I like the teamwork idea, too. I could throw in a soccer ball.” She flipped the pages of her sketchpad to a clean sheet.

  “A soccer ball. I like that.” Leah opened her laptop on the desk and surveyed Bridgette’s drawings again while it booted up. “We could start with the yearlings observing a group of kids playing soccer. Sure is standing at the fence, watching, when his friends join him and they get the idea to snitch a ball and see if they can kick it around.”

  “Gotcha.” Bridgette began to sketch as Leah sat at the desk and typed out the story in her head.

  They both looked up at the sound of a door slamming and footsteps. Leah glanced at the ceiling.

  “Must be Skyler. There’s an apartment overhead that was hers before she moved into the house with Jessica. She’s probably looking for something she left up there.”

  Although Leah and Bridgette both had work spaces in their homes, they found the office in Creek Barn, with the smell of leather and hay all around them, stimulating when creating their popular children’s stories about Leah’s Chincoteague yearling.

  When they offered to donate ten percent of their book royalties to the Young Equestrian Program in exchange for work space, Skyler was happy to share her old office since she mostly worked out of the main office in the house now.

  They heard more bumping above, then giggling.

  Leah paused her typing. “You don’t think it’s some of the older kids, do you? No telling what they’re doing up there.”

  A low moan, then murmuring. Bed springs squeaked and several thumps sounded, like shoes hitting the floor. It was pretty clear that whoever was up there wasn’t rummaging through a closet for lost boots.

  Leah reached for the cordless phone and ran her finger down the list of speed dials taped next to it on the desk. “I’ll call—”

  “That’s right, baby. I’m a bad girl. You need to punish me.”

  Leah growled and slammed the phone down. “That’s not kids up there.”

  Bridgette laughed. “You recognize the ‘bad girl’?”

  A loud slap and squeal, then a low murmur. “I have. I’ve been a very bad girl.”

  Bridgette choked back a laugh and shook her head at the breathy declaration.

  “I should have guessed,” Leah said, shaking her head, too. “That’s Alexandra. I swear that slut will jump anything that’s breathing.”

  “I’m surprised Skyler lets someone like that around with all the kids here in the afternoons.”

  “The only good thing I can say about her is that she has a strict nineteen-or-older rule, and her husband’s a significant donor to the Parker Foundation. As long as the bitch keeps her hands off the kids, Skyler, and Tory, whatever else she does isn’t my business.”

  A rapid series of slaps and squeals had them both covering their mouths to stifle their laughter.

  “Damn, I wish I had a recorder on me,” Leah said. “Sounds like she’s getting exactly
what she deserves.”

  The slapping slowed as the squeals became whimpers, then finally stopped, and Bridgette turned back to her sketch. What she saw when she looked at the blank paper, however, wasn’t horses. She shifted in her chair. She was having difficulty seeing anything other than a woman stretched over the lap of a lover, her pale buttocks marked with red handprints.

  She snuck a sideways glance at Leah, glad to see she wasn’t the only one flushed and shifting in her seat. She took a deep breath and scanned the drawings she had taped on the wall in an effort to fill her thoughts with horses instead of what was going on overhead. Leah began typing on her laptop, and the familiar sound helped Bridgette refocus.

  Then the squeaking started. Random at first, then a steady rhythm. Throaty moans. Definitely Alexandra. Deep murmurs. Not Alexandra.

  Leah clicked her mouse a few times and soft music drifted from her laptop to cover the noise. She resumed typing, and Bridgette began to draw.

  “Harder, fuck me harder. Yes. Pound my pussy with that big thing. That’s it.” A second of quiet, low murmurs, then slapping, but less sharp. Smack, smack, smack joined the bump, bump, bump of the bed against the wall.

  The moaning grew louder, joined by growls and grunts. The sexual symphony drowned out Leah’s soft music.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Leah grabbed a broom that was propped in the corner and used the handle end to thump loudly against the ceiling. “Hold it down up there,” she yelled.

  “Oh, God, oh, God. I’m coming, I’m coming. Don’t stop.” Alexandra’s scream was shrill.

  Bridgette gathered her things. “I’m sorry, Leah, but I can’t work with that racket. My concentration is totally blown.”

  “Yeah. Mine, too.” Leah began shutting down her laptop.

  “Why don’t we meet at my loft tomorrow afternoon and start work on a storyboard?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll try to have an outline and maybe some rough dialogue ready.”

  Leah was locking the office door when footsteps and voices sounded from the stairway.

  “Sorry to hurry off, but I’ve got to go shopping this afternoon before I make nice with some of my husband’s business clients tonight. I hate these dinners, but he pays the bills so I have to play the dutiful wife.”

  “Not a problem. I promised to meet Jess at the pool again to help her with her exercises.”

  Bridgette froze at the sound of the second voice. Ryder? What was she doing here? An injury. She’s a professional rider…I told Sky to call her up and insist she come here to rehab. Crap. She flashed back to the woman riding the white stallion. Of course. That’s why Ryder had seemed familiar when she saw her in the art gallery. She was wearing the same tight black T-shirt, just as she was now.

  “God. I’m glad Edward never wanted children. I don’t think I could stand to be pregnant. It’s so disgusting,” Alexandra said.

  “Jess is beautiful—” Ryder stopped as they emerged from the stairway.

  “Bridgette.” Her face flushed a deep red as she stared at them. “Someone was banging—”

  “That would be me.” Leah’s voice dripped sarcasm. “We were trying to work in the office, but your bad girl’s little punishment session made it impossible to concentrate.”

  “She’s not my…I didn’t know anyone else was here,” Ryder said weakly, her eyes begging Bridgette to understand. “Fuck. It was just a one-time thing.”

  Alexandra looked from Ryder to Bridgette. “Oops. Have I been poaching again?” Her sugar-sweet smile was insincere. “Sorry.”

  She stood on the toes to kiss Ryder’s cheek and run her fingers through Ryder’s hair. “I’m going to have a hard time forgetting you, stud, especially every time I sit down tonight.”

  She hurled Bridgette an arrogant look. “You lesbians really should keep a tighter rein on your butches.” She laughed. “But then, that would spoil my fun, wouldn’t it? Toodles, ladies.”

  “Bitch.” Leah’s growl bounced off Alexandra’s back as she left.

  Ryder took a step toward Bridgette. “I didn’t—”

  Leah moved between them in a protective stance and glared at Ryder. “Obviously you did. We, unfortunately, had front-row seats.”

  “I have to go,” Bridgette said, turning away. She was tossing her art bag into the passenger seat of her car when Leah caught up to her.

  “It’s just a guess, but I get the impression you two know each other.”

  “Yes.”

  Leah was a friend, but she didn’t feel like sharing right now. She was burning with jealousy, but she had no right, no claim. She had sent Ryder away. She had walked away from other women before. She hadn’t blinked an eye when Tory chose Leah over her. So why did she feel so wounded this time? She and Tory had actually dated. She and Ryder had a one-night stand. There was nothing between them. At least that’s what she’d told Ryder. That’s what she’d told herself.

  “Are you two dating?”

  “No.” Bridgette’s laugh was a harsh bark, even to her own ears. “We had a fling. She posed as a model for one of my art classes.”

  Leah looked thoughtful. “Appears like it was more than a fling. You both seem upset.”

  “We had fun. That was it.” She slammed the car door and walked around to the driver’s side. She needed to leave, to be alone to stuff her emotions back into the dark prison where she’d guarded them the past few years.

  But she also knew that Tory was a friend of Ryder’s and it wasn’t fair to let Leah think Ryder had broken any promises. “I was the one who told her one night was all there was between us. I’m just irritated that we couldn’t get more done. I love working on the books with you, but I’ve got a lot of things to do for the auction, too.”

  “I might be able to help you with that. I have some media contacts that could generate some publicity for the event.”

  “That would be wonderful, Leah. We can talk about it tomorrow. Around two o’clock?”

  “See you then.”

  Ryder stood in the shadows of the barn entrance and watched Bridgette drive away. She frowned when Leah spotted her and sauntered over.

  “Well, Romeo, you managed to screw that up royally.”

  “What’d she say?” Even though Bridgette had refused to be with her again, she was always on the edge, sometimes at the center, of Ryder’s thoughts. “She hates me, doesn’t she?”

  Leah studied her and Ryder shifted restlessly under her scrutiny.

  “She’s upset that we weren’t able to get much done. She’s got a lot of demands on her time right now, and your rather vocal tryst with Alexandra wasted the afternoon for her.”

  Ryder hung her head. “What’d she tell you about us?”

  “She said you had a one-night stand. Was it more than that?”

  She stared down the empty driveway. “No. I guess that was it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Bridgette slammed the door and dropped her bag at her feet. She stood in the middle of the loft, filled with uncertainty. She’d never felt so discombobulated.

  Mentally exhausted, she wanted to lie down on her bed and close her eyes to shut out the world. But the touch of silk sheets would only conjure visions of Ryder hovering over her, fierce yet tender, taking and at the same time filling her. No. She wouldn’t go to the bedroom.

  She felt rudderless.

  She’d traveled the world most of her life, as a child with her parents and often alone as an adult. She had no answer when people would ask, “Where’re you from?” Even then, she’d never felt adrift. Her safe place, her home base, was the tranquil center that she could find within herself whenever, wherever she simply sat down and meditated on being still.

  Her balcony was her favorite place to meditate. A tall glass of wine and the sound of the stream trickling below might restore her calm. But her gaze fell on the wine rack and all she could see was the missing bottle she had shared with Ryder while she paged through the sketchpad. No. She could not be still. Not while her c
enter was a tornado of twisting, churning emotions.

  Then it came to her, a vision so pure and sharp that her fingers twitched with urgency.

  Three hours later, the clay figure of a Grecian woman warrior had taken shape, and Bridgette began to carefully tool the details of a full-face helmet, a flowing cape, and a lean, toned physique. If she couldn’t push the thoughts out of her head, then she would let them flow through her artist’s hands.

  Those hands were beginning to cramp now, after hours of frantic work. The sculpture wasn’t completely finished, but she sat back and considered what she had created. Though the figure stood at ease, her subtle shaping of the muscles gave the distinct impression of coiled, barely restrained power. It was good. Very good. Probably the best work she’d done in years.

  Her stormy emotions had calmed, and she put down her sculpting knife to stretch her arms overhead. She was hungry. Ravenous, actually. She had two hours before she had to meet with the auction committee on campus, so she decided to clean up and have a sandwich and latte at her favorite coffee shop downtown.

  *

  Bridgette put in her order and turned to search for an empty table in the busy coffee shop. All were filled, so she glanced at the back area where a short couch and several overstuffed chairs clustered around a coffee table. All seats were taken, but one of the two wingback chairs flanking a small table in the corner of the room was open. She glanced at the other chair, startled when Ryder met her gaze.

  Bridgette had turned to request her order to go when a man at the front of the store stood to leave. Relieved that the table was on the other side of the room, she intentionally settled in a chair that put her back to Ryder. Still, she could feel Ryder’s eyes on her, and her cheeks flushed hot as she flashed back to the spanking and moaning that had filtered down through the ceiling of the barn office.

  She didn’t want to think about that. She needed a distraction. While she waited for her food, she pulled out her notes to compile the agenda for the evening meeting.