Tethered (The Stables Trilogy #2)

Tethered

Penny Lam

Copyright © 2015 Now and Wren Publishing

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

cover design by Katie Pearl

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Chapter One

“This is a bad idea.” J.B.’s hands were pressed to the desk’s surface, fingers flexing into the wood.

The air of the stable was how she remembered. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it was just so different from the rest of the ranch. The smells were familiar; the way all home smells are. For her that meant cattle, manure, and the grease and tang of the tools and equipment. Coffee in the morning. The dry smell of sun in the late evening.

Deyton ranch had all of those smells, too. It provided comfort, wrapping itself like a blanket around her. Except for this stable. There was an extra nuance in here: the stink of bodies. As she and J.B. had entered the stable, it’d hit her. Rank. The smell of feces, sweat, and anxiety.

Maple had gagged.

But this was what she had asked for, and there was no turning back.

She prodded, seeking distraction from her own panicked reaction to the stable.“Why is it a bad idea?”

There wasn’t an answer right away. This was it. Training night. Her insides twisted and her nerves jangled. Maple had been through a lot in her life. This was a new kind of nerves. Usually it was shut doors, the click of manacles locking, the crack of a whip that made her dizzy and afraid.

This was a door opening. Opportunity. Change.

It scared the hell out of her.

J.B. went to the first stall. In it, a petite blond stamped her foot appreciatively. She went to the gate, leaning her head out. J.B. gently stroked the woman’s cheek with his thumb. “Good girl,” he said.

Jealousy flared in Maple.

Logically, she saw no real love in the action. Not in a way that she should be jealous over. It was an absentminded touch. But it was a touch.

Never touch me again. Ever.

J.B. had said that to her. Demanded her promise. They’d never be together. Employer, employee. Those were their roles. Nothing more. Nothing for her to hold onto except the memory of him inside her, of his semen dripping from her eyelashes and collarbone.

“Maple--” he gritted his teeth, “what am I going to do with you?” His shoulders tensed. The hand dropped from the woman’s cheek, only to punch, fast as a whip, into the wood post supporting the stall door. The crack was amplified in the stable’s open space.

All of the women jumped, some whinnying in protest. Maple took a step back, her stomach souring. He couldn’t change his mind-- not now!

He shook out the hand that punched, flexing and unflexing fingers. Red slashes painted his knuckles. An escaped drop of blood hit the cement near his feet.

Maple yearned to take that hand and kiss it. Bandage it. Feel it strike her ass with the same speed and intensity that it had punched the stall.

She didn’t move.

J.B. shook his head and came back to her. She was reminded of his perfection. His calm but sure cowboy gait. The way his jeans slung low around his hips and tight stomach. His shirt was fitted, but so worn the buttons were no longer shiny and the fabric thin in some places, plaid and unassuming. It clung to broad shoulders and tapered at his waist.

What Maple loved the most, though, was his face. She loved the angular cut of his jaw and the tumble of his hair. It was so dark it appeared black in the yellow light of the stable. The curls poked out under the low brim of his cowboy hat. It was getting long now, pulled behind his ears and brushing the collar of his shirt.

And his eyes. His eyes were magic. It seemed as if they could be turned off and on in one moment so cold her blood iced over, and in the next they were tumultuous, a storm of pain and rage. J.B. tried to keep his emotions guarded, but his mismatched eyes-- one blue, one green-- betrayed him.

“Maple, focus!” J.B. had been speaking to her.

“I’m sorry! What were you saying?”

“I was saying that I’m only going to explain this once. We’ve got a lot of work to do. So fucking pay attention.”

Maple wrung her hands.
Already screwing up. Awesome
. She was one step away from being fired. Hell, she had been once already. This was a second chance, and Maple got the impression that J.B. didn’t offer second chances often.

Maybe he doesn’t want to send you away. Maybe he could still want you--

She slammed the door shut on that voice of hope. This was it. She could have J.B. at a distance, cold and impersonal, or she could have none of him. The latter was too unbearable, so she’d suffer the distance. The only way to survive it, though, was to clamp down on hope for a future. It was hope that would lead to rot.

Maple followed J.B. to the first stall again. The small woman inside backed nervously into a corner.

“Whoa, girl,” J.B. said soothingly as he opened her stall. He gestured for Maple to come stand beside him and look in.

There wasn’t a lot of room beside him in the narrow entry space. She stood as close as she dared, close enough that his touch was a ghost brushing her skin. This near, she could smell him. It was blissful agony.

He pointed.

“Each night your job is to muck these stalls as well. Empty and clean the buckets. Shift around the hay. Add more if it is starting to look a little flat. Give’m new hay beds when you think it’s time for fresh. I’ll work with the ponies one by one. After, I’m going to hand them over to you. I want them de-tailed, groomed, and led back to their stalls.”

The words were familiar. If this was any other stable Maple wouldn’t need this level of direction. But it wasn’t. These ‘ponies’ were women, her age and older. They were all beautiful, with bodies like models. Grooming them? Maple was scared to touch them.

J.B. must have sensed her hesitation. “What, Maple?”

“Well… what do you mean by grooming?”

He moved his hand up, hovering at the small of her back. Maple inhaled sharply, her abs tightening, pulling her body away from the hand. It wasn’t that she didn’t want J.B. to touch her. The opposite was true. She wanted it desperately. The electric heat left in the negative space between hand and back was already lighting her on fire.

That’s why she cringed.

J.B. was too good at burning her and then walking away.

“Go on,” he murmured, encouraging her. The hint of Texan drawl seeped into his words. She remembered her first night at the ranch. They had both spoken in the heavy West Texas accent that served them well in public. But that night, behind closed doors, they’d dropped it, revealing their true selves to each other.

The memory hurt. She hadn’t known, then, what an ominous beginning that was for them. J.B. made her masks and walls disappear. She needed those barriers to live.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the stall. J.B. moved in behind her, going to the wall of tack. In each stall there were individual accessories for the women.

“This is Kendra,” he said, coming up to the woman. “I couldn’t sell her last time. She’s slow to break in. But this time,” he added with affection, “I think she’s going to fetch a real good price.”

Kendra didn’t smile, but her eyes widened with pleasure and she did a shuffle, swaying her hips.

It was surreal. Her body language was equine. Her face, hips, and freaking bipedalism… all human.

Kendra seemed so pleased, so at ease next to J.B. Not at all terrified of him. Not clawing inside of her skin with desire (at least none that showed on the surface). She was in perfect control of her body, her emotions. The language and face she presented to the world was one of bliss. A contented, happy pony.

The fresh envy Maple felt was different. Before, she’d hated the women for the affection they received from J.B. And, yes, the punishments and training they received as well. In Maple’s fevered fantasies, there was no greater pleasure than J.B.’s rabid and furious punishments. She’d had just a taste of what he was like when he let himself go. It had been rapturous.

But this… this envy was for the women, the ponies, themselves. They had the level of control Maple could only dream of achieving. Their lives were simpler now. Like the horses Maple had fallen in love with, these women required food, shelter, and a firm hand. In exchange, they offered unconditional love.

No dark secrets.

No hidden desires.

Maple wanted that. She wanted it
badly
.

“Here,” J.B. handed her a brush. A normal, human brush instead of the flat, boar’s hair bristle ones she used on the horses. “You know what this is? How to use it?”

The words were said in jest, as much as J.B.
could
jest, but they stung. He was making this so difficult. Was he hoping she would quit?

“Of course, J.B. I mean, do I run them a bath?”

“No. Just fill their pail with soap and water and wash’m down.”

Now came the big question. “And you mentioned… de-tailing.”

A wicked gleam came into his eyes. “Yes. Turn around, Kendra.”

The blond shifted, turning her back to Maple. Between the seam of her ass cheeks poked a tail. It was long and full, nearly brushing the ground. “I find it’s easiest to brush still in,” he added. J.B.’s eyes were pinned to Maple, scrutinizing, looking for her reaction. Her cheeks flamed as she pictured what he was saying. “After you brush it, remove it gently.”

“From--” Maple stared at the woman’s ass.

“It’s inside of her, Maple.” J.B.’s grizzled voice was a rasp now. The walls of the stall were closing in. Maple’s blood thundered in her ears. The air felt thick and tainted, and she struggled to take deep breaths. “You ease it out and put it in the disinfectant-” he nodded at a bucket nearby, “--then soap her down, rinse her, and dry her off so she doesn’t get cold.”

Head spinning, Maple shuffled out of the stall. She leaned her forehead against the wooden post that J.B. had punched. The stable was large. Huge, really, because the stalls were people-sized instead of horse-sized.

It still felt claustrophobic.

On her first day, she’d wanted nothing more than to know what was in this stable. She thought if she knew that, if she knew what J.B. was hiding, she’d be satisfied.

How wrong she’d been.

More and more questions bloomed in her mind. He said he didn’t fuck them, but surely something sexual was happening here? It had to be, because while Maple had never been interested in other women, there was a black and velvet appeal to what J.B. was describing. The amount of tender care he gave these women. 

J.B. was leading Kendra out. He’d placed a bit in her mouth and a leather harness on her head. The bit connected to the harness via steel rings. The harness was attached to reins, which he used to lead her. His gentle clucking and soothing mannerisms toyed with Maple’s already fragile state.

She looked at the pony and J.B. and was at war with herself.

Her ex, Tony, had convinced her that a true BDSM relationship involved a lot of pain. Abuse. He’d mixed power and pain with her pleasure for so long that the two were indiscernible for her now. Tony had never been tender.

J.B. was tender with Kendra.

That is, until he tethered her and went to fetch a riding crop. As he walked back to the pony, Maple saw that Kendra was trembling slightly. The embedded tail swished behind her in tiny jerks.

Maple knew that feeling. She knew it well.

Anticipation. The skin crackling with electricity as the wait became agonizing.

“You have a job to do, Maple.” He didn’t look at her as he reprimanded her. The message was clear: He was done with her.