The Prince (36 page)

The smile left Nora’s face and she nodded.

“I never thought about it like that. I didn’t know you were in love with me then. Seriously. No clue. Otherwise I would never have done that to you. You have to believe that.”

“I do. At least I want to.”

Nora sighed. “I was so pissed at you that night. The thoughts I had about you, Wesley Railey, would have made Søren blush. The fantasies, the desires…the things I wanted to do to you...I even had this mantra about you I’d repeat to myself when my hormones started to run away with my better judgment.”

“You had a mantra?”

“Look but don’t touch.”

“Nice.”

“So that night you were all mad at me for flirting with Zach…I don’t know. I just wanted payback. You never even hit on me, barely flirted, and yet the second I had another man in my life you acted like I’d punched your puppy.”

“Don’t punch my puppy.”

Nora giggled as she took his hands in hers. The entire kitchen brightened with the sound of her laughter and the low fire in the hearth.

“That’s why I hit on you so hard that night. I wanted to get a reaction from you. That’s all. Just for my sake. Just to prove to myself I wasn’t the only one walking around dreaming of you tied to my headboard while I gave you the sort of blow job most men have to hire out for.”

A blush suffused Wesley from chest to head. “Well, I was the one who had to deal with wall-sex fantasies every time you wore a skirt or dress around the house.”

“Wall sex? You’re into wall sex?”

“I was very into it in my mind.” Wesley’s heart started to beat harder as his whole body remembered his favorite fantasy about Nora. “I thought it would be so hot holding you up with your skirt around your waist and your legs around mine and…damn.”

Wesley had gotten hard just talking about it, and Nora clearly noticed.

“Damn…” she repeated as she pressed her hand flat against his erection. “Too bad I don’t have a skirt on.”

“Who cares?”

At that Wesley brought his mouth down on hers so hard it surprised him. Nora’s arms wrapped around his shoulders as his hands raked down her back and wrenched her panties down her legs. He pushed her back on the table and shoved her legs wide open.

He penetrated her with three fingers liked she’d told him to do, and was rewarded with a gasp of pure pleasure. With his thumb he stroked her clitoris, and Nora arched so high her entire back came off the table.

Never had he heard her pant so hard before. Never had he felt her inner muscles so tight around his hand before. And never ever had he needed to be inside her more in his life.

“Nora…”

“Fuck me, Wes. Right now.”

“Definitely.”

He pulled his hand out of her and opened his jeans. It took a few seconds longer than necessary as the need consumed him, enough to make him clumsy. Nora rolled up and Wesley dragged her to the very edge of the table. He took himself in his hand and pushed into her. As soon as he’d gone as deep as he could go, he wrapped her legs around his back.

“Wes, I’m heavier than I look, remember?”

“Yeah, but I’m stronger than I look.” And with that he lifted her off the table and pushed her into the stone wall by the fireplace.

Nora winced.

“Stone wall—bad idea.” Wesley tried to cradle her closer to him.

“Amazing idea. I like it. Don’t stop.”

Wesley didn’t think he could stop if someone put a gun to his head. He thrust hard into her, harder than he thought he could, and a sound escaped Nora’s lips that was so potently erotic he wished he’d recorded it. He thrust again just as hard and the sound came again. Nora bent her head and bit her teeth into his shoulder. The pain didn’t bother him. It merely made him think he might be doing something right for once.

His mind shut down and his body took over. Wesley ran, he swam, lifted weights and rode big, dangerous horses, and all the strength and power he’d acquired from those activities he used on Nora now, lifting her high, pounding into her harder. Every muscle in his body had gone taut as a high wire. Sounds came out of him, too, grunts and breaths so guttural anyone hearing would think he was in pain. And it was pain…his arms strained to hold Nora up; his back tensed to keep him from letting go and coming too soon. But the pain meant nothing to him. How could it, with Nora wrapped full-body around him, and him so deep inside her he couldn’t go any deeper if he tried?

He kissed her neck, her mouth and ears. She dug her fingernails into his back. With each of Wes’s thrusts up and into her, Nora pushed her hips against his in some kind of primal desperation. He’d never felt so wanted, so needed. Especially as her cries grew throatier, more strained. Her breath came in short puffs through her teeth. He could feel her tighten even more around him...

The cry in his ear rang out sweeter than any melody he’d ever heard. Nora’s climax shook her whole body. She flinched as if in pain, even as he kept driving into her with bruising force. Pounding…he heard the pounding as much as he felt it in his stomach and thighs.

“Wes…” Nora breathed. But he heard nothing else as his own orgasm exploded out of him and into her. The release shook him to his core. And even Nora saying his name over and over again couldn’t mute the pleasure and the power and the surrender to the moment.

Slowly, Nora slid down him and put a tentative foot on the floor as Wesley pulled out of her. Breathing hard, he leaned against the wall, his forehead against the stone.

“What…what’s wrong?” he said as Nora started throwing her clothes on, fast and furious.

“The door. Somebody’s pounding on the door.”

Reluctantly, Wesley opened his eyes and looked at her. He glanced at the clock over the hearth as he started to pull himself together. He looked down at himself.

“Dammit.”

“Yeah, they never put the copious amounts of girl-boy fluids in the romance novels, either. Here.” She tossed him a kitchen towel, and Wesley used it to wipe himself off before zipping up his jeans.

“I’m starting to think those things aren’t very realistic.”

“Don’t ever tell anyone that,” she said as she grabbed one of Wesley’s jackets off the back of the kitchen door and wrapped it around herself like a bathrobe.

With each of them half-dressed, Wesley raced down the hall to the front door of the guesthouse. Middle-of-the-night knocks usually meant only one thing.

He threw the door open and found his father standing outside.

“Who is it?” Wesley asked as Nora came to stand behind him, her hands on his hips.

His father gave her only the most cursory of disgusted glances before looking back at Wesley. “I guess I’m interrupting. Never mind. I’ll take care of it myself.”

“You’re not interrupting, Dad. Who is it?”

“Track Beauty. Coming?”

“What’s going on?” Nora asked from behind him.

Wesley laid his hand on top of hers. “Track Beauty is about to give birth. Can get complicated. One of us always tries to be there.”

“Let’s go, then.” Nora squeezed his hand and started down the hall. “I’ll be right with you.”

As soon as she disappeared, Wesley heard his father sighing.

“Dad, drop it. Nora and I are a fact of life. Get used to it.”

“I’m used to it the way I’m used to my herniated disc. It’s also a fact of life—doesn’t mean I’ve got to like it.”

Wesley kept his retorts to himself. After all, he’d just made Nora come so hard his ears would probably ring for the next two hours. Nothing his dad said or did about her could make a dent in his impenetrable wall of happiness right now.

“Ready,” Nora said as she returned, wearing pants and carrying a T-shirt for Wesley. “I’ve never seen a horse give birth before.”

“It’s nasty and disgusting,” Wesley’s father said as the three of them headed to the waiting pickup truck. “So much placenta sometimes you have to yank the little one out of it. Momma often eats the afterbirth.”

“Fantastic.” Nora grinned from ear to ear. If his dad was trying to scare her off, he had no idea what kind of woman he was dealing with. “I’ll film it for YouTube.”

“Don’t you dare put a Rails horse on the internet,” Wesley’s father said, his voice unnecessarily cold and stern.

“Dad, she was kidding.”

Nora held up her empty hands. “No camera. Promise.” She smiled broadly. Orders delivered in a cold and stern voice tended to have the opposite effect on her than his father had intended.

They arrived at the mare stable in under two minutes. Wesley’s father hopped out of the truck before he’d barely turned it off, and ran straight to the door.

“What’s the hurry?” Nora asked as she trotted next to Wesley, who moved almost as fast. “Doesn’t this take hours?”

“It can. She’s probably been at it for a while, though. But we have to be there in case something goes wrong—you’ve only got minutes to save mare and foal sometimes.”

They entered the barn to the sound of low panting and soft moans.

“That sounds familiar,” Nora said, and Wesley smacked her lightly on the bottom.

At the door to the stall they stopped and looked in. Track Beauty lay on her side in the hay, her long legs wobbling from exertion. Even on the ground, with a distended belly and sweat on her flanks, she lived up to her name.

Wesley entered the stall and found his father and Dr. Fischer, the resident veterinarian, taking the mare’s vitals and conferring.

“What’s wrong?” Wesley asked, kneeling down and gently stroking Track Beauty’s sweat-stained nose. Horses were intelligent animals, although Thoroughbreds tended toward instinct over reason. But usually some awareness shone in Track Beauty’s dark eyes. Now she seemed merely a dumb animal, however. Pain and fear had taken all the perception from her gaze.

“She’s been down there a long time,” Dr. Fischer said. “We need to pull.”

“Poor thing,” Wesley said to the laboring horse. “Can’t imagine how much this is gonna hurt.” Track Beauty’s stomach undulated as the unborn foal struggled inside her.

“What is it, Wes?” Nora asked, her voice soft as a whisper. She might not know anything about horses, but was smart enough to know trouble when she smelled it.

“She’s in some distress. We’re going to pull the foal out.”

“Who’s we?” Nora asked as Wesley disinfected his hands and arms. “Wes?”

“We is me,” he said, deciding in that moment he’d be the one to do it. His father had a bad back and Dr. Fischer was in his sixties. Any minute now every last person who worked on the farm would start to gather outside the stable to await news. Wes wanted to make sure the news they received was good. “Come hold her head, Nora. Beauty’s more comfortable around women than men.”

“Son, I don’t know—”

“It’s fine, Dad. Just back off so Beauty will calm down.”

Dr. Fischer stayed in the stall, but way in the corner where the horse couldn’t see him. Wesley watched Nora tiptoe into the stall and kneel by Track Beauty’s head.

“You know you’ve got options,” Nora whispered to the horse as she stroked Track Beauty’s tangled mane. “IUD…the pill…do they make NuvaRing for horses? Or would that be hula-hoop size? Maybe just abstinence. It’s the only one hundred percent way.”

Wesley laughed softly as he reached down and pushed Track Beauty’s flopping tail to the side and saw the placenta bubbling out.

“No commentary, Nora. Please,” he said as he pushed an arm inside the mare.

“I won’t say a single word,” she pledged as she took the horse’s head in her lap. “Except that this reminds me of my last date with Griffin.”

Wesley reached in deep and found what he sought—a bone-thin ankle. He found another right next to it.

“Keep her still as you can,” he said, glancing at Nora. “I’m going to pull hard and steady, and this is going to get messy.”

Nora nodded as she ran her hand down Track Beauty’s neck in a soothing massage. Wesley came up on the balls of his feet and started to pull firmly and slowly. At first the foal didn’t want to budge, and he feared breaking one of the fragile legs in utero.

“Come on, gorgeous,” Nora said to the mare. “Let him go. Can you push a little for me?” She blew straight on the horse’s face and Track Beauty twitched. The twitch caused just enough of a push that Wesley could finally pull the two ankles out of her. He tore off the placenta and wrapped a towel around the foal’s legs.

Wesley inhaled deeply and started to walk backward, slowly dragging the baby horse with him. It took all his strength not to let go of the slippery legs, and all his gentleness not to grip them so hard they cracked in his hands. After one last tug, the foal’s head came out, along with several gallons of fluid and afterbirth.

Dr. Fischer and his father swooped in quickly with needles and towels. They hovered around the foal while Wesley saw to Nora and Track Beauty.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Nora asked as Wesley toweled his arms off.

“A little gross but not terrible.”

“Gross? Don’t listen to him, gorgeous. You have a lovely vagina, and I’m sure if you do your Kegels, you’ll get your post-baby muscle tone back.”

Wesley couldn’t resist leaning forward and kissing Nora even as his father watched in disapproval. But the disapproval disappeared off his father’s face when the foal started squirming in his first attempt to stand.

“Wow. They walk fast.” Nora giggled as the foal stood up and went down again immediately. Giggled? Nora Sutherlin giggled? Wesley couldn’t believe it. He’d heard her laugh a thousand times, but never had he heard her giggle so girlishly and with such childlike delight. But the foal’s attempts to stand were hilarious and pitiful at the same time.

“That’s a boy there,” Wesley’s father said as the foal finally made it to all four feet and stayed there. He stood by the newborn and ran his hand up and down his coat, checking him for imperfections. With Track Beauty as the broodmare and Farewell to Charms as the sire, there would be no imperfections to be found. “Wonder what to name this guy…”

“Nora should name him, since she was here for it. All Rails horses are named by women. It’s good luck.”

“Well, I’ve named a lot of characters,” she said. “And that guy looks like a character.”

Wesley and Nora watched as the foal took his first tentative steps. Forward two…back one…and back one more…