The Riding Master (6 page)

She stabbed at one of her rolls with her chopsticks. “This is the real me.”

“No, it’s not.” He scooted two rolls onto his plate. “You keep people at a distance, but I’m hoping I can break you of that habit.”

“I’m not a horse, Trent. I don’t need to be broken or gentled or anything else.” She dropped the seaweed-covered roll back on her plate, her appetite suddenly usurped by her aggravation.

“On the contrary,” Trent argued. “People are very much like horses, and horses are very much like people.” He pointed a chopstick at her. “You remind me of the mare I just sold. She was always guarded, hesitant of every new adventure, and resisted me at every turn. If I rode her too hard, I would frighten her, and if I was too gentle, I would lose her interest. Took me a while, but I won her over.” He angled closer to her. “And I plan on doing the exact same thing with you.”

Rayne grabbed for her sake, needing the alcohol to squash the lust pulsing through her. Unexpected images of Trent’s muscular body riding her naked from behind kept popping into her head. 

“You all right?” Trent queried, cutting into her fantasies. “You look flushed.” He plucked the cup of sake from her hand. “I think you’ve had enough of this.”

Rayne poked at the sushi rolls on her plate with her chopstick. What was happening to her? It was as if her best intentions were being usurped by an intense carnal desire, the likes of which she had never experienced. Rayne just hoped that when their evening ended her disturbing feelings would go away. But in the back of her mind she wondered if that was possible. As long as Trent Newbury was in her life, Rayne had a sneaking suspicion that her lust for the man would continue to haunt her, and could make the coming days and weeks at the stables very…uncomfortable.

Chapter 4

After dinner, Trent drove Rayne home, keeping the conversation focused on her riding, Bob, and her students. Rayne had been thankful for the reprieve from his previous line of questioning. But when they strolled down the dimly lit walkway toward the white door of her red-bricked bungalow, Rayne’s anxiety returned.

Pretending to fumble for the keys in her purse, her mind flew through a plethora of excuses to avoid letting Trent inside.

“Give me your keys,” he directed as they climbed the three bricked steps to her front porch. “I’ll get your door.”

Unable to come up with a reasonable reason not to, Rayne handed over her keys. After he had opened her door, he waited for her to go inside.

Rayne stood in her entryway, hoping he would give her back her keys and insist he should be on his way. But instead of handing her the keys, he shut her front door and walked through to the open living room. Rayne sighed as she placed her purse on a round, intricately carved wooden table to the side of the entryway.

“Where’s Frank?” he called from the living room.

Rayne stepped through the arched living room entrance and motioned to a hallway to her right. “Probably in my bed. He sleeps with me at night.”  

Trent turned to her, but said nothing. He didn’t have to…his intentions were written over every inch of his devious smile. He tossed the keys in his hand to her kidney-shaped glass coffee table.

Eager to find something else to do, Rayne went to her kitchen. Stepping behind the beige granite breakfast counter that divided the living room from the kitchen, she dashed to an oak cabinet above the sink and stretched for two old-fashioned glasses.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“No.” Trent came up behind her. “I’m not thirsty.”

Rayne replaced one of the glasses in the cabinet. “Well, after all that soy sauce with dinner, I sure am. Didn’t know that—”

Trent pried the glass from her hand and put it on the countertop. “You’re not thirsty, Rayne.”

When she faced him, he slipped one arm around her and tilted closer until her lips were inches from his.

“This isn’t a good idea, Trent. You and I have to work together, and if….” Her resistance was fading along with her voice.

“I really don’t give a damn about our working together at this very moment.” He slid his other arm behind her. “And neither do you.”

“You’re wrong about that.” She trembled, afraid of what was about to happen. “I do care.”

But the intoxicating aroma of him, the heat of his skin, and the liquid color of his eyes quickly snuffed out any defiance Rayne had left in her.

“Why are you shaking? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“It’s just been so long…I’m not very good at this.”

“Do you want me to stop, Rayne?”

She bobbed her head.

His lips veered closer. “I don’t believe you.”

She was about to open her mouth and protest when he kissed her. The instant his lips touched hers, she wanted to push him away and retreat to her bedroom, but then something happened. Rayne began to return his kiss. She ran her hands up his back, and as she crushed her breasts to his chest, her lips parted.

His kisses were electric, eliciting feelings she had never known. She felt as if she was on a roller coaster, terrified and thrilled all at once. The air grew thin, her heart raced, and her legs felt weak. Then, a powerful longing shot up from somewhere deep inside her. It was like a sudden wave of pure desire creeping into every facet of her being. Foster had never done this to her. No man had.  

He broke away, breathing heavily against her cheek. “Christ, you feel good.”

Rayne struggled to stay upright. “Ah, you don’t feel so bad yourself.” She tried to back out of his arms but was blocked by the kitchen counter.

Trent ran his finger along the outline of her jaw. “You’re adorable.” He took her hand and led her from the kitchen.

Her heart thudded as he walked into the living room. When he spied the hallway that led to her bedroom, Rayne trembled once more. Trent must have sensed her fear, because instead of leading her to the bedroom, he guided her toward the front door.

In her entryway, he let go of her hand. “I’d better get out of here before I do something…stupid.” He took a breath while contemplating her eyes. “I’ll be busy with a job in Dallas all week, but I will see you next Saturday at the stables. Saturday night you can come over to my house, and I’ll cook you dinner.”

Rayne nodded in agreement.

“Do you like Italian?”

She nodded again.

He wrapped an arm about her waist. “Get some sleep.”

When he kissed her again, Rayne felt that overwhelming yearning rising up once more. But before she could respond, Trent withdrew, putting his hand on her fancy brass doorknob.

“Good night, Rayne.” He gave her one last smile, stepped outside, and then quietly shut her door.

Rayne stood in her beige and white entryway and touched her fingers to her lips. “Damn.”  

Still reliving his kiss, she went about the house, locking doors and turning out the lights. By the time she entered her bedroom, Rayne was fretting about their next meeting. When she saw him again, how should she act, what would she say?

“Stop acting like a sixteen-year-old girl,” she loudly chided, making a brown, furry face look up at her from the bed. Frank was lying sprawled out over her gray and white comforter on her queen-sized brass bed.

“What do you think I should do? See him again, or nip this in the bud now?”

Frank plopped his head back down on the bed and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

Walking into her bathroom, Rayne determined that it would be in her best interest to call the whole thing off with Trent before it interfered with her life at the stables. She could not afford to have her students, along with Selene, whispering behind her back. And when the relationship ended—Rayne was thoroughly convinced that it would—she would be left embarrassed and insecure at the one place she had considered a sanctuary.

“Next weekend, I’ll talk to him.” She stood before her beige vanity, plotting her strategy. “I’ll very calmly explain that we can’t be more than friends. It isn’t professional. It isn’t wise, and it certainly isn’t healthy, at least not for me.”

But you know you want to see him again. That kiss….

Rayne shook off the notion. “No, this is for the best. I’m better off without a man.” And then her body slouched against the beige countertop. “Damn it, who am I kidding? That was the best kiss ever.”

***

The next morning, Rayne rose from her bed feeling more confident that she could push Trent Newbury away. Sure it had been a great kiss, but she was convinced that it was just a kiss and not the basis for a relationship.

“He’s just not worth the bother,” she told her reflection in the mirror as she applied her makeup for work.

In the kitchen, she was enjoying a few moments with her morning cup of coffee as Frank ate his breakfast when a jazzy ringtone blared from the entranceway. She hurried to her purse on the table by the front door and retrieved her cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Did you sleep well?”

Rayne came to a standstill in her entryway when she heard that seductive voice. “Trent? How did you get my number?”

“From Rebecca. I always keep the phone numbers of all my instructors on file.”

“Oh, ah…I…,” she stumbled. “Yes, I did sleep well. How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t,” he sighed into the phone. “I kept thinking about you.”

Shaking her head, she shot back, “Please, you expect me to buy that line?”

“You’re cranky in the morning.” His exuberant chuckle rolled around inside the hollows of her heart. “Admit it. You spent the night thinking about me.”

She walked back to her kitchen. “You would love to hear me say that, wouldn’t you?”  

“You think about me, Rayne, but you’ll never admit it to me. I have at least learned that much about you.” 

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Trent.”

“Yes, but I am willing to dedicate hours of study, going over every detail of you.”

“That sounds dangerous,” she admitted with a twinge of alarm in her voice.

“Having doubts about us already?”

Swiping her coffee from the kitchen countertop, she grumbled, “One kiss hardly makes an ‘us.’”

“Hell of a kiss though.”

Rayne racked her mind looking for a cute comeback, but came up blank.

“I’ll take your silence to mean I was right about the kiss,” Trent smugly returned. “Don’t be so fast to look for excuses to get rid of me, Rayne. You haven’t tried my spaghetti sauce yet.”

She stared into her black coffee as her reservations about Trent intensified. “I think this is a mistake. We have to work together at the stables and there might be a lot—”

“I had a hunch that you would be talking yourself out of seeing me again. That’s why I called.”

“Well, now you know how I really feel about this…situation.”

“That’s not what your kiss told me last night.”

Rayne’s grip tightened on her iPhone when she thought of his kiss.

“You have a good day, Rayne. I’ll call again.” He hung up before she could get in a smart reply.

“Damn it!” She tossed her cell phone to the kitchen counter. “Just when I had put him out of my mind, he calls and it starts all over again.”

Fed up, she dumped her mug of lukewarm coffee in the sink, grabbed her cell phone and dark blue backpack from the kitchen counter, then trudged to the back door.

The best way to get her mind off the man was by spending a long day at work. Being buried beneath a pile of pending blood samples and running a flurry of tests was the best medicine she knew to forget about that goddamned kiss.

***

The square gray office building of Reynolds Medicine Group was home to four internal medicine physicians and two nurse practitioners who cared for patients with a host of conditions.

Rayne parked her gunmetal gray Toyota Highlander in her usual spot by the corner of the lot, next to a wide oak tree that provided enough shade to keep her car cool beneath the hot Texas sun. Glancing down the street to the sprawling Medical Center of Lewisville, Rayne was glad she had stayed out of the hospital setting when she returned to work after her divorce. It was hectic enough being pulled in every direction in a busy clinic, but the demands of a big hospital would have been too stressful for her. She liked being the only lab technician for Reynolds Medicine Group; in fact, she preferred working alone. For Rayne, people were difficult; horses were easy.

While rushing toward the glass entrance with her backpack slung over her shoulder, Rayne found it odd how she could recall the name of every horse she had ever ridden for Rebecca, but could not remember any of the individuals she had worked side-by-side with at Greer Laboratories.

“Hey, Rayne.” A heavyset secretary whose name always eluded Rayne waved from the front desk as she hurried through the pastel blue reception area.

Walking past the double doors that led to the patient exam rooms, Rayne made her way to the end of a narrow white corridor. The last door on the right had a large red sign with Employees Only in bold red letters. She eased the door open and stepped inside.