Page 12 of His Wilde Little
“That’s good news, but I’m not riding a horse.”
“Not yet you’re not, but eventually, I’ll have you in a saddle and you’ll be having the time of your life,” he said.
I chuckled. “I’ve had the time of my life in less,” I quipped. “We’ve got like seven months until the event my dad wants them paraded around for, you think they’ll be ready for that?”
He shrugged. “It depends on the seed, if he’s trying to stud them out, he’ll need to prove they’re worth it.”
I didn’t like to think of the reason my dad had nearly begged to take the rescue horses in. I didn’t know when he’d concocted the idea of getting some male horses in to turn a profit, but since he met Lorenzo at the last Saddle Up event, I was sure it had something to do with it.
“So, whenever you get a minute, I could use your hands,” he said.
“I’m busy, but maybe you’ll want to help me in the meantime,” I suggested. “I know people are going to get a little too handsy with the alpacas and get spit on, you could be the warning sign.”
He nodded and sighed, looking around. “It doesn’t seem too busy, but since I’m dealing with alpacas that spit, you’ll be able to deal with horses.”
Fuck. He was a mind reader… although, it wasn’t like I’d been secret about my horse phobia. “Except horses bite a lot harder, and they kick.”
Lorenzo just smiled, it was unsettling.
“What are you looking at?”
“You’ve got something on your neck,” he said. It’s where his eyes had been darting to. I’d just assumed he was looking at my lips the way I had been looking at his.
Quickly rubbing both hands at my neck. “Did I get it?”
He reached in close, his warm hand against my skin. He plucked a pink sparkly star sticker from my skin. “Just this,” he said.
I took it from his fingertips. “How’d that get there?”
“I don’t know, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say you were laying in a pile of glitter,” he said.
“I wish. I’d be all glowing and sparkly.” Although as much as the idea was fun, it was not something I wanted to put into practice. Glitter was not something you wanted to mess around with. One wrong move and it went everywhere, never to leave your body ever again. “If you want, you can keep this one.” I held the star sticker out on a fingertip, and he accepted it with his finger.
“Maybe those darned alpacas will respect me if they smell you on me,” he said, applying the sticker to his jacket.
I didn’t know if he’d meant for his words to sound like that, but since he’d said it, I was stuck in a pattern of thought where our bodies were mashing together as if that was the only way of exchanging scents on each other. I wondered if he thought it would help me around horses too, but that would mean he’d have to give me something in return. And if he knew anything about me, it was that I was thegood boydeserving of a sticker for my chart—or body.
Lorenzo strutted away and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
He was a distraction.
This was a huge problem.
6. LORENZO
In some ways, it felt like I was playing with Jace. He had this confidence about him that shattered and disappeared when I stared at him for a little bit too long. It felt like I was breaking in a new kid, except this one was twenty-seven with facial hair, and the type of scowl that appeared to say he already knew everything he needed to know.
We worked together to prepare the stables for the incoming horses. He still didn’t let Mary eat from his hand, and I had to tell him it was a sign of respect for a horse to eat from a hand, instead of throwing it into their stall and hope you don’t wallop them on their head or hind.
Chugging back a large bottle of water, Jace stood up straight, propping him on the stall door.“Ok, I’ve laid down new hay bedding and cleared all the webs.”
“Good, let’s move onto the other.”
He shook his head, pulling his hat away and swiping the sweat dripping from his hair back across his head. “Now I know why my dad plays up about his back.”
I stood and pushing the fallen sleeves up from around my wrists. “And here I thought you were able to do this alone,” I teased. “You know, I bet I go grab Diane and she’d come clean out the other stall.”
“Oh, ok, that’s rude,” he said, rolling his sleeves up. “Diane would probably spend the entire time ogling you and saying something that will have you second-guessing the whole reason you came here.”
