Page 9 of Queen Takes Rook
My knee gave a phantom twinge as I remembered the skeleton trying to drag me through the portal in my bedroom. “Everything.”
4
Guillaume
Itried not to twitch my tail with impatience, although I would have loved to snap at the man droning on and on about the different pieces of tack as he saddled me.
Picking up on my irritation, Shara asked in the bond,:Are you sure you don’t mind?:
:Not at all, my queen. You need to learn how the saddle and bridle work so you can ride a regular horse. I simply wish he wasn’t quite so dedicated in telling you everything you could possibly ever wish to know about a piece of leather.:
The new Blood, Itztli, gave a hard tug to tighten the girth one last time. Unnecessarily, because I was no standard horse that would employ such tricks to loosen the girth and risk giving my queen a tumble off to the ground. I picked my rear hoof up and deliberately planted it on the fool’s foot.
I was a hell horse. The smell of brimstone burned my nose, along with the scent of scorched leather.
To his credit, the man didn’t make a sound, even when his boot started to smoke.
“G,” Shara chided.
:Oops.:I picked up my hoof and the idiot moved his foot out of my way. Even better, he received the message loud and clear that I was finished with this lesson.
“May I assist you in mounting, Your Majesty?”
“Of course.”
“On a smaller mount, I’d suggest putting your left foot in the stirrup and swinging up onto his back, but he’s rather too tall.” He bent down and laced his fingers together. “Give me your left foot, and I’ll toss you up. Carefully,” he added that last word hurriedly, sensing our alpha’s unspoken warning.
She picked up her foot, encased in borrowed boots, since we hadn’t thought to shop for riding gear in Dallas, and Itztli gave her a gentle toss up onto my back. Even with the leather separating my sensitive skin from direct contact, her weight brought the nerves in my back to life. I had a warhorse’s instincts. I could feel the tightening of her muscles, the slight press of her thighs and heels as she shifted her weight in the saddle. I would have dearly loved a thinner English-style saddle rather than the heavy Western-style roping saddle they’d used. Bareback would be even better.
I’d had her bareback and bare-ass naked. Once. Having my queen’s bare pussy on my back had been a life-altering experience, to say the least.
“The stirrups are a bit too short,” Itztli said. “Let’s drop them down a notch.”
His brother stepped closer on my other side, their eagerness to touch our queen, even for something so minor as fixing her stirrups, painfully obvious. I watched Rik, his gaze merciless. He didn’t care one whit how desperate they were to be taken by our queen. He’d make them wait as long as possible.
“Stand on the balls of your feet,” Tlacel said, smoothing the leather straps into place. “Let’s test that.”
She shifted her weight to her feet, rising up in the saddle a bit. I could feel the rightness of her balance now. The stirrups had definitely been too short for her.
“Much better. Alright, you can sit back down. Keep your heels down as much as you can, and your… um… seat yourself deeply in the saddle.”
She wriggled her delightful ass deeper into the saddle, and it was all I could do not to nicker with encouragement. She felt my appreciation and laughed, her voice husky. “I didn’t realize that riding a horse had so many similarities to making love.”
:Wait until I canter for you.:
“Pick up the reins,” Itztli said, his voice deeper than before. “Tighten up a little until you can feel the bit in his mouth. That’s how you tell a horse where you want to go, along with shifting your weight or tightening your thighs. It depends on how well the horse is trained, but you can often direct a horse by pushing against his side with the opposite knee. Like you’re pushing him in the direction you want to go.”
She slid the reins through her fingers until she felt the contact with my mouth. By instinct, I arched my neck, ears flickering back and forth, waiting for her command.
“Watch his ears,” Tlacel noted. “He’s listening to you. Ready for you to tell him where and when and how fast.”
She laughed again and stroked my neck. “Yes. Very much like the bedroom. But sometimes a girl just wants the guy to take over.”
If I wasn’t a horse, I would have laughed at Tlacel’s labored breathing, let alone the way he stumbled over his words.
“There are times you’ll want to trust your horse’s instincts rather than your own. For example, picking a path down steep terrain, or at night. They have better night vision than humans, and a horse has an instinctual ability to plant his hooves on the safest path.”
“Horses don’t see well behind them,” Itztli added in a voice so deep and raw that I flicked my tail at him. “They spook easily and whirl to check behind them. Or they balk at something they’ve seen a thousand times. If you feel as though he’s out of control, just pull his head around to either side. Force him in a circle. Eventually he’ll come to a stop, no matter how spooked he is.”
