masculine aroma of a man who’d been moving all morning rising. He hadn’t reached the sweaty stage yet, just smelt like Joel.
She resisted licking his neck. That was good.
Joel broke the easy silence between them. “Ready for your first lesson?”
“If there’s no actual riding involved, I’m as ready as I can get.”
“You’ll be happy to know there’s no actual horses involved either.” Joel stood and held out his hand.
No horses? She was nearly distracted enough by his words to miss that first second of slipping her hand into his.
Nearly, but not quite. She’d spent too much time last night fantasizing about his hands to ignore it entirely. Her fingers vanished into his hand as he curled tight around hers and tugged her down the hall. “We’re gonna start at the beginning. Welcome to day one.”
He stopped beside a boxlike space, one of about ten in a row. Each had a gate at the front made of wooden slats, openings between them. Wood shavings littered the floor and off to one side was an unmistakable pile of crap that stank to high heaven.
Joel let her fingers go to grab something leaning up against the next gate.
The pleased expression on his face when he turned back was the only thing that stopped her from kicking him into tomorrow. Especially when he held out the mystery object—a shovel—and announced, “Lesson one. Cleaning stalls.”
Chapter Seven
Maybe he should have worn a cup. The flash of rage in her eyes shocked him with its intensity.
Then, in the next breath, all was calm. She stared at the floor, her shoulders shaking slightly. “I’ll shovel shit forever to avoid the actual horses.”
Joel grabbed his own shovel. “Well, it might not be the method they’d use at some fancy training school, but you said to teach you what I know. I’ve hung out in these barns since I was little, following my dad and brothers. Taking care of the animals and doing chores. I didn’t start with the big smelly beasts.”
She lifted her head and smiled as she clung to the shovel handle, using it to hold herself vertical. “You gonna call them that all the time now, just to tease me?”
He grinned his answer. “For the next while we’ll take it easy. You got until May to get ready, so there’s no rush, right?”
She eyed the line of stalls warily. “I’m gonna be working full time. I can’t be over here doing your chores every spare moment I get.”
“No, you’re not. ’Cause you and me are also going on the town. Plus spending other time together.” Her pulse quickened—he saw it in the curve of where her neck and shoulder met. Hell yeah, his body tightened as he considered what was coming in the days ahead. “You’re going to get used to the animals slowly, and every time you accomplish the next task, you get a reward.”
His sister-in-law had been right. Everyone liked an incentive, and by the way her eyes lit up, it seemed Vicki was no different.
“What kind of things you got in mind?”
“We’ll make some of them up as we go along. Today? You get this task done and I’ll give you a surprise.”
“You’re not even going to tell me what it is?” Her lower lip was out, and it was so damn adorable he nearly reconsidered.
“I can tell you you’ll like it.” He hoped she’d like it. This part of the planning was worse than figuring out what lesson to give her with the horses.
He wanted to lift her to the top of the railing and consume her like a feast. Kiss her until she gasped for air, hold her squirming self to his body and let her rub all over until his cock gave up aching.
Going slow was necessary for dealing with the horses, but hell if going slow sexually wasn’t going to kill him.
Her nose wrinkled. “Okay, teach me, but don’t try to tell me this doesn’t stink.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Joel showed her where to find the latch to open the gate. He moved a wheelbarrow into position. “Just think. When you go home after a long day of work,