Free Billionaire With a Twist 2 by Lila Monroe

and she clopped
right up to the bars and gently lipped them, as if saying hello.
    “Ah, I see I can’t keep the
jewel of the crown away from you,” Homer said from behind me.
    I started. How long had I been standing
in one place, entranced by this beautiful mare? Hunter was already
leading his horse out the door, and he grinned back at me with a
playfully challenging air.
    “Want to ride?” he asked.
    I waved him off, shaking my head. “Nah,
they don’t need footage of me.”
    Hunter mounted his horse in one smooth
motion, the muscles of his back rippling. “Your loss.”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” I
said. “The view from this angle is no loss at all.”
     
    #
     
    Hunter put on an
excellent show. It was a good thing there were other professionals
there, because there were several moments when I became too occupied
with drooling to do a single damn thing. His glistening skin under
the hot sun, the way his shirt stretched over his muscled torso, his
firm but gentle hold on the reins…what can I say? There’s
just something really hot about good horsemanship.
    Even as everyone else wrapped up,
Hunter seemed reluctant to leave. Finally, when it was just the two
of us and one actor scarfing down the leftover sandwiches from craft
service, I rolled my eyes and went over to him. “Come on,
Hunter, we still need to sign the last of the paperwork.”
    “It’ll keep ‘til
tomorrow,” he said.
    Despite his words, he had started
trotting towards the stables, so I assumed he was going along with
the plan when suddenly, he just stopped.
    I stopped too, and looked up at him.
    “Well, I don’t know what
you’re looking at me for,” he said. “I’m the
one waiting for you.”
    “Waiting for me to do what?”
I asked. “Develop telepathy?”
    He grinned, and guided his horse in a
quick little circle around me. “Come on, I saw you eyeing that
mare. You had a horse phase as a little girl, admit it.”
    “It was hardly a phase—”
I started.
    “There’s no shame in it. I
understand most girls have a horse phase, or a wolf phase. Sometimes
a dragon phase, is that true?”
    “You know what’s not hot?”
I shot back in my best monotone. “How well you know the psyches
of little girls.”
    He smirked. “Come on, Ally!
Saddle up. You don’t know what you’re missing!”
    “I do, actually,” I said,
“but some of us have responsibilities—”
    “I’ll show you the ropes,”
he offered. “Take it nice and easy on you, I promise.”
    Did he just…
    He did just.
    Oh hell no.
    “Excuse me?” And with a
raised eyebrow I walked into the stables and to the stall of that
gorgeous mare, opened the door, and mounted her in a single smooth
motion.
    In fairness to Hunter, he was outside
and didn’t see that, so it wasn’t entirely condescending
when he started to try explaining how to control the animal: “Now,
you want to imagine that your body and the horse’s are one—”
    On the other hand, I’d never been
much for lectures on subject matter I already knew, even from guys so
hot they could make the sun explode.
    So I cut the matter to the chase by
running a ring around him and jumping three fences in a row.
    You know, beginner stuff.
    Then my mare and I galloped away,
leaving Hunter in the dust, before wheeling to a stop atop the hill.
I laughed out loud in exhilaration, the wind rifling wildly through
my hair, the air muggy and hot and scented with ripe earth and pine
needles and promise.
    And why shouldn’t I be
exhilarated? If Hunter knew anything about my mom, he should have
realized that she would have insisted on a proper young lady having
knowledge of the equine arts, a.k.a. horseback-riding lessons since I
was three.
    Hunter was currently at the bottom of
the hill, gape-mouthed.
    “What’s the matter, Richie
Rich?” I called back. “Can’t keep up?”
    He grinned a grin of pure joy, and
spurred his horse after me.

 

EIGHT
     
    The more time I spent here, the more
gorgeous it grew.
    Or