Free Ride 'Em (A Giddyup Novel) by Delphine Dryden Page A

Logan—navigate that particular set of feelings. On the whole, she didn’t like it. It didn’t feel like justice at all.
    She nodded in Ethan’s direction. “Gee, he seems nice.”
    Logan rolled his eyes and shook his head. “He’s fine. He can be a jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t mean any harm by it. Mostly he just thinks he knows best about people and feelings and he wants it to all be out in the open. Thinks that’s easier.”
    “He’s not necessarily wrong.” But . “Did he think we have something going on that needs to be out in the open?”
    He chuckled sheepishly and took his hat off, rubbing his hand over his hair. “Uh, maybe? I might have . . . expressed some frustration in a way that led him to believe that was a possibility. Not on purpose, he just picks up on stuff. He always has. And once he found out I was kinky, too, it only got worse.”
    “Too? Oh . . . the restraint thing. I get it.” Kinksters everywhere. First Logan and Robert, now Ethan. It was turning out to be quite the kinky dude ranch.
    “He’s really good with ropes. If you ever know anyone who likes to be tied up, he really seems to know his stuff.” He flipped his hat a few times with his fingertips, then popped it back onto his head.
    “Okay, he’s your brother, though,” she pointed out, “so this is kind of a weird area.”
    “For you and me both. You have no idea. He’s really not great at boundaries.”
    Mindy recalled Ethan as a brilliant student, but one of those kids who always seemed to contain too much energy for the space they occupied. She didn’t know if it was hyperactivity or what, but he’d always been either literally bouncing off the walls, or so absorbed in a project that he tuned everything else out. His Future Farmers of America animals always won prizes, though—his name was often on the school marquee for that, or in the local paper—so she wasn’t surprised he’d become a vet.
    Logan had his phone out, scrolling, frowning at the screen. After a second he realized she was looking at him, and he started to put it away then shrugged and turned the screen toward her. “For what it’s worth.”
    A series of minus signs. He was indeed as disease-free as the app could prove. After a second of consideration she pulled her phone from her pocket, pulled the app up, and let him see her results. Why, she wasn’t sure. Because they weren’t angling to sleep with each other or anything. That would be wildly inappropriate. But it was good to know they’d both been telling the truth.
    “He’s not wrong,” she repeated as she put her phone away. “It is better to have things out in the open.”
    Logan seemed to consider it a second, then nodded. “Right now, I think it’s time to be open about being hungry as fuck, and head in to dinner.”
    She smiled. “I’ll be open about needing some Tylenol and a hot bath. I’m beyond saddle-sore. It’s so tragic.”
    “Been too long?”
    “Waaaayyy too long.”
    “Now you’re just teasing.” He chuckled and gestured for her to lead the way up to the main house.
    She had been teasing—she didn’t seem able to help herself. And she had been open about the saddle-soreness, but she felt like she was being secretive about everything that mattered most.
    * * *
    So much jerking off . Logan was considering writing a little song about it, something he could sing to himself like a mantra to calm the insanity.
    Once last night, shortly after the guests were tucked in for the evening. He’d made a beeline for his room and the private sanctity of his bathroom, and it was just lucky for him Robert had turned out the lights and locked up. Then a nearly wet dream around two in the morning. He’d woken before the critical moment, thought, Fuck it , and finished things off with his hand and a crystal-clear image of that whole scene in the kitchen—only with Mindy naked, her perky butt crosshatched with red from a switching.
    By the time he’d hit the shower at 5