‘Still sore.’ Matteo smiled. ‘Black and blue...’
‘The doctor said you would bruise.’ Kedah nodded. ‘So do you still want him even after he threw you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Matteo said and then looked back to the stallion. ‘Abby and I were just admiring him.’
At ten minutes to three, two thoughts hit and both unsettled her.
That the horse Matteo had fallen off was a thoroughbred racehorse. What the hell would have possessed him to be riding that?
But she couldn’t dwell on it because another thought was invading.
She wanted to see his shoulder.
Abby, who just pushed down all thoughts of sex, who actually felt sick at the thought of intimacy, suddenly wanted to go back to the hotel and peel off his shirt and touch that bruised skin.
With her mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ Matteo checked, picking up on the sudden tension in her.
‘Sorry?’
‘Kedah was just saying he’d love to come to the race...’
‘Oh!’
‘We’re not allowed to talk to Abby on race day though,’ Matteo warned him.
‘I’d love to be there,’ Kedah said to Abby and then addressed Matteo. ‘If the Boucher team make the podium, you get the horse,’ the sheikh said and they shook hands.
‘Do you bet on everything?’ Abby asked when Kedah had gone.
‘Not everything,’ Matteo said and then he met her eyes and again stopped what he was about to say.
He’d never have put money on enjoying today.
Usually, often, always, he’d be bored by now and would have run out of things to say.
Usually, often, always, he’d be glancing at his phone and wondering if they went back to the hotel now and slept together, then he could drop her back and hit the town with Kedah.
Usually, often, always, he’d have said hi to his sister, stayed for half an hour and then said goodbye.
Instead today felt like the best of days and there was but one reason why.
‘What the hell were you doing riding him?’ Abby asked, tearing her eyes from his gaze and looking back to the magnificent stallion. ‘Do you ride?’
‘Not really,’ Matteo admitted.
‘When you say “not really...”?’ Abby checked.
‘No.’
‘You could have been killed,’ Abby said and she was far from joking. This beast would test the limits of the most experienced rider. ‘Why would you take such a risk?’
‘Do you say the same to Pedro when he stands on the gas?’
‘Pedro’s skilled and trained,’ Abby retorted. ‘You’re a bit tall to be a jockey.’
Her cheeks were that lovely shade of turned-on pink, Matteo thought, and he was quite sure that it had nothing to do with the sun.