“This was always one of my favorite parts of the estate,” Max agrees. “If I hadn’t been pushed into the priesthood, I would have asked my father to have me oversee the wine business. I always had an interest in it.”
“So your family has a wine label, as well as producing grapes?”
Max nods. “We have quite a few bottles in the wine cellar. One of these nights, we’ll do a tasting. How does that sound?”
“That sounds like fun.” Itdoes, but I wonder just how good of an idea it is to get tipsy on wine with Max, late at night alone in some part of the huge old house. “We can play the same game we did at the bar that night.”
Max chuckles. “Pick your poison, just with wine instead of liquor.”
“Exactly.” I resist the urge to loop my arm through his as we walk back to the Rover, and a small twinge of regret pings through me. I wouldn’t change what happened between us, but a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to do so. It would have been casual, between friends–but now any touch, any closeness, feels laced with meaning and danger that it didn’t have before. We created abeforeandafterwhen we slept together, and we can’t ever go back to how things were before we crossed that line. I can’t touch Max casually any longer. It feels like a loss–like all that’s happened recently is that I’ve lost more and more of what we had, a careful wall erected between us.
Max points out other features of the property as we drive towards the stables–a large pond that could almost be a lake, a greenhouse surrounded with manicured gardens, and a trail leading away from the stables to more of the property beyond, more untamed but suitable for riding through.
“Have you ever ridden before?” he asks casually as he parks the Rover in front of the barn, and I shake my head, laughing.
“Absolutely not,” I tell him between giggles. Just the idea that I would have ever had an opportunity like hat hilarious to me somehow. “I’ve never eventoucheda horse.”
“Well, we’ll start with that,” Max says with a smirk. “And then, when you’re a bit better and feeling stronger, we’ll go out on a ride together. Maybe in the arena at first, and then out on the trails.”
“I bet I could pick it up quickly.” I slip out of the Rover as he opens the door, landing on the dirt a few inches in front of him, and for one brief second, I hear him suck in a hiss of a breath, and his eyes land on mine. Ifeelthe tension in him, and it takes me a moment to understand it, but when I do, I can feel the heat flare between us, everything grinding to a halt for a moment.
Max on his back in my bed, head sinking into the pillows, black hair tousled around his face–
His hands reaching up to cup mine as I looked down at him, his expression taut and needy with desire as my thighs tightened around his hips, sinking down onto him–
The sound of my name on his lips as I felt him fill me up, as I moved atop him, my fingers tangling with his and holding his hands above his head, pleasure dragging through us both, over and under, until it consumed us–
Max clears his throat, turning away as he gestures to the barn. I can see a flush at his collar, a quick pulse beating at the edge of his throat, but I pretend not to. I pretend not to know what we were both just thinking about, what a simple comment had reminded him of so easily.
Inside, the barn smells earthy, like hay and warm fur and sweet grain, and I breathe in, feeling an odd sort of comfort in the cool, dimmer light of the aisle. I hear the sounds of the horses whickering as several of them come to the edges of the stalls, curious as to whether or not anyone is bringing them something.
“Hang on a second,” Max says, and he opens a door to our right, slipping inside before returning with a handful of small, wheat-colored squares.
“You can give them treats if you like.” He hands one of them to me. “Watch me first. Most of them are fine to approach, just be careful, and stop if I tell you to. I’m sure there’s some here now that I don’t know as well.”
There’s a pretty horse in one of the first stalls, light-reddish with a white stripe down its face, and it stomps a hoof as I step closer. “Is this one fine?” I ask, and Max nods, grinning.
“Basil is a good boy. Here, watch how I give him a treat.” He palms one of the squares, holding his hand out palm-up with his fingers curved slightly backward, giving the horse a flat surface to eat off of. “You just want to be careful of your fingers. They get too excited sometimes, and you might lose one.”
“Really?” I blanch, watching as Basil mouths the treat off of Max’s hand, and he chuckles.
“Probably not. But it’s better to be safe. Here, you try.”
He moves out of the way as I approach Basil, but I can still feel his presence hovering at my back, warm and solid. “Just hold out your hand gently,” he encourages from behind me. “He’s the least likely to grab it too fast and accidentally bite you.”
A shiver of nerves goes through me as the horse shakes his head, clearly eager for the treat in my fingers, but I’m not about to turn tail and run from something as easy as this should be. I try to mimic what Max did, flattening out my hand and curving my fingers backward as Basil snorts and stretches out his nose, velvety lips skimming over my palm as he mouths the treat up, crunching it as he backs away.
Stupid as it seems for such a small thing, I feel a flush of victory as I turn to face Max with a grin plastered across my face, and I see that he’s smiling too.
“See? Not so scary,” he says, handing me more of the small squares. “We’ll have you out on the trails in no time.”
We make our way down the aisle, Max pointing out the horses that he knows are safe for me to feed a treat to, and by the time we reach the other side of the barn, I can’t remember what I was so afraid of.
“Can we really go for a ride?” I ask, and Max nods, chuckling.
“When you’ve had a little more time to recover, sure. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden, too, but I’ve no doubt it will all come back to me.” He lets a tall, rangy-looking black horse lip up the last treat off his palm and then dusts his hands off onto his pant legs, leaving a bit of grainy residue behind. “Should we go back up? I’m sure you need some rest, and Giana will be thinking about lunch before too much longer.”
I nod, although the last thing I want is to go back and rest. I’m sure Max has other things to do, though, besides squire me around, and I don’t want to be a burden to him.