CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MY PROCLIVITIES
I came home in the early afternoon, some days later, to find her riding.
As soon I found out where she was, I headed straight there, not even bothering to change out of my suit.
Our female horse trainer, Cosette, was with her in the corral, helping her tweak her legwork.
Joseph was there.
He was leaning against the fence post, elbows on the top rail, watching them train.
I approached the corral, but kept walking when I reached it, moving into the tack room. I grabbed the first riding crop I saw, and headed back outside.
I went to lean beside him, eyes on Bianca posting, a fucking indecent sight, and began to slap the crop against my palm.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye, saw when he caught what I was doing, was aware of his jaw clenching, fists balling.
I smiled, turning my head to catch his eye.
He looked back at me, clearly agitated.
"Beyond your ability to break," I reiterated my words from days earlier softly, succinctly.
Temper flared in his eyes, but he held his tongue, unfortunately.
I moved away from him, entering the corral, striding across the large space to where the women worked.
Cosette stood at the center of the enclosure, calling out instructions to Bianca. You could tell just with a few words between them that the women were close. There was much affection and camaraderie in the way she coached my wife.
Cosette was a diminutive woman, delicately built, somehow able to use that small frame of hers to do some of the most skillful riding I'd ever seen, controlling powerful animals with a flick of her wrists.
I'd hired her two years ago, at Pete's referral, when I'd realized that there was no way in hell I'd allow Pete to teach my wife how to ride.
He'd sworn at the time that Cosette was the best, and he'd been right.
She turned to smile at me as I approached. She was a beautiful woman, with delicately defined features, her streaky hair cut into an edgy bob, short in the back and sides, with long straight bangs that framed her face and emphasized her high cheekbones.
"We're finishing up now," she told me. "She's making great progress."
I just nodded, turning to watch my wife, still slapping the crop against my palm.
Bianca guided her horse my way. "You're going ruin another suit," she said, smiling at me.
I smiled back. "Yes, yes, I am."
She had no idea.
"Come here," I said to her, lowering the crop to my side so it wouldn't spook the horse as she walked it closer.
I grabbed her leg with my left hand, sliding my crop up to tap her shoulder with the other. I used a light pressure on it to guide her down to me.
She leaned down until our mouths were touching. I thrust my tongue into her hot wet mouth, moving the crop down her back to play over her ass teasingly.
Eventually I pulled back, tucked the crop into my belt, and dragged her down from the saddle, pressing her against me.
I looked at Colette. "We'd like to have the stables to ourselves, for a bit."
She was unfazed. She'd been working here a while. She knew how we were. "Of course. I'll leave you to it."
I turned my head, hand rubbing over Bianca's back. Joseph was still at the fence, still watching, the brazen bastard.
My hand moved down to her ass and squeezed hard. Mine.
"He should not be watching you do this," I told her quietly, voice hard.
She stiffened, turning her head to look. "Joseph? What are you talking about? He's just doing his job, patrolling the property."
I tried hard to control my breathing and my tone. "So he's just passing by. He wasn't watching your entire lesson?"
She paused and I gnashed my teeth.
"I guess he has been. I barely noticed. He's harmless."
Gnash gnash gnash.
"Go wait for me in the tack room," I told her, kissing her on the forehead and thrusting her in that direction.
I headed the opposite way, moving until I was standing a few feet from the bane of my existence.
I pulled the crop out of my belt and started slapping it loudly against my palm. I didn't bother to mask my expression to him, and I knew what it looked like—Savage.
Uncivilized.
Slap, slap, slap.
"Enjoy the show?" I asked him, tone pointed and biting.
He didn't answer, just moved his eyes from my face to my hands, up and down.
Slap, slap, slap.
"Did you watch her entire lesson?"
Silence.
Slap, slap, slap.
"Do you always watch her ride when I'm not home?" I asked.
He took a deep breath, but still, silence.
Thwack! The crop struck the fence suddenly, right next to his hand.
"You will answer me. That's an order."
He curled his lip at me. "Not always, but often. And yes, I watched the entire lesson, and I did enjoy the show."
My nostrils flared as I sensed my victory. I was nearly as elated as I was furious.
He looked as close to losing his temper as I felt.
"Well, soak it up," I told him, voice low and mean, "because it is the last fucking time. You are never to watch her ride! If I hear you've even come within a hundred feet of the stables while she's training, I'll have you thrown off the property. Understood?"
I thought for one happy minute he was going to snap, to say something I could use in my case against him, but unfortunately he did not.
Instead, he opened his mouth once, snapped it shut, nodded curtly, and strode away.
I joined her in the tack room, still slapping the crop restlessly against my palm.
My voice was thick with lust. "Pull down your pants and lean over, palms on the wall."
My suit was ruined by the time we were done. Custom-made suits were not designed with stable fucking in mind. They certainly weren't made for rolling around in the straw, wrestling, getting down on all fours in the dirt, fucking like animals, the list went on and on.
The ruination of this suit had been absolute and absolutely worth it.
She could barely walk from the stable to the house. She had to lean on me heavily the entire time.
She'd be sore tomorrow, as much from the rough, excessive fucking as the spanking.
We had dinner plans with Stephan and Javier. I'd almost forgotten, until I saw them waiting for us on the back porch.
Clark was with them, chatting and laughing. Blake was there too, I saw.
And Joseph.
Stephan started shaking his head as we got closer. "I won't ask," he called out, a laugh in his voice.
"That's for the best," I told him. "We'll be down for dinner in thirty. We need a shower. We're both filthy." My eyes went to Joseph for that last bit, and I smiled coldly when I saw him visibly flinch.
That jab must have really gotten to him because the next day he made a point of seeking me out, his intention clearly to give me a piece of his mind.
He found me in my study at the house. He knocked, and I called him in.
"Do you have any idea how selfish you are, to keep her with you?" he asked emotionally.
This had been eating at him, clearly. Thoughts of my wife consumed this man.
Hatred, raw and fresh, rushed through me.
"She could do better, and you know it," he continued. "She could find a nice man, a normal guy that loved her and treated her with respect, someone that didn't subject her to that vile stuff you do to her for your own entertainment. She could find someone to help her heal, instead of exploiting her issues."
"And I suppose you think you're that guy?" I bit out.
He didn't answer, but he didn't need to.
"You don't get it," I said scathingly. "You don't understand her at all. You are just the sort of man that would make her miserable. You'd expect her to hide who she is, make her hate it. You would make her feel bad about herself, when there is no fucking thing about her that she should feel bad about."
"You should feel bad about it. I saw her wrists yesterday. Saw the marks, yet again. Shame on you."
I stood, smiling nastily. The joke was on him. I was shameless, always had been.
I held out an arm, indicating the door. "If you can't reconcile yourself to working for a man of my particular proclivities, by all means, resign. No one is stopping you."
He shook his head, over and over, glaring at me. "No, no I will not quit. You want me gone, you'll have to fire me, and we both know your wife won't like that."
The way he said your wife, that sneer in his voice, it was too much.
Some tight thread inside of me snapped, and I had his shirt in my hands between one breath and the next. I shoved him against the wall, getting in his face.
"That's right," I growled at him. "My wife. Mine. Mine in ways you'll never know. You think you've seen the marks? You haven't seen the half of it. I've marred every inch of her, staking my claim."
He took a swing at me. I was pretty happy about it, even while he clipped me in the chin.
Happy because, well, game on.
I slugged him back, with relish, catching his jaw. I'd wanted to do that for years, and so I did it again.
I had him on the floor, and we were both a few hits in, panting, when he spoke.
"She's not an object to be owned," he gritted, hands on my hands on his shirt. I'd started slamming his back, is head, into the floor.
"Not an object, no, but mine nonetheless. And that will never change." My voice was quiet. The words were each pushed out of me on jagged breaths, but they were full of conviction all the same.
I cocked my fist back to punch him in the face when her voice stopped me.
"James," Bianca gasped, sounding shocked, distraught.
With a curse, I straightened, getting to my feet.
She stood in the doorway, Clark just behind her.
I raised a brow at him. "I'm surprised you didn't interfere." As I spoke, I moved to her, pulling her into my chest.
"It looked like you had it under control," Clark shot back. He sounded smug about it, too.
He had been the one to teach me to fight.
Protectively, possessively, I took Bianca from the room.
Her reaction was not what I expected. She could still manage to surprise me.
She wasn't mad at me, not at all. Instead she fretted over my bruises, kissed each one, and demanded gently that I tell her everything.
I was helpless against her tender onslaught. I told it all.
In the end, it was Bianca that fixed things. Quietly and resolutely, she fired him herself.
"I'm so sorry," she said simply, right after she'd done it.
My gut clenched. "Why are you sorry? Did you have feelings for him?'
She sent me a baffled look that mollified me. "Of course not. Not like you're suggesting. He was a friend. That was all. I honestly think I just got along so well, so comfortably with him because he's a lot like Stephan, personality wise. To be honest, for the longest time, I thought he was gay. Makes this whole thing extra shocking to me."
That startled a laugh out of me. And the first real smile in days.
All was right again in my world.