“You’re watching the road. I’m watching everything else.”
Bram’s canter was smooth, but even a smooth canter had a rhythm, and that rhythm translated directly into the repeated pressing of Pip’s cute little ass against my groin. Every time the saddle rose and fell, Pip rose and fell with it, and the friction was—
I put my hand on his waist.
It was a practical decision, a matter of safety, as the man was going to bounce off the horse if he wasn’t stabilized. If only he hadn’t chosen to wear such a ridiculous garment, I wouldn’t have had to put my hand on the bare skin of his hip.
“Mm.” Pip settled more firmly into me, which did not help at all. In fact, it made everything considerably worse.
My magic stirred. I could feel it in my chest, a low vibration that I had not invited, humming through the iron fittings on Bram’s tack. The buckles on the saddle were trembling, faintly, and if Pip noticed, he didn’t say anything.
Bram noticed. His ear flicked back, a slow, deliberate rotation that communicated, with perfect clarity that he knew what was happening.
Pip was talking again, saying something about the clouds or a type of bird he didn’t recognize. While he talked, he moved in small, constant increments: a squirm, a shift of weight, a wriggle that pressed him deeper into my lap.
I might have thought he was unaware of his effect on me if he hadn’t made a soft, breathy sound after a particularly forceful bounce. It was the sort of half-swallowed exhale that couldn’t possibly be caused by the scenery.
He was enjoying this. The bastard was enjoying grinding himself against my cock.
I tightened my grip on his waist, which was meant to hold him still and which instead slid lower, because Pip chose that moment to bounce in the saddle with a particularly enthusiastic gesture at a passing hawk. My hand slid to his hip, and my thumb was hooked over the waistband of his ruined trousers.The next bounce of the canter pushed my hand down another inch and I felt him.
He was hard, his cock straining against the fabric, and I wanted to chase the sensation. My palm pressed flush against the length of him for one full stride of the horse. The sound he made in response was delicious.
I pulled my hand back, because something had happened at the point of contact, a jolt through my palm that went straight to my core. Bram’s bridle rattled, and the buckles on the saddle hummed, and I realized with a distant, horrified clarity that I was losing control of my magic because a human in tiny trousers had an erection from sitting in my lap.
I slowed Bram to a walk. For a long moment neither of us spoke. The countryside rolled past and a sheep looked up from its chewing.
“That was—” Pip started.
“We will not discuss it.”
“Your hand just—”
“I said we will not discuss it.”
“Fine. We won’t discuss it.” A pause. “But for the record, you can put your hand back on my dick whenever you want. My dick likes your hand.”
“That was not … not discussing it.”
He snickered.
“I realize that made no sense, but you understand my meaning.”
“Mm, you shouldn’t be afraid to discuss sex. It’s a natural instinct. A way to connect. A—”
“Pip,” I cautioned.
He sighed, defeated, and slumped back against my chest. I stared at the road and thought about incident reports. I mentally drafted three of them. I recited the entire Grey Guard oath of conduct in my head, which took four minutes and normally instilled a sense of duty and calm.
Thankfully, before things got even more out of hand, we arrived at the stretch of road where we had found him. I recognized the curve, the oak tree, the field of wildflowers. Pip did not.
“Was it here?” I asked.
He looked around. “Maybe? There was a tree, the fluffy kind.”
I gestured at the landscape, which contained approximately nine hundred trees.
“And grass,” he added. “I remember grass.”
