Page 11 of Wild and Wanted

Clearly feeling very pleased with herself, Stevie clapped, utterly delighted with her triumph only to accidentally shift her weight too far to one side which caused her to over correct and she wobbled slightly as her seat slid on the saddle a little wrong.

Reacting quickly, Clay grabbed her flailing right hand to steady her as she reached for the saddle horn with her left. He noticed it then, probably because he was at eye level with the slim band of silver on her ring finger, three words inscribed around the outside.

True love waits.

Clay blinked as he stared at the words. A purity ring? Stevie Everhart was wearing a purity ring? Holy. Jesus. He was going to hell.

Considering the shenanigans he’d gotten up to in the past, that wasn’t really in doubt anyway but the amount of impure thoughts he’d had this last twenty minutes had definitely stamped his one-way ticket to purgatory.

Stevie Everhart was a virgin?

Boy howdy. If that didn’t scream keep the fuck away, he didn’t know what did. Sure, he’d slept with girls who’d worn purity rings before, none of whom had been virgins, but had he been a betting man, he’d be betting she was.

Maybe that was judging a book too much by its cover, though? Because while the Stephanie from yesterday had looked at him with a startled kind of hesitancy, Stevie from today had been more sure of herself.

She had manoeuvred her mother out of the way. Refused a helmet. Refused the mounting block. Had looked him straight in the eye and told him she’d hoped they’d be friends. Stephanie had taken a step back yesterday when he’d nodded at her. Stevie hadn’t objected to his hands at her waist or spanning her hips or supporting her legs and occasionally palming her ass.

Was the Stephanie side of her personality the purity ring and the Stevie part champing at the bit to be rid of it?

The question went unanswered as she snatched her hand away, breaking into Clay’s inertia. Glancing up, he noticed she wasn’t smiling any more and there were two high spots of colour in her cheeks. It could have been from the exertion of the past twenty minutes but he didn’t think so.

‘Shall we get on with it?’ she asked waspishly, barely able to meet his eye.

Which was interesting but, whatever. She was here to learn how to ride a horse and it was his job to teach her. And even if she was here for something else – Clay didn’t want to be anyone’s one. The one they’d been holding out for. Their first. He was more than happy to be one of whatever number a woman had under her belt, just not numero uno.

Some guys might be into the whole virgin thing but he didn’t want or need the responsibility. Horse training he could do. Virgin training?

He’d take a big fat pass on that one.

5

STEVIE

Stevie was mortified.

So mortified she barely took in any of Clay’s instructions as he led Gertie around the ring at a slow plod. She’d been wearing this damn ring so long, she forgot it was there most of the time. But now Clay was looking at her differently and it plucked at the fibres of her brain like an out-of-tune guitar.

She didn’t usually care what people thought about the ring, or what they thought about her because of the ring – she knew what it meant to her personally and that was all that mattered. And, with Yolly hogging the spotlight, people hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to her anyway. Those that did were, like most people in life, not particularly observant, the inscription usually going unnoticed.

But not this guy.

Of course this rough-around-the-edges cowboy who had set her pulse racing from the get-go would have Sherlock Holmes levels of observance.

And she did care what he thought. Which was who knew what after she’d blushed like a teenager, couldn’t meet his eye and practically stammered out her request to move things along.

His rather disinterested yes, ma’am was still playing on repeat in her head.

It was at times like this she really missed Yolly. Missed their girl chats. Missed how her sister constantly encouraged her to be more adventurous, to come out of her shell, to live on the edge a little.

Yolly would have loved Clay.

Who was she kidding? Yolly would have taken one look at the cowboy, smacked her lips like he was a tasty snack and called dibs and Stevie wouldn’t have stood a chance. Neither would have Clay.

Men – across the spectrum – had never resisted her sister.

The hot burn of jealousy rose in her chest and crawled to her throat, and Stevie absently rubbed at it, hating herself for the feeling. The fact she was now jealous of her dead sister only made her humiliation from earlier worse.

She’d give anything to have Yolly back. Even this cowboy, who was making her so hot and twisty inside she could barely sit properly without getting all tingly where the seam of her crotch met the leather of the saddle.