Page 12 of Wild and Wanted

She was still thinking about that when Clay stopped and Gertie followed suit.

Stevie jolted slightly at the sudden cessation of movement, tuning back in to said cowboy, who was looking at her with thinly veiled impatience. She figured it was supposed to be intimidating but the intensity of his expression fanned across her nipples like the hot wind rippling through the pastures behind, and she thanked God she wasn’t wearing the T-shirt she’d wanted to wear and which her mother had vetoed.

Stevie swallowed. ‘What?’

‘You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.’

‘I have,’ she denied as she desperately sorted through her brain for his last words. ‘Sit straight, go with the rhythm…’ And something else… Oh yes. ‘Posture.’ Stevie nodded vigorously, relieved to have remembered. ‘Relax.’

There. She had been listening.

‘So why are you holding the reins so tight you’re about to snap them?’

Another denial on her lips, Stevie glanced at the white of her knuckles.

‘The tension on the reins pulls on the bit in Gertie’s mouth. The tension in your posture and through your thighs…’

He glanced at her thighs briefly before his attention returned to her face, his expression one of complete indifference. Great. Just great… No man had ever looked at Yolly’s thighs so disparagingly.

Stevie knew her body was lanky rather than shapely, but were they that objectionable?

‘…conveys your nervousness,’ he continued as if he hadn’t just sent her into a spiral of self-consciousness. ‘Which makes her nervous. Stop sitting in the saddle like you’re a store mannequin. You need to relax.’

Stevie wondered if anyone in the history of the world had ever relaxed when it was being demanded of them so stridently. By an overbearing cowboy.

‘Sorry,’ she apologised, swallowing down her feelings of inadequacy to concentrate on what she was supposed to be doing instead of mentally panicking over whatever he was thinking about her stupid ring. ‘I’m relaxing.’

She made a concerted effort to wiggle her shoulders and arms and stretch her neck from side to side. The motion shifted her seat in the saddle, which was a dangerous thing given the tingles already happening between her legs. Tingles that cranked up another notch as Clay’s gaze suddenly snagged on the sway of the fringe decorating her shirt pockets.

He was staring at them with all the intensity of a hypnotist’s watch, which wasn’t remotely relaxing. Muscles low in her belly cinched tight and she suddenly felt like she was breathing through a straw.

Okay… maybe he wasn’t as indifferent as he made out?

Stevie’s lungs screamed at her as she stopped her stretching, no longer able to perform the task due to lack of oxygen and her onset of dizziness. Her sudden stillness appeared to be the impetus Clay needed to drag his eyes up, fixing her with a scowl as if it was her fault he’d been staring at her with his brooding amber eyes.

‘You ready now?’ he asked gruffly.

Confused by the whiplash of his moods and the strange static circling like dust motes around them, Stevie nodded. ‘One hundred per cent relaxed.’

It was a lie but she congratulated herself on it coming out relatively normally and not as some kind of chipmunk squeak as her lungs recovered from their deoxygenated state.

He nodded brusquely before turning away and clicking his tongue. ‘Walk on.’

Gertie lurched to a start again and Stevie, her body still abuzz, reached for the saddle horn to steady herself.

Relax. For god’s sake, just relax already.

Unsurprisingly, just telling herself to relax wasn’t a silver bullet so she did the only thing she could think would work. Distraction.

For both of them.

‘What baggage?’ she asked as her eyes fixed on the broad spread of his shoulders that were hitched high like he, too, was tense.

He didn’t answer for a beat. ‘Baggage? What do you mean?’

‘You said the horse yesterday⁠—’

‘Electra.’ He threw the name over his shoulder as he walked, obviously not willing to make eye contact.