AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I find Penelope and Marcus at the far end of the stables with Sparrow and a speckled gray-and-white horse, who are tied up in the side-by-side washing stalls. The kids from the shelter excitedly help them fill two plastic buckets with soapy water, but my eyes are drawn to Marcus and the sight of him in his worn work clothes.
His piercings strain against the front of his T-shirt when he lazily hangs a towel over his shoulder, and I nibble my lip. That is one good-looking man.
“About time you showed up,” Penelope teases, bumping my hip when I reach her side.
Startled, I flub for an excuse. “Sorry, I accidentally overslept.”
Actually, I was riding your cousin on the kitchen floor of your mom’s house.
But she doesn’t need to know that.
It’s just Tobias, Yennifer, and Rhydan with her today, but their smiling faces have me spreading my arms wide enough to fit all of them as they attack me with hugs. I squeeze them fiercely, listening to them jabber about their early morning full of chores.
“Now we get to wash the horsies!” Little Yennifer beams.
“Oh my gosh. That’ssofun,” I say, matching her excitement and laughing when they scatter to grab some old brushes and a few sponges.
Marcus swaggers toward me with an obnoxiously flirtatious grin that says he’s up to no good.
Penelope’s rubber boots squeak through a slop of spilled water as she hauls one of the buckets off the ground. She plunks a soft-bristled brush into a mound of suds inside the other one. “Why don’t you two take that one and help Yennifer with that beast? I think the boys will do better with Churro.”
“Anything compared to your spoiled rotten gelding would be considered a beast,” Marcus says defensively. “He’s scared of his own shadow.”
She cocks her hip, ready to scold him, but I smile sweet enough for the both of us. “What he meant to say was, we’dloveto.”
Reaching around me to grab our bucket, Marcus gives me a wink.
“Whatever you’re thinking about doing,don’t,” I mutter.
“I’m simply following the boss’s orders.” But the moment Penelope turns for the wash stall, he pinches my ass.
I swat his hand, hissing, “Will you stop?”
He swats it back. “Nope.”
“You’re acting like a child,” I grumble, but when I move to follow her, he kicks out a foot and trips me.
I whirl on him, and he’s grinning from ear to ear, making it almost impossible to keep a straight face.
“Do you want her to find out what we’re doing, or should I go ahead and make an official announcement?”
Marcus snatches my wrist with his free hand and places a kiss over my knuckles. “Careful, slayer.”
I tug my hand from his grip. “Or what?”
“I’ll yank those jeans down your thighs and bend you over my knee.”
Swiveling to make sure no one heard him, I whisper, “You wouldn’t dare.”
But desire blooms in his eyes as I read the cockiness stamped across his face.
He spins me around to face the stalls, but not before nuzzling my ear and uttering a depraved, “Try me.”
Penelope casts a raised brow at us over her shoulder, and I offer an innocent wave, desperately willing my heart to slow. Marcus may be blasé about us hooking up, but she’s my friend, and I’d be horrified if she caught us.
“You two missed the school play yesterday,” Penelope says as she and the boys step into the open stall with Churro.
We enter Sparrow’s wash space, separated by a wall beside them, and when her horse stretches his harnessed face toward me, I place a chaste kiss on his soft, whiskered snout.
