Page 50 of Beautiful Trauma
I threaded my fingers through his and pulled him into step with me. “How long before dinner?” I asked.
“Thirty or forty minutes,” Dad replied.
“Plenty of time,” I said.
I gave Henry a quick tour of the house, and he got to see a few of Mom’s cats lounging in windows, chairs, or stripes of sunlight across the floors. Henry loved the old charm of the house as much as I did, but he especially loved the four-legged beasts he discovered in the barn.
“I’ve never been around horses,” Henry said. “They’re gorgeous.”
“These are retired racehorses my mom rescued,” I told him. “She grew up around horses on her grandparents’ farm. Riding is something she gave up for many years to focus on her family and career. She’s rediscovered her passion for the magnificent beasts.”
“Rescued?” Henry asked.
“These horses had outlived their usefulness, so their owners were going to have them destroyed.”
“No!” Henry said, sounding as horrified as I did when I first found out. “Who does something like that?”
“Someone who sees these horses as investments that are no longer paying dividends.” My favorite horse, Bourbon Baby, nickered and came over to see me. I leaned into her and ran my hand along her velvety soft nose. “These lucky horses don’t have to worry about that anymore though. They get to live out their lives getting pampered and spoiled.”
“Are your mom’s Greyhounds rescued too?”
I nodded. “Mom detests animal racing of any kind.”
“I like your mom a lot, even if she has the same name as Kip’s mom.”
“What? Are you joking?”
Henry laughed and shook his head. “Nope. I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing.”
I straightened away from the horse then pulled Henry into my arms. “My mom might share a name with the meddlesome, fictional mama in the book, but I assure you, I’m not Kip, and you’re definitely not Clarissa.” I turned, pinning Henry between the stall door and my body. “Gold-digging hussy or otherwise,” I added.
“This is almost like the scene I read last night,” Henry whispered against my hovering lips. “Clarissa snuck away from her homestead and met Kip in the barn on his ranch one night, and he laid one on her.”
“Laid one on her?” I asked. “One what? Hand? Mouth? Dick?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “I’m just repeating the phrasing in the book.”
“Maybe we should rewrite the scene,” I suggested. “I like the gal’s boldness. It reminds me of a certain someone I know. Tell me what good ole Kip and sweet Clarissa got up to in the barn.”
“There was a lot of kissing,” Henry said.
Getting into character, I looked up and down the length of the barn. “We need to be quiet, or my folks will hear us.”
Henry rolled, repositioning us so that my back was pinned against the stall. “I guess you better keep your moaning down then.”
“Oh? What did sweet Clarissa do to Kip?”
“She pulled him into an empty stall, pushed his cowboy jeans down his legs, then dropped to her knees and blew him.”
“Really?” I asked, looking for an empty stall.
“Yep, but she didn’t let him come. She pushed him down onto a bale of hay, hiked up her skirt, and rode him like a prized thoroughbred.”
“How much time do you think we have left before dinner?” I whispered against Henry’s lips.
“Not enough to do what you’re thinking?”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” I challenged. Henry’s brow shot up. “Okay, I was thinking a quick fuck in an empty stall, but I dismissed it because you know how I like to take my time drawing out your pleasure.”