Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
The Jeep's engine roars as we climb a hill, drowning out any possibility of conversation. Which is fine by me because I need to think.
Is it Cash I hate? Or just the idea of anyone else raising Mercy? Both, probably.
Cash Ashby with his pressed shirts and his fucking Stetson. The way he looks at me like I'm somethin’ he found on the bottom of his boot. The beatings. The threats. The way he left me to die.
But it's more than that. It's Mercy calling someone else for help when she's scared. It's someone else teaching her to ride, to shoot, to stand up for herself. It's someone else being there when she has nightmares.
It's me failing. Again.
We turn onto the long drive leading to the Ashby mansion, and I see them right away. Mercy on a stocky brown pony, trotting around the main arena. Not the dirt round pen where the ranch hands work their horses. The fancy one, with the perfect sand footing and the black rails.
Cash stands at the fence, one boot propped on the bottom rail. He's calling out instructions, gesturing with one hand. Even from here, I can see Mercy bouncing in the saddle, her back stiff, her hands too high. She looks like she's riding a jackhammer, not a horse.
I wince. Kid's gonna be sore tomorrow.
"She's doing great," Savannah says, breaking into my thoughts. "Especially for a beginner. Look at how she keeps trying."
I grunt, not trusting myself to speak.
"She loves it," Savannah continues. "And that's what matters. Riding hurts at first—every muscle aches, and you fall. A lot. She's already come off twice since she started."
I snap my head toward her. "She fell off?"
Savannah smiles. "I can't even count how many times I've fallen. Most kids give up after the first time. The ones who get back on? Those are the horse girls. They'll give up everything—time, money, sleep—just to be around horses."
I hear what she's not saying. This is good for Mercy. Rimrock Academy would be good for her. A place where she could ride every day, learn from professionals. Not like the trailer. Not like the club.
"The best thing about having a horse-girl sister," Savannah says, "is they don't think about boys."
That pulls a laugh from me. "Bullshit. You were the biggest horse girl I ever met, and you were boy-crazy as hell."
She leans into me, her hands wrapping around my bicep, her body warm against mine. Her lips brush my cheek, soft and quick. "I've only ever been crazy about one boy," she whispers.
This makes me smile. A real one. Something genuine that starts in my chest and works its way up. She's always been able to do that. Pull something real from me when everything else feels like a performance.
I watch her settle back into her seat, hair whipping around her face in the wind, and my mind drifts to all the ways she's changed since we were kids. How she went from the shy girl who blushed when I held her hand to the woman who fucked me in front of an entire club of outlaws without blinking.
Savannah Ashby wasn't always like this. Not as a teenager. Back then, everything was slow and careful. Like we had all the time in the world to figure things out. To be in love. To make love.
Then she went away to college.
First time she came back on break, she met me at the silo like always. But something had shifted. She was desperate, hungry. Wouldn't even let me say hello before she was tearing at my belt, dropping to her knees on that dirty concrete floor.
I remember standing there, shocked stupid, as she took me in her mouth for the first time. Her hands trembling but determined, her eyes locked on mine like she was proving something.
And while I enjoyed it—fucking immensely—I was surprised at her intensity. Couldn't help picturing all the college boys she'd been practicing on. All those rich pricks with their clean hands and pressed shirts. The thought made me want to put my fist through the wall.
But it was like she was reading my mind, because she pulled back, lips swollen, and told me I was her first. That she'd never done this before.
I didn't want to believe her. Pride, maybe. Or just the need to protect myself from how much that would mean.
But she gagged a lot when she took me deeper. Kept having to stop and catch her breath. She wasn't good at it—not then. Not like now, when she knows exactly how to take me apart with her mouth. She knows exactly how far my cock can slide down her throat.
And anyway, her word is good enough for me. Why would I want to call her a liar? Deep down, I've always wanted to be the only man she was ever with. Stupid as that sounds.