Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
“He hangs onto the saddle horn, which, of course, doesn’t help at all, and the next thing you know, he’s on his back on the ground where he gets kicked in the head by my horse!”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh, no!”
“Oh yes. He was okay, though. You should know that kid has a hard head.”
I laughed. “Noted.”
Johnny emerged from the hallway and shot me that signature grin. It went straight to my pussy, and I heated from my core up to my neck. I didn’t know how he made me feel so incredibly sexy. So worthy of his attention. With just a smile.
It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, but damn if I didn’t want it to be.
“I heard about Chester,” I told him.
“All lies.” Johnny grinned, coming over to stand beside me, setting his hand on my shoulder. “Want to meet him?”
I frowned. “Who, Chester?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. We’re best buds now.”
I got down off the stool and set my mug in the sink. “I would love to meet Chester.”
Ooh. Another adventure. It wasn’t Ibiza, but I was with my hot cowboy doing new things. I wasn’t stuck in a cubicle getting shat on for most of the hours in the day.
After saying goodbye to Willow, Colton, and Marina, Johnny held his arm out, and I stepped under it, allowing him to escort me out of the ranch house and down the gravel drive. “Do you ride?” His fingertips rested lightly at my low back–a sensation I relished.
“Me?” I squeaked. “No. I’m telling you now I don’t know how to put a saddle on a horse.”
Johnny laughed at that. “Noted. But you work on a ranch. Doesn’t Mitch have horses?”
“Oh. Um…you know, I’m not sure, but I definitely wasn’t hired to ride them.” My voice raised in pitch. I was a terrible liar.
Johnny rubbed his forehead under his hat. “It’s okay,” he acknowledged my lie. “You don’t have to tell me the details of the ranch. Did Mitch have you sign an NDA about his business dealings or something?”
I looked up at him in surprise. That would definitely be a way out of answering questions, but I doubted if the property had horses would fall under that kind of document.
He studied me.
I shook my head. I didn’t have a choice but to answer. “No, it’s not that. I just–I honestly don’t know his business dealings. I’m a little embarrassed, but all I do is bring in the mail and take deliveries,” I admitted. “It’s a pretty cush job, to be honest.”
It was, and I hated Lyssa for finding such arrangements, especially if it included going off to Ibiza in the middle of it. Maybe she would get fired for ditching her work, but she’d bounce back and find something else soon enough.
“How’d you end up there?”
“Oh.” More lying. I didn’t love lying to Johnny. And was it really necessary?
Probably not.
But I’d started down this road of pretending to be Lyssa, and it would be awkward as hell to explain that I wasn’t her now.
By the way, my name’s not actually Lyssa, the one you called out when you came deep inside me last night and this morning. Whoops!
Besides, taking on her name, her job, her persona, lent me the sense of entitlement. Of personal power. Of reckless abandon that Lyssa embodied. Look where it got me. A hot guy, hot sex, and a cool ranch full of cool people.
I didn’t want to go back to being boring old Emma.
Not yet, anyway.
Not when Johnny looked at me like he did. When else would I have a chance like this? To explore my undeveloped wild side? To have a fling with a man I just met? To follow a hot cowboy to his ranch just to get laid a few more times?
It was a dream come true, and I didn’t want it to end.
“The job just kind of fell into my lap,” I said lamely. “My sister found it for me, actually. I’d just quit my job in Hollywood and needed a place to land for a little while.”
All of that was true.
“Nice. Their loss is my gain.” He winked then led me through the open wooden doors to a large stable. It was roomy and clean and smelled of fresh hay.
A dozen horses filled the stalls. Johnny led me past a black stallion and a dapple gray although I didn’t know if those descriptions were adequate. I read a bunch of fun fiction books about horses as a girl and got what I know about the animals from that.
“This is Chester. I call him Chester Chesterfield.”
As expected, Chester was a chestnut stallion–a beautiful red-brown horse with a tail and mane the same color and a white star on his forehead. The horse nickered, lifting his muzzle toward Johnny in greeting.