Chompin' at the Bit (Horse Play #2) (7 page)

I quickly folded the clothes I stripped out of and placed them into my suitcase before changing into a pair of sexy blue panties and discarding my bra—the dress’ back was so low that a bra just didn’t work. I grabbed my body lotion and moisturized before pulling the dress on. The satin was smooth against my skin as I positioned it and zipped the back up. Standing on my tiptoes, I did one rotation in front of the full-length mirror outside the bathroom and beamed as I took in the color against my golden skin tone.

After I was done gawking at myself, I found the shoes I wore the night before.
Jensen was going to lose it.

It wasn’t long before I heard the lock disengage and the door creak open. “Madi?” Jensen’s smooth voice called out from just around the corner from where I stood. Turning in the direction he would inevitably pass by to head to our bed, I cleared my throat to get his attention.

The look on his face when he saw me was priceless.

Chapter 6. My Past

“
S
o, Madi seems great,” Kyle said as he handed me a beer from the large fridge his penthouse suite had. His parents and ours went together to get him and Lilah the penthouse for their wedding. And it was spectacular. 

I had just left the hotel room Madison and I shared to come and do the last-minute bachelor thing that grooms did while they got ready. I didn’t want to leave her; she had made a very tempting offer before I left, and I so desperately wanted to accept after our failed attempt last night. But I couldn’t. Well, I guess I
could
have in that respect, but I wanted our first time to really mean something because
she
meant something. 

Even if I tried to tell myself she didn’t.

Over the last few weeks, I’d like to think that Madison and I had grown closer. Even though, we may have started off on the wrong foot, there was something about her that intrigued me. She was different than other women I had dated. Clearly, in a good way; along with being beautiful, she was smart, funny and she didn’t seem to take shit from anyone. Not anymore, anyway. 

The energy between us was immediate; I felt it when I helped her up after she fell off her mount that first day. Even though my good deed was met with contempt from her, there was something in her eyes that told me differently. 

Days of treading carefully around her followed. There were moments where she would let her guard down, and I would catch a very brief glimpse of who she really was, but just as quickly, that wall slammed back into place. Normally, I had no trouble reading people, so it was frustrating to not have any insight into what had happened to make her so jaded. 

The day she told me about her ex’s violent outbursts and infidelity, I felt an immediate bond between us. It wasn’t that I would wish the betrayal of a significant other on anyone, but there was something strangely cathartic about knowing I wasn’t alone. That neither of us was. Things changed between us after that. While Madison still put her guard up every time I started to take a new brick down, we were quickly becoming friends. 

The sting of what Kaylie did behind my back would always be with me. How could it not? She destroyed a part of me the day she told me she had “taken care” of the pregnancy—our child—I’d also just learned of. As if I wasn’t going through enough, serving a three-year sentence for aggravated assault after giving Robert exactly what he deserved. I never thought I’d be whole again, to be honest. 

At least, not until I met Madison. 

I looked up at Kyle as he stared at me expectantly before nodding and taking a swig of my beer. “She is.” 

Great
was an understatement. She was actually the best thing to ever happen to me. 

“You guys have a good night last night?” Kyle asked, waggling his eyebrows. It was ridiculous of him to even ask, because I wasn’t a “kiss and tell” kind of guy. Ever. 

I smirked, arching an eyebrow as I took another drink of my beer, and then sat back in the chair.

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Pussy,” he grumbled. “We’re
dudes
! We
share
!” 

“Uh,” I started to counter. “That’s
women
who share.” 

“Fuck. Whatever. Dudes share too. Especially when it’s about sex.” He smiled impishly. “In fact, Lilah—”

I grabbed the cushion behind me and chucked it across the room at him. “Shut your hole, Lewis. That’s my baby sister. She might kill me, but I’ll give you a black eye and break both your legs before the ceremony.” I wouldn’t really, just like he wouldn’t really tell me whatever it was he was going to tell me—at least, I hoped he wouldn’t. 

“You nervous?” I asked, trying to change the subject before he got it out of me that I had yet to “seal the deal,” as he would say. 

Kyle brushed my question off with a wave of his hands, scrunching up his face. “Pssssh, nah! This is gonna be a cakewalk.” 

I laughed. “Glad to hear it. Listen, man, I just wanted to thank you for taking care of Lilah. I know I gave you a hard time in the beginning, but I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you.” 

“Whoa,” Kyle said, clapping his free hand on my right shoulder blade. “Enough with the heavy.” 

Shaking my head, I smiled before bringing my beer to my lips and taking a drink. “You’re right. However, that said…” I lifted my eyes to Kyle’s. “If you ever do anything to hurt her—and I mean
anything
—I will end you.” 

While I knew Kyle treasured Lilah and had nothing but respect for her, I needed to be sure that she would never be hurt by another man again. Kyle knew about Lilah’s past—hell, he’d woken up to her screaming in the middle of the night just about as much as I had—and he’d always been there for her. He never pushed her beyond what she was ready for.

Kyle’s laughter boomed throughout the room as he flopped down on the sofa and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “Jensen, I think you’re failing to see the dynamics in our relationship,” he joked. 

“I know, but it needed to be said.” 

“All right!” Gavin exclaimed, joining us from the bathroom and grabbing the beer he had left on the table before sitting in the chair at the small desk. “What are you two pansies talking about?” 

“Jensen just threatened to kill me,” Kyle summarized.

Kyle and Gavin soon became engrossed in a conversation about Lilah’s other bridesmaid, Bethany. Gavin was apparently pretty adamant about hooking up with her. While they talked, I pulled out my phone and sent Madison a quick text to see how her morning was before I excused myself to use the washroom. 

The truth was, I hated being apart from Madison. Now that we had nothing to hide anymore, I never wanted to be without her. Ever. I had been so nervous to open up to her about my past, thinking for sure she’d kick me out or push me away, but she was surprisingly okay with it at all once she’d processed it. I couldn’t have asked for a more caring and understanding person.

Which was precisely why I felt bad for acting like such a shit this past week. I hadn’t intended for it to happen, but thinking about seeing Kaylie again had me struggling with my demons. Knowing my past helped Madison understand my stress. Was it fair to her? Absolutely not. Every time she tried to take things further between us, I’d freak out and pull away; for no reason other than my own anxieties of seeing my ex again. 

I didn’t love Kaylie. How could I? Not after what she did. Madison knew that. But I also didn’t hate her, because hate would mean that I still cared for her on some level. Kaylie was just dead to me in every way. A ghost of a memory. 

A ghost that haunted me more and more as the days to my sister’s wedding drew nearer, because seeing her would remind me of the lies I told my family.

When Kaylie told me what she had done, I decided to tell my family that she had a miscarriage. I lied because Kaylie was the only friend Lilah had after leaving her entire life behind and moving from Chicago to Houston. Not to mention, I couldn’t admit to myself that I didn’t see her actions coming. It was denial, plain and simple. 

Letting Kaylie walk away from me was easier than I thought—and not just because I was restricted to the visitor’s area of the prison. This alone should have tipped me off on how clearly it wasn’t meant to be.

Starting over once I got out, however, was much more difficult. I had built a life for myself in Houston with Kaylie. Sure, I was working for her father, but I was his right-hand man and practically ran that company for him. I moved across the country within days of being released, pissing Kaylie off since I hadn’t “discussed it with her first.” After she broke off all lines of communication three years prior.

Yeah, try to figure that one out. She was the queen of double standards.

When I arrived back in Tennessee a few weeks after my release, I felt a multitude of things—loss, heartbreak, fear …  It was almost too much to bear. Because of my recent release, nobody wanted to hire me—especially considering why I’d been convicted in the first place. I had no doubts that Robert used every resource he had to have me blacklisted at any company I might have had a shot with.

My sister and Kyle took me in without hesitation, and just as I was about to give up on ever being employed by any-one again, my father stepped in. When he told me about how Wayne Landry might be looking for a new ranch hand, I really had no other options. The last name niggled at me, but I couldn’t quite place where I knew it from.

Originally, I thought about protesting, saying I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but then remembered the predicament I was in and why. When my father pointed out that the job might be one I would enjoy and would be outside the city, well it sounded even more appealing. It would be much easier to try and put my past behind me if I tried moving forward.

Before I met with Wayne, I decided to do a little research on the Landry ranch and found out that it was the most popular ranch in the area and they had just started a massive expansion project this past spring to up their rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Then, there was his daughter. Madison Landry. 

That
was where I knew that name.

Madison Landry was a professional rider who had pulled out of the Master’s Cup in Spruce Meadows when her mount for the last two years had been injured during training. She was good, too, from what I could remember. It had been a while since I’d had the time to sit and watch a competition, so I decided to Google her. There were countless links to her rides, another that showed her winning silver in twenty-fourteen with her mount, Halley’s Comet.

My favorite links though? Her interviews. Not only was she a good rider, she was eloquent and funny, as well as beautiful. Her big hazel eyes were expressive, twinkling whenever she laughed or smiled at something the interviewer said. There was something that drew me to her, even then.

When I met Wayne for coffee in town for our first sit-down, I brought up a few additional ideas that might also bring in a little more revenue. He really liked my idea of running summer camp programs—which he would implement the following summer—and he also seemed really perceptive to the idea of hosting smaller competitions for the students. There were always people looking to sponsor events like that for a good cause. 

He knew a little about my past from what my father had told him. Well, that and the background check he admitted to running on me. He knew about what happened in Chicago that led to my arrest—not a lot of people did, at Lilah’s request—and he knew why I moved back. He seemed to show a lot of empathy, and I wouldn’t know until my second day on the ranch exactly why he understood what I was going through. His daughter had been in an abusive relationship too.

“Oh, shit! She responded!” Kyle exclaimed excitedly, piquing my curiosity. 

When I rounded the corner my eyes went wide as they fell upon the two men sitting side-by-side on the couch, huddled over … son of a bitch! My phone! I was across the room in a flash, ripping the phone from Kyle’s grasp as he laughed with Gavin. 

“What the hell are you two doing?!” I shouted as I started flipping through my received—
and sent
—messages. The first one I saw was Madison’s final response about how I didn’t join her in the shower.

I looked up from the phone to see Kyle and Gavin wiping tears of laughter from the outer corners of their eyes as they continued to howl. They had been dirty texting
my
girl? What was worse was she was texting back … thinking it was
me.
It bothered me that they had tricked her. I quickly tapped out a message to tell her the truth, because I knew Kyle would bug her about it later; this way, at least she was prepared.
 

I hit send and scrolled through the messages leading up to that last one and found myself smiling at them; apparently Madison was good at dirty texting. After a few minutes, she still hadn’t responded, so I sent her another message to make sure she was okay. If Kyle fucked this up for me, I’d kick his ass. 

I laughed loudly when Madison told me it was actually Willow texting, which caught the attention of Kyle and Gavin who came barreling into the room as I sent another message back.