*M. Lush is my naughty side. Pleasure Horse is the third in my erotic romance novella series and will be available as soon as Amazon releases it.

1.

Gemma’s forelegs folded under as her rear legs pushed her up over the white bar. Fake green brush moved past in a blur. On her back, Sammie held the reins tight for a moment to prevent the mare’s habit of breaking into a full run as soon as all four feet were back on the ground. Sammie settled herself back into the saddle with a touch more bump than she would have liked.

At home in the ring this is when she usually started criticizing her own performance. But this wasn’t her home ring, this wasn’t practice, so Sammie gave the mare a touch more rein and looked straight forward to the triple combination. It was the tricky one. Three individual jumps only a few strides apart, and the last had the most shallow cups on the course, which meant it was the easiest to knock free…

Then Gemma’s front legs were folding again and Sammie felt herself rise from the saddle, over Gemma’s neck, her arms sliding forward to allow the mare to catch her own balance on the landing. Jump, stride. Jump, stride stride. Jump. When the crowd, one voice louder than the rest, cheered instead of booed Sammie let herself breathe. Not that they ever booed, but she’d expect it to come if the sound of poles clattering on the ground did as well.

Her chest tightened when the last fence rose up at her like an unexpected afterthought. Gemma took a tight, extra step before launching herself over. The jump was a bunny-hop. Gemma and Sammie popped over the fence, coming down before they were completely clear. Practice kept Sammie’s face blank, but at home she’d have been cursing at herself for sure.

Inside she was. When she watched the Olympics this was when the crowd would hold their collective breath, or gasp, then clapping or “aw” would come, along with the announcer telling the at home audience the result of the knock. As this was a smaller, local show and not an international one, the audience never really hushed. But an announcer did crackle over the loudspeaker as she let Gemma trot out of the ring announcing “Samantha Carter, no faults”.

Sammie breathed in great lungfuls of air. No faults meant the bar hadn’t come down despite the mess she’d made of the last jump. If this had been a hunter class she’d have been screwed for sure, since looking pretty and performing well was part of getting a clean round. But jumper classes were just about getting over the jumps without knocking anything down in the allotted time. It saved her ass this time, but she snarled at herself mentally, vowing not to let it happen again.

She couldn’t let herself blame Gemma, who nodded her head, playing with the looser rein Sammie gave her now. Instead Sammie replayed the ride in her head, looking for when she’d gone wrong. There, right before the last jump her attention hiccuped and she hadn’t been counting strides like she should have. She couldn’t remember if she’d actually been counting strides, or only remembered counting because she’d done this so much before.

“Great ride,” a male voice called out. From the small circle, filled uncomfortably full with riders warming up, Archer McKinley–on yet another new horse, Sammie noted–gave her a smile and a thumbs up. He had the same look to him as he always did, perfect pale breeches, tailored dark jacket and shined boots in a saddle that gleamed and sitting astride a horse whose braided mane sported not single flyaway hair. Even the speckles on the peppered gray he rode this time looked uniform, like he’d filled in the bare bits with eyeliner or something.

Sammie offered him a polite nod, because any slip at politeness might be translated by the gossipers as a snub. “Thanks,” she said, blaming the shortness of her words on breathlessness after her ride.

Archer, offered a little bow in his saddle before riding up to wait for his turn.

Sammie let Gemma take her forward, away from the mess of riders and onlookers watching the classes. She used to hang back and watch the other competitors, but then she learned that just made her neurotic. It was easier to back completely away and watch the video of her class for analysis later. Dee tried to make the review, taped by an available barn hand for those who were trying to seriously compete, fun by ordering pizza and popping popcorn, half of which always ended up fed to the birds.

But today Sammie had a second reason to ride back to the Deepdale Acres vans in the lot and pull Gemma’s saddle for a quick brush down.

“Oh, fantastic!” Dee, Deepdale’s barn manager said when she came around the van and saw Sammie already brushing at the sweat spots on Gemma’s back. “Tabby has a flat class in twenty-five minutes. We’re really lucky you pulled the fourth slot, now we have a little more wiggle room. I’ll get Gemma some water.”

Dee’s cell phone beeped. After checking it Dee looked up at Sammie and grinned. “You went clean, way to go!”

After Dee rushed off again Sammie smirked and shook her head. Dee and Crista weren’t fooling anyone. Dee always had to miss the action, organizing almost everything behind the scenes. Especially since this was the first big show of the season, meaning every student with an ounce of talent at the barn wanted a chance at a ribbon, making Dee’s coordinating even more important. Dee’s friend Crista’s basic knowledge of horses limited her usefulness behind the scenes, but being Shawn the stable hand’s girlfriend she wanted to be present to support the barn. Crista pounced on the video-taping-and-cheer-section gig, reporting class result back to Dee so Dee could praise or console riders as needed.

“Dee, which one is my saddle again?”

Deepdale tried to teach its students ground manners as much as its horses. The brunette who came from the van was fifteen, dressed in black jeans under her boots, and a navy riding jacket from the school’s stock over a white T-shirt. She looked at Sammie, and the hunter saddle Sammie was hoisting to replace with the other gear. “Are you saddling her for me?”

“No, ma’am,” Sammie answered a bit too short. “This is a saddle for jumping, you can tell because–”

Dee came back, moving at a fast pace that was neither a walk nor a jog.

“Great, Dee, I can’t find my saddle for my class,” Tabby said, cutting Sammie out of her consideration for the time being.

“It has to be in the van with the rest, did you look?”

“Of course I did, but there are so many…”

“Sammie, could you–”

“Sammie!”

Knowing what had been about to come out of Dee’s mouth Sammie was grateful for whoever had cut Dee off by yelling her name. Until she turned toward the voice and spotted Archer trotting up on his big gray gelding. Inwardly she groaned.

“Hey Sammie, the last ride is starting right now, but unless they knock it out of the park it looks like you’re going to place.”

“Awesome!” Dee said. Tabby said nothing, but seemed particularly interested in what Archer– square-shouldered, trimmed out, long-legged, lantern-jawed Archer–was saying.

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride back to the ring.”

He was on the other side of the fence dividing the vehicle area from the pedestrian area. She could just climb the three boards of the fence and slide up on the gray behind him. After all Gemma’s saddle was already off and…But it was Archer McKinley. The same Archer McKinley who’d beat her in the last five shows, on five different mounts. The same Archer who always appeared to have sprung magically from a show tack catalog, where as Sammie never managed to escape horse drool or a snapped stirrup leather or sweat marks on her show clothes.

“Go on, winner,” Dee urged.

Archer put out a hand. With a choked back sigh, Sammie scaled the fence and let Archer and his big nameless—perfectly proportioned—jumper give her a lift back to the ring. Archer even smelled perfect, despite the hot May sun, like vanilla and cinnamon and nutmeg. Here Sammie was about to melt in the heat and Archer smelled like Christmas cookies freshly baking.

At the ring, Sammie thanked him politely, but made sure to slide down before the rode right into the arena. She wasn’t the only rider waiting without a horse to hear the results of the class. In the heat, a number had opted to rush their mounts back into the shade of a van for some water. Or they were like her, and didn’t own the horses they’d ridden and therefore had to pass them off to another barn student for a different class.

The loudspeaker crackled again, and flushed with happiness and heat she heard her name called out. Sammie strode into the ring, up to the judge standing in the center, where she accepted her third place ribbon with all the grace she had in her. But a little piece of her heart turned sharp when she saw Archer-freaking-McKinley ride in on his big gray monster and accept the blue.