Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (8 page)

“Good!” Linc called out to her from the sidelines.

Panting slightly, Sasha patted the filly’s neck and slowed the horse to
a jog, then a canter. Linc walked out onto the track to meet them, making some
notes on his clipboard. “She’s doing real well,” he said. “Not quite ready to
race yet but getting better. She’s still got that little trouble with her left
front but not as much as before.” Now, he patted Sasha’s leg. “Good job.”

They’d been at it all morning and most of the afternoon with three of
the horses Linc hoped to have ready to race by next summer. It was nearly three
in the afternoon, just about the hottest time of the day and about quitting
time. Sasha had her sunscreen on and she’d been steadily drinking water. Her
muscles were smooth and liquid. She was ready to go all day, if that was what
Linc needed.

They were training a beautiful set of young fillies, getting them ready
to race and be as good as High Impact. If not better. This was work that Sasha
loved. Training with the fillies and colts when she wasn’t on the track and
racing was one of her favorite things about the job. Taking a young and
stubborn horse and training it under her whip and between the strong press of
her thighs to be a disciplined racehorse. A winner. The feeling was beyond
compare. Sweat dripped down her face. Her hair felt plastered to her head under
the hat.

“Time to give everybody a break,” Linc said. He grabbed Red Penny’s
bridle, scratched the horse between her ears. “Good girl!”

Sasha had to laugh. The trainer treated everyone, with the exception of
Damien, just about the same. Offering praise and treats, always showing
kindness no matter what. He was a good man. She dismounted, wiping an arm
across her damp forehead. “Quitting time already?”

Linc chuckled. “We’ve been out here since seven o’ clock. I need some
food and some rest. Not everyone is a machine like you.”

It wasn’t so much that Sasha was a machine as she needed the work to
keep her mind from dwelling on the disaster her life had become in the two
months since James had dug his way out of the dung heap and back into her life.
When she was away from the stables, she felt stressed to the breaking point,
aware that her brother’s financial demands were leading her steadily into the
poorhouse. She’d disconnected her cable, only ate food she brought from home,
could barely afford groceries after all her bills were paid. Her life was a
wreck.

“No machine here, Linc. I just love my job.” She smiled at the trainer
although she knew the expression was a bit stiff at the corners. All her smiles
had been that way lately.

“Just one of the reasons we love you around here,” he said, patting her
on the back.

Sasha smiled again, took off her hat and wiped her face with a rag she
took from her back pocket. She ran a hand through her sweat-dampened hair and
blew out a breath. Only now that she was off the horse and on her feet could
she feel how tired her body was. But it was nothing she couldn’t push through.

“You worked hard today,” Linc said. “You should come out to eat with me
and a couple of the other guys. We’re going to that Brazilian steak place you
like.”

Inside, Sasha winced. It sounded like the perfect meal just now, steak
and potatoes and vegetables, the company of other riders from the stables. But,
she couldn’t afford it. James had bled her dry.

“I’d love to, Linc. But I actually just remembered something I have to
do.” Her stomach fell at the look on his face, disappointment from the obvious
lie.

“Okay, Sasha. Maybe another time.” After a long look at her, he took
Red Penny’s reigns and started to lead the horse away. “Sasha.”

She looked at him at the sound of her name. “Yes?”

“You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you? You’ve been a
little down for the last couple of months and it’s not like you.” His voice was
gruff with concern.

Tears burned suddenly at the back of Sasha’s eyes. She wanted to tell
him, she wanted to relieve herself of the burden of her brother. She wanted to
reach out and connect with Linc the way she had before James came to town. But
she blinked the tears away and bit the inside of her cheek.

“I’m fine, Linc. Thank you for asking. It’s…it’s something small that I
just have to handle myself.”

He looked at her for another long moment. “Okay. But please, let me
know if I could ever do anything for you.”

The tears burned again. “Thank you. I really, really appreciate that.”
Then she turned, grabbed her bag, and quickly walked away before she could
embarrass herself.

She hadn’t gone far before her phone rang from the pocket of her bag.
Sasha winced when she saw her brother’s now familiar number on the screen.

What the hell did he want now?

She picked up the call. “What?”

“Is that any way to talk to your family?” He sounded cheerful through
the phone. Most likely full of booze and at a track somewhere losing more of
the money he’d extorted from her.

“What do you want, James? I’m not in the mood.”

“You want to play it that way, fine,” he growled. “What I want is more
money. Another thousand dollars a month.”

“What?!” She stopped in the middle of the walkway from the track to the
stables. Sasha lowered her voice. “Are you joking? I don’t have any more to
give. I can barely pay my own bills as it is. My rent was almost late last
month.”

“Almost doesn’t count now, does it? I’ve been more than fair to you
since I’ve been here. You have a cushy life rubbing elbows with those rich
motherfuckers. The least you can do is provide for me like you should. You give
me another grand a month or I open my mouth and sing like a fucking canary. Got
it?” He hung up the phone.

Sasha stared at the phone in her trembling hand, impotent fury sending
hot and cold waves through her body. She knew that as angry as she was, there
wasn’t anything she could do about her brother. He held all the cards. He could
destroy her reputation and the career she’d built for herself since he’d been
in jail with a few well-timed words. She couldn’t let that happen. She just
couldn’t.

But her options were so few. Refuse him and ruin her life. Tell the
cops and have James arrested right after he ruined her life. Sasha shook her
head. The only thing she could do now was find a way to pay him what he
demanded. How? She had no idea.

Sasha put her phone in her bag and slung the bag over her shoulder. She
took a deep breath and started once again for the stables, feeling a quicksand
of depression dragging her down the entire way.

Once in the stables, Sasha forgot why she was there. She already had
her bag, her phone, her purse. She turned around in the vast space with the
smell of horseflesh and hay, the soft nickering of her horses, wisps of
conversation drifting from the various stalls and outlying offices.

What am I doing here?

“Sasha?”

Damien’s voice drew her gaze toward the exit. He stood haloed by the
afternoon sun, impeccable in black riding boots, trousers that hugged his
thighs and hips, and a black polo shirt. The breeze played in his pale hair.

She swallowed as she looked at him. Even in the midst of her terror
over her brother’s demands, Damien could still take her breath away.

“Hi,” she called back, walking toward him. “What do you need?” She
smoothed her hair back from her face, suddenly conscious of having just left
the track with particles of dust sticking to her skin, sweat running down the
back of her neck and under her shirt, the smell of a long day steeped into her
skin.

As she walked to him, his eyes openly devoured her and she knew hers
were doing the same to him. Her skin flushed in reaction to his look as if he
was already touching her under her clothes. She looked away from him, not sure
if she wanted him to touch her in the frame of mind she was in. Her brother’s
demands were pressing down too heavily on her to be ignored. She needed to find
a solution to the problem, or find a way to get the money he was demanding from
her.

“Come into my study, would you please. I’d like for us to have a drink
and talk about how Red Penny is doing.”

She opened her mouth to refuse him. But something in his eyes stopped
her. She swallowed. Maybe an afternoon under Damien’s sensual control was just
the distraction she needed; at least for a little while. He made her feel so
good that for the moments she was with him, everything else in the world seemed
to vanish.
That
was what she needed right now.

Sasha cleared her throat. Her fingers tightening on the strap of her
messenger bag. “Sure. It’ll be great for us to…talk.” She fell into step with
him, conscious of the potential eyes on them as they walked through the stables
and into the house.

“I heard from Linc that Penny isn’t taking that well to the bit,”
Damien said as they walked into his study and closed the door behind them.
Locked it.

“She’s getting better,” Sasha said. “Today she performed really well on
the track.” She turned to Damien, dropped her bag on the floor near the door.

He turned to her, eyes smoldering. “You look sexy in your riding
clothes,” he said.

He touched her hot face, her throat. “Every time I see you, you are
more and more incredible to me. The perfect woman. I’m completely distracted by
thoughts of fucking you again.” He kissed her roughly, his hard mouth taking
hers almost cruelly, crushing her soft lips under his.

Her arms went around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as he
sucked on her lips, gripped her hips through the denim. She moaned against his
mouth, already caught up in the frenzy of wanting him. He ripped his mouth away
from hers, dragged her to the middle of the room to stand on the thick Persian
rug. He shoved her to her knees, knelt in front of her, dragged the shirt from
her body, the slacks, and her boots until she was completely naked, her skin
hot and prickling under his intense gaze.

With his eyes on hers, her roughly squeezed her breasts, twisted her
nipples until she cried out, arousal slamming into her, pooling between her
legs. His eyes glittered with a cruel desire, his mouth hard and tight,
unyielding. He reached into his pocket, pulled out two wooden clothes pins.
With his eyes still trapping hers, he snapped a wooden pincer on her tight
nipple.

She gasped, the pain of it making her eyes water. Then he snapped the
other pin onto her other nipple. Pain. Pleasure. Bliss. She writhed in the cool
air stroking her from the humming air conditioner, her pussy fairly dripping
thick juices down her thigh and onto his expensive rug. He flicked the clothes
pin with a finger. She screamed softly.

“Don’t move a muscle,” he said.

Damien stood up and walked her. Kicked her thighs apart. Grabbed her
wrists and jerked them behind her back. He grabbed her belt from the pile of
discarded clothes and lashed her wrists together with the black leather, tugged
her backward until her body made a tight bow, breasts tilted up toward the
ceiling, thighs spread. Mouth open and gasping at the pain in her wrists from
the tightly wrapped belt. Her knees pressed hard against the floor even through
the thick carpet. Arousal sang through her. Sasha’s body fairly vibrated with
it. She moaned in happiness, pain and endorphins flooding through her like hot
molasses.

“You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?”

Damien knelt behind her. He roughly shoved a hand between her legs,
dipped a finger into her pussy, and withdrew it with a groan of pure arousal.
“Fucking gorgeous.”

His breath huffed against the back of her neck. He shoved her head down
until her forehead touched the rug. The faintly musty scent of the expensive
antique filled her nose. The scent of her dripping pussy. His arousal. Her
cuffed hands thrust up in the air above her ass, the backs of her arms burning
as he yanked on the belt.

Sasha heard the scrape of leather against metal as Damien undid his
belt, then the sound of his zipper. Sasha panted softly, anticipating the
thrust of his maleness, eager for it. He didn’t make her wait. Damien speared
her with his hard cock, the thick root of him sliding deep into her pussy. She
felt the open teeth of his zipper, the buckle of his belt against her ass. He
grabbed the belt holding her wrists captive, using it as a leash to control
her, yanking it with each thrust of his hard cock inside her.

Grunting with each thrust, he fucked her mercilessly. His cock poured
the pleasure into her while the muscles in her arms burned from the taunt pull
of the belt and the skin of her wrists chafed from the rub of the belt. His
cock slammed into her, stirring up pleasure, shoving her across the rug, her
neck stretched up, mouth gasping as he fucked her. Her breasts jumped with each
thrust, her body vibrating from his possession. The clothes pins felt even
tighter as her nipples stiffened even more with her desire. She opened herself
even more to him, thighs wide, pussy wet, sucking him in with each movement of
his hips.

“Oh God!” she called out as the pleasure built quickly, roiling like a
stormy sea in the pit of her belly, in her hips, in her pussy.