Her Grace's Stable: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 2 by Joely Sue Burkhart Page A

bury himself inside her.
    That thought should have alarmed him. The last thing he’d wanted was a sexual relationship with a mistress. Much better to return to his careful, staid life and hide all of these uncomfortable and frightening longings far away from everyone, especially himself.
    So what am I doing?
    It’d been one thing to steal a kiss from Lady Blackmyre in the stable. It was entirely another for the pony to dare the audacity of putting his mouth on the mistress in her ring without explicit permission.
    She looked at him differently now. Slumberous heat sparked in her eyes. The mistress had touched him and he’d been able to enjoy it. In fact, the memory of her hands lingered on his flesh, an imprint he feared he’d never be able to escape.
    She looks at me and sees not just the pony…but a man she desires.
    That knowledge changed everything. She buckled a chest harness into place and even the innocent stroke of her fingers licked his skin like white-hot flame. She didn’t stroke him as before, but his skin remembered and hungered for more. She’d deliberately chosen a contraption containing clinking metal. Again, the high and mighty mistress adjusting whatever preferences she might have to bring the fullest pleasure possible to her lowly pony.
    No one had ever catered to his desires like this. He didn’t have to ask. In fact, he refused to utter a single word to her, and she’d seen to his unspoken needs anyway. She cared enough to watch his every move and adjust her own actions to better satisfy him.
    What kind of mistress is this?
    A very dangerous one indeed.
    One that would make a man slither across broken glass on his belly if she ordered it.
    She sent him about the ring in a controlled trot that jingled the bit and harness, an orchestra that sent his heart pounding harder than the staccato of his boots on the dirt. He wondered what she’d do if he stripped off his trousers. What sort of rigging she might choose to ornament his cock. Certainly not a cage like she’d found on him that first night. No, that wasn’t this mistress’s style at all. Cole went natural, as she said, but was that his preference, or hers?
    Would she balk at the thought of leading me about by a tinkling chain held on my body only by my erection? Would she embed a few rings into my flesh so I could feel the metal beneath my clothing anytime I wished?
    Cold metal, her metal, piercing my body at all times of the day, jingling each time I took a step.
    Dangerous, so dangerous, this game they played. It was terrifying to know she’d been able to arouse him like this without blatant caresses. To plant such dark desires in his head without ever once touching him intimately or putting her mouth on him. No, he’d been the one to put his mouth on her first, not once but twice.
    And I burn to do it again and again.
    He feared the wool would give way and tear beneath the prodigious size of his erection.
    She’ll have me on my belly kissing her boots in a heartbeat.
    Which his cock insisted wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
    Not at all.

Chapter Ten
    When Arthur saw the other man in the— his! —ring the next day, he very nearly turned smartly on his heel and marched off Blackmyre lands as quickly as possible.
    Not retreat, surely not.
    His upper lip curled in a silent snarl but he stepped into Her Grace’s private stable and locked the door behind him.
    Cole didn’t even look at him as he came to stand beside him, waiting for Lady Blackmyre’s attention. Arthur certainly didn’t care that the man was nude. Nor that he was already erect. So was he, truth be told, but he blamed it on the pony games. Days and days of playing with the smoldering Duchess and no sexual relief in sight. That’s all this is.
    The other man’s scent filled his nose, leather and horse from his real job in the other side of Her Grace’s stable, and he couldn’t help but remember that lean, wiry body smashed beneath him while he savagely plunged out of