Stable Mates. Zara Stoneley

down to her hip. He liked Lottie’s hips.

      ‘Proper child-bearing hips these.’ His fingers tightened, in sympathy with other parts of his body.

      ‘Huh, you mean big.’ She didn’t sound as drowsy now, as she swatted at his hand again and shifted onto her back. ‘And don’t you dare go back to playing with my boobs. Answer the phone.’

      ‘I can’t find the bloody thing in the dark, can I?’ He groped further down her body, which earned him a slap, and finally his fingers closed around the lump of hard plastic. Just as Lottie flicked the light on. She was shaking her head at him.

      ‘You’re hopeless.’

      ‘And you’re just so fuckable.’ He blew her a kiss and stared openly at her naked body. He’d missed a lot of things about Lottie while she’d been gone, but that glorious body had been his first thought when he’d heard she was heading back.

      In fact, Lottie’s uninhibited nakedness had probably been what he had fallen in love with in the first place. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that he’d found someone even more disorganised than he was, and he’d found her need to flee the country even more incomprehensible. But when it came to bed, and her body, her complete lack of hang-ups made her irresistible.

      ‘Who is that? Who’s there?’ The voice in his ear had moved on from hysterics to a mix of suspicion and brittle annoyance and he half wished he’d prolonged his ‘find the phone’ game, who knew what it might have led to?

      ‘It’s me of course, who the hell do you think it is? Who’s that?’

      ‘There is a chance, darling…’ Lottie straddled him, which was no mean feat given the headspace, and his cock hardened in anticipation. He could ditch the phone right now, straight out of the window. She reached forward, those perfect breasts bobbing against him; he could already taste her kiss. Except he couldn’t. She’d grabbed the phone and was waggling it in front of his face.

      ‘Hang on, that isn’t my bloody phone.’

      ‘Exactly.’ She giggled and fell sideways.

      ‘Hello? Hello? You’re not—’

      ‘Pip.’ Rory stared at the bright pink phone in disgust. ‘Hell, I forgotten I’d ended up with bloody Pip’s phone again, why the fuck does she keep walking off with my mobile?’ Pip was lovely, Pip was totally, one hundred per cent organised when it came to work, and a shambling mess when it came to everything else. And this was the third time in a week she’d picked up his mobile by mistake and walked off with it. Which left him with hers.

      ‘Why don’t you keep it in your pocket, like everyone else?’ Lottie was regarding him through big green eyes, her head cradled in her hand. Mussed up hair in a tangle round her face. A very kissable face, and he just knew that mouth would taste of sex. He leaned forward, just as she put a hand out to his chest. ‘Rory, you’re on the phone remember?’

      He sighed. ‘I’d rather be on you.’

      ‘Shush,’ she giggled, ‘she can hear you.’ He made a move to chuck the phone back down the bed, but she grabbed it from him before he had chance.

      ‘Hello?’

      He trailed a finger over her slightly rounded stomach and was rewarded with a slap. ‘Stop it.’

      ‘I can’t. You’re irresistible, especially when you’re cross.’

      ‘You’re not Pip, either.’ He could hear the voice, sharp, on the other end of the line.

      ‘Nope. It’s Lottie. Pip has got Rory’s mobile, her number—’

      ‘I know what the number is, thank you.’

      ‘Hey, is that Amanda? Hello? Amanda?’ Lottie dropped the phone on his chest and flopped back. ‘Well thanks to you too. She’s bloody hung up on me.’

      ‘I’m hung up on you.’ He stroked a finger down one of the forbidden breasts, over the peak of a nipple. ‘So, fancy a bit of mounting practice?’

      ‘What time is it?’

      Rory sighed and held his wrist up so she could see his watch. ‘I really don’t know why you haven’t got a watch.’

      ‘I lose them, or drop them in water buckets. And they leave tan lines.’ She stretched perfectly bronzed, unmarked arms out in front of her and squinted again at his watch. ‘You do know your class starts in an hour?’

      Oh yeah, that was what he was doing shacked up in the crummiest horsebox that Billy Brinkley owned. With the man’s daughter. They’d got to the showground and hit the whiskey and an uncomfortable, cramped bed with the long-legged shapely Charlotte had, in his drunken haze, seemed a far better bet than the comfort of the hotel that the horse’s owner had booked for him half a mile up the road.

      ‘And Flashy needs a good half hour work-in unless you want to exit over the judge’s car like she did last time.’

      ‘Well you better shift your arse hadn’t you gorgeous?’ He gave the bum he quite fancied fondling a shove with his foot. ‘I can’t exit anywhere with you in the way.’

      Three minutes later the horsebox door was open and Rory Steel stood in nothing more than breeches and boots, surveying the showground. There was an early morning spring nip in the air that did nothing to clear his head, nor did the sight of already gleaming horses being walked out.

      His two least favourite aspects of the world of eventing he competed in were dressage and small events like this. Unfortunately, Flash didn’t approve of dressage either, so he’d been forced to take the sensible route and bring her to a smaller dressage competition. The other competitors would hate him, because they knew who he was, and considered it jolly bad form to compete at a lower level. And he’d hate every minute because there was a good chance the stroppy little mare would play up like the prima donna she was and make him look a prize dick.

      Hot Flash had been named well, though as far as he was concerned it was more Hot Flush, she was as temperamental as a menopausal woman. Not that he’d known that many, but the image of his mum at fifty stuck in his mind. She’d developed a temper worse than his dad’s had ever been. Which was going some.

      ‘Are you going to just stand there showing the world your abs, or let me get past so I can get her ready?’

      ‘I’d rather have just lain there actually.’ He ran his fingers through his hair and could swear his head was literally throbbing. ‘Christ, was that whiskey you were plying me with last night bootleggers’ stuff?’

      ‘Probably. You know me, anything to get you into bed.’ She grinned, which made her even more shaggable, and he couldn’t resist kissing those full lips, sliding his hand round onto her firm bum so he could pull her closer.

      Lottie wriggled her way past him. ‘Are you going to ride dressed like that? Try distraction techniques so no one notices what a crap test you’ve done? I can see the headlines now,’ she waved her hands in the air ‘Rory Steel, the fearless eventer, beaten by a bunch of Cheshire WAGs.’

      ‘Piss off.’ His foot missed her bum by inches as she jumped down the steps laughing. It beat him how she managed to get up so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when they’d spent the evening getting slaughtered and the night getting shagged.

      ***

      It wasn’t until Lottie was grooming the laid-back Flash that she remembered the phone call. If Pip had been calling first thing in the morning, it wouldn’t have seemed strange, Pip had been shadowing Rory’s every move lately. But it was Amanda. And that was just weird. Pip did horses, didn’t think anything of getting up before the birds had started tweeting to get a horse ready for a show. But Amanda was a lady of leisure, well at least that’s how the rest of Tippermere saw her. Marcus made the millions, and his beautiful wife spent them. His extravagance had been to buy Folly Lake Equestrian Centre and sponsor one or two of the riders who frequented it, but his lovely wife had zero