The Stallion Read Online Free PDF Page A

way.
    ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a kiss. It was all very polite. Very businesslike.’
    His bottom lip dropped open. He was as surprised as she had been.
    But she didn’t tell him that. It was irrelevant. Her path was marked out and she’d signed a contract. She couldn’t go back on that. They both needed new pastures.
    She turned on to her back and threw her arms above her on the pillow. She stared at the ceiling for a while and prepared herself for Mark’s next question which she was positive would come.
    ‘Do you think he’s queer?’ he asked tentatively.
    ‘Typical!’ She laughed.
    In her experience, it was the first assumption in any strictly heterosexual male. Mark, she knew, would never turn down an opportunity to have sex with her or any other likely looking female and found it difficult to understand that someone else might not feel the same.
    Nevertheless she thought about it for a moment before she answered properly. On reflection, she remembered the eyes of Alistair Beaumont when she had been removing her clothes. The steely grey eyes had become brighter as each article had left her shoulders and cascaded from her limbs.
    ‘No.’ Her voice was low, almost secretive. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

3
    SHE FELT NO clinging affection or pangs of guilt about leaving Mark or the place where they’d lived together for nearly a year. Love had become a habit; and sex, although still enjoyable, was getting near that time where familiarity had replaced red-blooded passion.
    Apprehension sapped her concentration as Gorgeous Sir Galahad, the chestnut gelding, and Flamboyant Flame, her dapple-grey mare, were loaded into the box. Soon all three of them, her and her two horses, would be in their new home.
    Excitement had coloured her preparations since early morning. No matter how Mark might feel about her going, she could not hide her enthusiasm for joining the team at Beaumont Place. Facilities were the best there and, if what Ariadne had to say was anything to go by, the social life was pretty good, too.
    Limbs stiff from an over-abundance of sex the night before reminded her that she would miss Mark’s hard body covering hers. But, she told herself, he was not irreplaceable.
    All the same, Beaumont’s not taking her sexually still grated on her mind. There was a niggle inside that asked whether he had not thought her good enough for his taste. It rankled and made her feel slightly insecure.
    And yet it seemed even stranger that he had not taken advantage of Ariadne. Who could fail to be knocked out by her apple-ripe breasts and available pussy? But now the wager was struck and her curiosity aroused, it didn’t matter. Now it was up to her to rise to the challenge. What kind of man was it who could watch other people enjoying sex and not indulge himself, she asked herself? It didn’t matter. She would do her best. She smiled to herself as she slid the bolt into the lock of the tailboard. Pleasant thoughts came to mind.
    Perhaps, she thought, his tastes had become jaded, suffused with too much of the sensuous – a quality readily available to the man who could afford everything. Beaumont had a business empire that straddled the Atlantic, offices in London, Boston and New York, plus subsidiary companies in Australia, South Africa and South America. He was one of those men whose lives are dominated by their business interests. Yet still he found the time to fund the stabling, training and all the other costs incurred by those so unwise as to be immersed in the world of showjumping.
    For the last time she looked around her old stable yard where mice had chewed through the wooden walls, and yellow-headed weeds pushed through the cracked concrete.
    Goodbye to all this, she said to herself, looking one last time at the strident growth of the elder tree that had started as a rigorous sapling and was now taking over the yard, its virile roots splintering the concrete into smaller pieces. Strange, but she’d