Billionaire's Second Chance (Billionaires #16) - Jennifer Hartley Page 0,14

the stables, so I went there next. This farm was so large, and just after dusk, when all the stars starting to poke their faces out into the night sky—it felt magical.

When I got to the stables, everything seemed quiet. There were a few horses that were all mellow and tucked in under blankets for the night. All except one horse that was. I remembered that horse—Ebony. He was always my favorite one anytime that I had come to visit the Wiley Ranch. There was something about him that reminded me of myself. Maybe it was because I always wanted to feel as powerful as he looked when I was just a teenager trying to survive a rough household. Or maybe it was because he always seemed to take a fancy to another mare that they used to have. I looked around to see if she was still here, which she was. I walked over to her stable and held out my hand. She was a cream-colored mare with ashen hair and a spunky personality. When I was in high school, I used to imagine that these two horses were Clara and me. I knew it was silly, but I liked it. There was just something about them that seemed like us—always right next to each other but never quite able to get together.

“I know,” I said to her as I put my hand out under her muzzle. “I wish I could let you out, too.”

“If you keep talking to Sprite, Ebony is going to get jealous.”

I turned around at Clara’s voice and saw her standing there in a far corner of the barn.

“Ah, yes, that’s her name—Sprite,” I said. “I had almost forgotten.” I walked over toward her and tried to see what she was working on. “Do those horses ever get to be together outside of their stalls?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Clara nodded. “Not as much as they’d like to, I’m sure. I think Ebony has a bit of a thing for her.”

“I can relate,” I mumbled under my breath.

I could tell that Clara heard me because she looked uneasy and then turned back around to finish what she had been working on.

“What are you fixing?” I asked.

“Rotten wood,” she said without turning around to look at me again.

“Isn’t it getting a bit late to be out here doing that?”

“DeShawn, if Scott told you to come out here and ask me to come in, you can tell him to go to hell,” she said. “I mean, I love him and all, but I’m just not in the mood to get into it with him tonight.”

“Your brother didn’t send me out here,” I said. “I came looking for you on my own.”

Clara didn’t say anything, but I could see her shoulders rising and falling as she took slow and steady breaths in.

“Need any help?” I asked, not knowing what else to say until I could get her to let her guard down a bit.”

“Sure.”

I was surprised that she accepted my offer to help at all.

“Grab that tin of nails over there,” she said, pointing toward a bench near one of the stalls. “I’ve pried all the beams off. I just need to place and nail the new boards.”

I grabbed the little metal tin of nails and walked it over to her. She was struggling to hold up the new panel and hammer it in at the same time.

“Here,” I said. “Let me help do that.”

I reached across her chest to take the hammer from her other hand, not oblivious to the fact that I was close enough to her to feel her body heat. She let go of the hammer and held the board in place for me to nail in. The sexual tension in the air was so thick that every time I pounded in a nail, all I could think about was pounding my cock into her. I tried to steady my breath at the crude thoughts that were creeping into my head, but damn, it was difficult to do.

“Well, I see that money hasn’t completely washed your brain dry of stuff that you learned to do out here,” she teased.

I chuckled, and I looked over to notice a small smile on her lips. That was the first smile that I’d seen on her face since I had gotten here. Except for the little one with the flowers, but that didn’t really count because I couldn’t tell if she was smiling because of me or because she liked