The Stallion

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Also by Georgina Brown

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The world of showjumping is as steamy as it is competitive. Ambitious young rider Penny Bennett enters into a wager with her oldest rival and friend, Ariadne, to win her thoroughbred stallion, guaranteed to bring Penny money and success. But first she must attain the sponsorship and very personal attention of showjumping’s biggest impresario, Alister Beaumont.

  Beaumont’s riding school, however, is not all it seems. There’s the weird relationship between Alister and his cigar-smoking sister. And the bizarre clothes they want Penny to wear. But in this atmosphere of unbridled kinkiness, Penny is determined not only to win the wager but to discover the truth about Beaumont’s strange hobbies.

  Also by Georgina Brown

  Eye of the Storm

  Runners and Riders

  Like Mother, Like Daughter

  1

  WHAT ARIADNE TOLD Penny was a challenge, and one she could not help but rise to.

  ‘You’ll get his backing,’ Ariadne said, tossing her blonde mane whilst cupping her breast. From there, she ran her hand over her narrow waist and down over her curving hip. As the hand caressed, her body moved to meet it, undulating appreciatively as if it belonged to someone else. It was an alluring gesture, inviting, yet evidently self-gratifying. ‘But you won’t get him,’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

  Ariadne’s eyes seemed to be avoiding her own and for a moment Penny detected an air of insincerity rather than disappointment. Ariadne hated rejection.

  Penny raked her fingers through her own hair, which was dark and glossy, and a crowning compliment to the rich creaminess of her skin. At the same time, she asked herself what she’d let herself in for by signing a contract with Alistair Beaumont. The answer was easy. Showjumping cost money. Everyone sought out a wealthy backer nowadays, and he’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Besides that, Beaumont was handsome in that classic masculine way that silk shirts and well-cut clothes do heaps to accentuate.

  There was, of course, Mark to consider. She lived with Mark, and in the heady days and weeks of early passion, had convinced herself that she would stay with him for ever. So she’d loitered in a comfortable rut until the feeling of being stultified had crept up on her. Suddenly, the urge to move on had become irresistible.

  Ariadne had helped her get Alistair Beaumont’s backing and she was grateful for it. This extra wager on the side added a little spice to the basic business of securing sponsorship in a very competitive sport.

  Penny had known Ariadne since childhood and had once caught her giving one of her own brothers fellatio whilst her other brother pushed his immature but responsive penis into her golden-haired cleft from behind. They knew each other well, though Ariadne consistently niggled Penny that she did not know herself well enough; that there was more to her than met the eyes.

  Penny had taken little notice. She was beautiful, successful (so far), and now she had won the backing of Alistair Beaumont. In addition, Ariadne’s wager had intrigued her. What was there to lose in rising to it? Besides, at the end of it, Ariadne’s black stallion would be hers. Not that Ariadne would miss this most beautiful animal. Ariadne had a lot of things, in fact, that had seemed to accumulate since leaving Alistair Beaumont’s stables. And that was how Penny herself had got his support – Ariadne had arranged it for her.

  High breasts, blonde hair and long legs were attributes Ariadne possessed among many others. Penny did not resent that. She’d known Ariadne a long time, regarded her as beautiful, knew she was demanding and also had a particular penchant for intrigue and an abnormal appetite for men. Not that Penny could condemn that. She was very fond of them herself.

  ‘It’s a bet, then,’ said Ariadne. ‘If you can strike it with Alistair, you’ve won Daedalus – one stallion for another. If not, your horses are mine.’

  Penny agreed. The very thought, that Alistair had resisted the temptations Ariadne had in plenty, intrigued her. From what her friend had told her, her benefactor only watched others making out. The very thought filled her with an obsessive determination she didn’t know she had.

  Sponsorship in showjumping was hard to come by, and when someone like Beaumont made an offer, any rider had to sit up and take notice. Horses cost money to keep, and with entry fees rising all the time, there was not one successful showjumper who didn’t have the backing of a double-glazing company, a building firm or a multinational corporation.

  The very first time she’d seen Beaumont, she’d liked the look of him. Power and wealth gave something extra to a man that made him more alluring. He responded to his wealth, lived up to it, moved like a cat and had eyes that darted over her body like naked flames. Like a moth, she was attracted to those flames. She’d only seen him clothed, but the body beneath the misted blue of an Armani sweater, tailored breeches and high leather boots seemed hard and well formed.

  Ariadne had done a season with him. She didn’t explain why it was only one season, so Penny took it that her failure to seduce Beaumont must be the reason for her not staying. Failure with regard to men was not something Ariadne took kindly to.

  ‘Everyone rides hard, everyone plays hard, but not him,’ Ariadne explained in a voice that edged on sulkiness. ‘He stands, watches everything you do, as though he’s looking through your clothes – that sort of thing.’ She lowered her eyelids in her usual sultry way and leaned closer. ‘He watches everyone else making out. He likes watching.’ And she smiled in a catlike way.

  And you loved it, Penny thought as she felt the hot breath from Ariadne’s red lips not far from her neck. ‘A voyeur? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  Ariadne tossed her hair and let it fall unbridled over her bare shoulder. She nodded.

  ‘Then our wager’s on? No backing out?’ Ariadne asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes. ‘You’ve seen my new stallion. All yours if you get Alistair Beaumont.’

  Penny eyed her friend before answering. ‘No backing out,’ she said at last.

  No backing out, she thought to herself. She had not backed out then, and she had not backed out today. Her interview with Alistair Beaumont had started off in an ordinary way: name, career to date, etc. Then he had asked her just how important it was for her to receive his backing and what she was prepared to do to get it.

  ‘Anything,’ she had replied.

  He’d taken her at her word, and here she was wearing nothing but shoes, a pair of sheer chocolate-coloured stockings and a crisply frilled, but scanty, suspender belt – all, thankfully, covered by the soft opulence of a cashmere coat. Beside her walked Alistair Beaumont.

  ‘How does it feel?’ he asked in a husky, sensual voice. His steel-grey eyes did not leave the mix of shoppers and lunch-time office workers ahead and around them.

  Somehow Penny didn’t want to say anything. What she was doing, what was happening to her, was something solitary, for her enjoyment alone. Her very breath caught slightly before release. She yearned to moan her ecstasy, but couldn’t. She was in a public place, and although the thought of going public excited her, she kept her pleasure to herself though her eyes sparkled and her skin tingled. Her sex was tantalised and she relied on a rising breeze to cool the heat that burned between her legs and
would not be fully quenched.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was provocative, yet hushed and as soft as the coat lining that caressed her naked body and teased her senses.

  ‘Exactly what I said. Describe it to me.’ He did not raise his voice. Still he did not look at her. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m trying to think,’ she replied, determined to take her time and enjoy what she was experiencing despite it being at his suggestion.

  She took a deep breath and thought about how she felt – and not just with regard to her nakedness beneath the swishing coat. That was something to be relished as no more important than thick cream on coffee cake.

  This was something she hadn’t expected, and was incomparable to anything she’d ever done before. She could not forget that Alistair was walking at her side. He was a presence, a presence much appreciated, and, judging by the looks of secretaries bustling by on their lunch-time breaks, much admired.

  Ariadne had admired him, too. Ariadne had wanted him but, according to what she’d told Penny, had not got him. Why should she succeed where Ariadne had failed?

  ‘You still haven’t answered,’ she heard him say.

  ‘Erotic.’ It was the first word that came to mind. How else could she describe what she was doing, what she was thinking? Delicious shivers of excitement and sensual pleasure made her nipples grow and become almost painful with their need for touch. Wetness oozed from the warm lips that nestled provocatively between her silky soft thighs. ‘Very erotic. Arousing!’

  She stressed the words. Now it wasn’t just a question of needing his sponsorship for her highly expensive sport. She had a wager to win, and what a way to win it.

  So, he was a man who liked to watch. Surely something of what he watched would arouse him until he had to take her, had to give in to his own sexuality and bury his cock deep within her inviting cleft.

  Beneath the cover of her coat her hips swayed as she tried to elicit the last ounce of sexual turn-on from the cool silk lining. She trembled and, as if taken by the chill waters of a mountain torrent, all her inhibitions seemed to flow away. Feelings and emotions she had never known seemed to bubble to the surface. She knew that in the past she had kept them hidden and had disguised her secret desires and outright fantasies with a brittle veneer of what she chose to call feminism. It had not been an honest term, she told herself, for what she was feeling now belonged solely to her, and no matter what this man might be getting from her experience, she was getting more.

  ‘That’s not a very good description,’ she heard him say. ‘I said describe it to me.’

  There was demand in his voice now. She sensed his need to draw her own personal feelings out of her; savour the sweet juice of arousal in his mind via her voice. But it wasn’t his experience. It was only hers. Those new emotions told her that; those new desires would show her.

  She tossed her hair and looked at him sidelong, the soft darkness of her lashes briefly alighting on her creamy cheeks. The dark-pink lips of her wide mouth smiled.

  Beneath the impenetrable barrier of her coat, her nipples erected against the coolness of the silk lining, her buttocks quivering as though caressed by the fingertips of an unseen lover. Her skin shimmered with the feel of it. Her nerve ends tingled as though charged with a feather of electrical current. She buried her hands deep in her pockets and nestled her chin down into the collar.

  ‘It’s very difficult to do . . . here.’ She licked her lips as her eyes flitted over the faces of the crowd. Those that did look her way she knew were only taking in her good looks – the dark hair, the dark-blue eyes – not what she was; not how she was underneath. They could only imagine her flat belly, her silky thighs and the heart-shaped tangle of dark curly hair that nestled between them, hiding an awesome thirst that had need of quenching.

  She wore stockings, chocolate against the milky creaminess of her skin. Her calves were taut and ankles slim above the black straps of her high-heeled shoes.

  She was shapely, she was sexy, and she was loving every minute of this. As she walked, she could feel the movement of the black, lace-edged suspender belt and the whispering rasp of sheer stockings as her thighs brushed one against the other. She relished the heightened sensation of vulnerability that encircled her exposed sex. There was nothing else between her and public outrage – except for her coat.

  ‘No one can see,’ he said suddenly as if reading her thoughts. ‘Only you and I know what you look like beneath that coat, but only you know how it feels. Describe it to me. I want to share it with you.’

  His sigh filtered into her thoughts. She licked her lips and looked at him sidelong again. She studied the crisp, dark eyebrows and the thatch of dark hair. He was handsome. She had to admit that. But distant, somehow remote. His eyes stared straight ahead.

  ‘I want to know exactly what you feel,’ he said somewhat impatiently.

  Impatience, she thought, was only to be expected. Alistair Beaumont was a man of influence; a man of money who was used to giving orders and used to having them obeyed.

  Choosing her words carefully, she formed her answer. So much depended on them. She took a deep breath and licked her dry lips. ‘Hmmm,’ she murmured as the cool silk caressed her skin. ‘The silk is very cool, very smooth. It’s rubbing my nipples. They’ve grown bigger. They’re stiff, almost painful. Cold air is circulating between my legs. I can feel it disturbing my pubic hair.’

  Poetic, she thought; my words sound poetic. She was aroused by them as well as pleased. Funny, she thought, that no matter how cool the air, my cleft is still hot – still moist, demanding.

  Her voice was husky and low. Her own words excited her. Within her body, the bud of passion that sat so secretly among lips of pink flesh was reminding her of its existence; reminding her of the effect her lurid thoughts could have on it. Fleetingly, she glanced at the other people who hurried along the pavement. She voiced what she was thinking.

  ‘What would these people think if they knew; if they could see?’

  She glanced swiftly at this man who could use his money to back her expertise, and perhaps extend her sexual experience and give her ownership of a thoroughbred stallion who had covered more than twenty mares already this year. She uttered a silent prayer that he would confirm his decision today.

  Her body bristled with anticipation as draughts of cool air caressed her slim thighs, but did nothing to cool the heat that burned between her legs.

  ‘They see nothing. They hear nothing.’ she heard him say. ‘Go on.’

  Somehow, she knew what she had to say next, what he wanted her to say. The words seemed engraved somewhere inside her along with the birth of her new desires. Her body trembled when she answered.

  ‘It excites me, as though I have some kind of power over them. I am doing something that is strictly taboo, that they would condemn me for. Yet I am doing it. Despite them, I am doing it.’

  She did not add that he, too, was one of them. Perhaps he thought this gave him power over her, as though she were doing it purely for his enjoyment. She wasn’t. This was for herself.

  Will this one small act be enough to gain his body? she asked herself. Had Ariadne refused to do this, yet still got the sponsorship for her showjumping season but not the man to go with it? No, she told herself. Ariadne would not have refused. There had to be more to this.

  He cleared his throat, turned and smiled at her. ‘That’s very good to hear, my dear. Very good indeed. I think you might be exactly what I’m looking for.’ One arm reached out and curved around her back as he guided her through the midday crowds towards the bank. An ordinary occurrence. Something people did every day. But not dressed as she was. Not attired only in shiny stockings, a crisp, black-lace suspender belt and a cashmere coat.

  ‘How else does it make you feel?’

  The silk lining, that had only lightly trembled against her bare back and taut, rounded bottom, now slid over it from the touch of his arm. She clenched each pearlike orb of her rear, o
ne against the other. It was hard to suppress the urge to thrust forward. Her legs and secret lips parted as she extended her stride to take in the two steps up to the door of the bank. Before very long her love juice would begin to flow, and then . . .

  He repeated his question.

  She took a deep breath before answering. ‘In need.’ It was an honest exclamation, but one offered in a hushed gasp, secret and meant for nearby ears only. Briefly, she caught sight of his smile. She returned it and knew instantly that she had won his sponsorship for the coming competitive year, and everything else that went with it.

  Eyes bright and heart beating with excitement, she watched him as he made his way forward along the roped-in queue over the dappled cream of the cold marble floor.

  For his age, Alistair Beaumont was a good-looking man. Nearing late forties, dark hair only faintly streaked with grey, and a deep cleft almost dividing the strength of his square jaw.

  He was well built; not that of the over-zealous athlete or weightlifter, but a smooth firmness coupled with confidence in his own good looks, his own good body. He was of average height. His status was otherwise. There was nothing average about that. His clothes cried out what he was. His shirt crisp Sea Island cotton; his jacket Highland wool in a neat, checked pattern; trousers of purposely faded green, countrified English casual, yet obviously made by some Italian fashion house.

  Alistair Beaumont looked wealthy and was wealthy. He had no real need to be here today queuing with the common herd. There were more than enough people in his employ, beholden to his benevolence, to send off on the mundane errands of life.

  But today, Alistair George Beaumont had an ulterior motive. Today it seemed he had put her to the test. If she was as committed to her career as she said she was, then she would do it. What would she do, he had asked her, to gain his backing? Anything, she’d told him, absolutely anything. And she’d meant it.

  She’d been living with Mark a while now, and he hadn’t been entirely happy about her joining the Beaumont yard. They’d ended up rowing about it. Bitterness had erupted where once there had only been deep words of undeniable lust and passion. She would be leaving him, and now he accepted that.