Page 130 of Stolen By the Billionaire
“Oh, I would never pressure you like that,” she said, staring out her window. “Surely, that’s not what I mean. Besides, that’s so junior high, like if my friend handed your friend a note for you with two boxes and told you to check the box if you like me. That’s not how adults do it, right?”
He rested his hand on the console between the car’s two bucket seats and turned his palm up, offering it to her. “I like you. I like you a lot. I like you in a way that I’ve never liked anyone else, like I can’t take my eyes off you. Like I want to wrap myself around you every moment of the day and night. Like I will murder anyone who goddamn touches you.”
Sarah turned and looked at him, her round-arched eyes stretched wider than usual. She slid her hand into his, palm to palm, fingers entwined. “I like you, too.”
And that was when a deranged horse leaped in front of the parked car, planted all four of its formidable hooves on the asphalt, and whinnied directly into the windshield at them.
So much for a goddamn tender moment.
No, they were interrupted by a psychotic horse that looked like it was going to jump onto the hood of his Aston Martin Vantage and tap dance.
Blaze squinted at it, still out there prancing like a madman. “What the hell is that?
Sarah gasped. “What the heckers? Is she hurt?”
And Sarah bolted out of the car.
No fucking way.
Blaze jammed the stick into Park and scrambled out his door. “Sarah! I didn’t goddamn kidnap you! Get back in the car!”
They were three-quarters of the drive to her brother’s apartment and safety, or at least comparative safety, where they could discuss Sarah’s future security needs.
They were almost there.
Not goddamn again.
“Sarah!”
But she wasn’t running away.
Instead, she sprinted over to the bucking animal that had thrown itself in front of his car and seized its mane, dragging the horse’s head down to stroke its nose.
Jesus, she was going to get herself killed by that enormous beast with razor-sharp hooves that was pitching a fit in the middle of the road. “Sarah! Get away from that insane horse!”
“Stop yelling at her! You’re scaring her!”
“There were literally people shooting at us this morning. We don’t have time to stop and pet the horse.”
“I’m not petting her. We have to help her!”
Under Sarah’s hand, the horse was still frantically pacing, its hind legs do-si-do-ing even though Sarah held its head, but it was no longer bucking and kicking. Indeed, the beast laid its long face against Sarah’s chest and nose-nudged her.
Sarah looked up at him, the horse’s distress mirrored on her face. “We’ve got to help her find her foal.”
Like the horse was the reincarnation of Lassie, and little Timmy was in the damn well. “You can talk to horses now?”
Somehow, that hamster of a woman twisted up her little face and scowled at him. “Of course not. Obviously, this nursing mare has a foal. The foal is not with her, so something has happened to it. She’s trying to get help for her baby.”
Blaze craned his neck sideways, checking out the horse’s undercarriage.
Yep, no retractable firehose flopped underneath the horse, but the obviously female horse’s row of teats looked engorged. “Okay. I see it now.”
“Come on! We’ve got to help her foal!”
He flung his arm out toward the vast pastures that stretched beyond the sides of the road and rose in billowing hills to meet the sky. “How the hell would we know where it is?”
Sarah shot him a withering look like he was the biggest dumbass on the planet. “Horses are as smart as good dogs. The horse will lead us to her foal. Pull your car over to the side of the road. It’ll probably only take fifteen minutes.”
