LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(28)

I settled my head back on his shoulder. “Well, anyway, there’s a playground, but it’s pretty little. After a while, I’d get bored and sneak back across the street to the Clinton Park Stables. An old guy there took pity on me and let me in one time to see the horses. After that, whenever Mom took me to work, I’d visit Arnold and the horses.”

I drew a finger down the center of Roman’s chest and into his belly button, playing around with different shapes on his skin.

“Love at first neigh?” he asked.

I chuckled, tweaking his nipple at the bad pun. “Definitely. When I finished middle school, Arnold offered me a job and helped me get working papers. I mucked stalls and did general shit work after school and on weekends.” I smiled, remembering how pissed off my mom had been that my schedule at the barn meant I wouldn’t be available to seek out new marks for her schemes. Working at the stable had been my refuge in more ways than one, but I didn’t plan on sharing that little detail from my past.

“I fucking loved it,” I continued. “I had all kinds of daydreams about owning my own farm or ranch one day where I could have my own horses and teach kids to ride. When I saved up enough money for my own riding lessons, I found a place in the Bronx I could get to by taking a train and two buses. I wanted it so badly. But then my mom lost her job. So all my money went to the usual—rent, food, heat.”

I shrugged. “I still haven’t taken riding lessons, if you can believe it. And that was almost ten years ago.”

“You’ve never learned to ride in all that time?”

“Nope.”

Roman’s hand slowed in my hair. After a beat of silence, he gently turned my chin until I was facing him again. “I’m sorry you never had the chance to take lessons.” He brushed his lips against my temple.

He sounded so sincere, so concerned. I didn’t know how to respond and was afraid that if I said anything my voice might crack, so I buried my face in his neck instead.

Roman returned to threading his fingers through my hair, but after a moment he paused again. “Wait,” he said, frowning. “If you don’t know how to ride, how the hell did you come to own your own horse?”

“Well, I never took riding lessons, but I did take a carriage-handling course in order to get certified, but that meant I also had to get a driver’s license. Which is a total bitch when you’re born and raised in the city. Took me a full year to complete that course and get my certification.”

I wiggled over until I was lying on top of him. There was no way to keep my hands off his body. Just lying next to Roman Burke naked was making me hard again, so I pushed my dick into his lower belly.

Roman’s mouth curved up on one side. “Finish the story.” But his hands cupped my ass, so how exactly did he expect me to have words?

“Then I got a horse. The end.” I leaned down to kiss him, but he turned his head to the side, laughing so hard I practically bounced on his chest.

“Seriously, how did you get the horse?” he pressed.

I sighed and sat up, making a point of sitting so that his dick slid between my cheeks. Roman’s nostrils flared and his hands twitched on my hips, fingers pulling my cheeks open just enough to settle his length snugly between them.

“Arnold hooked me up with a medallion owner who was looking for a driver. The driver said he’d hire me if I had a horse. I think it was his way of saying no since he knew I didn’t have a horse. But Arnold called his bluff. Said I could use his horse. So I did.”

The spot between Roman’s eyes furrowed into a frown. “Scotty, did I just steal someone else’s horse?”





10





Roman





When Your Love Nest Gets Pests



I smirked, making sure Scotty knew I was just teasing. I didn’t actually think he’d tricked me into stealing a horse.

He tweaked one of my nipples, causing me to wince. “Don’t be silly. Arnold died almost four years ago. He left me Nugget and a little bit of money for her care.”

My smile fell. “I’m sorry.” I reached up to cup my hand around his cheek. “It sounds like Arnold was someone very special.”

He pressed his face against my palm, turning slightly so that the edge of his mouth brushed the tip of my thumb. “Thank you. He was. He drove every day for like forty years before retiring. After two weeks of retirement, he came back to work as a stable hand. He just didn’t want to leave the horses, you know?”

While he spoke, he dragged his fingertips up and down my arms while I held on to his hip. The press of his ass cheeks along my dick was making my brain spin off into many different directions—none of which was a horse stable in Hell’s Kitchen.

Scotty seemed to sense it, because he squeezed his ass and reached back to cup my balls in one hand. “Want to talk more about this? Or did you maybe want to stop the talking for a few minutes?”

“Gnf.”

“Thought so,” he said with a low chuckle. He leaned down to take my mouth with his and used the momentum to straighten out his body on top of mine again until our cocks were nestled against each other. “Where’s the lube?”

I slapped a hand blindly around the edge of the bed until I felt the bottle and handed it to him. Within moments, he’d slicked us both up and turned dry friction into something utterly intoxicating.