Page 156 of Chaos

Approval.

Well, damn. Okay then.

“I’m just doing what I’m told,darling.” I smile at Finn, all teeth, all cheek, and jerk my head towards Carmen. “Discuss it with my boss. Over drinks, maybe?”

Everyone else might snicker, but Finn is not amused. Not even a little. Even from a distance, I feel the sheer weight of his unamused-ness, and it almost makes me buckle.

Almost.

I don’t let myself. I don’t overthink it. I just tighten my grip on Ruin’s mane and use it as a guiding, steadying leverage to hop onto his back with far more grace and confidence than I actually possess—thank you, muscle memory. The show-off in me cries out to gauge one specific reaction to my trick, but I stuff that part of me down. I focus every last bit of my attention on the twitchy stallion beneath me, one wrong move—anymove, wrong or otherwise—away from throwing me off.

Again.

Lightly scratching the base of his mane, I shift my weight forward slightly, just enough to reach into my back pocket and fish out my wild guy’s favorite treat. “How about a lap around the block?” I croon as a sugar cube crunches between his teeth. “Sound good to you, big guy?”

I take an equine grunt as a yes—I figure I’m right to, considering that when I dig my heels into Ruin’s side and click my tongue, he moves forward without protest.

And he moves some more. And he moves, and he moves, and he moves in slow, steady circles around a field with no fences, nolimits, so many places to escape to, but he chooses to stay here, with me.

Unlike last time, I don’t push my luck. Considering Carmen’s point proven, I carefully dismount my wonderful, angelic stallion, and I resist the urge to kiss him on the fucking mouth.

So proud I practically glow, I look to my audience, and I find them proud too. Even Finn reeks of it, though I can tell I’m in for a verbal spanking later.

Maybe a real one, if I’m lucky.

“Ruin is not a conventional horse,” Carmen calls out gently, satisfaction surrounding her like a tangible aura. “Conventional training won’t work on him. I’m not sure any training will work on him. I think he’s meant to be a little wild.”

All three of my sisters exchange a look.

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. “He’s wild, I’m wild. Chaos and Ruin. Like calls to fucking like.”

Grace sighs, all fake despondence. “You stole my joke.”

“I will trample you.”

“Did no one consider the ramifications of givingLottiethe equine equivalent of a loaded gun?”

Ha fucking ha.

Finn waits until after work to corner me.

I’m frowning at a pot of steamed broccoli that’s all but disintegrating in its state of over-cooked-ness when my stomach suddenly digs into the lip of the sink, pushed against it by the hard chest warming my back.

Briefly, teeth close around my earlobe. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Dropping the pot in the sink, I wriggle around, batting my lashes at that uncharacteristically sour face. “Today? No.”

Finn’s scowl—hisscowl, he’sscowling, have I ever seen him scowl? Has he ever scowled?—hardens. “You’re not funny.”

I trace the furrows in his brow before pressing my thumbs to the downturned corners of his mouth and forcing them upwards. “I’msoooopretty though, right?”

He rolls his eyes, but as he shifts to kiss the inside of my wrist, a smile burns the thin skin there. “You’re gorgeous. Even when you’re giving me a heart attack.”

“Heart attack?” I pout, flicking that clenched jaw. “Quite the downgrade from the hard-on I gave you last time.”

“No one said anything about a hard-on.”

“It was implied.”

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