Page 15 of Ride With Me
The sting of his hand had faded to a barely-there warmth. A shiver went through me as I waited for the spanking to continue, to center me until I could let the words out.
The swish of leather through belt loops caught my attention.
He was serious. My body relaxed slightly, even with the anticipation of what was going to happen. He hadn’t ever given me a reason not to trust him, had he?
Logan laid the folded belt along my ass, rubbing the leather gently along my skin. “Do you remember your safe words?”
I nodded, fisting my hands into the mattress as he picked up the belt. “Red, Sir. And yellow.”
“Good girl.” With a swish and a crack, the belt came down, its sting rising on my ass.
I sucked in a breath.
“You will tell me information I need to know for your safety.” Logan lectured, the belt falling steadily in time with his words. “You will trust me. With your physical safety, and your emotional safety.”
The belt striped my vulnerable backside, and as the burn started to rise, tears started to fall.
“I’m going to ask you what happened to Ace. But first, what is it you think I’ll do with this information? What did someone else do?”
A sob broke free as the belt struck over and over. “You’ll—leave. You’ll see how awful I am. And it’ll make you leave.” Tears were falling freely now as the truth rushed out of me.
“Who left you?”
“My boyfriend. My trainer. My friends. Everyone.” Everyone who mattered had disappeared. And everyone who’d come since had left when they realized I wouldn’t talk about things.
Logan paused, running his hands over the stinging skin. “And why did they leave, Savannah? What happened to Ace?”
I couldn’t get the words out as the sobs came pouring out.
The belt landed with more force, searing pain through my bottom. Again and again as my resolve crumbled while he didn’t give up.
He didn’t give up. He didn’t leave.
“What happened to Ace?”
I broke. “He died! I killed him!”
I didn’t know how long Logan held me in his arms while I sobbed, shaking, memories of Ace and everything I’d lost flowing through me.
“Savannah, doll, it’s okay. It’s okay. No one is leaving now. I’m here.” He paused. “How did Ace die?”
I started to shake my head. I’d told him too much already.
Logan pulled back, tipping my chin up to look me in the eye, but for once, it didn’t scare me. He already knew the worst of it, didn’t he? And he was still here. He hadn’t left. He hadn’t given up.
Logan nodded gently. “Keep going, love. I’m so proud of you. Get it all out. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I pulled in a shuddering breath. “Ace was my horse. I told you that, right? He looks—looked—just like your horse. Black coat, black mane, a blaze down his nose in exactly that shape. He was my horse for ten years. I got him when I was 12. He was this amazing horse. He could do anything. He taught me to jump, brought me up through dressage levels. When I was in high school, we started competing in eventing.” I looked up at Logan, unsure how much he knew about the equestrian sport. “It’s super intense, but I loved it. The competitions were these multiple day things. We’d do dressage one day, then a cross country course the next day, then jumping. Even when he was exhausted from cross country he’d hit those jumps perfectly.”
Tears welled in my eyes again. “We were on the eventing team at UVA. We were doing so good. We were nationally ranked my senior year. We were in magazines. It was this surreal thing. My trainer talked about going to the Olympics eventually.”
I looked at Logan. He nodded encouragingly, so I kept going.
“There was this big competition in November my senior year. Virginia Horse Trials. We did really well in dressage the first day. Then the second day…”
“What happened the second day, love?” Logan prompted softly.
I could do this. I took a deep breath. “We were almost through the cross country course. We were coming up on a drop fence. They’re usually not too high, but the ground on the other side of the jump is lower, so you go downhill.” A tear slipped down my cheek. I could still see it so clearly. “He took off too early. I asked him to go, so he went.” More tears streamed down. “He hit the jump with his front legs. I felt us falling. That’s all I remember.” I looked up at Logan. “I woke up in the hospital four days later. They told me it was a rotational fall—when a horse does almost a somersault in the air. I shattered my leg and hip. It took two surgeries to fix them. And Ace… they told me he broke his neck when we landed. He died on the course.” Every emotion I’d held tight came pouring out. “He died and I wasn’t there for him and it was all my fault!”
