Holy f**k I needed that, even though I was sore and swollen.

The weight of his lower body pressed me back into the couch as his arms braced on either side of me. He took long, slow strokes, steady and relentless. I wrapped my legs around his waist, wondering if I’d gone crazy. So many things happening, yet he only had to touch me and I lost myself in him again and again. This wasn’t like any sex we’d had before. It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t hard and it wasn’t urgent. It was relentless, however. Every time he hit bottom, every time he stretched me open, sliding his c**k along my clit, I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. I wanted him to go faster, pound me hard so I’d fall over the edge and get the relief my body needed. Fuck out my frustration in general.

I reached down, urging him to go faster. He ignored me, pumping at his own speed, the corner of his mouth turning up as I glared at him.

“You still pissed at me for last night, babe?” Horse asked. “You wanna fight about it? Now’s a great time. I’m in a pretty good mood, probably agree with anything you say.”

“You’re insane,” I muttered, straining up toward him. Dammit, I needed to come. He must too. If he was any harder he’d start popping blood vessels, the bastard, yet he just smirked at me and went even slower.

“Maybe,” he replied, grinning openly at me now. “But I’m the bastard f**king you and pretty much your only hope of getting off, so you might want to stop trying to kill me with those eyes of yours.”

“Jerk.”

“Hot piece of ass.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I was referring to myself,” he replied, thrusting deep before stopping. He grabbed one of my hands, then the other, pinning them on either side of my head as I squirmed.

“Just do it!” I demanded. He dropped his mouth down, taking mine in a long, slow kiss. I tried to thrust my tongue into his mouth, wiggling against him. I wanted more and I wanted it now. He pulled back, and now his face wore a definite smirk.

“Do what?”

“You know,” I gritted.

“I’m confused,” he replied. “I think you need to explain to me. Otherwise I might just give up and go away.”

I closed my mouth and squeezed my inner muscles around his dick as tight as I could, gloating when he stiffened and groaned. I let go and then started squeezing him in a slow and steady rhythm. Two could play this game.

“Fuck, Marie,” he moaned, then pushed my hands down deep into the couch as he lifted himself, finally thrusting into me like I needed. I still couldn’t move much, but that didn’t matter because the games were over. Now he hit me with deep strokes, each one more forceful than the last. I felt my muscles growing tight as I lifted my hips to meet his. Oh damn… I was close—so incredibly close. He pushed my hands together over my head, imprisoning them as he hammered home. I hovered right at the edge then slipped over, screaming out my orgasm.

I have no idea how long it was before Horse came, because I was floating in my own little world. He collapsed on top of me, managing to keep enough of his weight to one side that he didn’t crush me. Our breathing slowed. Then he leaned up on one elbow, sliding me so we lay face-to-face.

If I’d spent a million years trying to guess his next move, I still wouldn’t have seen it coming.

“Why don’t you go down to the community college and pick up an application,” he said. That broke right through my post-coital haze.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’re here. You’re not going anywhere any time soon, and you need something to do. You told me you want to go to school, so look into going to school.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, shaking my head. Horse’s reality and mine were two very different things. Why were we even having this conversation, let alone right now? “I can’t just go to college.”

“Why not?”

“Well it costs a lot of money, for one thing,” I snapped. “And right now I’m worth a total of eleven hundred bucks if I’m lucky. You have to do tests, you have to apply and get accepted and even then you have to… I don’t know, you have to do all kinds of stuff. And my brother’s in big trouble, I don’t have time for school…” I ran out of steam at that point, so I glared at him instead. He kept changing things on me and I couldn’t keep up.

“You can’t do anything about Jeff,” he said firmly. “But the rest? You gotta do that shit to get into school, start doing it. Go down there, see what it takes. Get the papers and fill them out. It’s not gonna happen if you sit around listing all the reasons it can’t.”

“What part of ‘I don’t have any money’ did you not get?”

“What part of ‘I’ll give you money if you need it’ did you not get?”

“Horse, that’s crazy.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“You’re here, Marie, and I know you like to earn your own way. But—and don’t get pissed when I say this—you don’t have the skills to make good money, which means any job you get is going to be minimum wage, despite the fact that you’re smart and hardworking and could do just about anything if you had the chance. But you won’t have a chance without some education, so you might as well start now.”

He trailed his hand down along my body as he spoke, fingers tracing my curves, pulling my hips closer into his. I shook my head, wondering if I’d lost my mind. Jeff might get killed, I’d just had mind-blowing couch sex with his potential killer and now I was supposed to apply for college.

Just like that.

“You’re serious? You want me to go to school?”

“Why not?” he challenged. “So long as you take care of shit around here, I’m fine with it. Might want to move on that whole divorce thing too while you’re at it. Club’s got a lawyer, I’ll set up an appointment for you. I can pretty much guarantee your ex won’t put up a fight.”

He smiled when he said it—not a nice smile.

“Okay, I’ll go check it out,” I said slowly. “This is weird, you get that? You kidnapping me, holding me hostage and then sending me to school? This isn’t how things like this usually work.”

Horse grinned at me, eyes lazy and satisfied.

“Just roll with it,” he whispered. “And keep doing whatever exercises you do to make your cunt squeeze like that. They got a college degree for that?”