Melting Ice Read Online Free Page B

that last salvo, he was gone.
    Avery stared after him, mouth hanging open, and her cheek tingling from his touch. Dang, he was hot, hotter than any man had a right to be, and he wet her panties faster than any man she’d ever met, and she’d met plenty in her former part-time job as a professional party crasher. But that was all she’d ever done. Met them. Danced with them. Flirted with them. She’d never been tempted to take one of them home, though she’d had plenty of offers.
    Avery preferred the company of horses. She didn’t need a man to complete her; she never had, she never would. But maybe Bella was on to something. Maybe engaging in some recreational sex would loosen her up—purely for the sake of her horses, of course. Hell, even if it didn’t, it’d be fun trying.
    She wouldn’t mind a roll in the hay with her dark and dangerous neighbor. A girl did have her needs, and Avery had denied hers for too long. No wonder the first gorgeous stranger to walk into her barn turned her on in fifty different ways and had her imagining all kinds of fun they could have together.
    Isaac was a fine man, and Avery could use a fine man who wouldn’t ask for anything but sex, but she couldn’t let him know that. He’d have to work for it if he wanted to get her horizontal—or vertical.
    Avery groaned at the thought of being pushed up against a wall by that man and lifted onto his hard erection. Vertical definitely had its appeal as much as horizontal.
    She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t sleep around much either. Her last casual fling had started with a French horse trainer in the tack room of his horse trailer almost two years ago at the championships. Since he lived south of Portland, they’d met up a few times last year, purely for sex, nothing serious, because otherwise the guy was a dick.
    Isaac, too, radiated dick-itude, as her wild child sister Bella called it, an attitude common in strong and cocky men who believed they owned the world and everything in it, especially women. Avery didn’t mind a little ownership in the bedroom from a strong man, as long as it never extended outside the bedroom door.
    Maybe, just maybe, Isaac was just what she needed to start the New Year off right.
    * * * *
    Isaac wanted horse lady, whatever the hell her name was. As soon as he got home, he put away the groceries, and fed Cranky Pants. He looked up the name of the barn online and did a little cyber stalking. He’d never cared enough about a woman before to cyber stalk her or even ask her name, but he wanted to know the gorgeous blonde horse lady’s name.
    The barn had a website. Cedrona Farms, owned by Sam Reynolds, had an assistant trainer and instructor, Avery Maxwell. Isaac wiped drool off his face as he studied pictures of Avery riding horses. He’d give his left nut if she’d ride him like that. One picture showed her standing next to a huge horse. She wore this incredible outfit that showed off her body without showing a thing. It was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, sexier than a woman in a miniscule bikini, despite this picture showing no skin. In fact, Avery was dressed in a black jacket, white shirt, those tight, white riding pants, and polished black boots. He indulged himself for a few minutes with an image of her riding him hard in that outfit, sans breeches, brandishing a riding whip, while he lay flat on his back in a bed of hay.
    He grinned as he picked up the lead rope and headed back down the narrow gravel road for round two with Avery the horse lady. He lengthened his stride, one-hundred-percent focused on how to get her underneath him tonight.
    This time he found her riding a horse in the huge arena, and he slipped onto a bench to watch. As she rode by, she scowled at him, and he grinned back. There was nothing he loved more than a surly woman because he didn’t need to worry about hurting her feelings or pissing her off—she was already pissed off, and pissed-off sex often was the best