SO FAR: Jilted days before the wedding in Melbourne, Biance White returns home to Auckland to throw herself into work, setting up as a consultant to people with business problems. Her first client is a honey, or so it seems as romance begins to swirl around them. But when Marty Young fails to drive through her proposals for business reform at his college for immigrants she walks away from him to silence the possible ringing of wedding bells.
*
Bianca White was about to turn down into the basement of her apartment building when lights on a SUV parked outside the building doubled-blinked and her phone went.
"Hi, it's Marty flicking lights at you."
"I guessed β the black vehicle looked familiar. What are you doing here?"
"I just had to return but I am confused about why I'm here. I just had to return; don't think of me as a stalker."
"The soft bunch of thigh above my stockings wants to be kissed and licked."
Bianca heard a groan and smiled. "Wait at the front doors β I'll come up internally and let you in."
"How far can I get in?"
"Only you can determine that," she said, making noisy kisses and switching off the phone as she went underground.
Inside the apartment the wet kissing stopped as her client Marty Young lifted Bianca on to the dinning table.
"Oh my, what do you intend doing? My shoe heels will dig into the wood."
"Stay still and the indents will remind us of this night."
"I'll have to spread my legs."
"Then spread."
"What else?"
"Pull the hem of your dress up high."
Being in an obedient mood, she obeyed.
Marty's tongue erotically followed a pathfinder trail made by the initial scouting party: his kissing lips.
"Oh," she groaned. "I'm about to lose control."
"Don't," he ordered. "If that's to happen I need my mouth in position."
"Oh gawd," she bawled, bucking and gasping. "Sorry, it's been such a long time."
"Think nothing of it," he said, snaking his tongue forward on a reconnaissance mission.
"Oooh, that's lovely."
"Are you good for any more?"
"Oh yes, provided I'm lovingly worked like a Stradivarius."
"I do better thinking double bass."
She sighed and said anything light-fingered would produce encores.
"You're sexy," he said, unintentionally making her body heave in staccato again.
"This has the makings of a long night," she sighed. "You better stay."
Bianca was invited to stay at Young's Meadows on Saturday night. After dinner that evening they kept themselves and the dogs awake for half the night because of their groaning and the sound of a banging headboard.
Next day Marty proved to his lover how fearless he was at jumping β taking a high stone wall on the gallant Beckett that had Bianca's heart in her mouth. Marty beamed when she ran forward to hug Beckett and call up to Marty what a heroic rider he was.
She helped rub down Beckett and put a reward of two scoops of oats into the old washing machine bowl for him.
"I need to do a couple of reports," Marty said. "It will take a couple of hours or so. You watch TV or take a kip."
They kissed and parted.
Bianca went into the paddock with a bridle where the horses were β Beckett and Sheba drifted away deceptively, at a pace faster than Bianca could walk. No problem, she caught her target lazy Savannah with ease.
Savannah followed her lazily to the tack room and was saddled without any problem. Bianca swung into the saddle and all hell broke loose; Savannah hadn't been ridden for months, didn't know this rider and had to show who was boss. Bianca managed to keep her seat but had blood flowing from the corner of her mouth where her teeth had caught the inside of her bottom lip during a jarring descent from a cantankerous stiff-legged buck.
Finally Savannah decided she'd had enough and submitted β a little. Bianca worked her from a walk into a trot and into a canter but the mare refused to gallop. She was returned to the tack room and didn't see the riding crop being tucked into Bianca's new riding boot.
Away they went again, from a walk into a trot and quickly into a canter that seemed to suit them both although Bianca wanted more. She attempted the meter high jump slotted into the fence line but Savannah served away from it. She was taken around in a semi circle and felt the whack of the crop. Her ears shot up. As she was driven forward towards the fence again she received another whack and realized this rider meant business so sailed over the jump in honest endeavor.
Half an hour later Marty was pulled away from his almost completed Staff Newsletter by a piercing 'Yippee' that drew him to the widow in one leap. He knew before he saw horse and rider by the thumping of hooves it was the heavier mare and that Savannah was being really cranked up. He groaned as he saw the speed of them as they flashed by: "Beckett, we're in big trouble unless we choose a route that includes a fence and water jump; Savannah is a shy jumper."