Harnessed by Ella Ardent Read Free Book Online

violence, an appetite she’d come to think of as insatiable.
    “My lady, you don’t have to trouble yourself with such details,” Hannah said, guiding her toward the carriage.
    But Elise couldn’t look away. She’d never seen Tyler dominated, and wasn’t sure he ever had been. He fought and swore and made as much trouble as he could, clearly convinced he couldn’t be denied his will.
    She couldn’t turn away until she was sure he couldn’t come after her, at least not yet.
    The coachman nodded at the boys even as he unclipped the kicking Tyler from the carriage. They brought him a large canvas sack as he led Tyler away from the team. He spoke to Tyler in a low voice, as one would to a frightened horse—he even called him Golden Boy—but Tyler was too livid to listen.
    Tyler swore when he saw the canvas sack and challenged their authority to treat him in such a way, but still didn’t utter his safe word. He was a fool to think he could fight his way free when he was so outnumbered, to Elise’s thinking, but he didn’t surrender. When he turned on the coachman, aiming a kick at the man’s genitals, the man’s posture changed.
    The coachman tugged the reins hard, then kicked Tyler’s feet out from under him. Tyler stumbled and fell, and his booted ankles were quickly trussed together. From that point, he was easily overwhelmed. The sack was hauled over his head. It was long enough to encase him completely, and narrow enough that he could only wriggle. The coachman knotted the rope around the ends of the sack at Tyler’s ankles, securing him inside, then bound his feet to a hitching post.
    Only when Tyler was helpless did Elise exhale. He thrashed on the ground, swearing and struggling, and she watched for a long moment, ensuring that he was captive.
    “I do apologize, my lady,” the coachman said, brushing his hands as he stepped toward her and bowed. “It’s always risky to break a new horse with the carriage.”
    She forced herself to straighten and smile. “I understand.”
    Tyler was rolling and struggling in the bag, earning himself a dark glance from the coachman. “We’ll come back for him when the lady is safely home,” he instructed the boys, then tipped his hat to Elise and bowed. “Welcome to Windswept, my lady.”
    “This is Baxter, my lady,” Hannah provided. “He’s the best trainer in our stables.”
    “So I see. I commend you, Baxter, for such quick work.”
    Tyler roared, evidently hearing Elise’s words.
    “What will happen to him?” Elise was terrified that they would expel Tyler and send him home, that he’d find her sister in the middle of moving out her things.
    Baxter smiled. “We have ways of training the wild ones, my lady. You need not concern yourself with it.”
    “Thank you, Baxter.”
    That man patted the rump of one of the three remaining horses. To Elise’s surprise, it was the other man who had been on the helicopter. He had the place beside the one Tyler had vacated. He didn’t look her way, but obediently kept his gaze forward and cast down. The blinders would have obscured his view, anyway. If anything, his build was more muscled and powerful than she’d expected. “I like the big gentle ones like Storm here, myself.”
    “Indeed.” Elise reminded herself she was the lady of the manor for the week, and could do whatever she wanted. The other man’s stillness gave her a confidence she might otherwise have lacked. She walked toward the team, inhaling deeply of the scent of leather and perspiration. The other two harnessed men had a patina of sweat over their shoulders and backs, probably from pulling the carriage here. They were gorgeously muscled and tanned.
    She was more intrigued with their travel companion, and the change in his manner since getting off the helicopter. She never would have imagined him to be submissive at all: he had such an aura of controlled power.
    It would be exciting to have a man like this under her control.
    She tingled