Her Tender Tyrant by Elizabeth Lennox

college although Mindy had found her true love.
    Juliette’s eyes glanced across the yard to the man splitting wood. “Oh, nothing that a crazy night out wouldn’t fix,” she told her friend.
    Mindy hooped through the phone. “Finally! We’ve been trying to get you to come out with us for months but little miss goody two shoes always had to study! Well, put on your dancing shoes, woman! Josie and I will pick you up later tonight and we are going to have a great time.”
    Juliette laughed, feeling excited about being with her friends. The tension was getting a bit too thick around here. If she weren’t mostly finished with her thesis, she’d just ditch the house and find a different herd. This was horse country, after all. There were plenty of other horse farms in the area although she didn’t know the owners as well and the idea of starting her observations over again was more than a little overwhelming.
    Of course, there weren’t many horse farms that would allow her to observe the horses with this much access, she reminded herself. Which only made the “Marcus issue” so much more irritating.
    She looked out the window, her eyes widening at the scene in the backyard as Marcus took one log at a time, swinging an axe over his head and slamming it down on the log, splitting it in two, then two again. He stacked those four logs up and started again, his muscles rippling in the sunshine while his shirt hung innocently on a fence post close by.
    “Oh my,” she whispered, forgetting that she was still on the phone with Mindy.
    Of course her friend didn’t miss the exclamation. “What? What’s going on over there?” Mindy demanded. “Don’t tell me that you’ve gotten a whiff of one of those Alfieri men, Juliette. Because you know I’m already jealous. I’ve heard of those spectacular specimens of manhood and they sound absolutely delicious.”
    Juliette quickly backtracked, pretending like she wasn’t blushing at Mindy’s blatant appreciation for anything male. Mindy loved men and was constantly trying to fix Juliette up with anyone she could find. “Damien and Jemma Alfieri are down in Texas with their new grandchild. I don’t know when they’ll be back.”
    Mindy was silent for a moment. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re whispering sexy nothings into the phone. What’s going on over there?”
    Juliette turned her back on the view, refusing to watch Marcus split wood any longer. His muscles were gleaming in the sunshine, rippling with each swing of that heavy-looking axe. The sweat only made his muscles look more defined, more amazing. He was still wearing jeans but even those helped fire up her imagination. She imagined unbuckling that black leather belt, unsnapping the top button of the jeans and….
    Juliette closed her eyes tightly, trying very hard not to think about the man out there. All of her thoughts were inappropriate. The man was just outside getting some exercise and she was inside ogling him. If the situations were reversed she would be offended. Then her mind started to think about what it would be like if he were ogling her and everything inside of her warmed up, became hot.
    Shaking her head, Juliette took a long, steadying breath. She was slowly losing her mind.
    “No. No one is here of any interest except for the horses.
And they’re fabulous, as you can imagine.” She hurried into the next room where there weren’t any windows facing the back yard. And no images of Marcus to get out of her mind. “Yep. It is time to go out, get drunk and have a good time.” She was going to forget that man for one night even if it killed her.
    “Okay, I’ll swing by and pick you up at seven. We’ll go out to dinner first and then hit the dance clubs.”
    “Sounds perfect,” Juliette said, peeking around the corner, trying to get one more glimpse of Marcus.
    But he wasn’t there. Where was he?
    She shouldn’t have let her gaze wander, she told herself. Keeping track of that