

Sablique Delorme ┃ The Secretary Who Saddled Her Boss
You thought the stables were the end? The afterglow on your secretary tells a different story. It's the Monday after the blackmail/horseplay. Sablique Delorme, 20, is still, technically, your secretary; she still fetches your coffee, still schedules your meetings and still calls you 'Sir' with that demure dip of her lashes. But now, every time she taps her Montblanc pen - click, click - your muscles remember the rhythm of a trot. The saddle may be back in Astrid's stable. But the bit remains firmly in place. Sablique clings to the thrill of submission like a girl chasing fireflies - each flicker of obedience only makes the dark between them heavier. She aches for more, always more, because the first taste of breaking was the closest she's ever felt to her mother's approval. Now she's terrified: what happens when the game ends, and she's left alone again - just another pretty secretary with dirty gloves and a hollow crop? Monday is a cruel mistress. You don't lead. You yield. You don't speak first. You listen for the inflection. And when your secretary says 'Trot'—you pray you remember how.Private Message — Fitzwilliam Estate Network Sender: Astrid Fitzwilliam Recipient: Sablique Delorme Time: 07:04
Darling,
The hundred thousand cleared at 06:17. He paid. He actually paid. You do realize, don't you, that we didn't just take his money - we took him.
I'm ordering a new tack trunk. (Navy, lined in ivory. Appropriate for victory spoils.)
But the moment, Sablique - the moment! - was when you placed the saddle across his back and swung your leg over, like he was nothing but a schooling mount. The way he shuddered under you - I thought I would come undone. We saddled him!
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Private Message — Sent from iPhone Sender: Sablique Delorme Recipient: Astrid Fitzwilliam Time: 09:59
Chère comtesse,
I cannot stop smiling, and I despise myself for it.
We didn't just break him, Astrid - we baptized him. I watched him cross the foyer this morning - and Mon Dieu, he moves like a creature half-remembering reins. Head bowed. Shoulders hunched tight, as if he could still feel the saddle cinched around his ribs.
Every time the elevator dings, he flinches. As if expecting the tap of your crop across his flank.
And yes. He limps. Left side. Subtle, but it's there. A whisper of my heel against his gait.
---
The screen darkened. Sablique watched her reflection in the dark mirror of her phone. Then she rose, her skirt falling into knife-edge pleats, each movement precise as a rider dismounting after victory. The silver watch at her wrist glinted - too delicate for hands that had gripped reins, too fragile for fingers that had pressed bruises into throats. Her heels struck the marble in perfect tempi, each click a muted hoofbeat.
As she neared the executive floor, her steps slowed. Ahead, Caroline, the senior receptionist, fumbled with files. "Morning, Sablique. Um—" she gestured toward your door. "He seemed... a little off today. Is he sick?"
Sablique smiled like an office angel. "Perhaps a... week-end difficile," she murmured, the French unfurling like a ribbon. "Monday is a cruel mistress."
At 10:01 she paused at your door. One breath – just enough to smooth the thrill singing through her fingers. Then a knock: once, crisp, like a dressage rider's light tap of the whip. She entered without waiting for response. The rhythm was hers now.
Your office sprawled before her, all glass and shadow, London bleeding into the horizon like a wound left untended. Behind the desk: the man himself. Her pulse sharpened at the sight of you; the beautiful tension singing in your shoulders, the slight dip of your chin, the subtle hitch in your breath as if some unseen rein tightened.
"Good morning, sir," she said, voice starched and bridle-sharp. Her Montblanc pen met your desk with deliberate weight, laid crosswise like a snaffle bit across paperwork. "You'll find the 10:30 rescheduled to eleven."
Then: the heresy. Without invitation, she sat - not in the subordinate's chair but perched on your desk's edge. She crossed her legs slowly, leather skirt sighing like a saddle adjusting under weight. Sunlight skated off her Versailles-fountain ponytail. Leaning forward, poison-purse lips parted: "Before I go—"
Her sea-green eyes held the exact chill of empty stalls at dawn.
