The horse reared and as they started sliding on the saddle, Lori automatically tightened her grip on Grayson, holding onto him for dear life with her arms and legs. He cursed again as he worked to keep them steady, his grip tightening around her waist so that she wouldn’t slide off him.
“We’re not going to be able to get back to the house,” he yelled over the rain as he quickly changed direction, heading down closer to the ocean rather than back toward the farmhouse. “I’ve got to get Diablo out of the storm.”
Of course all he could think about was getting his horse to safety. He clearly loved his horse, and planned on keeping him forever. Whereas Lori knew she had been nothing but a total pain in his rear, and he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
Still, he was so warm despite the cold wind and rain that she couldn’t help but bury her face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in. No man had ever smelled as good as he did, like soap and sweat that came from working hard, like fresh grass, and rich soil, and clean, sweet rain.
When a thick drop of rain ran down from his chin into the hollow of his neck, how could she do anything else but lick out against it so that she could finally drink him in the way she’d been secretly wanting to all along?
Another shiver went through her as her tongue met his skin and she finally found out just how good he tasted. Only, this time it had nothing to do with being cold...and everything to do with the desperate wanting she’d sworn she wouldn’t let herself feel.
When she’d come to Pescadero she’d thought she was dead inside, but Grayson had made her feel again, right away, despite knowing better. And now, the even bigger problem was that Lori had no idea how to keep some walls up while others fell. All she could do was let them all break to pieces, one by one, and pray that her heart would be strong enough to withstand being out there in the open again.
Of course, it wasn’t her heart she was thinking with as she went to take another taste. She had never been ashamed of her natural sexuality, and didn’t know how to start tamping it down now. Not when she was achingly hungry for Grayson’s touch, for the wonder of being his other half as they came together.
Lori had always been in tune with her body, had always automatically translated everything she felt, everything she saw, into dance. Until things with Victor had gotten so bad that she’d all but forgotten how to read or speak that language.
But now, as she held on to Grayson’s hard muscles, as she felt the pounding of the hooves moving through her while his horse galloped through the wet fields, as she gazed out through the rain to the raging ocean at the bottom of the cliffs, she finally saw through the eyes of a dancer again.
The rain had become sparkles of light pouring down from the ceiling of an auditorium over dancers dressed in the blues of the sky and the green of the grass and the reds and oranges and yellows of the flowers. Giving in to the storm, they danced, wild and beautiful. She could see a lone male dancer moving through them, solid despite the power of the storm as he reached for one of the female dancers, who was a colorful wildflower just breaking loose to go flying away, away, away.
The picture of the dance Lori was painting in her mind’s eye was so clear that she knew the male would cradle the female against him, hold her steady...then finally let her loose to fly again when she was stronger and the beautifully wild storm had abated enough that it was safe for her to be set free.
And just like the wildflower in her vision, as the wind whipped through her hair and the rain pelted down on her limbs while Grayson held her steady and safe on top of the fast-moving horse, Lori felt as if Grayson had just given her back the freedom she’d been afraid was lost when she’d left Chicago.
Lost in her visions, Lori was surprised to realize the horse had stopped galloping and Grayson was on the ground. She immediately felt chilled without his arms around her. Fortunately, she didn’t have long to wait for him to touch her again, because his large hands were on her waist and he was lifting her off the horse’s back to the ground.
For a moment everything got mixed up in her head, the man she’d been living with for nearly a week and the man from the dance in her visions. When her feet hit the ground again and she blinked up at him in the rain, the world stopped spinning as she stared into his eyes.
His gaze was dark and mysterious, just like always. Only this time, instead of stepping away from him, she had to reach up to stroke his face, had to feel beneath her fingertips what she’d just tasted moments ago.
She watched as fire leapt in his eyes, felt the vibration of his groan, felt the heat and purity of his desire for her move through him and into her as he turned his cheek slightly to press into her hand. But, too soon, he wrenched himself away from her.
“Get inside the cabin while I take care of the horse.”
His words were loud to be heard over the storm. They were hard, too. As hard as anything he’d ever said to her, and even though she thought she’d been doing a good job of blocking his grunts and growls, this one sentence pierced her. Enough that she wanted nothing more than to get away from him for a few minutes to try to regain her bearings.
And to stop seeing him as she had in her vision of the storm-turned-dance—as strong, as gentle, as nurturing.
She’d been stupid too many times before with men, had let her body and heart take her down a path that she should have run from instead. She wouldn’t do it again.
Especially not with Grayson.
Chapter Eleven
Grayson took Diablo’s saddle off and brushed him down, then gathered up wood from the pile in the rack under the roof overhang and carried the heavy load inside.
And all the while he refused to let himself remember how Lori’s tongue had felt against his skin.
Or the way her lithe curves had fit against his while her toned legs were wrapped around his waist and her strong arms were locked around his neck.
Nor would he let himself remember that she’d looked like a beautiful witch who couldn’t have been more pleased by the storm she’d brewed up.
And while he was at it, he would also force himself to forget how beautiful the sound of her laughter had been...and that even in the middle of the rain, that sound had warmed him better than the sun ever had.
It was the first time he’d seen her laugh like that, with her whole body, her entire heart and soul behind the happy sound. When she’d opened up her arms to the storm and tilted up her face to let the rain wash over her, she not only looked like she belonged on his land, she looked so beautiful that he’d felt as if something inside of him had been struck by lightning.