Chapter Ten
Grayson had obviously had breakfast by the time Lori woke up - a little late, due to the fact that she'd been waiting up to make sure he got home safe and sound after the way he'd barged out of the house the night before. She ate quickly, then went outside to feed the chickens and collect their eggs. When she was done, she headed into the pigpen.
"Hey, Chase," she said to one of her favorite pigs. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"
The pigs acted almost like puppies as they snuffled at her new boots and came for pats on the head. There were seven of them, so she'd decided to name them after her brothers and sister. And since Grayson was off somewhere doing secret farmer things that she'd likely have to pry out of him with a crowbar if she was interested enough, she talked to them the way she would have talked with her siblings.
"Pretty amazing how beautiful it is when the sun sets here, isn't it?" she told the pig she'd named after her photographer brother. "Probably wish your hooves weren't so dirty so you could pick up a camera and capture it, don't you?" She could have sworn the pig nodded.
She was refilling the water troughs as the fastest pig raced over for a drink, reminding her of her car-racing brother Zach. "There was the most beautiful classic Ford truck on Main Street yesterday. Wouldn't it be great to go zipping down the farm road in the middle of the night, under a full moon, pedal to the metal?" Just as her brother Zach would have, he ignored her and kept on drinking.
She grinned as she picked up the bag of feed and the oldest pig of the bunch kept a watchful eye on her, letting the younger ones feed first. "You're definitely Marcus," she said, her heart tugging hard as she thought about how much her oldest brother, who owned a winery in Napa Valley, would love the rolling hills of Pescadero. "Maybe you should give some thought to convincing Grayson to put in some grapes out here, too." The pig simply kept a calm watch over the rest of his motley crew.
Talking to the pigs like this didn't make her miss her family any less, but it kept her smiling. And she knew that was the most important thing right now. Especially when the only actual person she had to talk to was little better than working and living with a ghost.
She didn't know how he did it - how he managed to be so big and yet so silent, so domineering and yet invisible, all at the same time. In some ways, Grayson reminded her of her twin sister Sophie. Soph could slip in and out of a room and notice absolutely everything in it without anyone being the wiser.
Lori had always loved helping Marcus out with his vineyard in Napa, but even so, she was surprised by how much she liked working on a farm, with the exception of cleaning bathrooms. She'd enjoyed using the riding lawnmower that morning, and had loved the thrill of having all that power between her legs. She also really liked having her hands in the rich soil as she weeded the garden, and the pigs and chickens had become like a second family to her by now.
She had just finished mucking out the mama pig's stall and was giving her boots a gentle hose-down when Grayson suddenly walked out of the stables. "I just heard from the neighbor to the west of here that one of my fences is down and the cows are grazing on his land. We need to get over there immediately to fix it. I've saddled Rosie for you."
Lori knew she could be stubborn and full of pride. Impulsive, too. But she wasn't stupid. Which was why she had no problem at all admitting, "I don't know how to ride a horse. Can't we get out to the fence another way?"
"Not without the sound of the motor driving even more cows into the neighbor's field."
She took a deep breath. "Okay, then, why don't you give me a quick riding lesson?"
"We don't have time for a lesson."
He looked as frustrated as she felt. She knew they were nothing more than employer and farmhand, but oh, how she wished he'd talk to her, look at her, for some other reason than because of a fence or a dirty house that needed cleaning or because she'd just screwed something up.
She wished even more that she could just stop wishing, already.
Finally, he informed her, "You're going to have to ride with me." He looked none too happy about it.
"You've got to be kidding," she said, not happy about it either. Considering the way her body instantly heated up even from two dozen feet away, she knew that his avoiding her had been a good idea...and that riding on a horse together was an equally bad one.
She couldn't get on a horse with Grayson, couldn't be that close to all his marvelously big, hard muscles. Especially when he was looking even more brooding, mysterious, and super-crazy-sexy today in his jeans and work shirt and cowboy hat and boots.
"More of my cows could get out if we take much longer and it looks like there's a storm coming in. Go put on a coat."
As he went back into the stable to bring his horse outside, she looked up at the sky, at the puffy white clouds in the bright blue. There was a light breeze, but the sun was warm and she didn't believe there was even the slightest chance of a storm in the near future. No, she suspected he was simply trying to make her cover up so that he could pretend she wasn't a woman while they bumped and slid and rocked against each other in the saddle.
He gave her one of his finely tuned irritated looks when he came back out and saw that she was still just wearing her thin T-shirt. She shot him one right back.
"Come here and I'll hoist you up."
Hating the way he talked about her as if she were a sack of grain, she said, "I can get up on the horse myself, thank you."
But boy, did it seem like a long way up, and when she stalled a minute too long, on a sound of deep frustration Grayson's arms went around her waist and he all but tossed her up on the horse's back. She grabbed the saddle horn and hung on for dear life, but he was seated behind her a moment later, his strong legs and hard chest holding her firmly in place.
When he kicked the horse into a trot, it wasn't the sudden movement that stole all the breath from Lori's lungs, it was Grayson's warmth, his strength, his deliciously male scent...and the swift rush of desire that she didn't have even the slightest prayer of ignoring.
* * *
Lord, why did the cows have to bust through the fence today? And why hadn't he taken an extra couple of minutes to figure out something else - anything else - so that he wouldn't be up here in a hell of his own making with the sexiest damned cowgirl who had ever graced the earth?
Grayson had never been so hard in all his life, and he had a bad feeling he hadn't been thinking with the right head when he'd decided Lori would have to ride with him.
"Wow, is all of this really yours?" He couldn't miss the wonder in her voice as she added, "It's so beautiful - do you ever feel like you're living in a painting? And oh, look at that!" She gasped with pleasure as she pointed out at the ocean. "No wonder you decided to move here from New York."
For the past years, his land had been a refuge. It had been a way to leave the rest of the world behind. But he had never let himself truly take in the beauty. Not until he couldn't help but see it through the wonder in Lori's eyes.
"You're very lucky," she said as they rode closer to the broken fence, close enough to hear the waves crashing on the shore below. "Very, very lucky."
She was right, he was, but not because he owned such amazing property.
No, today his luck meant getting to hold a beautiful girl who saw wonder in everything in his arms for a little while under the pretext of needing to keep her steady on his horse.
Because even though it was the last thing he should be doing, in this one rare moment where they weren't arguing, or glaring, or being frustrated with each other, Grayson couldn't find a way to stop himself from drinking in every precious second with Lori.
* * *
Two hours later...
Lori tried not to shiver, but it was getting so cold. Where had the wind come from so quickly? When they'd left Grayson's farmhouse, the sky had been blue and cloudless, the air still. She hated that he'd been right when he'd told her a storm was coming in and she should put on a jacket.
If only she didn't feel like she needed to do the opposite of everything he said. It was just that if she didn't, he'd think he was winning.
And she couldn't let him win. She couldn't let any man win ever again.
Which was why it was so important that she stay on top of things with Grayson. Especially when it came to blocking the attraction between them that simmered beneath the surface of every look, every word, every accidental touch.
She didn't even like him. Not very much, anyway. So she refused to want him. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. She was not interested in sleeping with Grayson. Definitely not.
Only, despite how much she was willing herself to remain warm in the cold breeze, she couldn't keep a hard shiver from running through every last inch of her. She sighed as she picked up the pliers, the cool handles feeling like blocks of ice in her already chilled hands.
The problem, she thought with another deep sigh, was that deciding not to feel something was very different from actually not feeling it. And just as she was unable to stop her shivers from taking her over head to toe, she was very much afraid that she wasn't going to be able to keep her attraction to Grayson at bay for very much longer, either.
Fortunately, she knew that as long as she never acted on it, he certainly wouldn't. Talk about a completely unbendable, rigid guy. It was his way or the highway.
And she was definitely not a way he had any intention of going.
He couldn't have said even a hundred words to her today, and they'd been working outside with each other for hours. She'd never said so little to anyone in all her life...or been quite so powerfully aware of someone else. Once he'd gotten her going on the fence and could be reasonably well assured that she wasn't going to completely screw up her part of it, he'd left her to her own thoughts, only stopping by to look over her shoulder at her workmanship every half hour or so.
Amazingly, despite the fact that she didn't have anything else to focus on but the patterns of the twisting wires in her hands, thoughts of Victor hadn't assaulted her, hadn't crept in to take over every last open space inside of her and turn light to dark. Maybe, she thought yet again, she was right to have come here to a farm miles from anyone she knew, from anything she'd ever experienced.
If it hurt her female pride a little bit that Grayson was as far from falling for her as any man had ever been, well, she didn't care. She didn't want a man in her life, anyway. Her whole life felt like it had been one seduction after another. Not only as a dancer and choreographer trying to get jobs, but also as a woman trying to get men to notice her.
Her mother had raised her to be more than that, but growing up in a family of such dynamic, smart siblings, Lori had needed to carve out her own niche early on.
Naughty was what her brother Chase had christened her so many years ago, and she'd worked to fit that description every day since. Her hair, her makeup, her clothes had always been wild and sexy. She wasn't someone who ever left the house looking anything but fantastic, even to get milk or the paper. When people looked at her, she'd made sure it was worth their while. And they'd always looked.
Out here on Grayson's farm was the first time in her adult life that she'd ever forgone a blow dryer or let her skin be bared to the sun without at least mascara and blush and lipstick. She was living in jeans and T-shirts. The only part of her old life she still kept with her was the lace and silk she wore beneath her clothes.
The problem was that putting both dance and seduction aside left her feeling as though she was trying to hold onto the air as it flitted through her hands. Dancing and love had always gone together for Lori, from her first crush as a little girl on the teenager in her ballet class who could lift her so high, so effortlessly. All her adult life she'd fallen for other dancers and choreographers as she'd twirled and swayed in their arms on worn wooden studio floors and stages.
Only, when her mistakes with Victor had made her stop believing in love, she'd also lost her love for dancing. And she had no idea how to recapture either of those loves.
But she'd never been helpless before, and she refused to feel helpless now as she stood up to stretch her back and look out over the hills that rolled all the way to the ocean. She was struck with wonder yet again at the beauty of the land, the quiet, the ever-changing colors of the landscape - even the clouds, which were dark now and covered the whole expanse of previously blue sky.
Suddenly, a crack of lightning split the sky and Lori turned her face up to the darkening clouds just as they opened. It shouldn't make any sense that she should find such joy in the freezing pellets of rain that pummeled her - anyone with a lick of sense would be rushing to take cover from the harsh elements - but she couldn't have held back her laughter for the world.
Lori opened her arms and leaned back to take it all in, to let the force of the storm barrel into her, her sudden laughter joining in with the thunder and lightning.
The rain was shockingly cold on her bare skin as it quickly soaked through her T-shirt and jeans, but she swore she could feel it washing her clean, pouring over her arms where Victor had once touched her, drenching lips that Victor had once kissed. She'd thought she'd been so free, so wild her whole life, but every time she went back to Victor after he'd hurt her, walls had started to grow around her heart, building up an inch at a time until they'd held her trapped inside.
Now, with each boom of thunder, with each bolt of lightning, those walls began to crumble.
Only Grayson's curse could have been louder than either her laughter or the storm. Lori was still smiling when she looked over at him, still lost in the wildness that surrounded them both. Besides, she was getting used to seeing that scowl on his face whenever he looked at her. She was even starting to think it was a little bit cute, truth be told, as though he were just a little boy who wasn't getting exactly what he wanted right when he wanted it.
Belatedly, she realized he already had his tools, and hers, put away in the saddlebags, and seconds later was swinging onto the horse's back. From up on the horse, he reached down for her.
Suddenly, she could see him as he would have been hundreds of years ago, a warrior up on his horse, big and strong. A man a woman could count on to protect her, no matter what.
But her romantic visions were yanked away a second later when he reached down and scooped her up into his arms so quickly that she didn't even have a chance to fight him. He grabbed her, brought her chest to his, and with nothing but one arm, he settled her on his lap, her legs over his...and then he was riding away with her.
It shouldn't be sexy or romantic, damn it, and she also shouldn't be getting turned on by having to hold on to his big muscles, or by the way the seam of her jeans rubbed up against his in just the right way, right where she'd been overheated since the first time she'd laid eyes on his too-beautiful face and his too-perfect body.
No, instead of being turned on by his barbaric behavior, she needed to be rightfully outraged by the way he'd yanked her up onto the horse with him again. Only, just as she was about to open her mouth to give him a piece of her mind over the sound of the rain crashing down on them, another crack of lightning flashed - close enough that they could actually see the bolt slam into a tree less than a quarter of a mile away. Thunder rolled in immediately afterward.
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.