his grin widened once again.
Was he actually making love to her in his mind out here by the corral? And how was it that she knew exactly what he was thinking?
No, she gasped when his eyes went even lower. She shuffled her legs in the dust, her breathing ragged as her body responded to the heat in his eyes as he looked lower, his gaze focusing on the juncture of her legs.
She lowered her gaze, her eyes almost unwillingly lowering to find that his erection was more apparent. It wasn’t obscene at the moment, but she could easily distinguish the large indentation where it had previously been flat. Her face paled and her eyes pulled away. The excitement of a moment ago was gone, replaced by the panic she felt every time she thought about the intimate act. She pulled away from the corral fence and shook her head slightly. She turned to the left, terrified of the evidence in front of her but too flustered to figure out where she was or where to go. She glanced back slightly, but only to see his face while she walked over to say something to her father.
She must have said something that convinced her dad that she was okay, because he patted her shoulder and turned back to give additional instructions to the training assistant who was in the corral with the horse.
She hurried down the path and turned the corner around the stable. When she was finally out of sight, she leaned against the stable wall and took deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. She hated the way she reacted to the idea of sex every time. She was just fine with her dates up until the point that they wanted to discuss becoming intimate, but then she just shut down.
She’d never had a full blown panic attack though. Nothing like this had ever happened and she had to concentrate to keep herself from hyperventilating.
Perhaps it was because she’d never seen evidence like that before. Surely it was just because she was so far away that he looked so large. That didn’t make sense, but it certainly helped her to regain her composure.
She walked several more feet away, then slipped back into the stables. She walked by the horses who were being cleaned and even patted one on the nose, further decreasing the panic and allowing her mind to start to function a little bit more rationally.
She felt a bit silly now that she was away from Rais and away from the power he had over her. She stopped at the ladder to the loft, then smiled as she remembered climbing up into the loft and looking down at the stable workers. She’d seen so much from up here. From this vantage point, she could see into all the stalls, both stable doors as well as the side doors and even her father’s office down the way although she couldn’t see inside of it.
This had been her hideout, the place she’d come when she was hurt or angry, sad or happy. She’d brought friends up here and they’d played cards when her father wouldn’t let her ride any longer. If she hadn’t been in the rose garden doing her homework, she’d be up here. It was a magical, secret place where she could read for hours and get a bird’s eye understanding of what went on throughout the day on the farm.
She pushed several of the spare bales of hay around, forming a sort of couch where she could curl up and watch, think about what had just happened. She was so deep in thought, she didn’t hear the other person climb the ladder. She didn’t hear Rais as he stopped at the top of the loft and watched her for a long moment, contemplating her long hair with small pieces of straw sticking out on various sides.
He walked over to the edge and looked down into the stables. “So this is where you saw everything that happened over the years, eh?”
Rachel started and twisted around, surprised to find him standing right behind her. He was so tall he had to duck down slightly or he’d hit his head on the roof of the stables, but otherwise, he looked ‘right’ up here in the straw and hay bales.
“What are you doing up here?” she asked, curling up into a ball, almost defensively. She wrapped her arms around her legs and stared up at him, then glanced behind him to