Always on My Mind Page 0,35

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