Page 27 of Texas Honor

He rode into a small grove of oak and mesquite trees and dismounted. Before she knew it, she was out of the saddle and flat on her back in the lush spring grass with Ward’s hard face above her.

“Now,” he said gently, “suppose you show me how much you hate me?”

His dark head bent, and she reached up, unthinking, to catch his thick hair and push him away. But it only gave him an unexpected opening, and she caught her breath as his full weight came down over her body, crushing her into the leaves and grass.

“Better give in, honey, or you could sink down all the way to China,” he commented wickedly. His hands were resting beside her head, and somehow he’d caught hers in them. He had her effectively pinned, without any effort at all, and was just short of gloating about it. He wasn’t trying to spare her his formidable weight, either, and she could just barely breathe.

She panted, struggling, until she felt what her struggles were accomplishing and reluctantly subsided. She contented herself with glaring up at him from a face the color of pickled beets.

“Coward,” he chided.

She was very still, barely breathing. His hands were squeezing hers, but with a caressing pressure not a brutal one. The look in his eyes was slowly changing from faint amusement to dark passion. If she hadn’t recognized the look, his body would have told her as he began to move subtly over hers, sensually, with a practiced expertness that even her innocence recognized.

“Yes, that makes you tremble, doesn’t it?” he breathed, watching her as his hips caressed hers.

“Of course...it does,” she bit off. “I’ve never...felt this way with anyone else.”

“Neither have I,” he whispered, bending to brush his hard mouth over her soft one. “I told you that when I got home, and I meant it. Never like this, not with anyone...” His eyes closed, his heavy brows drawing together as he slowly fitted his mouth to hers.

She wanted to protest, but she couldn’t move, let alone speak, and his mouth was making the most exquisite sensations in places far removed from her lips. With a shaky little sigh she opened her mouth a little to taste his and felt him stiffen. She felt that same tautness in her legs, her arms, even in her stomach, sensations that she’d never experienced.

His hard fingers flexed, linking with hers caressingly, teasing as he explored her mouth first with his lips and then with the slightest probing of his tongue.

She hadn’t been kissed that way before, and her eyes opened, puzzled.

He lifted his head a little, searching her face with green eyes that were dark and mysterious and as full of answers as her blue ones were full of questions.

“You can trust me this once,” he whispered, sensing her apprehension in the smooth as silk young body that wouldn’t give an inch to the dominance of his. “Even if I went half mad with wanting, I wouldn’t risk trying to make love to you within sight of the barn.”

He couldn’t have been less convincing, but she did trust him. She searched his eyes, feeling the warm weight of him, smelling the leathery scent that clung to him, and she began to relax despite the unknown intimacy of the embrace.

“You’ve never felt a man this way, have you?” he asked quietly. “It’s all right. You’re old enough to leave chaste kisses and daydreams behind. This is the reality, little Mari,” he whispered, shifting his hips as he looked down into her wide, awed eyes. “This is what it’s really like when a man and a woman come together in passion. It isn’t neat and quiet and uncomplicated. It’s hot and wild and complex.”

“Is it part of the rules to warn the victim?” she asked in a husky whisper.

“It is when the victim is as innocent as you,” he returned. “I don’t want a virgin sacrifice, you see,” he added, bending again to her mouth. “I want a full-blooded woman. A woman to match me.”

At that moment she almost felt that she could. Her body was throbbing, blazing with fire and fever, and instead of shrinking from the proof of his desire for her, she lifted her body up to his, gave him her mouth and her soft sighs.

Ward felt the hunger in her slender body, and it fostered an oddly protective impulse in him. He, who was used to taking what he wanted without regret or shame, hesitated.

His mouth gentled, slowed and became patiently caressing. He found that she followed where he led, quickly learning the tender lessons that he gave her without words. He let go of her hands and felt them go instinctively to his shirt, pressing over the hard, warm muscles, searching. His heart pounded furiously against breasts whose softness he could feel under him. He wanted to strip off his shirt and give himself to her young hands, he wanted to strip off her own shirt and put his mouth on those tender breasts and look at them and watch her blush. It was then that he realized just how urgent the situation was becoming.

His body was taking over. He could feel himself grinding down against her, bringing her hips into intimate contact with his, he could feel his own taut movements. His mouth felt hot. Hers felt like velvet, feverish and swollen from the hungry probing of his own.

He lifted his head, surprised to find himself breathing in gasps, his arms trembling slightly as they held him poised over her. Her eyes were misty, half closed, her lips parted and moist, her body submissive. His.

She drew in a slow, lazy breath, looking up at him musingly, so hungry for him that she hadn’t the strength to refuse him anything he wanted. From the neck down she was throbbing with sweet pulses, experiencing a pleasure that she’d never known before.

“No,” he whispered roughly. “No. Not like this.”

He rolled away from her, shuddering a little before he sat up and breathed roughly. He brushed back his hair with fingers that were almost steady but held a fine tremor.

Mari was just realizing what had happened, and she stared at him with slowly dawning comprehension. So that was what happened. That was why women didn’t fight or protest. It wasn’t out of fear of being overpowered. It was because of the sweet, tender pleasure that came from being held intimately, kissed and kissed until her mind got lost in her body’s pleasure. He could have had her. But he stopped.

“Surprised?” He turned his head, staring down at her with dark green eyes that still held blatant traces of passion. “I told you I wouldn’t take advantage, didn’t I?”

“Yes. But I forgot.”

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