Page 95 of Texas Honor

“It was a very nice sudden lapse,” she whispered.

“I thought so, too.” He let her go. “Get out of here, will you? This stoic front is going to shatter if you keep looking at me like that.”

“One can hope, can’t one?” She sighed theatrically, looking at him like a lovesick puppy.

He glared, and she grinned. “Good night,” she said pertly, and left him, without even realizing the sudden, sweet difference in her manner. But Gabe noticed. And his eyes began to glow with a soft, budding light. He felt the first tingle of possession.

And it wasn’t at all unpleasant.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BECKYWASUPat dawn, bouncing on her mother’s bed with her dog in her arms. “Wake up, Mama!” she laughed. “Look, the sun’s out!”

“Well, tell it to go away,” Maggie mumbled, and put the pillow over her head.

“You have to get up!” the little girl persisted.

“Why?” her mother said from under the pillow.

“Because we’re going fishing,” came a deeply male voice from above her. The covers and pillow were suddenly torn away, leaving Maggie exposed and defenseless in her pale blue gown, staring up into Gabe’s laughing face.

“Fishing?” She gaped at him through sleepy eyes. He was already dressed in jeans and a print shirt, looking fresh and rested and vibrant. And she felt like an oversqueezed cloth.

“Fishing,” he replied. “Honey, go downstairs and tell Jennie we all want a big breakfast, then tell your grandma that we’ll be leaving before she gets up. Okay?”

“Okay!” Becky jumped down with the puppy clutched tight against her pale blue shirt and ran off, ponytail flying.

“But I’m so tired,” Maggie moaned. Then she came fully awake and realized that she wasn’t only tired, she was sore, and knew why, and blushed.

“My, my, no wonder you’re tired,” he murmured with a devilish grin. He sat down on the bed beside her and leaned over her on his forearms. “Mmm, aren’t you a pretty thing when you wake up?” he mused, studying her disheveled dark hair and flushed oval face.

“You’re pretty, too,” she said, her huge green eyes staring at him admiringly. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, sunshine,” he teased, and bent to her warm, soft mouth.

There was a new tenderness in him, one that radiated from him like spring sunshine. She sensed it and delighted in it, reaching up to bring his chest down against her breasts.

“That’s risky,” he whispered at her lips. “You’re barely covered. I can feel you, even through the cloth.”

“I can feel you, too,” she whispered back, reaching to press her hand over his hard, broad chest. “I wish...”

“You wish what?” he asked gently.

“I wish we were alone on a desert island, just for a few hours,” she replied. “And there’d be no one to see us or hear us, and I could be with you the way we were last night.”

“Desert islands are in short supply around here,” he said with a smile, brushing her hair away from her face. “But I’d like that, too. You’re sweet to love.”

Her body tingled at the sound of the word, and she remembered how he’d put it, whispering that it wasn’t sex at all. And it hadn’t been. Sex was just a physical coming together, a brief pleasure. What they’d shared was deeper, somehow. Almost...reverent.

She searched his pale blue eyes, noticing the tiny lines fanning out from their corners, and the length and thickness of his black lashes. His brows were heavy and dark, and impulsively she ran the tip of her finger over them. It was heady, touching him that way, and he seemed not to mind. His eyes closed.

“Go ahead,” he murmured. “Explore me if you want to.”

She did. It was exciting, too, to run her fingers over his lean cheeks, the place where his nose had been broken and was the most crooked, the chiseled line of his hard mouth, his stubborn chin. He wasn’t handsome—not technically. But he had an inner attractiveness that made his looks irrelevant. And his body was just magnificent, she thought with a sigh.

“I like that,” he murmured as she worked her way down to his chest. “I like the way your fingers feel.”

“I like touching you,” she confessed, finding the realization fascinating. “I’ve never wanted to touch anyone else,” she added vaguely. “It’s odd, how I can’t seem to stop doing it with you.”

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