Page 113 of The Honorable Texan
He moved back from Meredith.“I’ll go kill it.”
“Kill it?”Meredith exclaimed.“You can’t!It will eat the rats, it’s harmless…!”
“Sweetheart,” he said very gently, “you were carrying a copperhead moccasin.”
“Yes?”She stared at him blankly.
“It’s one of the most poisonous snakes in Texas!”
She stood looking after him with her mouth open and her heartbeat choking her.She’d been carrying the damned thing on a stick, with it hissing at her.She felt the blood leave her head.Seconds later, she was lying on the hard ground.Fortunately she missed the basket of eggs on the way down.
CHAPTER NINE
“You’re making ahabit of this lately,” Rey murmured as he carried Meredith up the stairs to the garage apartment.“I never figured you for a fainter, Meredith,” he added dryly.
He was still bare-headed, but he wasn’t grim now.He was smiling.
“Of course I fainted!I picked up a poisonous snake!”she gasped, still in shock.
“Well, you’ve got guts, woman, I’ll give you that,” he said with a slow smile, shifting her a little closer.“Picked up a poisonous snake with a stick and carried it all the way to the barn, and it didn’t bite you.Now I’ve heard everything.”
“It did hiss a little,” she recalled, shivering.
“It had eaten three eggs,” he murmured.“Probably it was too busy digesting to care where it went at the time.Lucky for you.”
She laid her cheek against his broad, strong shoulder and held on tight.She had a sudden thought.“It didn’t bite you?”she asked worriedly.
“It didn’t get the chance.Didn’t you hear the shot?I got it as it was crawling down from the corn bin onto the floor.”He chuckled.“If I hadn’t gotten it, though, Bandit would have.King snakes are natural enemies of any poisonous snake.They eat them.I hate to kill even acopperhead, but we can’t have poisonous snakes around the livestock, or the men.Or, especially,” he added with a warm glance at her, “in the henhouse.At the very least, a bite from one can put a man in the hospital.”
She shivered, and her arms tightened around Rey’s neck.“I was so proud of myself,” she murmured.“I had no idea I was taking my life in my hands.It didn’t look exactly like the other snake, but the patterns were sort of similar.I know about snake bites because I’ve helped treat them, but I don’t know one snake from another unless I see pictures of them!”she added defensively.
“You’ll learn.”He kissed her forehead with breathless tenderness.“My brave girl,” he whispered.“You’ll never know how scared I was when Whit came running to tell me what you were doing.”
It made soft little ripples of pleasure run through her body when he said that.He was being protective about her.She closed her eyes and drank in the warm nearness of him, the easy strength of his arms as he carried her.She felt safe as she’d never felt in her whole life.It was nice to lean on somebody strong, just for a little while.
He felt the vulnerability.He told himself that he wouldn’t take advantage of it, but who was he kidding?She was soft and cuddly like this, and it was almost an involuntary action when his mouth slowly moved over hers as he reached her door.
The pressure was light, comforting.She sighed under the warmth and delight of it, and her lips parted, just the least little bit.
His whole body contracted with desire at that faint response.He looked down into her half-closed, misty eyes with growing hunger.
The look was as new as the tenderness.She couldn’ttear her eyes away from that dark hunger in his.She forgot the snake, the scare, the people outside in the yard, everything.He bent back to her, and she met his mouth hungrily with her own, her arms clinging fiercely to his shoulders.
He groaned aloud.It was too soon, but he didn’t care.He managed to open the door and close it behind them, making a beeline for the neatly made-up bed.He barely took time to put her down on the coverlet before his body slid against and over her own, his arms under her, taking his weight while his mouth made new, insistent demands on her innocence.
He lifted his head a torturous few seconds later, and his eyes blazed into her own.One lean hand slid deliberately under the hem of her tank top.At the same time, one long, powerful leg eased between both of hers and his hard mouth began to tease around the corners of hers.
“Danger will do it every time,” he murmured deeply.
“Will…do what?”she asked, burning with new longings as his hand began to move up her rib cage toward the lacy little bra she was wearing under the top.
“This.”His mouth opened on hers and became quickly insistent.While he kissed her, his fingers found the catch on her bra and flicked it open.She jumped when she felt his hand on flesh that had never known a man’s touch before.He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.“I know.It’s new territory,” he said gently.His fingers stroked the delicate, warm flesh as lightly as a breeze.“Try to think of it as a rite of passage.”
She felt strange new sensations.There was a tightening, a swelling, in her breasts as he touched them.She lifted involuntarily, and her eyes mirrored her surprise.
“Innocence is a rare, rare thing these days,” he said at her lips.“I respect it.And you’d better thank your lucky stars that I do,” he added as his mouth bit hungrily at hers.“Because with an experienced woman, I’d lock the door and I wouldn’t hesitate a minute.”
She felt the words like the caress of his hands on her body.She moaned huskily under the demanding crush of his mouth.She felt his tongue tracing her lips, teasing under them, darting and touching and withdrawing.She felt his teeth, too, in a sensual caress that only intensified the new sensations he was teaching her to feel.
