Rules of Protection (Tangled in Texas #1)(39)

When something hard pressed heavily into my pelvis, I knew Jake was awake. I leaned my mouth closer to his, brushing my lips lightly over his. “Jake…”

“We can’t,” he whispered, sounding painfully unsure of himself. “Stop before this goes any further.”

“I don’t want to stop,” I said softly, letting my tongue flicker across his briefly. “I want to feel you inside me.”

A definite pause on his part. Then he dumped me back onto my own side of the bed. “Jesus Christ, Emily. I’m a man. You can’t say that sort of thing to a man and expect him to maintain any sense of self-control.”

I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, stopping myself from saying, Duh. That’s the point, dipshit! “You don’t have any problems with self-control. In fact, you’re good at pushing me away. Must be all the practice you’re getting.”

“Don’t give me a hard time.”

“I’m not. What I want is for you to give me a hard time.”

He sighed wearily, throwing his head back onto his pillow. “Once the trial is over we’ll be able to—”

“The trial could be months or even a year away. You’re crazy if you think I’ll wait that long for something that’s not a sure thing.” Okay, so it was a lie. I’d wait for him if I had to, but I wasn’t stupid enough to tell him that. At least not yet.

“Oh, it’s a sure thing,” he said with a sardonic laugh. “When I do finally get inside you, you’re going to wish you hadn’t teased me the way you have.” Then he raised his eyebrows and lifted the corner of his mouth in a smirk.

I wanted to respond, but the words caught in my throat. After a moment, all I could say was, “God, I hate you sometimes.” Then I rolled to my side, facing away from him, and went to sleep with hard nipples.

And he thinks I’m a tease?

…

Two days went by, and I was bored out of my mind.

Hank found me sitting in the backyard on an old, rickety bench overlooking an aboveground pool filled with cloudy, urine-colored well water, littered with bug corpses and dead leaves. At least I think it was a pool. It looked more like the horses’ watering trough.

“You okay, honey?”

I nodded. “I don’t have anything to do, so I’m watching the squirrels.”

“I hate those damn things,” Hank said, scowling up at the tree. “They get up in the attic, build nests in the insulation, and shred everything up. I’ve been battling them ever since Floss planted a pecan tree and it produced nuts.”

“How do you get rid of them?”

“Shoot ‘em.”

I gasped. “Hank, that’s mean!”

He grinned with amusement at my reaction. “Last squirrel I shot had its nuts still in its mouth when it went down.”

That made me laugh. “Didn’t want to let go, huh?”

“Came down to a choice—its nuts or its life. Damn squirrel chose to keep its nuts.” Hank nodded toward Jake, walking toward us from across the yard. “I reckon most men would do the same.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but somewhere in his words there was bound to be a pearl of wisdom. I had a few choice comments, but I didn’t say anything, figuring Jake would get mad at me again.

“I’m burning the last of the brush pile from the back of the property,” Jake said to Hank. “What do you want me to do now?”

“Take a break,” Hank demanded.

“I’m fine,” Jake said. “I’ll rest after the work’s done. I’m trying to keep you off your bum knee as long as I can, old man.”

“I’ll make you think old man, you piss ant.” Hank glared at Jake, but the taunting smile on his face led me to believe he wasn’t serious. “If you want something to do, why don’t you take the culled birds down to the pond? Take Emily with you. She’s bored. It’ll give her something to do.”

Jake started to argue but decided against it. “Come on, Emily.”

We strolled to the barn, where Jake picked up a bucket covered with a lid and continued toward the pond. Almost there, we heard the sound of a truck rumbling down the driveway. Jake tensed for a moment and reached for my arm but relaxed as three young men and a pretty blond woman slid out of the tan Ford. All four of them waved at Hank, then walked in our direction.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see them,” Jake said, undeterred from his mission.

I stumbled after him but curiously glanced back at the new arrivals in the distance. “Who are they?”

“Friends of mine,” Jake said, stopping next to a moss-covered tree and removing the lid on the bucket.

The pond sat closer to the back of the property, surrounded by red oak and cypress trees. A green scummy film of algae floated on the surface around the lilies, and small turtles rested on a log within the cattails at the water’s edge. Between the thick, stinky black mud on the shoreline and the green climbing vines and weeds, the pond resembled a cross between a jungle and a swamp.

I leaned over to check out the contents of the bucket and saw nothing but dead birds. “Oh, gross! Why are there dead birds in there?”

Jake picked one up and threw it in the pond. “Got to get rid of them somehow.”