Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

flippant tone belied the way her face turned white for a second before she gathered herself. And the next moment, the corner of her eyes were crinkling with resolution, a slow smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. “But I’m going to have to protect you first. Don’t move a muscle.”

He froze. Not only because he, too, could now sense danger, but also because at this very moment she was the Taylor of old, before that bastard ex-husband of hers had come along. She was taking the situation in hand with her old self-assurance.

“Okay, you can move the muscle that’s needed to slide your gun over.”

He did as she asked. She didn’t look like she was joking.

“Notice how I’m trusting you,” he said.

“What? I don’t have trust issues.”

“Mmm, hmm.”

She fitted in a glare before she raised the gun and took off the safety. Flint had taught her how to shoot. Even Akeem had done some target practice with her back in the day. He had no worries there.

They were both still and silent. He was about to ask what she was doing when he heard the rattler’s warning, coming no more than inches from his back.

TAYLOR HAD A CLEAR view of the rattler’s head. She would get one chance only. She needed to shoot a bullet an inch over Akeem’s shoulder as he held his body half-bent to her foot, aim an inch from his left ear.

Knowing she could do it and actually pulling the trigger were two different things, however.

“I trust you,” he said again in that steady, sure voice of his.

God, she had missed that voice. She hated what their friendship had become. Hated that she’d been the one to ruin it with that stupid crush of hers. He’d been staying away from her, and lately away from the ranch because of her.

But now he was here.

And keeping him here—alive—was up to her.

She closed her left eye, lined up the target and pulled the trigger.

The force of the bullet punched the snake back a couple of paces. She looked at the writhing, bloody mess on the stone behind Akeem and shivered.

“I’m glad I can still do this.” She set the gun down with trembling hands, as all bravado was leaving her.

Akeem straightened, looked back to the snake before turning again to her. “You mean you haven’t been practicing lately?”

“Not since Christopher was born. Not enough time to do everything in a day.”

He made some noise, then, with a strange look in his eyes, stepped around her.

Probably needed to walk off the tension. But he stopped abruptly.

“Taylor?” he asked from behind her, then turned her before she had a chance to turn on her own.

His tanned hands held her by the shoulders. The focused look that had been in his eyes before morphed into swirling dark heat. She barely had time to catch her breath before he hauled her up, dipped his head and kissed her.

Slow. Tender. Thorough.

Oh, my.

Akeem Abdul never did anything halfway, at least that was what they said about him in the business arena, and she was getting her chance to find out firsthand.

His lips brushed over hers, warmed them, caressed, nibbled. She opened to him without thought, slipping into her girlhood fantasies. Oh, but reality was so much better than anything she could have imagined.

She felt as if she’d been made for this man’s mouth, for this man’s arms. She gave herself over to the kiss, to oblivion, to Akeem. He tasted her over and over again, claimed her. Branded her. Her body flooded with pleasure. Which he ended too soon.

“Sorry.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, ran his thumb over his left eyelid. “I mean, thank you.” He looked endearingly frazzled when his eyes opened. “Sorry about the kiss. Thank you for the snake,” he clarified as he stepped back.

She was about to tell him that he could drop the sorry part, when the phone rang. Fear spiked through her, instantly erasing the last of the pleasant sensations that still lingered.

“Are you ready to pay attention this time?” the voice asked when she opened the cell phone and pressed it to her ear.

THE SECOND EXCHANGE attempt had been set up at a rock formation one mile east of the original, for the next morning. Except that they were marching in the opposite direction.

Taylor kept her eyes on the ground as she walked behind Akeem, keeping in his shade as he had instructed. “Are you sure about this?”

“Not nearly sure enough, but it’s the best chance we have at this stage. I’m pretty sure the pickup tracks that we’ve been following were leading us to the closed-down refinery that’s out this way.”

The refinery her grandfather had worked at one point in his life. She’d heard tales about that, but had never been all the way out here. There were far more pleasant places to ride around Flint’s ranch.

Unfortunately, the whirling gusts of wind that had swept through after lunch had obliterated the pickup tracks.

“I’ve ridden through here before. I should be able to find the refinery by instinct,” Akeem told her. They could have been going around in circles, for all she knew. She’d become disoriented a while back. She was filled with doubts and she hated every one of them.

Taylor put one foot in front of the other, trying her best to trust him, but trust didn’t come easily to her. She’d trusted Gary so innocently, so thoroughly. Then he had turned into a monster she no longer knew. And then he had hurt her.

Maybe, if she was the only person at stake, she could trust Akeem more fully. Maybe. But her son…She couldn’t trust Christopher to anyone just yet. Not after she had trusted him to Jake Kenner. Because Jake had been one of Flint’s men and Flint always treated his employees as family and they had always loved him back and had been fiercely loyal. All but Jake.

She had gotten lulled into a false sense of security, thinking she’d