Page 14 of Texas Glory
He nodded slightly. “I reckon the women in those books always pucker up to kiss.”
“Yes, they do,” she answered, wondering how he had drawn that conclusion from her simple statement, only one answer quickly coming to her mind. “Perhaps we’ve read the same books.”
“I doubt it,” he said, his voice low. He cradled her cheek. “Don’t pucker.”
Before she could protest, he covered her mouth with his. She’d barely noticed when he’d kissed her before, but now she realized his lips were warm, pliant. She hadn’t expected that of a man as hard as he was rumored to be.
His mustache was soft, reminding her of the fur of a puppy she had once owned, a puppy Boyd had killed.
Dallas slowly rubbed his thumb along the tender flesh beneath her chin. “Relax your jaw,” he whispered against her mouth, his breath strangely sweet and warm as it fanned over her cheek. Another thing about him that she had not expected.
“Wh—” She learned the answer before she’d fully formed the question.
His questing tongue slipped between her parted lips and waltzed in rhythm to the lilting music she still heard in the background.
Bold. Strong. Like the wind before a storm, a tempest sweeping across the horizon—
“You couldn’t even wait until your guests left to taste her again,” Boyd said, his voice rife with disgust.
Dallas drew away from the kiss. Mortified, Cordelia would have stepped away from him but his hand tightened on her neck.
With anger blazing within his eyes, Dallas looked at Boyd. “I don’t think anyone would find fault with a husband stealing a kiss from his new bride.”
“Well now, you’d be the one to know about stealing, wouldn’t you?” Boyd asked.
Cordelia was close enough to see Dallas’s nostrils flare. He reminded her of a raging bull. For a moment, when his lips had touched hers, she’d almost forgotten that he was the man her family hated, the man who had broken Boyd’s arm, the man who had revealed exactly what she was worth to her father. She started shaking, suddenly feeling cold where she had only moments before felt warmth.
“Please let me go,” she whispered, wishing she didn’t sound like a starving beggar willing to settle for crumbs.
Dallas looked at her, no anger shining in his eyes, and she wondered how he changed his emotions so quickly. His callused hand slid away from her neck.
When he returned his attention to Boyd, the anger accompanied him. “Because your sister deserves fonder memories of her wedding day than we’ve given her so far, I’ll overlook that remark. You wanted something?”
“A private moment with my sister.”
Dallas shifted his gaze between the two of them as though he trusted neither of them. Cordelia didn’t know why that knowledge hurt.
“I need to tell our guests to move the celebration outside so they can enjoy the beef my men prepared. If your sister isn’t standing in this spot when I get back, my fence will remain where it is.”
“Then you’d be going back on your word.”
Dallas took a menacing step toward Boyd. Boyd flinched.
“Man to man,” Dallas said, his voice low, “you know I want more than words exchanged before I’ll pull my fence back. Don’t try to cheat me out of what is now mine by right.”
He shouldered his way past Boyd and disappeared into the house. Cordelia wrapped her arms around herself and pressed her back against the cool adobe wall. “I can’t stay here, Boyd,” she whispered.
He crossed the small distance separating them, his eyes hard. “You’ve got no choice, Cordelia.”
She longed for someone to put his arms around her, to hold her close, to comfort her, but her family consisted of men who never expressed themselves with anything but their voices.
Boyd clamped his fingers around the veranda railing instead of holding her trembling hand. “Believe it or not, I did come out here to talk to you.”
He appeared to be on the verge of delivering bad tidings, and she wondered if her father was more ill than she realized. “Is it Father?” she asked.
“No, but since he’s not here and Mother is dead, the chore falls to me, and I don’t want you going to Leigh’s bed not knowing what to expect.”
A scalding heat rushed through her body, her heart thundering. “Boyd—”
