Quote image editor
“Kit swiftly lifted Susannah up into his arms as it whipped past; she ducked her head in his chest. Fortunately the adder's retreat was hasty and complete. "It's all right," he said softly. "You're all right. It's gone." Susannah said nothing for a time; just breathed swiftly in and out. She was warm and lithe in his arms; the faintest scent of lavender, and that mysterious sweetness of her own, the scent he'd discovered at the nape of her neck the day he'd caught her spying on him, rose up to him, released by the heat of her skin. "It was a snake." Her voice, a trifle unsteady, was muffled against his shirt. "It was, indeed," he said softly. Her breath had found a gap between the buttons of his shirt; it washed over his skin in a very nearly hypnotic rhythm. In... and out. In... and out. In... and---” — Julie Anne Long