The eager reply that Jo gave in her affections and acceptance felt like magic to the hardened man. His blue eyes widened briefly in the dark of their stolen moment of shared, nascent love. But, more simmered beneath their composed exteriors, and a far greater depth of intense lust sparked in diminished distance between their gazes. The reality of indulging themselves collided with the repercussion and meaning in Wade's mind -- a price to be paid at another time, but so worth the feelings that exploded inside the bounty hunter.<i>Was this love?</i>He'd been those few whores, and the goosebumps that riddled up to (surely) deform his skin sprouted from a place that no other woman had ever touched. It was those eyes ... those perfect, brown eyes that spoke to a depth and devotion that any God-loving man would die to covet and protect.<br/><br/>The stakes of their situation burned brightly in Wade's mind. Staying alive was a habit Wade intended on continuing and kissing the daughter of Hank Bryson would be a sure path to a bullet in his chest. His fingers brushed the rose cheeks of the woman huddled against him. Death. Wade paused then, filled with a sudden and unusual awareness of his mortality. He couldn't die. Wade shook himself quickly at the sentiment, for he was the harrier of outlaws and the bane of violent men. Death and the prospect dying lived around every corner and sun-blinded rocked outcrop. The reality of who he was would not change, especially given the tasks Hank had given him. However, the stakes ....<i>The stakes</i>.<br/><br/>In the combat instinct that bordered the swift line between intuition and soft impulse, Wade could have sworn that he felt Jo pulling away from him. The man was not near ready to surrender the moment to memory, nor surrender the maiden to the dark hallway beyond the kitchen, out of his reach. A hand, impossibly strong -- yet yielding in insistent, gentle grip -- caught Jo's shift at her back, tugging her into him in an attempt to hold the woman in place and forestall the inevitable. Wade brought his lips forward, molding them quickly to Jo's plush pout. The heated gesture could easily have been the threshold to a night of untamed thrill and unbridled sexual desire. But, Wade broke it off immediately, having made his final statement: Jo was his now, and the heart in his chest would never beat for another woman ever again.<br/><br/>Warm breath, scented from the ham dinner her mother served, washed across Jo's face as Wade lightly nuzzled his temple against hers. In truth, he didn't know what else to do with the rampant urge to bed the woman and please her all night long. Instead, the grip on her thin shift lightened and his hand rested on her hip. Eyes closed, his soul was aswim in the ecstasy of consensual love -- intoxicating and deliciously energizing. With a long, controlled breath to fortify his resolve, Wade tilted his face to impart a minute kiss onto Jo's cheek. He whispered quiet and deep.<br/><br/>"You ... better get on back. I'll see you in the mornin'."<br/><br/>Wade retreated on taxed legs into his room as his angel vanished into the night inside that home. Darkness engulfed the room, yet sleep evaded Wade like a high-priced criminal. He had found a new obsession: Josephine Bryson. Thoughts of her danced in the bounty hunter's head for sometime until pure exhaustion took hold of the cowboy. Sleep was fitful, and a pair of heavenly brown eyes lingered in his dreams far after he woke the next morning to the smell of bacon.