“I’ve got my eye on you, you eight-legged bastard,”
Leah said aloud to the spider as she worked at a crusted-on bit of something. “If you move, you and I are going to have problems. I’m talking major issues.
You should probably go ahead and pick out your casket, because EEeeeeeeek!”
The spider moved. The pot clattered to the floor, splattering dishwater all over Leah, the clean dishes, and the spider, who skittered down the wall toward the floor as fast as his many legs could carry him. Letting out another bloodcurdling shriek, Leah ran for the kitchen and collided with a solid, muscled, male body in the scullery doorway.
“Help,” she gasped into Avery’s face, completely uncaring that her voice was thin and panicked. “There’s a huge spider, and it was too close to me, and it ran and I don’t know where it went.”
He looked like she’d just grabbed an unexpected handful of Mr. Happy, but she couldn’t do anything about that. The irrational fear completely blocked logic from her mind as she climbed Avery’s body like a well-muscled ladder. Looking over her shoulder to make sure the spider hadn’t followed, she twined her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and held on for dear life.
i
He’d known the lass for less than a day, and she’d just wound herself around him like the crust on a meat pie.
She wasn’t an overly fleshy girl, but she was surpris-ingly heavy when she clung to him like a petrified and hissing cat. Though his first instinct was to shove her GeekGirlsDontDateDukes.indd 56
4/11/13 11:26 AM
Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes
57
away, breaking the unexpected and— if he was quite
honest, painful— contact, he repressed it with difficulty.
Spreading his feet apart to give him more balance, he carefully began to peel her from his body, making sure to move slowly and methodically, both to prevent distressing her further and causing his bruised body greater discomfort. Her panicked state would not facili-tate his swift release.
“Stoppit, Avery, please. Holy shit, he’s coming this way!”
She clung to him tighter, burying her face in his neck. The measured pace of his removal gave him ample opportunity to feel the soft vice of her thighs around his hips, the press of her breasts against his chest. The scent of a sweet perfume invaded his senses, and tendrils of yellow hair tickled his cheek. The heavy ache in his bones accompanied a deep tingling of desire at the base of his spine.
“Miss Ramsey, release me.” His voice was firm if muffled by the mobcap she’d pressed against his cheek.
For every finger he removed from its grip at the back of his neck, another grabbed hold. “Now.” He mustn’t be seen with her this way; it would ruin her. His unease was growing into a creature that resembled her panic at the sight of the spider. He had to break their contact quickly.
He could not harm her reputation, not when she’d been so kind to him.
“I can’t. Kill it, please.”
His voice was angrier than he’d intended, but he could not temper his response. “How am I to kill anything with you clinging to me like a vulture on a rotted corpse?”
“Ugh,” she said, loosening her hold enough to look GeekGirlsDontDateDukes.indd 57
4/11/13 11:26 AM
58
Gina Lamm
Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes
him in the eyes. Her delicate nose wrinkled in disgust.
“What a gross visual.”
With barely disguised relief, he grabbed her around the waist and turned, pulling her free and setting her in a chair with a soft thump. His security was tempered with another, stranger sense of loss. How odd.
“Where is it? Did you kill it yet?” She peered around his hip as if looking for a brigand to come despoil her instead of a tiny spider.
“Wait there a moment.”
He turned away from her and straightened his clothing. Scanning the stone floor beneath his feet, he stepped slowly.
“There it is! Oh my God, there it is by that bag.”
Instead of examining the tiny spider that was making its way up the side of a sack of flour, Avery looked over his shoulder at Miss Ramsey. She’d clapped both hands over her eyes, drawing her feet up beneath her as if to keep them away from the slavering fangs of the blood-thirsty spider. It would have been humorous had her fear not been so real.
Taking pity on her, he knocked the spider from the bag, onto a small piece of kindling, intending to usher the blighter outside.
“Don’t take it on a transatlantic cruise, just squish it for chrissakes!” Her choked voice chastised him.
Ignoring her, Avery walked slowly, turning the kindling to keep the spider from falling or jumping free. Shoving the kitchen door open with his knee, he bent down and deposited the spider in the bush beside the stoop.
“There, lad. Mind you, stay clear of the kitchen and GeekGirlsDontDateDukes.indd 58
4/11/13 11:26 AM
Geek Girls Don’t Date Dukes
59
Miss Ramsey. I’ll not be allowed to spare your life a