Author's Note: Sorry it's been ages people! Life is so much stress right now! Anyways, I thought I would give you this lovely chapter, and also tell you that after this, we will be getting back slowly towards the plot and towards the third act. Don't worry its not yet, but its coming soon.

A warning for this chapter: Swear-words galore, simply because I have potty mouth. And scenes of a sexual nature are mentioned or alluded to.

Please don't forget to review!

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MMM: The reason my story doesn't appear straight away on the Rango archive, is because the rating has switched to 'M'. On fanfiction, when you click on an archive, they only show stories rating K-T at first. You have to click the setting "all ratings" on the filters in order to get all the stories in the archive. Hope that clears up any confusion.

BelgicaeLupu: I apologise that I haven't responded to this before now. But I wanted to say a massive thank you for your support and lovely words of encouragement! It makes my day to see that my work has affected someone like you as it has done. I'm honoured that you would choose to write a review for my story. As I know a lot of people don't usually do that.

Surprise

"I've been thinking 'bout this all day long

Never felt a feeling quite this strong

I can't believe how much it turns me on

Just to be your man…" Josh Turner, 'Your Man'

It'd started off so simple. So how in hell did it get screwed up so fast?

Jake asked himself that same question as he waited in the shadows beneath a pile of stones heaped by an old rusted truck in the middle of the desert. He was supposed to be on business, but his mind wouldn't focus and it was getting on his nerves. A heat was passing through his scales, though it was nothing to do with the sun. Every time his coils shifted, he felt a little uncomfortable in his… nether regions. It wasn't painful, as such, it was just certain urges wouldn't leave themselves alone.

"Hey, handsome."

The voice had Jake's eyes snapped up to the speaker. His tail rattled and he hissed. Delilah practically jumped back away from him, scared he'd lunge for her. Jake controlled the impulse and scolded himself. He never let anyone sneak up on him, especially not other outlaws like this. What was with him today?

"Jesus-fucking-Christ, Jake!" Delilah shrieked indignantly. "You got your panties in a twist, then go take it out on the local rodent population – not me!"

"Don't mouth off at me, damn-woman." Jake grumbled. He tried to look calm and in control, even when his skin was itching and he felt the need to be somewhere other than here. He pressed on the bobcat before him, "What you found?"

She leaned onto one foot, hands across her hips as she pouted those bright red lips of hers. "You need to get back."

"Why?"

"The Court, that's why. It's going to shit." Her ear twitched and she looked about with those wide gold-green eyes. Jake looked as well, when the two outlaws were certain no one was around, Delilah leant in closer. "There's been talk about taking your place – what with you gone so long and all."

Jake felt a furious hiss escape his throat. He knew just who to blame for that. "Let me guess… Irvin Worst."

"He was the most vocal."

Of course he would be. Irvin Worst was a black collared lizard, and also known as "the fire breather". He had also been Jake's most prominent rival in the Gunslinger Court. Jake allowed him in because he was a good arsonist and fit to the rules. But the outlaw tested the boundaries one too many times. And this time, Jake wasn't in the mood for it. He wanted to kill the son of a bitch.

"That boy's been itchin' ta get one over on me fer years. He talks a load of bullshit, Delilah. You know that."

"Bullshit or not, he's trouble. He's tryin' to convince others that you need to be taken down. Says he's even got good money."

"He ain't had a good score in months. How's he got this?" Jake thought aloud to himself. He focused on the dusty ground, trying to think through and figure this out. But the colour of the sand… it reminded him of scales coiled around his, the same colour when in the lamp light. The jolting thought was enough to snap him out of whatever he'd gotten into, and with a growl of frustration he pushed himself back to the situation at hand. "Find out."

"Sure thing."

"And don't be getting' no ideas about his money."

"Please, sugar." Delilah scoffed. "I may be a murderous criminal, but I ain't stupid. Plus, takin' money from Irvin Worst would mean I'd have to suffer him staring at my tits. I'd rather screw an exhaust-pipe."

That kind of comment only drove Jake's already distracted mind to further off places. He remembered glossy coils wrapped tightly around his, a moan, a plea for more, a furious kiss. His coils bunched beneath him with want at the memory, and caused him slight pain from his sudden readiness. The hiss he wanted to expel was suppressed.

This was ridiculous. Why couldn't he focus on other things? Why did he so badly need to rush back to Grace's farm and recreate these memories that were doing all sorts of things to his body? It was causing him to make very out-of-character slip ups, and it was getting on his nerves. What was wrong with him? He wasn't usually like this. Once he had his fill for a night and agood rest, he was level headed the next day. So why couldn't he now keep his urges down? Had Grace cast some sort of bewitchment on him? The feverish thought made him mad as all hell.

But he still had work to conclude. So tightly asked, "And Reth?"

"He thinks he's found Ramirez," replied Delilah. "Wanted me to tell you he'll be silent for a fair while until he gets back."

Jake rounded on her, eyes furious. "I thought I told you two not to be stupid!"

"We're not. Reth's a big boy, he can take care of himself. As I recall, he's older than you. Rare in our profession."

"You go and find him and drag his ass back here. If he don't come back alive, I'm gonna shoot you right through those trashy red-lips of yers!"

"Ouch." Came the bob-cat's stony reply as she glared up at the rattler before her. "Jake I usually don't give a damn what you do, or who you doin'. You been good to me, and for that reason I won't shoot your ass for that comment. If your so twisted over this, get yourself out of that hovel and get Reth yourself."

Jake forced himself to calm down. It would do him no good to get mad at Delilah when he still needed her cooperation right now. "I might have to. But not until the job's done."

"You still watchin' that sweet-thing?" She quirked a brow, apparently all forgiven. She pouted her lips and Jake had the possessive urge to smack it off. "Shame. Wouldn't've minded a roll with you a time or two… big-daddy…"

"Get goin'!" he snapped.

She jumped to attention, as if she were a child caught daydreaming. "Yes sir."

And just like that, the cut turned and was gone.

Jake kept his eye out for hawks. And all that time his mind was still plagued with thoughts of another woman his body was telling him he desperately needed. He waited until he was sure that there were none of those pests in the sky, and then began to make his furious way back across the desert towards Grace's farm.

He didn't know what Grace had done, but if she had indeed bewitched him with some sort of weakness, he wasn't happy about it. The more he thought about it, the madder he got. Until when he eventually came back to the farm in early evening, he was fuming. He stormed into the home, intent on shouting and demanding the cursed woman to tell him what on earth she'd done to him.

But then he made his way into the kitchen, and stopped. She stood over the stove, her back to him, long coils draped across the ground, the end of her tail stirred a spoon in a pot. Jake became fixated on the slender form of her body, the way a vein throbbed along her throat. When she turned her head slightly to look at him, her hooded brown eyes caught him in their seductive pull. At that moment, Jake forgot all of his anger, and realised just how badly he wanted her right then and there.

"Good," she said with a bright smile. "Your home. I was about to call Teddy for dinner."

Jake had to wait. It was a great challenge, but he still had to wait. He had to wait through dinner, with Teddy attempting to talk animatedly to the pit-viper about his day, even though he wasn't really listening. He had to wait through mother and son doing their chores to clean up after dinner. Then he had to wait some more when Grace took Teddy upstairs to bed. For all that time, Jake couldn't keep his eyes off of Grace for very long, or stop his mind from wandering to very vulgar places.

And then, finally, his moment came. Grace came back down the stairs, a tired smile on her face as she joined him in the kitchen. She slithered right past him to the sink. Jake made sure to keep his movements as silent as possible as he straightened and followed her.

"He took forever to get to sleep," she was saying as she reached for a pan with her tail to clean. "Wouldn't stop going on about Pricilla and what he wants to do when they next go play. I never thought I'd get away."

He brought his mouth right beside her ear and rumbled quietly. "I'm glad you did."

She gasped and spun to face him. It was a shock to have him so close he was suddenly pushing against her front so that her back was trapped against the sink. He heard her quick intake of breath, felt her heartbeat begin to quicken with excitement, saw the way her pupils got wider for him. Her mouth was slightly open and he devoured it. He kissed her hard and deep. She moaned into him and their forked tongues duelled.

Eventually she broke off to breathe, no matter how loudly Jake growled at the interruption. "What was that for?"

"Fer makin' me want ya, woman." He told her huskily. "I ain't been able to get ya out of my head all day… You don't know how many bad things I've been thinkin' up fer ya."

"Jake!" she gasped. "We'll be heard–"

Stretching out his long body, his tail reached across the kitchen and flicked the lock on the door. The metal of his gun 'clacked' against the key, making the noise all the louder to signify their complete isolation. There was no way Jake was going to let anyone disturb this.

She moaned louder when his tongue drifted further down her chin to her neck. Realising the noise, she tried to clamp her jaws shut to stifle the noise. Jake wasn't having that. He wanted to hear her plead for him. So he kissed her again and his coils wrapped around her body. She responded in kind and squeezed him. His already frustrated body was almost on the razor's edge as it was and it made him hiss with want and pain at the denial. With that noise his fangs almost flashed out.

Grace gasped and stared. Jake growled in annoyance and folded them back into his mouth. He had to remember to be very careful. It drove him nuts sometimes. But this time, Grace shook her head.

She reached up with the tip of her tail to lightly trace curve at the hinge of his jaw. "No… let me see them…"

Jake didn't know if the woman had lost her senses with passion. She'd never been too keen on his fangs with a sober mind. But part of him was very curious. Slowly, he opened his mouth as wide as it could go and unhooked both his long and lethal fangs.

Grace's eyes widened slightly at the sight of them. But she did not draw away from him. In fact, her bodily massage of him only grew a little tighter, which caused him to show all kinds of exercise in restraint. Slowly, she came forward, and Jake made himself extremely still.

Her lips puckered and she kissed his top lip. Her eyes closed over and her mouth slid down to his gum. He heard a slight aroused hiss as she opened her mouth and her black tongue crept its way out of her mouth. Jake almost jolted when he felt her tongue wrap around his left fang and gently slide all the way down to the thin and sleek edge to the deadly tip. Her tongue flicked against the roof of his mouth as she drew away and licked her own lips for him.

Jake didn't hold back as he slammed into her. He crushed her lips against his, used his coils already wrapped around her to turn her so that her back was pressed against his chest. Pinned against the kitchen sink, she could do nothing but plead with him as he showed all of those naughty thoughts that had not left his mind all day.

The next morning, Grace and Jake awoke earlier than anyone else in the desert. It was just before the crack of dawn when they awakened and as one reached for each other. The night was their time for more 'adult' activities, before anyone else could awaken and so they were not disturbed. That morning, Jake and Grace made love, slow and sweet. Quite different from their usual passion-filled mornings that set them in the mood for the day.

But Grace wasn't complaining in the slightest. In that morning's afterglow, she didn't think she'd been happier. She had her home, and her son. And here was a man that ravished her and seemed to show affection, the likes of which she never would've guessed. Grace thought her heart could burst. Could she dare to call it… love? Would it ruin everything if she even admitted that to herself?

She didn't worry about it. She concentrated only on Jake as he finished having his way, she already having been satisfied many times over long before now. She had to give Jake credit, for a gritty gunslinger who seemed to be getting on to middle-age, he surely had plenty of stamina.

Yet this morning was different. Usually Jake would lick her clean from head to tail, and with it wipe away his scent from her scales. It was a lovely cool-down that mirrored the heat-inducing start he always enacted when they were physically intimate. But today, he didn't. Today he merely lay beside her when he was done, head nuzzled into the back of her neck.

"If you don't get to cleaning me," she murmured, exhausted. "I'll have to do it myself."

He chuckled and whispered, "Don't."

"But I'll stink of you all day if I don't."

"Exactly." She could practically hear self-satisfied smug smirk. "I want it there, so that anyone with half a nose can know who ya belong to."

Despite herself, Grace grinned. That sense of belonging that was something she didn't even realise she wanted until she had it. To her, that was Jake saying those accursed three little words without actually needing to say them. And that was all she needed. She turned to face the rattlesnake behind her and kissed him.

Later that morning, the trio made their way into town. Teddy broke away from the adults almost straight away – with his mother calling after him to be careful. The little snake was in too much of a good mood to listen as he raced over to where Pricilla and her friends sat chucking stones at a can ten paces away.

"What's got you all riled up?" Pricilla asked.

Teddy puffed his chest out proudly. "My momma's gonna marry Mr Jake!"

All the other children gaped. "Really?!"

"Don't know," he shrugged. "But they been doin' a lot of things together. My Momma's practically wearin' him as a perfume today."

"Mortdecai!" Pricilla turned and hit the child next to her. "You owe me two bug's wings!"

"Oh, man!" the child whined.

"Cough 'em up. Blood and all."

As for the adults, they met on the other side of town, outside the Sheriff's office with Rango and Beans. Grace and Jake had been called over because Rango wanted them present and to give their opinions on their current problem. Rango had just received words from the town attorney about their chances in a court-room. Apparently they weren't looking good.

"Dufayel legally owns the land, nobody's payin' him rent or mortgage to live there and he's given tenants ample room to vacate." Rango recited what the attorney had told him. He scratched his head underneath his hat, a look of distress crossing his features. "By all rights, the law's on his side."

Beans frowned. "What about the attacks from the mercenaries?"

"Can't prove it was all tied to him."

Grace gulped. Wasn't it not a few hours ago that she'd been thinking life was perfect? Now she was reminded of this hanging over her head. It brought everything crashing back to reality.

"There's no need fer this," Jake snapped irritably. "Let me go after him, Sheriff."

"Then we'd all be done for murder, Jake!" Rango snapped back.

"I am one. In case ya hadn't noticed."

"So that's it?" Grace asked bleakly. "We can't win the court case. Then what do we do when Dufayel comes to claim the land?"

"He won't make his move." Beans shook her head. "He don't have my ranch or your farm yet. He needs that if he's gonna be mining the dirt out right from underneath us."

Jake shot the desert iguana a look. "Ya sure about that, woman? Man'll do anything if he's got good cause."

Rango snapped his fingers, obviously having not heard a single word from any of the others. "Maybe we could appeal on the grounds of sanctuary?"

"Appeal to have him hanged!" Beans snapped furiously. "That monster might own our lands but he don't own us, and he don't own them there mines!"

For some reason that made Grace pause and think. If Dufayel owned the lands above, did he own the lands below?

"Might I have a word?"

All four looked up. Grace froze. Rango and Beans frowned. Jake glared.

A stranger stood before them. Long and thin, his body was yellow with dark brown spots like leopard print, but more organised. His head was completely brown from his crown to his nose, but his lower jaw was as yellow as his belly. He wore an old, stained, moth-eaten red tie about his neck and a toothpick stuck out of the corner of his mouth.

Jake didn't like the look of the stranger one bit. Instinctively, he puffed up his sides and his metallic tail began to rattle a warning. Even Rango and Beans were looking at the newcomer suspiciously.

"Yer in the wrong place, boy." Jake snapped out. He didn't feel threatened, as such, but it riled him up to know that there was a male snake right now within eyesight of his woman. Jake had never really been possessive before, his other companions had been hookers after all. But something about this one rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was the nervous twitch in his eye.

"Nah, I'm definitely in the right place," the newcomer snipped right back.

"Can I help you, sir?" Rango asked as he stepped forward.

"Nah, Sheriff," said the snake. "I didn't come to talk to you."

Beans stepped up beside Rango, her gun in her hands and slowly rising upwards. "Who are you?"

"His name…" came a strangled voice. Everyone turned to look at Grace and noticed how still as stone she was, how pale she had suddenly become. Her eyes were wide and frightened and staring at the stranger. "His name… is Benjamin Hares."

Jake's eyes widened and he spun back around to stare at this snake – not just any snake, a gopher snake. He couldn't believe it. It couldn't be!

Grace seemed as shocked as everyone else as she choked out the fatal words: "He's my husband."