He nodded. “There is.”
“What? I’ll do anything.”
His mouth curved into a mockery of a smile. “You make it sound so dire. The alternative isn’t that awful. You just have to marry me.”
The conversation she’d just had with Harlan echoed in her head. She couldn’t marry Cody, not under these circumstances, especially not with him trying to blackmail her into it. What kind of a chance would their marriage have if she did? None. None at all.
She forced herself not to react with the anger or counterthreats that were on the tip of her tongue. Reason and humor would be more successful against the absurdity of what he was suggesting.
“Cody, half of the women in Texas would marry you in a heartbeat if you’re anxious to have a wife,” she said, refusing to consider the terrible consequences to her emotions if he took her up on what she was suggesting. “Why try to blackmail me into it?”
“Because you’re the one who’s the mother of my child,” he said simply.
“But that’s all I am to you,” she replied, fighting tears. “It’s not enough to make a marriage. At the first sign of trouble, what’s to prevent you from bolting again, just like you did when you saw me with Brian? You don’t trust me. You don’t want me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he said, straightening and walking slowly toward her with a look that flatout contradicted her claim.
Melissa held her ground. If she backed down now, if she showed him any hint of weakness, he would win. The prize was more than her pride, more than her body. The prize they were warring over was her daughter.
Cody’s advance was slow and deliberate. His eyes, dark as coal in the shadow of the house, seemed to sear her with their intensity. His lips formed a straight, tight line. Anger and frustration radiated from every masculine pore.
When he neared to within a few scant inches, the heat from his body enveloped her, tugging at her like a powerful magnet. And still she held her ground.
“I want you, Me…liss…a,” he said quietly. “Make no doubt about that.”
She shivered under his slow, leisurely, pointed inspection. Her skin sizzled under that hot gaze. The peaks of her breasts hardened. Moisture gathered between her thighs. Her entire body responded as if he’d stroked and caressed every inch of her. She ached to feel his fingers where his gaze had been. And still, unbelievably, she held her ground.
Her breath snagged, then raced. Her pulse skittered crazily. She longed for someplace to sit or lean, anything to keep her weak knees from giving away her shakiness.
“Tempted, Me…liss…a?”
“No,” she squeaked, hating herself for not making the response firmer, more emphatic.
“Remember how it felt to have me inside you?” he taunted, hands jammed into his pockets, deliberately stretching faded denim over the unmistakable ridge of his arousal.
Her gaze locked on that evidence of his desire. A matching hunger rocketed through her. She swallowed hard, clenching her fists so tightly she was certain she must be drawing blood. But still she held her ground.
“In there, on that big, old, feather mattress,” he reminded her silkily. “Our legs all tangled, our bodies slick with sweat. Remember, Me...liss…a?”
Oh, sweet heaven, she thought, desperately trying to replace his images with other, safer memories of her own. Memories of being alone and scared, when she realized she was pregnant. Memories of staring at a phone that never rang as day after day, then month after month ticked by. Thinking of that, she steadied herself and held her ground.
She leveled a look straight into eyes that blazed with passion and said, “It won’t work, Cody. We can’t resolve this in bed.”
He reached out then, skimmed his knuckles lightly along her cheek and watched her shiver at the touch. “You sure about that, darlin’?”
She wasn’t sure about anything anymore except the tide of desire she was battling with every last shred of her resistance. Her breathlessness kept her silent, afraid that anything she said or the whispered huskiness of her voice would give her away.
His fingers traced a delicate, erotic path along her neck, circling her nape, pulling her closer and closer still until their lips were a scant hairsbreadth apart, their breath mingling along with their scents; hers, wildflower fresh, his, raw and purely masculine.
The touch of his mouth against hers, gentle as a breeze, commanding as the pull of the tides, sealed her fate. The ground she’d held so staunchly gave way as she swayed into the temptation of that kiss.
Cody gave a sigh that she interpreted as part relief, part satisfaction. He coaxed her lips apart, touched his tongue to hers in a provocative duet.
Melissa bowed to the inevitable then. She had no power or will to resist this lure. She gave herself up to the sweet, wild sensations that had always been her downfall with Cody. He knew every inch of her, knew how to persuade and cajole, how to tempt and tease until her body was his as it had always been.
Her heart, she prayed, she could protect a little longer.
Chapter Eleven
The dare was backfiring. Cody knew it the instant he saw Melissa sprawled across his bed, her long auburn hair tangled on his pillow, her skin like smoothest satin, her coral-tipped breasts beckoning to him.
Until this moment it had only been distant memories that tormented him, fueling steamy dreams and restless nights. Now she was here and this throbbing hunger he felt for her was real. Powerful sensations he’d been telling himself that absence—and abstinence—had exaggerated were reawakened now with passionate urgency.
There might still have been a split second when he could have reclaimed sanity and reason, but if there was, he let it pass. His need for her was too great. His conviction that making love to her once again would bind her to him forever was too compelling.
The soft,
