Pregnancy had changed her body, gently rounding it, where before it had been all sharp angles and far more delicate curves. He swallowed hard as he absorbed the changes, regretting with every fiber of his being that he’d never seen her belly swollen with his child or her breasts when they were tender and engorged with milk.
He was aware of the instant when embarrassment tinted her skin a seashell pink from head to toe. She grabbed for a corner of the sheet, but before she could cover herself, he caught the edge and tugged it gently from her grasp. He stripped away his own clothes and sank down beside her, his gaze never leaving hers.
His breath eased out of him on a ragged sigh. “You are even more beautiful than I remembered,” he said, touching his fingers to the pulse that hammered at the base of her neck, gauging her response. Her skin burned beneath his touch. Her pulse bucked like the most impatient bronco he’d ever ridden.
And her eyes, oh, how they pleaded with him. The delicate sea green shade had darkened with some inner turbulence. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she wanted him with a desperation as fierce as his own.
He also knew with absolute certainty that she didn’t want to desire him at all. Outside just now, she had fought her own passion valiantly, but nature and the inevitability of their mating were against her, just as they had been against him since his return to Texas.
He had always understood that internal war, perhaps even better than she did. Way back, when he’d waged his own battle to resist being hemmed in, when he’d struggled against commitment, his body had betrayed him, hungering for Melissa in a way he should have recognized as proof that they were meant to be. It had never been anywhere near as casual between them as he’d sworn to himself it was.
Now, with this second chance, his gaze intent, he skimmed his fingers over delicate skin, caressing new curves and exploring familiar planes. He scattered kisses in the wake of his touch, until her skin was on fire and her breath was coming in soft gasps and her eyes were the color of a stormy sea.
He wondered if he would ever understand the complex mix of raw, violent emotions she stirred in him. The primitive urge to claim and possess tangled with a more sensitive desire to awaken and give pleasure. He concentrated on the latter, judging the success of each stroke of his fingers, each dark and passionate kiss.
“Cody, please,” she pleaded, her body arching upward, seeking his, seeking the very possession he held back.
“Not yet,” he soothed, even as he intensified his touches, tormenting and teasing until he sensed that she was right on the edge of a shattering, consuming climax.
His own body was rigid with tension, his blood pounding hotly through his veins. He held his own satisfaction at bay with a will that was being tested beyond endurance. He had no idea if the torment was meant to incite Melissa or prove something to himself. Perhaps he was hoping for one last, tiny victory in his internal battle to demonstrate that she didn’t have the power to captivate him so thoroughly, after all.
But of course, she did. And when her soft cries and his own demanding need could no longer be ignored, he slowly, slowly entered her, sinking into that moist, velvet sheath with a sigh of thrilled satisfaction. As the pace of his entry and retreat escalated, they rode each wave of pleasure together until willpower—his and hers—vanished in an explosion that made them one.
Afterward, still floating on the memories of that wild, incredible journey, Cody couldn’t help thinking of the implication. Melissa was home at last, where she belonged…and so was he.
* * *
“I told you so,” Cody murmured smugly sometime later, when the room was bathed in the last pink shimmer of a glorious sunset.
“Told me what?” Melissa asked, her eyes closed, her body tucked against his side.
“That being married to me wouldn’t be so awful.”
Her eyes blinked open and she rose up to lean on one elbow. “This isn’t marriage, Cody,” she reminded him with a scowl. “It’s an interlude, one afternoon, nothing more.”
He was stunned that she could be so cool, so dismissive, in the aftermath of such all-consuming heat and passion. “Are you saying that this meant nothing to you?”
“I’m saying it’s not enough to make a marriage,” she countered stubbornly. “Cody, if sex were all that mattered, you would never have left for Wyoming and we’d have been married long ago.”
His temper snapped at that. “I would never have left for Wyoming if you hadn’t deliberately tried to make me think you were becoming involved with my best friend,” he shouted, flinging her responsibility for his leaving back in her face.
Even as he hurled the accusation, he climbed from the bed and yanked on his jeans. He stalked out of the bedroom, not sure where he was headed until he found himself outside on the deck, standing at the rail gazing over the land he loved. Not even such natural beauty had the power to soothe him now, though. Fury made his insides churn.
The quick escalation of the argument forced him to admit that Melissa was right about one thing: making love hadn’t solved anything. If anything, it had complicated matters, because now they both knew that the explosive chemistry between them was as volatile as ever. It was going to be harder than
