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.

11

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, winter sunlight spilled through a skylight above the bed and bathed Melissa in a golden glow. An artist might spend a lifetime searching for anything so beautiful, he thought as he stood looking down at her. An artist might spend an entire career trying to capture that same sensual vision on canvas and fail in the end. Cody certainly had never seen anything to equal the sight. He couldn’t tear his gaze away.

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.