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 ever to work things out with reason and logic, when the temptation was going to be to fall into bed.