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She moaned, squirming, pressing nearer. She twisted her fingers at his nape, pulling him closer, and still they weren’t close enough. Not for him. Not for her.
He’d known in his heart, but touching her, holding her confirmed just how miserable he’d been the past couple of months.
Miserable enough that he found the strength to pry his lips from hers.
He ran his palms down her arms and to the small of her back, holding her to him, feeling the full swell of her belly against his hard groin.
Eyes dazed with passion, she blinked up at him. She’d gone from spitting mad to soft, pliant.
“Don’t stop.” With that, she trailed her tongue over his throat, running it over his carotid pulse and into the indention at his clavicle. “Please, don’t stop.”
A lightning storm struck everywhere she touched, sending thunderous shock waves throughout his body. Her words shook him just as tumultuously. What was she saying? That she wanted him to kiss her? Or that she wanted him to stay? Make love to her?
He wanted nothing more than to carry her into the bedroom they’d shared during what he now realized had been the best period of his life and do all the things he’d missed doing. To her. With her. But she’d take it wrong, think they could fall right back into old habits, and that wasn’t good enough for him.
Not by far.
He caressed her face, wondering how he could have missed just how much she meant to him. Just how far he was willing to go for this woman’s well-being.
Because he wasn’t doing this just for him or even for their baby. He did it for Melissa. To keep her from working her life away and someday looking around and realizing she had nothing outside her career. No one to love. No one to love her. Because she’d let each relationship wither and die without ever realizing what she was doing.
“James?” she breathed against his neck, her hands splaying across his back. “I want you here, with me. Always.”
Always.
Lord, give him strength.
He trapped her wrists and held them, keeping her from rubbing her body against him. “You have to stop, Melissa. This is wrong.”
Her dark eyes went round and her body stiff.
He watched all the wrong conclusions form in her mind.
“I forgot,” she chided herself, looking embarrassed, lost, disbelieving. “I forgot that you didn’t want me anymore.”
He ached. His body and his heart. “I do want you, Melissa. I’ve never stopped wanting you.”
She gave him a don’t-feed-me-that-garbage look. “I can tell by how you leapt at my offer.”
“You didn’t mean to make that offer any more than I needed to accept it.”
She pulled her wrists free and he let her. Her arms crossed over her chest, and her chin lifted.
“Don’t tell me what I meant to do or didn’t mean to do. It’s become quite apparent that you don’t know me nearly as well as you seem to think.”
“I know you better than you know yourself.”
“Then you’ll know that I want you to leave.”
“Leaving hasn’t solved much in the past. Possibly it’s only complicated an already complicated enough situation.” He crossed his arms, thinking they probably looked ridiculous facing off against one another. “But at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Now taking care of you is the right thing.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
He remained silent, unyielding.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” She gathered up her book and stomped out of the living room in a tantrum he’d have expected from a child but not a woman like Melissa.
Any moment he expected to hear the bedroom door slam, but he only caught the faint sound of her clicking the lock into place. They’d talk later. Melissa’s pride was too hurt for them to make any progress tonight.
