A Proper Wife

He slipped his hands under Devon’s hips, lifted her to him, and buried himself fully in the sweet, softly yielding body of his wife.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DEVON lay in the warmth of Ryan’s arms, softly sated with passion...

And almost breathless with love.

She thought of all the weeks she’d been married to Ryan, living in the same house with him and telling herself she hated him.

It would have been laughable, had loving him not been so dangerous. How much safer her heart had been before tonight!

It was hard to remember that she’d once seen him as stubborn or arrogant or impossible. He was none of those things.

He was, instead, determined. Confident. Self-assured. Wonderfully, magnificently male. And he was funny, too, and bright and charming.

He was everything a woman could possibly want a man to be, and he was her husband—except he wasn’t. Not really.

Unshed tears stung behind Devon’s closed eyelids. What a stupid thing she’d done, falling in love when there was no future to it. She was a temporary part of Ryan’s life; that was the way they’d both wanted it. The two of them had gone into this marriage with their eyes open.

That he’d made love to her changed absolutely nothing. He’d never made any pretense about wanting her in his bed. It was she who’d done all the pretending. Telling herself she despised him when right now her heart was whispering that—in a way no scientist could ever explain—she had loved Ryan from the dawn of time.

Tonight, in one single instant, all her self-deception had been swept aside. It had happened when she’d stepped out of the pool and found him standing in the gym doorway, watching her.

The look on his face—that almost savage look of raw, uncompromising desire—should have set her heart racing with fear.

Instead, it had turned her bones to jelly.

She’d known what Ryan had to be seeing, that the water must have left her white maillot clinging to the contours of her body like wet silk. There was no way to disguise her reaction to him, either: the rapid rise of her breasts as her breathing quickened, the swift hardening of her nipples as her body responded to his.

Cover yourself, her brain had shrieked.

Let him look, her racing pulse had answered. Let him see what he does to you, let him know that you want him as badly as he wants you.

It was the very first time she’d dared admit the truth to herself. And, on the heels of that truth had come the stunning realization that somewhere between that first awful meeting at Montano’s and now, she’d fallen deeply in love with Ryan Kincaid.

And she wanted him. Oh, yes, she wanted him with all her heart.

The air between them had seemed to shimmer with heat. The tension had stretched, until Devon could no more have prevented herself from going to him than she could have kept the sun from rising.

With a cry of surrender, she’d flown into his outstretched arms, lifting her mouth to his with all the pent-up hunger that filled her soul.

And he had met that hunger, met it and sated it, taken her from trembling innocence to the joyful fulfillment of womanhood in his arms.

Now, her joy was fading. She lay in the embrace of the man she loved and fought to keep from weeping.

Ryan had brought her happiness beyond imagining. And she had brought him pleasure. He had told her so, with his kisses, with the touch of his hands, with words that had thrilled her and made her blush.

But he hadn’t said the simplest words of all, the ones that her heart ached for.

He hadn’t said, “I love you.”

Why should he? She was in his life by accident. He hadn’t wanted her. He hadn’t wanted a wife at all. Circumstance and honor had forced him into a marriage that wasn’t a marriage—a marriage that would all too soon be over.

A sob rose in Devon’s throat. Horrified, she bit down on her lip, but it was too late. The choked sound burst out anyway.

Ryan took her into his arms.

“Sweetheart?” he said. “What is it?”