The Defiant Wife (The Three Mrs #2) - Jess Michaels Page 0,50

shown you or told you. You are worth so much more.”

The tiny sound she made from the back of her throat, a combination of joy and grief, of pain and acceptance, he knew he would hear that ringing in his ears for the rest of his life. She eased closer and her hand rested on his chest as she stared up into his eyes.

“Rhys,” she whispered.

He leaned down toward her, hungry to have her lips on his, to feel the physical connection that he feared would soon be gone. But before he could kiss her, there was a distant shout from behind them, then a burst of laughter from the men working. They both jumped, pushing apart.

“You forget how close the inn is,” she panted. “When you’re in the trees.”

He nodded. “We…we ought to go back before we create even more scandal than already follows us.”

“Yes,” she said softly, he thought with a little defeat. “Come, I promise to be better company. It did help to say what happened out loud.”

“Good,” he said as he followed her back to the inn. And he was glad he had been able to assist her. But it all felt a little empty now. And he mourned all the things he wished to do but couldn’t.

Pippa wasn’t certain she had been better company the rest of the night, but she’d tried. She’d talked and laughed and shared her supper with the Bartons and Rhys. And all the while his bright eyes had speared her, turning her insides to mush just as they always did.

The fact that her love for this man was only growing was a tragedy, and yet it wasn’t something she could change.

“I wouldn’t change it,” she corrected softly as she swept up the robe Nan had draped across the bottom of her bed just before she left her that night. The maid was sharing a room with Kenley so she could watch him. She had become so good with the boy that Pippa thought she might be better suited to be his nursemaid.

Pippa was just as happy to be alone. She was not good company between the dark feelings that still plagued her when it came to her departure from Bath. And the other feelings…the ones for Rhys…well, those made things difficult too.

He was just down the hall from her now. Three doors down, across the way. An easy distance to cross. If she went to him, he would accept her. She knew that. He wanted her, he loved her. Was it fair to trade on those things for comfort? Was it fair to break both their hearts over and over?

She was already moving to the door even if she didn’t want to face those answers. Already going to him. But as she threw open the chamber door, she gasped. He was stood there, swathed in a silk robe, hand lifted as if to knock.

They stared at each other for a charged moment, and then he caught her cheeks, pulling her in for a kiss as he backed her into her room and kicked the door shut behind them. He locked it before he guided her to the bed.

“You were coming to me,” he grunted between kisses as he fumbled with her robe tie.

She nodded against his mouth and slid her hand beneath his robe. He wore nothing under it and she hissed out a sound of surprised pleasure as her fingers tangled in the fine smattering of chest hair.

“I needed you,” she admitted while he tugged her robe down, stripped her nightrail away and left her standing naked before him. He stepped back, staring at her, memorizing her, she thought. Just as she had memorized him so many times.

“I need you,” he admitted. His voice was rough now, thick with desire and emotion and desperation she hated and craved all at once.

Their mouths met again, heated and driven. He slipped from his robe as he lifted her onto the bed, and then it was all skin on skin. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, tugging him flat to her, shivering at the warmth of him. The strength. When he touched her, when he held her, he was the whole world, if only for a moment. She needed that, needed him.

So she let him. Let him be her center, let him be her heart, her soul, her everything. And pretended that it wouldn’t end.

Chapter 15

Something in Phillipa shifted. Rhys couldn’t identify exactly what it was, but he felt it in