Rob wanted to strangle all of the women in his life.

Least of which his wife.

What was she thinking, walking on her feet? Trying to lift herself into the tub. She could have slipped and cracked her fucking head open, and then where would they be?

“I want a divorce.”

His fingers dug fiercely into the granite surrounding the bath, so tightly that he was surprised the stone didn’t crack under his grip. What the hell was wrong with her?

A divorce? Really?

He was never going to let that happen.

Rob leaned down, intending to get in her face, to remind her that they weren’t this couple, that they made decisions together, that—

Her lips.

God, he’d always loved her lips.

Berry red and plump, they’d always reminded him of raspberries. Or maybe strawberries. She’d been wearing strawberry Chapstick the first time he’d kissed her.

Sweet. Succulent. And way too tempting.

Back then and now.

He closed the distance between their mouths. The kiss he gave her wasn’t like the ones he typically gave her, not pecks or quick hellos and goodbyes, goodnights, cursory touches to prove that they still loved each other.

This kiss was heat.

It was frustration and anger. It was passion and fury. It was desire and tongue and lips and—

“Fuck!” he shouted, pulling back and bringing one hand up to the corner of his mouth as he sat back on the edge of the tub.

It was teeth.

Melissa’s teeth.

Blood was on his fingertips when he pulled them away from his lip. “What the hell, Miss?”

She didn’t look at him, instead staring at her toes, which were perched above the water and resting on the edge of granite. Her breathing was hitched and she reached forward to push the lever to drain the tub.

Rob shouldn’t stare, but his wife was in front of him naked, and his eyes drifted down her body, noticing every curve, every freckle, every stretch of silky skin. He’d kissed each inch of Melissa a hundred times over.

Just not recently.

Which he suspected was a big part of the problem.

The water drained slowly down her skin, pooling at her breasts then her stomach, then her thighs, then it was gone and she was fully exposed in front of him.

Except for her face.

That was turned away.

He ran a finger down her arm and she jumped, turning farther away from him, her shoulders and hips twisting until she was practically a pretzel in an effort to escape his touch . . . his presence.

“You’re—”

“I’m not too skinny, dammit,” she screamed, scaring the shit out of him.

He jumped, almost falling from his perch. But then he really looked at his wife, saw what she was doing.

And it nearly broke his heart.

Stiff shoulders. Tense muscles. This wasn’t frustration. It wasn’t a spat that he could smooth over with a few words.

There was a fucking cavern between them.

How the hell had that happened?

How the hell hadn’t he realized it was happening?

His voice was quiet. “I was going to say you’re beautiful.”

Melissa didn’t reply, didn’t move, didn’t look at him.

Rob felt panic crawl into his gut and twist hard. His wife was a live and let live kind of woman. Not much got to her, and even if it did, she was able to compartmentalize it away. To put on a good show and move forward.

She didn’t shut down.

Except, a voice niggled, with her mother.

Her mother had hurt Melissa so many times that eventually there hadn’t been anything else.

No feelings. No more emotions spent. No energy.

Nothing.

Their relationship had become such an empty shell that when Sonya Harrison had finally left for good, Melissa hadn’t cried.

Just as she wasn’t crying now.

His gut twisted tighter.

“Melissa,” he said and rested his palm on her shoulder.

She stiffened, somehow her delicate little body went even tighter until he could see the striations of her muscles through her skin, until the flesh under his palm felt like the granite around the tub.

He pulled back. Stood.

Would have left if he hadn’t seen the relief creep into her frame.

She wasn’t as locked down as she would like to portray.

Rob grabbed a towel. One that he remembered fighting with her over in the home goods store. They had been sixty-eight dollars apiece, and he’d abjectly refused to pay that much for a piece of cotton.

Melissa had threatened to never make her chicken and dumplings again.

He’d caved like a cheap suitcase.

They’d bought four of the expensive towels—because she’d needed two, one for her hair and one for her body, and of course they couldn’t buy an uneven number of towels—and . . . he loved using them.

They were like silk, cozy and cuddly, and if a man of his profession ever got caught saying, hell just thinking, those words, he’d have been razzed out of the department.

He spread the towel over her, hating that she jumped at the contact, then reached into the tub and pulled her into his arms.

She started to squirm, but Rob merely tightened his grip, cognizant of her feet as he maneuvered her from the bathroom, across the carpet, and into their bed.

When he reached for the covers, Melissa tried to scramble from the mattress, but hell if he was going to let her escape now before they hashed this out. There was time, dammit. Even if it meant explaining everything.

“Stop,” he muttered, pulling the quilt up and over them both, trapping her legs by throwing one of his over the top.

“Let. Me. Go,” she said through gritted teeth as she bucked against him.

Then she cried out in pain and he felt like the biggest jackass on the planet.

“Melissa,” he said, pinning her shoulders down and sitting back on her legs to prevent her from getting free. “Stop.”

Not that she made it easy on him. She was wilier that Old Man Jacob, and that fucking octogenarian had tried to knee Rob in the balls after getting caught red-handed stealing Betty Jenkins’ mailbox.

The entire mailbox.

Rob didn’t understand people.

But he understood his wife.

Or he thought he had.

Because he barely recognized the woman beneath him. The coolness in her gaze, the underlying hurt, the stiff body below his.

“Talk, Miss.”

She lifted her chin, turned her eyes to the side.

“I’m serious. Either talk or we stay here all day.”

He wasn’t bluffing.

And she knew it.