The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

you can’t do it again.”
    A man that aroused, that ready, wouldn’t dawdle. She was sure of it. Still, she braced herself. And still she trembled when his lips skimmed tenderly, tormentingly over hers. Her arms went limp, her mind blank as glass. The pressure that had built to crisis point slid into a glorious aching.
    The first hint of the rising moon slipped into the room to shimmer silver against the gold of candle flames.
    He cupped her breasts, his fingers tracing the shape of her against her work shirt, before moving to the buttons. She wore a man’s white T-shirt beneath. After he tugged the denim aside, Shawn found himself fascinated at just how sexy her small breasts looked, felt, under that simple white cotton.
    “I’ve always liked your hands.” She had her eyes closed now, the better to absorb the little shocks of sensation.“I like them even better now.” But when he lowered again, when his mouth closed over her through the cotton, her eyes flew open. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”
    He might have chuckled, if he could have found the breath for it. But his lungs were clogged, and his head already starting to reel. Where had this been all his life? This taste, this texture, this shape? How much more had he missed?
    She was tugging off his sweater as he dragged her up. Breath ragged, they stared at each other. Whatever shock there was on both sides, she nodded as he did. “Too late,” was all he said and pulled the shirt over her head.
    “Thanks be to God.”
    They dived at each other.
    His hands might have been faster now, and just a bit rough here and there. His mouth might have been hotter, more impatient than it had. But it didn’t stop him from being thorough. He wanted every bit of her, and would remember always, the taste of her flesh, that tender spot just under her breast, the way that angle went to curve from her rib cage to her hip, and the silken feel of it all under his palm and fingertips.
    The strength of her was no small matter, and outrageously erotic as they rolled together, as he felt her muscles bunch. Erotic still when he made that strength waver toward weakness, feeling her shudder against him when he found some new spot that pleased her.
    The music was flutes now, lilting and faerie-like, a rise of pipes beneath it. The moonlight strengthened, a pearl gleam on the air that was fragrant with candle wax and turf smoke.
    She buried her face against his throat, fighting to catch her breath. “Shawn, for God’s sake. Now.”
    “Not yet, not yet, not yet.” He said it like a chant. He wanted those small strong hands of hers never to stop running over him. He wanted to find more and still more of her with his own. Didn’t those lovely legs deserve his attention now that he’d tugged the ripped denim away? And the back of her shoulder was such a marvelous place to linger.
    “For a little thing, there’s so much of you.”
    Desperate, she sank her teeth into him. “I’ll die in a minute.”
    “Here, now. Here.” And his mouth took hers again as he slid his hand between her legs, slipped his fingers into the heat.
    She came in a flood, fast and full with her body bucking against him. He swallowed her cry of shock and release, absorbed it, savored it even as his blood burned for more.
    Then she was pliant, soft as the wax that pooled at the base of his candles, and he was free to feast on her mouth, on her throat, on her breasts.
    “Just let me have you for a while.”
    The pressure built again, layer by layer, slick and slippery until she slid off the edge a second time. How could he bear it? she wondered. His flesh was damp as hers, his heart leaping as high and fast, his body as tensed and ready.
    Once again she arched against him, once again she wrapped her legs tight around his waist. And their eyes met in the shifting light.
    “Now.” He murmured it as he slipped into her, silky and smooth, as if they’d mated a thousand times before.
    Her breath trembled in, then out. His hands covered hers, and she laced her fingers with his. They watched each other as they began to move.
    Easy and lovely, like a dance remembered. Rising and falling, pleasure met with pleasure. Then, as if the music demanded it, a subtle quickening of pace. His eyes were darker now, that dreamy blue going opaque as he lost himself. When she tightened around him, when her eyelids fluttered closed and the moan rippled her throat, he held on, held on.
    Then he buried his face in her hair and let