The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

very much. As her hands slid limply onto the rumpled covers, she felt him fall with her. And thought he said her name.
    She lay still, wrecked, wonderfully wrecked, with his face buried in her hair and his long, lovely body pressing hers into the bed. Now she knew, she thought, just what happened when his control snapped. And oh, it was a wild and marvelous thing.
    His heart still hammered, she could feel it knocking against hers. Drifting on that gilded plateau of contentment, she turned her head and skimmed her lips over his shoulder.
    That one gesture had him opening his eyes, struggling to clear his head again. She seemed soft as water under him, limp as melted wax and nothing like the frenzied woman who’d urged him to hurry. He knew he’d have taken her fast and hard in any case. He’d never needed anything, anyone, the way he’d needed Darcy at that moment. As if his very survival depended upon it.
    A dangerous woman, he thought. And found he didn’t give a damn. He wanted her again. And again.
    “Don’t go to sleep,” he murmured.
    “I’m not.” But her voice was thick and rough and at the sound of it his blood heated once more. “I’m just considerably relaxed.” She opened her eyes and pondered the plasterwork of scrolls and stars on the ceiling. “And enjoying the view.”
    “Late eighteenth century.”
    “Isn’t that interesting?” Amused, she stretched under him like a cat, then ran her hands over his back, more for her pleasure than his. “Would that be Georgian or rococo? I never can keep my historical periods straight.”
    It made him grin and lift his head to look down at her. “I’ll give you the full tour with a lesson later if you like. But just now . . .” He began to move inside her again.
    “Oh, well, now,” she murmured. “You’re a healthy one, aren’t you?”
    “If you don’t have your health”—he lowered his head, bit her lip—“you don’t have anything.”
    He was a man of his word and took her to dinner. French food served elegantly enough to soothe, fussily enough to amuse, with wine designed to turn golden on the tongue. The surroundings—gilt mirrors, quiet colors, candlelight glowing in crystal—suited her, Trevor thought. No one looking at the stunning woman in the sleek and simple black dress would imagine her waiting tables in an Irish pub.
    Another skill of hers, he decided, a chameleon’s ability to alter her image at will. The sassy barmaid, the heartbreaking singer, the sexy delight, the breezy sophisticate.
    And which, he wondered, was Darcy Gallagher, at the heart?
    He waited until she was sipping champagne with her elaborate dessert before he touched on business.
    “One of my meetings today involved you.”
    She glanced over, momentarily distracted from her debate of whether eating every bite of that fancy and extraordinary concoction on her plate would be bourgeois.
    “Me? Oh, you mean the theater?”
    “No, though I had some dealings regarding that, too.”
    She decided she could safely eat half of it without looking like a complete bumpkin, and spooned up a glorious combination of cream and chocolate. “What other business might I be a part of?”
    “Celtic Records.” He gauged his rhythm. One more aspect of her was the businesswoman, and he didn’t underestimate that side of her.
    She frowned a little, lifted her glass. “For the recording of Shawn’s music, and the performance at the opening. That’s a family decision and a family enterprise, I suppose you’d call it. I think we’ll be willing to come to terms on that.”
    “I hope you will.” Casually, he sampled a bite of her dessert. “But that isn’t what I meant. I’m speaking of you, Darcy, specifically, exclusively.”
    Her pulse jumped, so she set the champagne down again. “Exclusively, in what way exactly?”
    “I want your voice.”
    “Ah.” She squashed the hard jolt of disappointment. It had no place here, she told herself. “Is that why you brought me here, Trevor?”
    “In part. And that part is totally separate from what happened this evening.”
    When his hand covered hers, she glanced down, studied the way they fit. Then, because that was too romantic a notion for comfort, she looked back up at him. “ Naturally such matters must remain separate, or they’re altogether a mess, aren’t they? You wouldn’t be a man who usually pursues, what would it be, clients, in this sort of way.”
    He drew back from her, his eyes going hard as stone.