The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

coffee. Sex might satisfy, food might fuel, love might sustain, but without coffee, what was the point?
    Especially at five-thirty in the morning.
    He’d showered, pulled on his jeans, but he couldn’t go another step without the true blood of life.
    “Coffee,” he said again, directly against Darcy’s ear as she snuggled into her pillow. “Please, tell me where it is.”
    “Mm.” She shifted, turned lazily, hooked an arm around his neck. “Too early.”
    “It’s never too early for coffee, or too late. Darcy, I’m begging you, just tell me where you keep it.”
    She opened her eyes then, and the light was still dim enough to keep her floating on memories of the night. Which saved him from wrath. “You need a shave.” She lifted her other hand, rubbed it over his cheek. “Ah, you look so rough and male and dangerous. Come back to bed.”
    Sex with a beautiful woman. Coffee. It was one of life’s most difficult choices. The man who could have both was a king. But first things first.
    He slid his hands under the sheets, under her warm, soft body. And hauled her up out of bed. “You can show me where it is.”
    It took her a moment to realize he was carting her into the kitchen. “Trevor! I’m bare-assed naked here.”
    “Are you?” He glanced down, let his gaze roam. “Imagine that. Coffee, Darcy, and the world is yours.”
    She sniffed, huffed. “Promises like that are kept as often as pigs fly.” She gestured to a cupboard, then squealed when he unceremoniously set her warm and naked ass down on the counter. “Bastard.”
    “I don’t see it.”
    “Men don’t see anything that’s under their noses.”
    She shifted, muttering curses, and pushed a couple of tins aside. “There. If it’d been a snake it would’ve bitten you between the eyes. And now I suppose you’ll be wanting me to make it for you.”
    It was such a lovely thought. Hopeful, he laid his palms on either side of her, nipped and nuzzled her sulky mouth. “Would ya?”
    If he hadn’t been so bloody handsome, with his hair shiny and damp from his shower, his face darkened with stubble, those wonderful gray eyes so sleepy, she’d have beaned him with the can.
    “Oh, move aside and let me go get my robe.”
    “Why?”
    She slitted her eyes instead. “Because I’m cold.”
    “Oh.” He nodded. “Reasonable. I’ll get it.” He plucked her off the counter, brushed a kiss over her forehead, then went to find her robe.
    Yawning hugely, Darcy filled the kettle, got out the pot and filter. She was starting to shiver as she measured out the coffee when Trevor came back with her robe.
    He studied the paraphernalia as she bundled herself into the robe. “I’ll have to buy you an automatic one.”
    “I don’t make coffee often enough for it to be worthwhile. I start my day with tea most usually.”
    “That’s just . . . sick.”
    “Ah, such a weakness. It’s nice to find one. There. We just wait for the kettle now.” She reached up to get him a mug, and looked so pretty doing it, rising on her toes, shaking back her tumbled hair, that he was dizzy with . . .
    Just dizzy, he told himself. Just dizzy from the picture she made.
    “But don’t think I’m making you breakfast.”
    He had to touch her, just touch. So he slipped his arms around her, pressing his lips to the side of her neck as he brought her back against him. “You’re so mean.”
    Her heart jumped, then beat thickly. The gesture was so simple, so warm, so full of the sweetness of intimacy that frantic sex could never achieve. She squeezed her eyes shut and was careful, very careful, to keep her voice light.
    “Well, now, aren’t you affectionate of a morning?”
    He wasn’t, not as a rule. He’d have puzzled over it if it hadn’t felt so good to just hold her. “Any woman makes me coffee, I shower her with affection. If she makes me breakfast, I’m her slave.”
    “The waitresses in New York City must fight for your table.” She laid her hands over the ones he’d linked around her waist. Just for a moment she wanted that illusion of quiet, settled love. “Myself, I’m not in the market for a slave, but you’re welcome to whatever you can forage.”
    He settled for toast, since she didn’t seem to have much else, and leaned against the counter while it browned and she poured boiling water over the waiting grounds.
    “God.” He breathed deep. “How does anyone live without the smell of that in the morning?” He gave her a pitying look.