The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

hers. Those slow, hesitant strokes of her hands were maddening. Wonderful. Her mouth was so soft, so giving. And the way she shivered—nerves and anticipation—when he unhooked her slacks and let them slide to the floor flashed fresh heat into his blood. Gaelic endearments burned in his brain, tumbled off his tongue as he took his mouth over her face, down her throat, once again over those glorious shoulders until her shivers became shudders and her sighs gasps.
    Slow down, slow down, he ordered himself. But how could he have known that the need for her would rear up and snap into his soul with jagged teeth? Afraid he would frighten her, he pressed his lips to the curve of her throat and just held her until the rage of it settled again.
    She was floating, too tangled in sensations to note the changes of rhythm. Dreamily, she turned her head, found his mouth with hers and slid them both into the kiss. It seemed her bones were dissolving, and the pressure in her belly was glorious. Everywhere he touched, a part of her lit up.
    This was making love, was all she could think. At last, this. How could she have mistaken anything else for this?
    He had to have more. He slipped the shirt aside and found himself charmed by the simple white bra. To please himself, he trailed a fingertip along the top edge, circled the tiny mole.
    Her legs buckled. “Aidan.”
    “When I saw this little dot this morning,” he murmured, watching her face, “I wanted to bite you.” When she onlyblinked at him, he grinned and flicked open the hook of her bra. “It made me wonder what other sexy little secrets you hide under those tidy clothes of yours.”
    “I don’t have any sexy secrets.”
    The bra fell to the floor. Aidan lowered his gaze, watched the faint flush work over her skin and found it sinfully erotic. “You’re wrong about that,” he said quietly, then cupped her breasts in his hands.
    There, that quick jerk of shock, and the glimmer of surprise in her eyes. Experimentally, he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples and watched those sea-green eyes blur.
    “No, don’t close them,” he said as he lowered her to the bed. “Not yet. I want to see what my touching you does to you.”
    So he watched her face as he enjoyed her, as he learned the secrets she’d claimed not to have. Silky skin and tumbled hair, all smelling of rain. Soft curves, subtle dips. When his workingman’s hands skimmed over her, she would quiver. And each secret he discovered was a pleasure to them both.
    When he tasted her, the world slipped away until there was nothing but the rage of her own pulse and the hot glory of his mouth on her skin.
    Ripe for release, she arched against his hand when he covered her. Moved against him as the ache sweetened and the sweetness became unbearable. His mouth came down on hers, catching her cry of pleasure. He gave her more, more until her breath was sobs and her body molten.
    The eyes that so fascinated him were blind now, and her skin glowing and damp. It wasn’t only her world that had slipped away, but his as well. She was all that was left in it.
    He said her name once, then slid into her. Heat into heat,need into need, strong and deep. Holding there, holding, until she wrapped herself around him.
    Joined now, they moved together, long, slow strokes that fed the soul. Dazzled, she smiled. Light shimmered, like the brilliance of the diamond as his lips curved in response and met hers.
    This, she thought, was the real magic. The most powerful. And clinging to it, she leaped off the edge of the world with him.
    Candlelight fluttered. The fire hissed and rain pinged on the windows. There was a gorgeous, exciting, fascinating, and wonderfully naked man in her bed.
    Jude felt like a cat who’d just been given the keys to the milking parlor.
    “I’m so glad William’s having a baby.”
    Aidan turned his head, found his face buried in her hair, and angled it away again. “What the devil does William have to do with it?”
    “Oh. I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.”
    “It’s no worse than thinking about another man when I’ve yet to get my breath back after loving you.”
    “I wasn’t thinking of him like that.” Appalled, she sat up, too mortified to remember she was naked. “I was just thinking that if he wasn’t having a baby, my mother wouldn’t have told me, and I wouldn’t have gotten upset and come down to the pub and—it all led to here, to this,” she finished weakly.
    He still had