She felt a shock when she saw Conall wearing only jeans, zipped but unsnapped. He must have left his T-shirt in the bathroom laundry hamper. His bare chest was all male—hard muscles and dark hair in a triangle like a kite with a tail that disappeared inside the denim of his jeans. He took her breath away.
His darkened eyes swept over her, making her painfully aware of her skimpy attire, only flannel boxer shorts and a well-worn tank top. She’d never thought of them as sexy before.
“Sorrel?” he asked hoarsely.
“Oh, um.” Her mind was astonishingly blank. Remembering who Sorrel was took an embarrassing moment. “She was sexually molested.”
He went very still, but his expression didn’t change. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “I thought it was something like that.”
“I shouldn’t tell you more than that. I really need to keep the kids’ problems confidential.”
“That’s okay.” His voice was a gentle rumble. “I understand.”
“She hasn’t had a nightmare in weeks that I’m aware of. She had a counseling session yesterday.” He nodded; she’d left the boys with him when she went to pick Sorrel up. “Maybe whatever they talked about triggered this.”
Conall took a long stride closer to her. Lia crossed her arms in self-defense and he stopped.
“Lia?”
Oh, dear Lord, don’t let me do something stupid.
She was breathing in quick gusts. She couldn’t look away from Conall. Those eyes, so dark a charcoal right now they might have been black. His hair, coarse and ruffled and wavy, droplets of water clinging here and there. The shadow of a beard on his jaw, the hollow at the base of his throat, his utter self-containment. His whole, big body had remained still, waiting, rigid with tension.
It seemed the Lord wasn’t listening right now, or the temptation was too great. Lia wanted this man more than she’d wanted anything in her whole life.
She let her hands drop to her sides. Took a step herself and saw him break.
The next second he’d crushed her in his arms and his mouth devoured hers.
CHAPTER TEN
LIA HAD NEVER felt anything like this. All patience deserted her, replaced by urgency so huge and overwhelming, she was ready for him now. She kissed him with fervor that was probably clumsy, it had been so long since she’d done even this much with a man. She rose on tiptoe and strained against him. Her arms locked around his neck, and she had the heady pleasure of plunging her fingers into his hair, finally feeling the springy coarse-textured silk.
There was no tenderness in this kiss, only need. His tongue established a hard, driving rhythm interrupted only by sharp nips on her lower lip. She returned them, and followed his tongue into his mouth with her own.
She was trying to climb him, she should have been embarrassed to realize, but any ability to feel shame had been supplanted by this all-consuming want.
When the back of her legs hit the bed, she realized Conall had walked her the few steps. “Yes,” she whispered, and moved her open mouth over his jaw and down his throat.
He groaned and peeled off her tank top then looked at her. Dark color ran over his cheekbones and he made a sound deep in his throat.
“You’re beautiful. So beautiful.”
Lia slid her hands over his strong chest. “You are, too,” she whispered.
With something like a laugh, he lifted her and dropped her on the bed, coming down over her with one knee planted between her thighs. His mouth settled on her breast. As when he’d kissed her, he didn’t bother with preliminaries. He suckled her deep and hard, and she gripped his head to keep him where he was. He had to fight briefly to switch to her other breast. Lia pushed her hips up, almost but not quite satisfied to press against the powerful thigh she straddled.
Eventually that wasn’t enough. She moved her hand over the hard bulge beneath his jeans, loving the growl that escaped him. The zipper was stubborn; while she worked it lower he sucked in his belly and lifted his head to look at her face.
His was transformed by passion. It was as if the skin had tightened over the angular bone structure, erasing some of the care-worn lines, deepening others. His mouth was sensual, hard, his eyes lit by a molten glow that matched how he made her feel inside.