Brendan eyed him. “You’re joking, right?”
On another laugh, Conall headed for the attic door. “I’m joking.”
For once, it was Lia who knocked half an hour later to hand over his dinner tray, allowing him to steal a lingering kiss and cop a feel that left him aroused with no way to get relief until three in the morning or so.
Well, hell. Anticipation was supposed to be half the fun, wasn’t it? He grimaced. He’d rather have made love with her now and later. But he guessed in a houseful of kids that wouldn’t have happened anyway. He couldn’t blame the job for this particular frustration, uncomfortable though it was.
It felt like a miracle to him that she was awake and waiting eagerly for him every night when he slipped into her room. He had yet to catch her by surprise. Her arms always closed around him with fierce pleasure when he got into bed with her.
Tonight he growled, “God, I need you,” before taking her mouth with ravenous hunger. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind the entire time he kept restless, irritable watch from the window. Ten hours of his body aching for hers.
Lia kissed him as passionately and gripped the nape of his neck with one strong hand while the other explored the contours of his back. He loved the feel of her fingers sinking into his hair, and he loved having to search beneath the curtain of hers for her breasts and belly. She’d taken to leaving her luxuriant hair loose when she went to bed, knowing the first thing he’d do anyway was free it from the braid.
At one point he tore his mouth from hers to say, “I want to make love to you in the daytime. I want to see sunlight across your body. The way your eyes must change color when you get excited. I want—” He groaned when her hand encircled him. He finished in a rough whisper, “I want everything.”
She didn’t ask what his everything comprised. He couldn’t have told her, only that he had begun to resent the fact that he couldn’t touch her most of the time, not the way he wanted to. Coming to her in the middle of the night like this had begun to feel furtive. He didn’t know why it mattered, but it did.
“I’d like to see you, too,” she murmured. “But you know we can’t. The kids—”
Much as he liked the kids, he wasn’t in any mood to think about them. He licked her nipple instead and then drew it into his mouth to suckle. Her hips rose in involuntary response and she apparently lost interest in talking, too. But for one gasp of surprise, a few moans and one keening cry he had to swallow with a hasty, open-mouthed kiss, tonight’s lovemaking was silent after that. Silent but shockingly intense.
Conall was left winded, sated, stunned and apprehensive. How could it keep getting better? How could it be so good? What if it never was again, once their lives diverged?
He didn’t know if she was asleep or not when he left her. He only knew he had to get away, that it felt too sweet holding her like this with her head tucked on his shoulder as if it belonged, him inhaling her scent, feeling the cushion of her breast against his side, her breath washing over his chest, her warmth.
It was an addiction, that’s all. He’d always been wary of men who claimed they needed anything. But tonight…
Tonight he’d come frighteningly close to saying, I need everything.
* * *
LIA DIDN’T KNOW what was wrong, but Conall’s mood seemed to darken after that day. She couldn’t tell if that had anything to do with the change. He’d seemed relaxed enough afterward, certainly with the boys. When she took his dinner up to him, he was sexy and playful. But when he came to her during the night, she felt his tension. A couple of times, he lost some of the care with which he usually touched her. It was almost as if he was angry, whether at her or something else she didn’t know.
It wasn’t only a bad mood, because it lasted. He still spent time with the boys, but was more abrupt with them. Less inclined to talk to Lia. He came to her bed every night, but didn’t talk at all and silenced her with his mouth when she tried. The cuddle after lovemaking was brief and seemed almost reluctant, as if he longed to be gone. She could feel his muscles taut with the desire to get away.