“You’re thinking,” he said, in a quiet, teasing tone. “That can’t be good for me.”
Reluctantly, she smiled. “Might not be good for me, either,” she admitted. “Look, Connor, I think we have to figure out what we’re doing here. I can’t continue to stay at your house with the trips indefinitely. I have a life and a business to run. I can’t just walk away from that.”
“Who’s stopping you from running your business from my house?”
“That only solves one issue,” she said, clearly frustrated. “I can’t stay with you, Connor, just because you think it’s more convenient.”
“You’ll be with me, Dina,” he said, “because you won’t lose the triplets and I’m not giving them up.”
“So where does that leave us, exactly?” She shook her hair back from her face and looked up into his eyes. “Neither one of us is willing to give in, so we just live with a stalemate?”
He couldn’t give her an answer because he didn’t have one. On this trip, it had felt almost as if they were a family. He’d allowed the castle manager, Sean, to assume Con and Dina were married—he’d considered it expedient earlier, but maybe the truth was that he hadn’t minded the assumption as much as he would have expected.
And that realization was staggering, so he put it aside to look at later. Maybe. Right now there was only one thing he was interested in and he was done waiting.
“Why worry about any of this tonight, Dina?”
“We have to—”
“Right now, all we have to do is this.” He cupped her face in his palms, bent his head and touched his mouth to hers. Soft, gentle, barely a brush of lips to lips before he pulled back and looked down into her eyes.
“I want you, Dina,” he said, his voice as quiet as his kiss. “I have from the first moment I saw you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Me, too.”
He smiled and bent his forehead to hers. The knots inside him loosened and his body went hard and ready in a heartbeat. “Then what’re we waiting for?”
Taking her hand, Connor grabbed the baby monitor from a nearby table before stalking to his bedroom while Dina hurried to keep up. Once inside, he closed the door, set the monitor down and drew Dina into the circle of his arms. He indulged himself with a long, deep kiss, savoring the taste of her, the feel of her, the sweet surrender she offered to the fires burning between them.
Moonlight slanted through the windows and lay across her face and hair like molten silver. She shimmered with beauty that had haunted him from the first. His mouth went dry as he pulled back to fill his gaze with her.
The room was dark but for that pale wash of moonlight. A four-poster spindle bed took up most of the space but there were tables, chairs and a blue tiled hearth that lay dark and cold.
“This is probably a mistake,” she said and Connor’s heart stopped for a second.
“That mean you want to stop?” He’d stop if she’d changed her mind, but he was pretty sure it would kill him.
“No,” she said with a small shake of her head.
“Thank God.” They’d waited long enough. Too long. This tension between them had been building since that first day when she’d faced him down in her tiny kitchen. They’d been headed here, to this moment, ever since. Con knew she was right—this probably was a mistake—they still had so much to work out between them, sex would only complicate things. But he’d figure that out later. Right now, they’d waited long enough.
He backed her up to the bed, lifting the hem of her sweater to help her tug it off. Connor couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. He wanted to feel her skin beneath his hands. Wanted to touch and explore every tempting curve he’d been dreaming about for days.
Her hands worked at his sweater just as feverishly, her eagerness feeding his own. And yet, even in the rush to get her naked, Connor felt a driving need to take his time, to savor this moment that had been so long coming.
Deliberately, he slowed things down, forcing himself to strangle the urge to toss her onto the bed and bury himself inside her. He unbuttoned her shirt and carefully slid it down her arms to drop to the floor. She shivered as she stood before him wearing only her bra and a pair of blue jeans.
“Are you cold?”
“No,” she said. “The way I feel right now, I may never be cold again.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Good. That’s good.” He trailed his fingers down her sides, sliding over her rib cage, down to her abdomen and up again to the front clasp of the black bra that looked devastatingly sexy against her smooth, honey-colored skin.
He thumbed the clasp open and let her breasts spill into his hands. He cupped their weight and rubbed his thumbs across the tips of her hardened nipples. In response, she sucked in a gulp of air and swayed unsteadily. Connor knew how she felt. His insides were twisted together in heavy, hungry knots. He’d never known such overpowering desire for anyone. Never experienced such pleasure from a simple touch. Maybe it was because of the growing connection they shared because of the triplets. Maybe, he told himself, it was because they’d waited so long to satisfy their shared hunger. Maybe his own dreams were feeding the reactions scuttling through his body like skyrockets.
But the why didn’t really matter. All that did matter now was her and the smooth, silky feel of her.
He bent his head to taste her, taking first one nipple, then the other into his mouth. Her breath raced in and out of her lungs. She arched into him, silently asking for more. His heartbeat galloped when she responded by lifting her hands to his shoulders and holding him to her with a nearly desperate grip.
But she couldn’t keep him still, not when he wanted to explore all of her. He was a man on a mission now, with nothing more on his mind than fulfilling all of the fantasies he’d indulged in over the last week or more. He slid down her length, his hands moving to release the snap of her jeans and then the zipper. Slowly, he pushed the denim, along with the black panties they’d been hiding, down her legs, following their trail with his mouth. Her legs went weak until she locked them in place. He pulled her jeans off, stroking every inch of her skin as he did, then he stood up again slowly, sliding his hands over her body, reveling in the sweet feel of her. This was so much more than he’d imagined it would be. Her desire fed his, fanning the flames within until he was a walking inferno, ready to combust.
When he straightened again, Con took her mouth in a hungry kiss while allowing his right hand to shift to the sweet spot between her thighs. A muffled groan tore from her throat when he touched her so intimately for the first time. Then she pulled him closer as their mouths fused and their tongues tangled in nearly frantic desperation.
She was hot and slick and so ready for him, Connor could hardly breathe. He tore his mouth from hers so he could look down into her passion-glazed eyes as he worked her body into a frenzy. His fingers stroked and delved deep. His thumb slid across that hard nubbin of sensation at her core until she whimpered with the crashing need consuming her.
His hand cupped the back of her neck, holding her steady as their gazes locked. She was helpless to hide her response from him and didn’t try. Her hips rocked into his hand as he pushed her higher, faster. Caressing her inside and out, he drove her to the edge of completion then pulled her back, refusing to allow her to find release too quickly. He wanted...needed to keep touching her. To hear her sighs, her whispered pleas. He wanted to stare into her eyes and watch as passion flared.
Her hands curled into his upper arms and even through the fabric of his shirt, he felt that contact like match points, burning into his