swallowed her impatience. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my babysitter got sick at the last minute, so my grandmother watched them for me.”
While Connor soothed a snuffling, writhing Sadie, he glared at Dina. “Why the hell didn’t you call me? I could have been here to watch them. Hell, I was here. On the damn porch, imagining you and the babies dead in a ditch somewhere.”
He was serious. She didn’t know whether to be touched, amused or angry. Amusement won.
She snorted a laugh and was pleased to see his expression darken even further. “Who’re you, my mother?”
“No,” he reminded her. “I’m their father, and you should have answered my calls.”
Looking into his eyes, she saw beyond his anger to the worry that had been dogging him for hours. If the situation had been turned around and he had been off with the triplets and she hadn’t been able to reach him, she would have been furious, too. And worried. And scared. And her imagination would have tortured her with images of car accidents, kidnappings—heck, even space invaders!
Maybe she should have answered his calls, but the truth was, she only left her phone turned on while working in case there was an emergency with the babies. Otherwise, she was focused on the task at hand. And frankly, every time her phone rang and she saw Connor’s number, she’d enjoyed shifting him to voice mail. He was so...dominant male that being able to thwart him even a little had made her feel better. Now, though, she was rethinking that decision.
“Okay, I’m sorry.” Oh, that was bitter. “I should have let you know the kids were all right.”
“It wasn’t only them I was worried about,” he said, voice deeper, lower, more intimate.
She looked at him and in the soft glow of the night-light, his blue eyes seemed fathomless, fixed on her. She felt drawn to him. So much so that she deliberately looked away and took a step back.
The babies were settled and the baby monitor turned on, so to continue the conversation, Dina led Connor out of the bedroom. She needed some breathing room. Flipping on light switches as she went, to dispel the dark and the accompanying intimacy, she walked straight to the living room with him following close behind. She entered the room, turned to face him and saw that he’d stopped in the open doorway. Taking a breath, she steadied herself. “I’m tired, Connor. Can we do the rest of this another time?”
Rather than answer, he asked a question of his own. “Why didn’t you ask me to watch the kids?”
“The simplest answer? It never occurred to me.”
A rush of pure frustration swamped Connor as he met her eyes and read the truth there. He read the fatigue in her eyes and noted the defensive posture she always adopted when they began to butt heads, and that was almost enough to defuse the anger churning inside him. The last few hours, he’d felt more helpless than he ever had, and he hadn’t enjoyed it. He was used to being in charge, to knowing what was going on at all times. To be in the dark about his own children had been torture.
By the time she had pulled into the driveway, Connor had been tense enough to snap in two. It was only the presence of the sleeping babies that had kept his temper from boiling over. But his frustration continued to bubble and froth in the pit of his stomach.
She hadn’t called him because she hadn’t given him a thought. She’d needed help and she’d gone to her grandmother instead of him. Because he wasn’t a part of her or the kids’ lives. He was still on the periphery, and he was the only one who could change that.
“That’s got to stop,” he said flatly, silently congratulating himself on his rigid control.
“Look, I’m sorry you were worried,” she said. “But I’m too tired to do this right now.”
He nodded solemnly. “Fine. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“Okay, good.” She waved a hand at the hall and the front door behind him. “Now I’m going to bed and you should go home.”
“Oh,” Connor said, leaning against the doorjamb with a casual ease he wasn’t feeling, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“What?”
Her chocolate eyes went wide and outraged and Connor smiled. He liked the way she went from cool to hot in a split second and he really wanted to see how hot she’d burn in his bed. For a second or two, that image scalded his brain and made speech impossible. When he came back to the moment, she was in the middle of a whispered rant, trying to keep her anger from waking the babies in the other room.
“You think you can just stay uninvited in my house? What gives you the right? Nothing, that’s what.” She answered her own question before he could say a word. She glanced at the baby monitor she held in her hands as the sounds of restless squirming cut into the room. In another moment or two, they might be awake and crying and this conversation—such as it was—would come to an end.
So he ended it first.
Connor didn’t think about it, he simply went on instinct, following the urges that had been clawing at him since the first time he’d seen her. Pushing away from the wall, he grabbed her, pulled her close and kissed her.
The instant his mouth met hers, heat exploded between them. Sensations unlike anything he’d ever known before enveloped him and Connor could only hold onto her, tightening his arms around her until he held her captive, pinned to his body. She went from startled to swept away in a heartbeat. As if she, too, were being consumed by the flames licking at his insides, she hooked her arms around his neck and held on. Mouths taking, giving, tongues twining together in a frantic dance of need. Their breath came in short, hard gasps. The bright living room lights shining around them did nothing to dispel the closeness wrapping itself around them.
His brain racing, heart thundering in his chest and his groin so heavy and hard he ached with it, Connor relished the feel of her mouth under his. The longer he kissed her, the more he felt, those flames burning brighter, hotter, scorching his soul. She sighed and leaned into him, and that soft sound was enough to penetrate his brain, bring him back to himself and the realization that he was only a blink away from pulling Dina down to the damn floor.
No. When this happened, he told himself, they would have a bed. And privacy. And all the time they needed to explore whatever it was burning between them. When that thought registered, he broke the kiss, stepped back and with satisfaction, watched her stagger before finding her balance. Breath ragged in his lungs, his heart hammering against his ribs, Con ground out, “I’m staying here tonight.”
She shook her head instantly. “We’re not going to—”
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Her gaze met his and she must have seen that he wasn’t going to be sent on his way. With tension blistering the air in the room, she only nodded, accepting the inevitable.
“This isn’t over,” he said.
“It is for tonight,” she answered and walked past him, down the short hall to her room. She disappeared inside and closed the door behind her.
Alone, Connor shoved one hand through his hair and barely resisted giving it a hard tug to relieve some of the frustration still holding him in its clutches. Instead, he
