"Let me." It wasn't a question. Or a plea. He had to heal the injury. He had no choice. The need was more than a compulsion, it was as necessary as breathing.
Teagan gave him a faint smile and shook her head.
Andre ignored the head shake as if he hadn't noticed. He didn't wait for her consent. She was his woman. She was injured. There was nothing to talk about. He moved with his blurring speed, one moment on the opposite side of the fire so she felt safe, the next he was beside her, his hands gentle on her shoulder.
Her bones were small. She was very slender, but her muscles were surprisingly firm. She was in very good shape. He could feel her strength beneath her soft skin, the gentle ripple of muscle. Still, his fingers could close around her upper arm.
"Um . . ." Teagan trailed off, biting her lip. She didn't trust him enough to touch her so intimately, and up close, he was just plain scary. But his hands felt warm and gentle on her and already she could feel the heat going into her muscle.
"It would be impossible for a man such as me to allow you to continue in pain," he said softly, distractedly.
She bit her lower lip a little harder, reminding herself he had taken that pain away and with it, the memory of how Armend attacked her had diminished just a little. His body was close to hers, almost surrounding her. The way he sat, his knees apart, her back to his front, her body wedged between his thighs, his heat warming her more than the fire, was terrifying. Not because she feared him or felt threatened, but because her body reacted to his.
The reaction was shocking, exhilarating, astonishing and proved there was absolutely nothing wrong with her when it came to men and sex. She'd never felt the rush before, the heat moving through her veins or the way her breasts could ache with sudden need. She loved the sensation, mostly because she'd never managed to feel it for anyone else.
Still, it was a little unsettling having him so close and she was afraid he would notice the change in her breathing, the slight trembling in her body at his touch. His hands were large and very soothing on her aching shoulder, but the effects of his touch didn't stop there.
"Um . . ." she started again. "Andre, maybe this isn't such a good idea."
"Csitri. Ainaak terad vigyazak."
She frowned. When he spoke in his language--and she couldn't understand a word of it and she was pretty good with languages--he sounded sexier than ever. His tone was pitched low and seemed to move over her skin in a caress. She really didn't understand how a voice or tone could do that to her, but it did.
"I don't understand what that means."
"Csitri is"--he frowned--"little one. But affectionate."
Teagan didn't ever want to think of herself as "little," but she liked the affectionate part and she couldn't deny that beside him, she was on the smaller side. Okay, maybe beside most people, but still. "And the other part?"
"Ainaak terad vigyazak." He mulled that over for a minute. "I have difficulty translating that properly, but it means you are in my care. Always in my care. I do not have the proper English words to convey the full meaning."
He sounded distracted. She was totally okay with him being distracted. The healing warmth penetrated deeper, right into the muscles and tendons she'd strained. She could feel the difference already. She also preferred that he wasn't paying close attention to her reaction to his touch.
The longer he was close to her, the more her breath stayed captured in her lungs. Even her thighs seemed to dance with fingers of desire moving up and down them from his voice alone. The heat between her legs increased and she felt her womb pulse and her feminine channel go damp with need.
It was beautiful. Perfect. Scary strong. Very intense. She'd gone from not being able to react physically to a man to wanting to turn her head and see if his mouth tasted as good as it looked. She also wanted to dance a little jig or something to celebrate that she wasn't totally frigid.
His breath hitched. She felt the warmth on the nape of her neck as he swept her hair out of his way. The pulse in her throat jumped. Throbbed. She reached up and covered it because, just for a moment, she felt his mouth there, against her skin, his tongue sliding across her pulse. She knew it wasn't real, because his mouth was close to the nape of her neck--she could feel his breath. Still, she captured the sensual feeling of his tongue over her pulse with the palm of her hand and just held it there, pressing it into her skin.
She hoped the memory burned deep so when she went to bed, she could take that with her and keep scary dreams of Armend at bay with Andre's presence.
"I need your hand, sivamet."
Even as he told her, he already had taken possession of it, so very gently. His touch was a caress, and it sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. He examined the raw fingers, smoothing them out in his palm. Her hand looked very small inside of his. The pads of his fingers stroked over the raw wounds. Her toes actually curled, and she felt her very core spasm and spill damp heat between her legs.
Teagan nearly jerked her hand free, but his fingers closed around hers and he brought them to his mouth before she could do a thing. She was so mesmerized, she stared at him over her shoulder as her fingers disappeared into the warm haven of his mouth. The reaction of her body was shocking. She could have sworn she had a mini-orgasm just from the sensation of his tongue stroking caresses over her fingers.
She couldn't move. She should have--but she couldn't. Her entire body was on fire and that was just . . . remarkable. She didn't want the feeling to go away, yet at the same time, she didn't want this strange bear of a man, so gentle and kind, to know what she was feeling.
Her hand tingled, and then grew warm. She felt his tongue slide over each individual finger a second and then third time. Each slow, sensual movement sent desire knifing through her body. It took a moment for her thought processes to kick in.
Her brain felt slow and sluggish, dazed and mesmerized by the lines carved so deep in his handsome face. His hooded eyes filled with concentration, the blue so deep and true, she'd never seen such a pure color on anyone. He had to be the most sensual man in the world, and she was alone in a cave with him.
There might be something to vacation flings after all. She'd never understood the concept. It seemed so wrong, sharing your body with a stranger and walking away. She wanted intimacy and emotion. A connection beyond physical. She wanted everything--or nothing--with a man. She'd accepted, a long time ago, when her body didn't respond to anyone, she was going to have nothing.
She took a breath and let it out to calm her wildly beating heart and maybe get air to her brain so she could actually think. He removed her fingers from his mouth, although he did so reluctantly, slowly, as if he didn't want to. He held her hand up for his inspection, turning her fingers first one way and then the other.
Teagan stared at her hand. There no sign of injury; the skin had completely healed over the raw wounds where she had torn them. She held her other hand up for comparison. Both hands had suffered the same fate when she'd slipped off the rock with her foot and tried to hold on.
She loved climbing, but she seemed to have thin skin. She didn't develop the necessary callouses the way others did.
"How did you do that?"
Looking at him over her shoulder as she was doing, she saw him in profile, and his eyelashes were outrageously long. His mouth was perfection. His nose straight and his jaw strong. She liked the scruff on his jaw and the blue of his eyes. She could stare at him for eternity and that wouldn't be long enough.
"I have a healing agent in my saliva," he said.
"Wow. That's awesome. Amazing. I can't do that, but it would come in handy when I climb. Maybe I should take you along so you can heal my hands after I tear them up again." The words tumbled over one another. She couldn't help herself. He had possession of her other hand and once again he was inspecting the damage.
Her stomach performed a slow somersault. A million butterflies took wing. Her feminine channel throbbed and pulsed. She stared at his face. God, he was just b
eautiful. The concentration gathered in his eyes as he focused completely on her injury was just plain sexy.
Once again he brought her hand toward his mouth. She held her breath. Waiting. Needing the touch of his mouth. The velvet rasp of his tongue. Without warning his lashes lifted and he looked straight into her eyes. Instantly, she had the sensation of drowning. She lost her breath and allowed herself to fall.
"Teagan."
Just her name. That was all he whispered. The tone of his voice was a caress. Fingers moved over her bare skin, down her back, tracing her spinal cord. She swore she felt a light touch, but he hadn't moved. He hadn't relinquished possession of her hand.
She couldn't look away from his eyes. The world was there. The entire world. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she wanted desperately to touch him. Her palm itched with the need to run her hand over his heavy chest muscles.
Even as he stared into her eyes, he brought her fingers to his mouth and sucked on them. His tongue curled around each finger separately. It did something to her insides. She melted until she was soft and boneless--until there was nothing but Andre and his eyes and mouth and the scent of him surrounding her.
Teagan couldn't have spoken if she wanted to. She was totally incapable of extracting her fingers from the heat of his mouth. It was so completely unlike her. She stared into his eyes and let herself just be with him. Connect to him. It was sexual--but so much more. She could live there with him. In that cave. A primitive world. Just as long as he was with her. It was crazy, but true.
She knew she was in danger. She knew the danger was not just to her heart. This man could take her soul if she let him--and she would let him if she stayed much longer. She had no idea why, but she felt the truth of it with every cell in her body.
5
Teagan both feared him and was totally enraptured by him. Andre had a very strong compulsion to pull her into his arms and hold her close. Her heart beat too fast and her breathing was nearly nonexistent. When he was certain he had healed her fingers, he released her hand, and pushed the heavy fall of her braided hair from her neck.
"Breathe, sivamet," he counseled softly. "Just take a breath."
He moved in her mind with the lightest of touches. She was physically attracted to him and wondering why. She was shocked by it and that made him want to smile all over again. She'd never been with another man, she hadn't kissed one, or even felt attracted to one. She was all his. All his.
Andre hadn't ever had anything in his life. Anyone. His childhood had been unhappy, with very few good memories, and those memories had faded beyond his ability to recapture them. He remembered a tall bear of a man who had eyes for his mother and little else--certainly not for him. His mother always looked right through the "ghost" in the house and never saw or acknowledged him. Truthfully, he couldn't remember what she looked like. Teagan had eyes for him. Only for him. He liked that. More, he needed it.
She took a breath and smiled at him. "I don't think I've ever seen or heard of anyone who could heal such injuries with saliva. My skin was completely gone. It doesn't seem possible that you could actually regenerate skin that quickly."
"When you heal wounds, you are sealing off the injury," he pointed out. He reached around her for the kettle.
She caught both his wrists firmly and jerked his hands away from the fire. "Andre, can't you feel that heat? You'll get burned."
The concern in her voice caught at him. She was so incredible. How had it been possible to live for centuries without her? He'd never seen hair like hers before. So much of it. Long and thick and shining like a raven's wing. Glossy hair. Braids everywhere. He loved her hair.
"I want to make you a cup of tea," he said, his face close to her neck, inhaling her scent. He had never felt such soft skin or seen that particular shade of mocha, so beautiful it made his eyes ache just looking at her. He wanted to rub against her like a cat, but he was afraid the shadow on his jaw would scrape her soft skin.
"That's so sweet of you, Andre, but let me get my hot pads from my backpack." She looked around the cave. "I should get a couple of lanterns as well if we're going to set up camp for the night."
The last thing he wanted her to do was go to sleep. He needed her exhausted so she'd sleep most of the day away. She could get through safeguards. The vampires wouldn't be a threat to her because they would need to go to ground when the sun rose, but Armend's four friends would certainly be a threat, although it was possible they'd leave the mountain once they found Armend's body.
"I sometimes come here," he said, again, strictly true. He didn't need to reveal yet that he'd been using the cave for centuries when he was in the area and it was the closest thing he'd had to a home at one time.
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Their faces were close. He could see the dark chocolate melting in her eyes. Liquid chocolate. Beautiful. For a moment he just stared at her, wondering how he'd gotten so lucky. How he'd managed to find her just when he'd made the decision to let go of life and go out with honor battling a vampire.
There she was. Saving him. This little slip of a woman. He needed to make certain he brought her into his world as gently as possible. She looked fragile, but he knew from touching her mind so often that she had a will of steel. If she got her back up and tried to fight him, it wouldn't be good for either of them.
"I have another chamber set up more comfortably. It is difficult to get to, but a little safer than this cave."
Deliberately, Andre had not gone fully to ground, luring the vampire with his trail of blood. Carpathians buried themselves deep in the earth when they went to ground, not shallow where a master vampire's newly acquired apprentice would unravel safeguards meant to delay, not keep out. His plan hadn't worked; instead, his lifemate had somehow wandered into his cave and found him.
"You do? What's more comfortable mean?"
He reluctantly moved away from her. He didn't have any more excuses to wrap his body around hers, so in order not to look like a pervert taking advantage, he had to move to the other side of the fire.
"A few chairs, torches up above to the light the room. A bed. Nothing great."
Teagan smiled at Andre as he settled across from her, grateful for the respite of not having him so close. She didn't understand how he could look so clean and fresh and smell so great when they were in a cave and he'd been horribly injured. His clothes were no longer bloody or tattered.
She was the one who looked disheveled, and she was quite certain she needed a bath after hiking for so long. She'd been hiking up the mountain with Armend for a few days before he'd gone psycho rapist/serial killer on her. Now, she had to sit with the sexiest, most gorgeous, probably hottest man she'd ever meet in her life, and she looked like something the cat might drag in.
Worse, she was totally crushing on him. His black hair was long. Wavy. Pulled back with a leather cord. He looked like he'd just stepped out of the shower, and he smelled yummy, too. He was sweet, too, making her tea, or trying to without getting burned. If she had any imagination at all, she would pretend he'd nearly stuck his hand in the fire because he was so absolutely enamored with her. Unfortunately, she didn't have that much pretend in her.
"It was thoughtful of you to want to make tea for me. I appreciate it, thank you." She dragged a cup from her pack, poured the water from the kettle into the cup and added the herb teabag he'd given her from his stash of supplies. It gave her something to do besides stare at him.
Strangely, her stomach rebelled a little at the thought of food. Even the herbal tea looked like it might not go down well. She hoped she wasn't getting sick, not when she was just deciding a vacation fling might be the right way to go.
She allowed herself a quick glance at him from under her lashes, just sneaking another peek. He was watching her. When Andre looked at her, he focused wholly on her. That gave her the sensation of being the only woman in his world.
She cleared her throat. "Would you like some tea as well? I don't have ano
ther cup in my pack, but you must have one somewhere."
He shook his head and held out his hands to the fire, warming them. "Tell me about your life, Teagan. Where you live. Your family."
She let her breath out. She was good at chattering. She'd learned if she could make small talk, she could feel a part of the activities around her. Most of the time, she pursued solitary things, such as her beloved bouldering, but she could appear social with the best of them. Staring into Andre's eyes had already proved dangerous to her so she decided she wasn't doing that again soon.
She liked looking at him. She was drawn to looking at him. Worse, it was becoming a compulsion. Up close he was even better, and with the firelight casting shadows across his face, he was spectacular.
"Teagan."
There it was. The way he said her name. Just her name. That low, sexy voice, with his super sexy accent. Totally impossible to ignore. She forced the cup of tea to her lips in order to keep from staring at him.
"Teagan."
He said her name again. Low. Gentle. Mesmerizing. She had no choice. She lifted her gaze to his. Found herself drowning again. Who had blue eyes like his? Blue eyes and black, glossy, glorious hair. She blinked several times and found the tea in the cup gone, her stomach warm but a little upset. She was so hypnotized by him she didn't even remember gulping the tea. She had to get ahold of herself.
She swallowed. Licked at her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. His eyes followed the movement. He was just plain sexy, and she didn't know how to handle sexy.
"Sivamet, you are not breathing again." He placed his palm over his heart. "Your heart beats too fast. Listen. Hear the rhythm of mine. Allow your heart to follow mine."
Andre was right. She wasn't breathing. She had forgotten how. Even his words, whispered to her in a velvet tone, sinful as midnight in a cave with a stranger, tangled in her brain until she thought he was asking something else of her. She didn't know what, but whatever it was, she knew if she did as he said, she was committing to more than just slowing her heart rate.
Still, she took a breath, observing his hand over his heart. It was a big hand, strong, with long fingers. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have his hands stroking her skin. She fought down that particular vision--want, need, whatever--and placed her own hand over her heart.