“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.
“Listen.”
She noticed that just about anything he had to say, he said as briefly as possible—with the least amount of words he could use. He spoke English, but then maybe he was unsure of the language, like when he was trying to interpret his own language.
She did as he said. She talked a lot, but meditation and stillness were important to her. She quieted her mind and reached for sound. To her surprise, her hearing was acute enough to pick up the steady beat of his heart when she actually listened for it. Strong and rhythmic, his heart pumped blood through his veins and arteries. She listened just as he instructed, her hand over her heart, and to her surprise, her own heart rate slowed to match the strength and beat of his.
Her body was a tuning fork, so she shouldn’t have been so shocked, but still, she usually heard notes to music. Or for a musical instrument. Songs. Gems and crystals tended to be actual songs, where rock was more notes. Each variety, or composition, emitted a different note to her. Now she even heard the steady trickle of water, the splash as it hit the dirt. She heard the scurry of insects through the dry wood stacked against the wall of the cave.
What she found really wonderful and terrifying was the unexpected fact that when she tuned her body to Andre’s, she could hear not only his heart beat, the flow of blood through his veins, but also an echo of his thoughts.
She is so beautiful. I must protect her, even from herself. From the men searching the mountain for her.
She nearly scrambled back from the fire, feeling as if she’d invaded his private thoughts. But. Seriously? Beautiful. She was cute in her dresses and boots. In her darling jacket with the bustle of ruffles falling down the back. But beautiful? In her camping clothes and her hair in braids to keep it from going wild?
She examined the tone of his thoughts. They seemed sincere.
“Is something wrong, Teagan?”
He had to quit saying her name. He drawled it out and curled his accent around it until the sound of her name became a caress. Literally, the sound penetrated her skin and sent darts of fire straight to her most feminine channel where a lot of activity began to take place that shouldn’t. Not there. Not with him this close to her and the firelight playing on her face so he could read her every expression. She couldn’t even play poker, how was she going to hide her attraction to him?
“No. No, I just thought I should be doing something besides sitting here. The authorities need to know about Armend.” She blurted the first excuse she could think of.
“You are exhausted.”
“I know. I . . . That’s true.” What an idiot. She was stammering. Her face was growing redder by the moment. She shouldn’t be able to blush, with her skin, but she did. She wanted to kick her birth father for that trait.
“Tell me about your family, please. Your life.”
She realized she still held her hand over her heart. Her beat matched his exactly. She dared to look into his eyes again. He was watching her with the same focus, his entire being centered on her. The way he looked at her sent tiny electrical currents zinging through her cells to join the darts wreaking havoc in certain places of her anatomy.
“I have a noisy family. Nosy, too. They’re great, and we get into each other’s business all the time. I have three sisters. I adore them. You’d adore them. Everyone does, but me especially, although Tarita’s husband argued with me that wasn’t true, but it is. I know he loves her, but Tarita is my sister and very special. I’ve known her my entire life and he’s only known her a few years.”
“She must be very special.”
“I was so lucky growing up. I had Grandma Trixie, who is really the best of the best. She laughs all the time, and no matter how difficult things got, she would just shrug her shoulders and tell us to make some lemonade. Then she’d laugh. We always had lemonade in the house and that’s how we’d solve problems. We’d sit together as a family, all with a glass of lemonade, and talk it through. We’d come up with ideas to raise money if one of us needed it for anything. I loved our family meetings.”
“I can hear that you do.” Andre stood, reaching out a hand to her. “Come with me. I find your life intriguing and would very much like to hear more, but you need to be comfortable. You are still sore. I know where there is a hot spring.”
Teagan blinked at him. That sounded like heaven. She’d even brought a bathing suit. A nice modest one-piece, and she had a wrap to go with it. Maybe she’d actually feel like a human being again.
“Lead the way.”
The moment she put her hand in his, her heart turned over. Melted around the edges. Her stomach did a series of backflips and there was a definite spasm, hot and a little out of control. It was the way he watched her. His totally focused stare that made her aware of everything about herself. The way she moved. The way she breathed, as if he was interested in the very breath coming in and out of her lungs. She was even acutely aware of the way her hair swayed and dropped down her back in a fall of braids.