11
Andre gestured toward the chairs. “Come sit down.”
Teagan walked silently to the chairs. They were positioned side by side and were deep and comfortable. She dropped into the nearest one and drew her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. The shirt was more like a dress, so she knew she was decent. Andre sank into the chair beside hers and reached for her hand. He enveloped her fingers and brought her palm to his thigh, his hand covering hers.
Her heart did a little stutter and butterflies took wing in her stomach all over again. It was the little things he did that got to her, she decided. The sweet, intimate gestures, so gentle and yet burning with an intensity only he seemed to be able to generate with her.
“You know I am not quite human, Teagan,” he said softly.
This time her heart stood still and then began to thud. She closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to face the superhuman thing. Flying. Clothes appearing. The memories she saw in his head. It was best to remain ignorant.
She moistened her lips. “I’m not certain I’m ready for this talk. I thought we were going to talk about my having to leave and why you think I’m not ‘getting’ it.”
“We are going to talk about it.” His hand tightened around her fingers. “I am Carpathian. We are an ancient race. There are very few of us left. For us, we have only one chance to find the woman who is our other half.”
This time her heart and her stomach fluttered. She couldn’t help it, she liked the idea of being his other half. She really did, whether or not she had to leave. She would never find another man. She knew that already. Just the thought of being apart from Andre was terrifying. She didn’t know how she was going to let him go. And she didn’t know how she had fallen so hard so fast, so she closed her mind, refusing to deal with the consequences until she had to.
“That woman, for me, Teagan, is you. Carpathian males are born imprinted with the ritual binding words. I suppose it is necessary in order to ensure our males are safe from the gathering darkness in us. In any case, when we find our other half, we bind the woman to us.” Andre spoke gently but matter-of-factly.
He wasn’t joking with her. She could hear it in his voice. She could see it on his face. His eyes had gone almost liquid with intensity. She cleared her throat. “Are you saying that you can bind a woman to you without her consent?”
“Yes.” He watched her closely.
Teagan tried to pull her hand off of his thigh. Her hand remained exactly where it was, pressed tight against the column of pure muscle, his fingers tightly wrapped around hers.
“You didn’t do that to me.” She made it a statement because, well, he’d better not have done it to her.
“Yes.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Glared. Gave another tug at her hand. It was hard to deliver a blistering lecture on women’s rights when her hand was pinned against his hard, very muscular thigh. “You’re saying you said these ritual binding words to me and somehow, now, I’m tied to you.”
“That is exactly what I did. I waited long for you. I would never take a chance on losing you. Of course I bound you to me.”
There was no remorse whatsoever in his tone. Not even a little tiny bit. Her breath hissed out of her throat. “Well, you can just undo it. You have no right to do that to me without my consent.”
“There is no undoing it. It is impossible.”
She couldn’t help it. She jerked out of the chair and tugged at her hand. When he didn’t let her go, she gave him her most fierce, scary glare. It didn’t seem to have any effect at all. “Let go. I need to pace. I think better when I pace.”
He shook his head. “Teagan. You have to take me seriously. I know this is a lot for you to take in, but you have to know the truth.”
“I am taking you seriously,” she snapped.
Without releasing the hand at his thigh, his other arm wrapped around her waist and guided her gently back to the chair. “Then sit down. You have to hear all of it.”
Her heart went back to thudding and her body went still. There was more? She knew he had done something to bind them together, as crazy as that sounded, because she absolutely didn’t want to be away from him. She’d worked hard to be an independent woman. She really had been afraid of everything and she had been determined to overcome her fears—not allow them to dictate her life to her. Now she was bound to a man she barely knew and really didn’t want to know any more about that.
She subsided back onto the chair, pulling her knees up for protection. “Andre, what does this binding entail? Maybe we can find a way to undo it. You can leave your body. I can tune to the exact . . .”
Andre’s face darkened. If thunder took on a persona it would definitely be Andre. Teagan bit her lip. He was difficult to figure out. She wasn’t even certain what she was dealing with and she’d just made love to him. She’d let him do all sorts of things to her body and her mind.
Before she could open her mouth and protest that he shouldn’t be angry, she should, his fingers bit into her arms. He dragged her right off her chair and onto his lap. Close. Closer still, until her body was so tight against his, she couldn’t tell where he started and she let off. Worse, she melted into him. The moment her body felt the heat of his, she went boneless.
Teagan tilted her head and looked into his eyes. Hot. A virtual blaze. He didn’t look angry anymore, but the intensity burning in his eyes both scared and thrilled her. He dragged her closer and his mouth came down hard on hers.
His kiss was hotter than any he’d ever given her, his mouth demanding. No longer sweet and gentle. Taking rather than asking. It didn’t matter in the least. Her body went weak, he had to breathe for her because she lost all breath, and her arms, of their own volition, slid around his neck. Honestly. She didn’t do that, it just happened. She couldn’t get any closer to him, he had her crushed against him, but still, she wanted to be right where she was. She wanted to crawl inside of him and stay there forever.
She wanted his kisses, long, drugging kisses she could never get enough of. She didn’t understand why the moment he touched her, her body was no longer her own, but belonged to him. She really didn’t understand why she felt his body was hers. She knew, as long as she lived, no one else would ever make her feel the way he did. Beautiful. Sexy. The only woman in the world.