She took stock of her surroundings. Yep. Still in the cave. She could see though—see as well as if it was broad daylight—and she was in a cave. She’d been able to see a bit before, enough that it worried her, but this was incredible. Someone might as well have turned the lights on. It should have been a good thing because it was very cool, but it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t.
She touched the mattress beneath her and let her breath out slowly. She was in a bed, not buried in the ground. She felt absolutely fine. No pain. No cramps. No convulsions. Even her throat didn’t hurt. Still, she felt that little bit too good.
She turned her head to look over her shoulder at the man lying curled around her. Protecting her. His eyes were open and he was looking down at her. His eyes, in that unguarded moment, were a soft blue of the deepest sea. Her heart contracted. Her sex spasmed. Even her breasts reacted, feeling suddenly swollen and achy. Just by looking into his eyes. She was in trouble.
“You are awake.”
He shifted. Bent to brush her mouth with his. Gentle. No demand. That wasn’t good, either. Because Andre was the type of man who would want morning sex. He’d want afternoon sex. He’d want night sex. He wasn’t being in the least bit sexual, unless you counted the heavy erection pressing tight against her bottom.
“It isn’t morning, is it?” That was all she could get out. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry. She knew the sun had set. She knew it was already evening. She was in a cave she could see perfectly in, but she knew it was early evening outside.
“No, the sun set about a half hour ago.”
“Did I sleep here?”
“Teagan.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away from him. Even so, with the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, her body responded to his voice. All that silk and velvet. So rich. So perfect.
“I find it necessary to inform you, Andre, that you’re not so perfect.” She sat up, wishing she had a shirt to cover her body. “I already told you how gorgeous and sweet you are, which clearly was a mistake. It went to your head or something and convinced you that you could get away with anything.” She leveled her gaze at him. “Which you cannot.” She at least needed one of his shirts. “I think you need to know you aren’t perfect and you just dropped way down on the boyfriend scale. Like hitting the bottom.”
She stood. It was difficult to walk away with great dignity when she was absolutely naked. She really, really needed that shirt. Instantly she was wrapped in warmth. In his shirt. A button-down flannel that was warm, soft and more than comfortable. It came all the way to her knees, covering her completely.
Her breath left her lungs in a little rush. “Thank you.” Because that was mega-cool and the shirt made her feel as if she had a little of her own power back.
“I did not give you the shirt. You did.”
She swung around to stare at him. “I did not. I can’t do that sort of thing.”
“Is it the garment you pictured in your head?”
She nodded slowly, her hands clutching at the lapels of the shirt. “How?”
“You are fully in my world,” Andre said. “The conversion was completed two risings ago.”
There it was. Confirmation. She closed her eyes briefly, her mind shutting down for a moment. When she lifted her lashes, Andre was in front of her, wearing nothing but a pair of soft jeans. They clung to his superb body, rode low on his hips and cupped his very fine butt. She could see the two circular scars on his wide shoulders, his thick, heavily muscled bare chest and two more circular scars on either side of his ribs. It had to be said, but not out loud, that he truly was gorgeous.
His hand came out to settle in her hair, his thumb sliding gently over her face. “I am glad you think so, sivamet.”
She glared out him. “What part of not out loud do you not get? You are a bastard. A rat bastard, as my good friend Cheryl would say.” She pointed her finger at his chest for emphasis. “A huge rat bastard. That, in case you don’t get the translation correctly, is not a good thing.”
He crowded her, moving into her space, and he was a big man. More than a foot taller than her, he outweighed her by over a hundred pounds, but she didn’t care. She thumped his chest with the flat of her hand, because if he was getting in her space he could just pay the consequences. She smacked him again for good measure and then her temper went up a notch because he didn’t seem to notice. He just kept looking down at her with those eyes of his.
“I get that maybe you didn’t realize I would suffer the agonies of hell, but I don’t want this. I was going to live my life with you, give up most days to be with you and then die a quiet, nondramatic death with no vampires involved. No ground. No blood, just a plain ordinary human death.”
“Teagan.”
Her heart turned over. She smacked him again. “Don’t you Teagan me. What you are going to do, and you’re doing it this minute, is take the hoodoo off me and put me back to normal. Cool shirt and seeing in the dark aside—because they are definite pros—the blood and the dirt thingies are way not cool and I don’t want this.”
“Teagan.”
“If you say my name again in that particular tone, I swear, Andre, my head is going to explode. Seeing as how you saw fit to make momentous, life-changing decisions for me that I don’t want, you can just undo it. Right. Now.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked him straight in the eye to let him know she wasn’t kidding around. He needed to take it back right away. That minute. Their gazes locked. Held. The bottom went out of her stomach, and she felt fear first and then terror crept in. She could see the answer in his eyes.
Her tongue touched her lower lip. “There’s no taking this back, is there?”
He reached for her.