Dark Possession Page 0,43

a warm, wet spot on the nearly nonexistent lace of her bra. As sexy as it had been, it wasn't his mouth on her skin, so why was the memory suddenly so strong?

"I would imagine many times."

She inhaled sharply. "You don't really know, do you? Manolito, if you don't know, and I don't know, we could be in real trouble.! am not Carpathian. I was born in Seattle. I went to school there and then to Berkeley, in California. If it's true that you've exchanged blood with me, I know I haven't gone through the conversion. I would know if I had to sleep in the ground. I'm still just me."

"That cannot be so. I remember taking your blood, binding us together. You are a part of me. I cannot be mistaken."

She opened her mind and memories to him. "I'm telling the truth when I say I haven't met you before. It's the truth that I saw you at a party in the Carpathian Mountains, but we were never formally introduced. I am physically attracted, but I don't know you at all." Okay, wildly physically attracted, but this was serious and she could overlook it-she hoped. Everything was falling into place. The things Riordan and Juliette had told her were beginning to make sense. Her heart thudded hard.

He was silent, assessing her memories of him, dwelling a little too long over the one he found of a man coming into her house and attacking her. He felt the lengthening of his sharp teeth and the demon within roaring for release. Very carefully, he hid his reaction. She was coping with enough, and if he had somehow brought her into his life without her knowledge-or his-raging like he wanted to because she hadn't been safe would only make things worse.

"If what you say is true, MaryAnn, then how is it we are lifemates? Speaking the ritual words cannot connect two people who arc not one. I could say them to every woman I met, but it would do me no good."

"Maybe you made a mistake," she ventured. "Maybe we aren't really connected."

"I see in color. I feel emotions. I can think of no other woman but you. I want no other woman. I recognize your soul. We are lifemates." His voice was firm, brooking no argument.

MaryAnn couldn't find an argument. While it was true that she didn't know everything about Carpathian life, she knew enough that the possibility was strong. Judging by her reaction to him alone, she had to admit it was probable. "All right. Say we are lifemates, Manolito. You say you wronged me in some way and that is why you're stuck here. Why do you think that?"

His thumb slid up the back of her hand, stroking tiny caresses over the silky smooth skin. He bent his head to nibble the pad of her thumb while he thought about it, the gesture automatic, sexy, burning through her with ease. "I felt like I was being judged for something I had done to you. I should know if I wronged you."

"I should know, too," she conceded, trying not to react to the feeling of his teeth scraping erotically over her thumb. How could such a small thing be felt in the pit of her stomach? Or make her womb clench? Or her

breasts feel swollen and achy? There was no way she could ever let this man touch her in a bedroom. She'd never get over it.

"I'm reading your mind again."

"You do that a lot." She wasn't going to apologize. "Stop being so sexy. I'm trying to think here. One of us has to get us out of here." She sent him a smoldering look from under her lashes, but he only grinned at her, his smile sending need skittering over her body as easily as his caresses had. She was in trouble. Big trouble. Huffing out her breath, she pulled her gaze away from his, determined to find a way to free them.

"Could that be the wrong, Manolito, because tying us together without my consent and taking my blood without my knowledge shouldn't be okay by anyone's standards. Maybe you need to feel remorse in order for us to get out of here."

"I can say I feel sorry for claiming my lifemate, but it would not be true."

She sighed. "You aren't exactly getting into the spirit of the thing here. If we want out of this shadow world and you somehow wronged me, shouldn't we be figuring out what