Dark Ghost (9 page)

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 beautiful. 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.

T
eagan 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 another 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.

“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.

His hand enveloped hers, and yet he was so gentle that when he wrapped his fingers around hers she only felt warmth and a prickle of awareness that always ended up south of where it should be.