His arm curved around her waist, and he bent forward, his warm breath caressing the nape of her neck. “Run if you must, baby, but there is nowhere to go except back to me.”
She firmly removed the thick band of his arm from around her waist, proud of her decisiveness. If his body continued to
be
in contact with hers, they were both going to go up in flames. The only sane thing to do was to put an ocean or a glacier between them. Maybe the entire polar ice cap.
His infuriating laughter followed her as she jumped off the log and began stalking away. “Reading your mind is becoming very interesting, honey. We could always settle down in an igloo.”
“Not a chance. You’d melt the darn thing. Then where would we be? I told you, none of that mesmerizing-eyes thing. And maybe you should try wearing a mask.” His sexy laughter had to go, also. Definitely had to go. It was wreaking havoc with her bloodstream. Making it hot, molten, so thick and heavy that she was going to throw herself at him and beg for relief if he didn’t stop. Then he’d be sorry. Yeah.
She turned around and glared at him. “Okay. Do the lizard thing.”
He studied her face. “The lizard thing?” he echoed. Then an unholy smile touched his sensuous mouth. “Lick your skin? With pleasure. Just tell me where.” Deliberately he bent close to the pulse in her throat, his eyes all at once burning, the laughter fading.
Tempest shoved him, hard. If the velvet rasp of his tongue touched her skin, she would be lost. “Get away from me.” She took two running steps in growing alarm. “I mean it, Darius. Or we’ll have to get a chaperone.”
“You said you wanted the lizard thing.” His hand shackled her wrist, chaining her to his side.
“I meant scales. You need scales. If you were a little crawly thing, I wouldn’t feel I was risking my honor walking in the woods with you.” She was laughing in spite of herself.
“If I shape-shifted into a lizard, you would run screaming back to camp.” Darius knew that Julian and Desari had already departed in the touring bus with the cats. Dayan, Syndil and Barack were at that very moment cramming themselves into the fast little car Barack loved so much. He could hear Barack pleading with Syndil to talk to him, trying to convince her that he wasn’t really a rat.
Darius took advantage of Tempest’s momentary pause to gain possession of her hand. His fingers laced firmly through hers and drew her beneath the protection of his shoulder. “If I changed, I would want to show off and do a Komodo dragon for you.”
Tempest allowed several heartbeats to go by while her imagination digested that one. “Don’t we have to go somewhere tonight? I thought you had a tight schedule to keep. Let’s leave Komodo dragons out of the picture. You’re scary enough in human form.”
They were drifting back toward camp, walking through the layer of fog that was thickening along the forest floor. It was eerie and beautiful, making the woods a magical, mystical place. Tempest liked the feeling of strength in Darius’s hand, the heat of his body warming hers, the easy, fluid way he moved with the suggestion of tightly leashed power. Most of all she loved the way his eyes burned possessively over her, the way his chiseled, perfect mouth tempted her.
Darius stopped so abruptly, she ran into him. He had turned to face her, his features dark and sensual in the moonlight spilling through the canopy of trees. He looked what he was, a lord of power, a sorcerer without compare. Tempest could only stare up at his masculine beauty, lost in the hunger in his eyes.
She couldn’t breathe when he was so close to her. His eyes darkened until they were merciless with hunger, with raw need. His hands slid down her arms to rest on her hips, to urge her body even closer to his. The midnight blue of the air mixed with the silvery sheen of the moon and came together with the white bank of fog, surrounding them, cutting them off from the rest of the world.
Darius bent his head slowly to hers, drawn by some power other than his own, beyond even his comprehension. All that mattered at that moment was that he feel her satin-soft mouth beneath his. That he taste the wild honey of her. That he take control and end their mutual misery. He had to do this. It was as necessary to both of them as breathing.
His lips were firm yet velvet soft, moving over hers, gently coaxing her response. He felt her shift beneath his hands, glide right inside him, wrap herself tightly around his heart. His teeth tugged gently, insistently, until Tempest had to comply with his unspoken demand and open her mouth to him. The ground beneath his feet whirled alarmingly, but his mouth was fastened to hers, transporting him through time and space to somewhere he had never been.
Without conscious thought, without meaning to do so, Darius found her mind with his and merged them together, sharing his erotic fantasies, his joy in her existence. Sharing the way his body came to life and raged for her, needed her. Hungered for her.
Pure feeling. He was soaring high without wings, free-falling through space, and all the time the flames were leaping higher. He was lost in her, would always be lost in her. Her skin was so soft, her hair like silk. She was the miracle of life itself.
It was all there, sweeping Tempest along in the vortex of his passion, catching her desire and magnifying it until she didn’t know where she left off and he began. Until they were one being consumed with fiery hunger. There was no room for self-preservation, no room for modesty; her need was every bit as great as his own.
His arms tightened possessively, sweeping her into the shelter of his hard masculine frame. Deep within his body, his blood thickened to molten lava, a firestorm sweeping through his entire system until he knew he was going up in flames.
We have to stop.
The words brushed like butterfly wings in his mind, breathless, erotic, filled with the same hunger and need threatening to consume them both, threatening his very control. Yet there was something else. Something new. Because their minds were merged, he recognized it for what it was; fear as elemental as time itself.
Darius pulled himself back to reality, away from the urgent demands his body was making and back toward a semblance of sanity.
Tempest was on fire, no longer herself but a part of Darius. They were one single and complete entity. She clung to him, the only safe anchor in a wild storm of magic. Darius lifted his head so that his mouth hovered inches from hers. They stared at one another, drowning in each other’s eyes, awed that they could produce such a conflagration with only a kiss.
Tempest retreated, a subtle feminine withdrawal from him, trying to find herself and cool the terrible heat searing her body. She touched her mouth with her fingertips, unable to believe that she had helped to generate such flames.
“Do not say it, honey. I know exactly what you are going to say.” That infuriating male amusement tinged his husky voice.
Tempest shook her head. “I don’t think I can talk. Honestly, Darius, you’re lethal. We just can’t do this. It’s too dangerous. I expected lightning to start arcing between us.”
He shoved a hand through his dark mane of hair. “I swear I was hit by a bolt. White-hot and jagged, tore right through me.”
Her smile was tentative but there all the same. “So we agree. No more of that.”
Darius wrapped an arm around her body and found she was trembling. “I think plenty of that is the answer, Tempest. We have to learn to control it. The more practice we have, the better we will be.”
“Better?” Tempest pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes enormous. “We don’t dare get any better at it, Darius, or we could set the world on fire. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel so great right now.” Her body was heavy and aching for relief, sensitive to the slightest touch. Each time Darius brushed against her, darts of fire raced through her. She needed him, needed his body. “If we had any sense, we’d put half the world between us.”