Corinne lived each moment as it was given to her, determined to see beauty around her, even while she grounded herself in reality.
Dayan found the way her mind worked interesting. She often used telekinesis without thinking about it. She would glance at an object across the room that she needed and she would start to draw it to her. He could feel the difference immediately in her brain, a warmth, the building of the image and the focus on it. The image was always sharp and crystal clear, and then she would remember she was not alone and would heave a small sigh.
“What?” She was smiling up at him, her intriguing dimple mesmerizing him, so that he had no other choice but to lean down and kiss it.
Butterfly wings fluttered in her stomach at the touch of his mouth against her skin. “You have to stop doing that,” she told him softly, without much conviction.
“I thought I should practice as often as possible,” he replied, rejecting her idea immediately. “I am without extensive experience, and I must make certain I do not lack in the area of a lover. After all, I wish to make you happy.”
His voice was a whispered caress feathering over her skin. Corinne looked up at him, her large eyes dancing. “You know very well you don’t need any practice at all. And you make me very happy.” She reached up to touch his chin, a gentle brush of her fingers. “Tell me about your life.”
“I am a wandering musician. That is the truth, honey — a poet who has found his missing heart. I have long been without it.” It wasn’t simply the words he said, it was the way he said them, with hunger in his eyes.
“Do you love playing?”
“It is who I am,” he replied thoughtfully. “When I pick up my guitar, it is a part of me, like my arms. The notes and the words are somewhere deep inside me and they just flow out. I was born with this ability, a great gift bestowed on me.”
His humility surprised her because he was usually very confident, so much so it bordered on arrogance. But not when it came to his extraordinary talent.
As much as she was enjoying walking with Dayan, she was already exhausted. She became aware of the way her heart seemed to struggle to find the exact rhythm of his. She smiled up at him as he bent down to swing her effortlessly into his arms. “You really can read my mind, can’t you?” The sound of her own voice was more of an invitation than she would have liked.
“Of course.”
“Do you have to be touching the person?”
“No. I was not always touching you when I was reading your mind. And I have never touched Lisa. It is easy to read the thoughts of mortals.” He said it casually, so comfortable in her presence, he didn’t think to censor his words. In the short time they had been together, he was already thinking of them as one, a partnership, life-mates rather than two separate entities.
Corinne’s arms were clasped around his neck as he carried her through the night back toward the house where he and Cullen were staying. “Mortals? That implies all kinds of things, Dayan. Why would you use a word like
mortals?
Aren’t you mortal?”
Chapter 6
There was a long silence while Dayan listened to the sounds of the night, the murmur of the wind as it whispered to him of secret things. “Sometimes, honey, it is better not to inquire too closely into things you might not want to know about. I used the word
mortal
when another might have been a better choice. Are we not all both mortal and immortal at the same time? If you were to die, you would leave a part of you behind here on this earth, yet you would continue in another life elsewhere.”
“You believe that?”
“Absolutely,” Dayan answered solemnly, knowing she needed reassurance. For a brief moment he stopped walking to bury his face in the warmth of her neck, inhaling her scent. “Wherever you are, Corinne, you will never be alone. I will always be with you.”
At once the fragrance of her, the reality of her, rose up to overwhelm him, and just that fast he was battling the demon inside. It rose sharply, swift and furious, fangs exploding in his mouth, the male Carpathian demanding he complete the ritual and bind her to him. She was his savior. The keeper of his soul. Light. Colors. Without her, there was only an empty, barren existence he could never return to. Never endure. Her pulse beat beneath his mouth, her life force ebbing and flowing with a dark richness he craved, he
needed.
Red flames flickered and danced in the depths of his black eyes as he fought the demon.
Sensing danger, Corinne held herself very still, her arms cradling his head to her. She was aware of his great inner struggle, although she understood nothing of it. His body trembled for a moment, and she felt his mouth moving erotically, back and forth over her soft skin. Her fingers crushed his silky hair, rubbing at the strands in agitation. What was it he needed from her? Sex?
No!
The word shimmered in her mind emphatically. His voice gentled.
Not just sex, my love, I need to make love to you all night. I need to bind us together for all eternity. I do not know how to tell you these things so you can understand, but it is as necessary to me as breathing.
There was such intimacy in the way he spoke to her, in the tenderness of his voice as much as in the way he could communicate, mind to mind.
I need you
so
much, Corinne,
he sighed against her pulse, his breath warm and intimate; so
much. ‘
There was something very dangerous in him — she could feel it in his enormous strength, in the possessive way he held her — but his need was so great, she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think to deny him, not even for her own self-preservation.
The answer was shimmering in her mind, in his mind.
I want to be whatever you need.
There were no words spoken aloud, yet he heard her acceptance of him, of his differences, of his wild, untamed nature. It echoed in her mind and in her heart. He murmured her name softly, his sacred talisman to guide him back from the precipice of danger, the whisperings of madness she could not hope to understand.
His mouth moved over the slender column of her neck, touched her ear briefly, while both of them seemed to drown in a rush of molten heat. He could feel her body molding itself to his, responsive, inviting, enticing. She moved restlessly in his arms, and his body reacted with a hot surging of blood, creating a painful ache that would not go away.
Dayan closed his eyes and gave himself up to the luxury of feeling. His mouth moved up her throat to her chin, nibbled lightly before settling over her mouth. At once there was that curious sensation of the earth shifting beneath his feet, of the ground rocking, falling away from him until there was only Corinne. He felt every sensation — the satin softness of her skin, the silk of her hair, the hot need of her mouth as he took possession. She clung to him as the storm of need and hunger washed over them, as his mind filled hers with his hungry desire, with dark, erotic images and the ever building fire in his blood.
Her mouth was a silken haven he was lost in, his blood roaring in his ears. Dayan held her tightly, possessively; she was his only refuge after a thousand years of utter loneliness. He lifted his head so that his mouth could drift in a dancing flame of heat and light over her skin back to her irresistible pulse. It beckoned him in an age-old call. She could hear his voice, a soft murmur, a whisper of sensuous command, and her blood quickened, heating in answer. His tongue caressed her skin, his teeth nipped gently, teasingly, erotically, and then she gasped as white-hot lightning arced through her, sizzling, streaking through her blood so that she was on fire. His mouth moved against her and he held her even tighter, fitting her to him almost as if they were making love.