She reached out to him a little tentatively, rubbing his arm gently. “At least you know she’s alive. You know you have a sister. That’s more than we knew before we came here, Sandu. We made progress, and it was the best progress. It would have been so terrible to make this journey and, at the end of it, find out Liona was lost to us.”
His hand covered hers before she could pull it away. “You are right, ewal emninumam, we are learning much on this journey. Those taking this journey with us have bonded with you. Do you feel them?”
Adalasia nodded. More and more she did. They were always in and out of Sandu’s mind. Although she had never gone beyond the thick barriers in his mind, she was often catching little pieces of the other four “guardians.” She sometimes thought she knew more about them than they knew about themselves.
“If you gave each of them a reading, would you know if they survive and find a lifemate?” Sandu asked.
His thumb moved back and forth on her inner wrist, right over her rapidly beating pulse.
She wanted to be honest with him. “I don’t like to do that sort of thing, Sandu. If one of them isn’t going to survive, or isn’t going to find his lifemate, I don’t want to be the one to deliver the bad news. It isn’t like I can lie to them or deceive them.”
“Nor would they want you to do that.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Each has come to me separately and asked if you can verify what was told to them. Someone else has said they each have a lifemate waiting for them. They believe that you can give them the necessary hope to hold out longer against the scarring on their souls in order to find the lifemate promised.”
Adalasia rubbed her temples with her free hand. “Let me think about it, Sandu. This has been a very difficult evening to try to take in so much information.”
“It isn’t the information you need to comprehend, Adalasia,” he said gently. “It’s your feelings. Whether or not you can fully commit to me. All along, that has been made more difficult because I withheld important issues from you, and you felt you didn’t have a partner.”
He stroked a caress down the back of her head, fingers lingering in her hair. “Liona approved our relationship. Even I could see that when the roses and vines displayed their vivid colors. She knows you and I belong together.” His voice was soft, and she was so susceptible to it.
Rain began to fall in a steady rhythm, sounding musical on the stone roof of the cottage. Sandu’s black eyes seemed to darken even more. “Adalasia. Ewal emninumam. Come to me all the way. Give yourself into my keeping.” His voice was low. Mesmerizing. Seductive.
He was temptation and sin. She knew she wanted him from the first moment she had ever heard the sound of his voice. From the moment she entered his mind and formed such an intimate connection with him. From the moment she saw him, that masculine body that was perfection to her.
Her nod was barely perceptible, but she knew he saw it because those embers smoldering in his eyes suddenly leapt, just for one moment, into red flames. Sparks flew along her nerve endings as she reached slowly for the pearl buttons on the formfitting blouse she wore. Her gaze on his, she slipped each one from the buttonhole and pulled the material from her body. Next, she removed the velvet pouch that lay next to her heart, her palm automatically concealing the seventy-ninth card, sliding it easily into the deck, where it was welcomed. She wrapped the pouch with her blouse and set it on the end table, turning to face him in her simple blue bra and jeans.
It was a huge leap of faith to reveal the last card to Sandu, to let him know she carried it at all times on her person, right next to her heart. Now, she was trying to tell Sandu she was giving him her heart. That he was hers. She trusted him with who she really was. Not the shell she showed to the outside world but the real Adalasia Ravasio.
Pushing down shyness, when she’d never been shy, she reached behind to unhook the bra. She wasn’t a small girl. She had curves. She was fit—had to be—but she had curves.
“My woman. So beautiful.” He murmured his admiration softly. “I have never seen anyone more beautiful, and inside, the woman you are, even more beautiful, more pleasing to me.”
“I’m nervous. I want this. I want you, but I’m nervous. I don’t know what to do.” She didn’t. She wanted him to take over.
He seemed to know what she wanted, because she didn’t have to remove her jeans—he did it for her, reaching across the bed, not using Carpathian skills but his own hands to pull down the zipper and slide the denim and her panties from her hips and legs. He tossed them aside and then he was kissing her. The room spun. She caught fire. Tension coiled low, a fist of dark need that grew hotter and tighter. Flames poured down her throat and through her veins. Rushed through her nerve endings and set her on fire. She wanted him until she couldn’t breathe without him. Skin to skin. She had to touch him. Feel him against her. He had to feel the way she did. Desperate and hungry for him. Craving him.