“I’m really that for you?” Teagan asked.
“You are really that for me. My miracle. My savior. And I want you to stay with me. Please stay with me and get to know me before you make a decision.”
She nodded her head. “I want this to work out, Andre, as strange as it all seems, I really do.”
7
Teagan groaned and tried to roll over. She couldn’t move because something heavy draped over her waist and something even heavier hooked over her thigh prevented movement. She gave up the fight and snuggled deeper into the warmth.
She was comfortable. Definitely not in her sleeping bag. She was very warm, and she knew for a fact she wasn’t in her jeans. Still, she didn’t—or couldn’t—open her eyes. She felt hungover, but she hadn’t been drinking at all. For a long time, she lay there, drifting somewhere in the twilight between waking and sleeping.
Andre. Gorgeous Andre. He was so lost and alone. His life didn’t seem to be a happy one. She didn’t understand that. She’d grown up in the happiest of homes. They might not have had all the money in the world, but they were certainly the richest of families when it came to love.
She could call any one of her three sisters, tell them she needed them, and they would be on a plane trying to get to her. She had that. She’d always had that. And Grandma Trixie had shown her what unconditional love was. Teagan had always been a little different from her sisters. She was driven to learn. She sought knowledge all the time. She even snuck out of the house as a child and they’d find her in the library reading everything she could get her hands on. She was never punished. Not really. Not for anything she did. But truthfully, she loved her grandmother so much she didn’t want to disappoint or hurt her, so she’d toed the line as best she could.
But Andre. Her heart broke for Andre. He looked at her as if she were his world. He’d just met her, but she was his lifeline. The healer in her had been inside his mind, trying to figure out how best to aid him. She’d found overwhelming sadness. His emotions were strong, almost as if they were so new to him he had trouble toning them down. He didn’t go out during the day. An allergy to the sun, perhaps? He hadn’t told her, and she didn’t know if she could heal that.
She had to get up. Strangely, she knew, without looking at her watch, that there wasn’t much left of the day. If she wanted to scout around and try to find the trail of what she was looking for, she would have to get moving. Andre had explained to her that he slept during the day and wouldn’t wake up until evening. He was a heavy sleeper, he said. If she woke first, not to worry, he’d be up soon after.
Andre also made her grit her teeth when he’d said, in his commanding, sexy voice, that she shouldn’t leave the cave under any circumstances, to wait for him. She didn’t like bossy. Or commanding. Still, it was sexy on him, but then everything was.
Teagan took a deep breath and forced her eyes open. Andre’s chest was pressed against her face. One of his arms wrapped around her waist. She could tell by the way it felt that he was not only asleep, but sound asleep. His leg was over her thighs, pinning her to him. She didn’t move because it felt nice up against him.
He’d carried her to the raised mattress. It was not too soft and not too firm, exactly how she liked her mattresses. More, it was far better than her sleeping bag and the ground. She couldn’t believe the sheets were clean. So was the blanket. That made no sense at all. Even more strange, the faint scent was lavender, one she particularly loved. How sheets and blankets in the wild of the Carpathian Mountains managed to smell like her favorite scent, she had no idea. Still, it was wonderful, and she wasn’t going to complain.
She didn’t remember Andre getting into bed with her. Surely she would remember an event that big. Yikes. She was actually in bed with Mr. Gorgeous and his very hot accent. Just lying next to him sent all kinds of very erotic and inappropriate thoughts through her head. And visions. All sexy. Some of the things made her blush. Okay. All of the images made her blush, but some were impossible to do, weren’t they? And why was she lying next to Mr. Gorgeous thinking of things he could do to her that she’d never even heard of?
She’d never woken up in a bed with a man, and even though he was asleep, she wasn’t certain what to do. She didn’t want to wake up. The weird thing was, she couldn’t hear or feel his heartbeat—just like before when he’d been injured. He’d been a monk. Maybe they taught that in the monastery. He had very long hair. She loved his hair, although she would never have thought she’d be a fan of long hair, but if that was a monk kind of thing—and all this time she thought monks were bald—maybe she could be a little grateful that he had wanted to be a monk.
“You don’t look monkish,” she murmured. “You’re too gorgeous.” What if all the monks in the monastery were hot? “I can just see the monk at the gate. ‘Sorry, buddy, you’re not hot enough to be one of us. We’re the hot monks. We only allow gorgeous men like Andre inside these gates. That’s the reason we’re up here in the clouds—to hide away from all the women of the world so we don’t wreak havoc among them.’”
She pressed her face against his chest. “Did you escape, Andre? Are they looking for you because you’re the one they use to measure the hotness of any applicants?”
Sivamet, go back to sleep. You make me smile when I should be resting.
She went very still. She heard him in her mind. He wasn’t just reading her thoughts, he was communicating with her, and his heart was still not beating where she could hear or feel it. He heard her. While he was sleeping. He heard her.