“Now I’m totally embarrassed. You weren’t supposed to hear that. And why isn’t your heart beating properly?”
She ran her hand over his heart. She lifted her palm and replaced it with her lips. A compulsion. She couldn’t stop herself. Strangely, she felt as if she’d done that before. She dared to use the tip of her tongue, to slide it over the very place his pulse should be.
Do not play with fire, csitri. I am a man, after all, not a saint.
There was lazy amusement in his voice. He didn’t move. Not a ripple of a muscle. Still, he knew she was playing with fire.
“I have to get up.”
No.
One word. Authoritative. Very Andre when he wasn’t being the sweetest man on earth. Bossy almost. No, super bossy. She wasn’t the kind of woman who did bossy very well. Ask her grandmother. Ask her three older sisters. Ask anyone.
She lifted his heavy arm and slipped out from under it. His leg was an altogether different proposition.
Teagan.
There it was, the voice that made her go weak. She didn’t move for a moment, because the way he poured emotion into his voice curled her toes and stole the air from her lungs. She almost wanted to obey his commanding “no.” Almost. But she didn’t want to stay in bed. She had work to do and she doubted if she could climb around a mountain in the dark.
She shifted his leg, withdrawing her own in one surprising burst of strength and determination. She was free, but something kept her right there, glued to his side. She was reluctant to leave him unprotected while he was sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Her body felt strange and sluggish, like she was trying to move through quicksand. Even her mind felt fogged and a little hazy. If they hadn’t been up for hours talking, she might have thought something had been in the tea, but she knew better. Determined, she forced her body into a sitting position.
Stay here, Teagan.
She actually felt a compulsion to obey. It was strong, and that scared her more than the command in his voice. She had never wanted to obey anyone, not from the time she was a baby. Grandmother Trixie often regaled anyone who would listen with tales of how even before she could walk, she didn’t like anyone telling her what to do.
Feeling as if she wanted to oblige him when he used that tone with her shocked her. More, it told her she was getting in over her head, and it was way too soon for that. If she felt that way now, what would it be like if she fell in love with him? She could never disobey Grandmother Trixie because she loved her so much. Loving Andre was out.
She turned her head to glare at him, but she couldn’t see his face. Or his eyes. His hair covered both. She took a breath. It wasn’t his fault that everything in her wanted to surrender to him. She realized she didn’t want to leave him. Not just because he was unprotected, but because she needed to be with him. That was even more terrifying.
Did he feel the same way? Was that why Andre’s sweetness had turned bossy? Maybe he was as frightened of what was happening between them as she was. She didn’t want him to feel afraid or sad or so alone, like she’d felt when she was in his mind. Her throat burned. Her eyes stung. For him. For his life. For the fact that her life had been so wonderful in spite of losing her mother before she ever had a chance to know her. Andre’s life had clearly been so different.
Once she felt the onset of tears, it was imperative to get away from him. She didn’t cry in front of anyone. Not ever. She was the tough girl in martial arts, the one that could hang no matter how banged up she got. She was the same when she climbed. She refused to give in to the panic attacks when she was up over thirty feet on a rock that was mostly slab. Well, okay, she cried her eyes out, but then she got ahold of herself and climbed even when her heart beat so hard she thought she’d have a heart attack.
For the first time she tried to answer him back, mind to mind. Stay asleep. I just need a little alone time.
She gasped and pulled back, touching her fingers to her lips. Sorrow was in his mind. Terrible images of battles. Of blood. Of death. Of friends. He hadn’t just been in law enforcement in some capacity, he had been a soldier of some kind as well. He’d seen terrible things. It was no wonder he had sought the peace of a monastery.
She felt such sorrow in him. Just touching his mind had shaken her. She leaned close to him, swept back his hair and daringly brushed a kiss over his mouth. For one moment, in her mind, she felt him try to shake off his sleep, but he subsided. He wasn’t feeling sorrow, it was more like a dark determination that didn’t bode well for her. He definitely didn’t want her to leave him.
“I’ll be back,” she promised, and forced her body to move off the bed.
The moment her bare feet touched the floor of the cave, she drew them back up. She didn’t mind dirt or rocks. She was okay with insects. In fact she liked and respected most insects for their extraordinary part in the world’s ecosystem. But she detested slime. She looked down at the floor. It looked like regular dirt without a hint of water on it, but it hadn’t felt that way. Water and dirt would have equaled mud, and she hadn’t felt mud, she felt slime.
Teagan pulled her foot to her and inspected the bottom. The sole of her foot was perfectly clean. There wasn’t even dirt clinging to it. She frowned and looked around her. That was another thing. How could she see? She wasn’t using her flashlight and the torches had long since gone out, yet she could see. She’d been in caves quite often and she’d always used a headlamp or her flashlight. Mostly the headlamp.