She waited. Held her breath. He came into her and it was different than the feel of his mind pouring into hers. This was all about selfless healing. This wasn’t his personality or his power. Simply his need to heal. It was beautiful like everything else about him. The light was bright and warm, hot in a completely different way than the heat generated when they had sex. His spirit warmed her. Soothed her. Eased every ache as he moved through her toward his goal.
She thought she’d be embarrassed. She’d felt blood and seed trickling together down the inside of her thighs when he’d carried her to the hot spring. He was so caring and gentle she’d been able to put it out of her mind. Now, because he was pure spirit, there was no way to be mortified.
If she was being strictly honest with herself, she was very tender. She thought maybe she had skid marks inside of her. The water helped, but the heat he applied deep inside her was wonderful and in a matter of minutes the ache was gone.
She opened her eyes to watch him come back to his body. It was there in his eyes. One moment his body dead, an empty shell. She couldn’t hear his heartbeat or see him breathing. His eyes were flat, unseeing. Then he was there, vital. Alive. Larger than life and giving off an aura of danger. He carried that with him, a supreme confidence that bordered sometimes on arrogance, as well as the feeling that he could be utterly dangerous.
“When you heal people or yourself, it’s risky to you, isn’t it?” She slid her hand over his arm. “You have to leave your body unprotected.” She felt his instant shock.
Andre nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“But you still do it.”
“Of course. Especially if it is you.”
She sighed. She had no choice. They had to have the talk. “Andre, you know I live in the United States. I’m here for a few weeks, that’s all. I have to return home. The truth is, my grandmother isn’t nearly as crazy as we all thought she was. There really are vampires in the world. I can’t let doctors put her on medication, or have my sisters think she’s losing her mind. That wouldn’t be fair to her. So I can’t stay.”
Her confession was met with absolute silence. He was suddenly gone from her mind. She was no longer in his. She couldn’t read his expression, but she had the feeling whatever he was thinking wasn’t good.
“It’s not that I want to leave you,” she added in a little rush. “I don’t. I really don’t. I’m not leading you on. I’m really not like that. I didn’t expect to meet someone like you or fall so hard. But I can’t stay.”
“Teagan.”
Her name again. He wrapped her in black velvet when he spoke in that tone. A sorcerer’s spell, and she kept falling deeper into it. Willingly. That was the worst part. She shook her head. “I don’t have a choice.”
“No, you do not have a choice,” he agreed.
Okay, that hurt. She needed to hear him agree with her, but still, there was a part of her—a big part of her—that wanted him to protest and say she couldn’t leave him or he’d die of a broken heart.
“Okay then. You get it. That’s good. That’s a good thing.” Her throat felt clogged. She hated that. Hated the burn behind her eyes so she closed them tight and kept her head back, resting against the rock.
“I get what has happened between us, Teagan, but you do not.”
Her stomach clenched. Hard. Her heart stuttered. It was the way he said it. She opened her eyes again and looked at him. Yeah, there was trouble there. She just didn’t know what it was or why. She bit her lip. Something was different about him. Something more. Predatory. He was just a little bit scary, and she didn’t even know why.
“Andre? You’re just a little scary right now. You aren’t angry with me, are you? I mean, you know about visas, right? I can only stay so long legally.”
“I have told you that you are safe with me.”
He made it a flat statement and she had the feeling he didn’t like repeating himself. Well, okay then. He shouldn’t scare her like that if he didn’t want to repeat himself. She made a little face at him just to show him she wasn’t all that intimidated by him, although she kind of was. But he wasn’t in her head anymore so she figured she probably could get away with it.
“What did you mean, by saying you get it, but I don’t? I’m the one explaining it to you. I have to leave. I’m trying to be honest with you.”
He nodded his head slowly. “I get that you think you are being honest.” He held out his hand. “You need to have something warm in your stomach. I will make the tea and we can talk about this.”
“Well, if I’m being strictly honest,” Teagan said, taking his hand and standing up carefully, “I don’t think tea is going to agree with me right now. Just the thought of it makes me feel a little queasy and since you’re certain I’m not pregnant, then I’d just better not risk it. In any case, if I’m really caught in some very strange hallucinatory dream state, I’m definitely not having another cup of tea. The tea is the only thing I can think of that might have been drugged. But then that would make you a huge delusion as well and you’re the one who made me the tea in the first place.”
His hands spanned her waist and he lifted her easily out of the steaming water. At once he enveloped her in a towel.
“I am a delusion?”
“Actually, I don’t think so, but you have to admit, it could be a possibility, since there’s no one like you in the world, but I don’t think I could make you up. Especially not the sex. I couldn’t have made that up.”