What happens to me if you die? What happens to you if I die?Sheknew the answer; she had watched her mother’s empty life. This is obsession.She said the words aloud so that the wind could carry them through the mountains. “I won’t be like her.” She lifted her face to the driving rain so that the drops ran down her face like tears. It was too late. She couldn’t survive without Jacques. Wasn’t she just like her mother after all?
He came out of the night so beautifully male that he took her breath away. His black eyes moved over her possessively, curiously predatory.
Shea shook her head. “I’m not strong enough, Jacques.” The wind whipped at her, nearly drove her sideways.
“Choose life for us, Shea, for our children. I will not be easy to live with, but I swear to you, no one could love you more. I will do anything to make you happy.”
“Don’t you see? You can’t make another person happy. I’m the only one who can do that for myself. And I can’t do this.”
“You are just afraid. We both have some problems, Shea. You fear the intimacy and I lack of it. It is simply a matter of meeting somewhere in the middle.”
His voice was so soft, she felt it on her very skin, as if his fingertips were skimming over satin in the lightest caress. Jacques stepped closer, beneath the tree’s canopy, his dark eyes intense. “Choose me now, Shea. Need me. Want me. Love me. Choose life for us.”
“It shouldn’t be like this.”
“We are not human. We are Carpathian, of the earth. We command the wind and the rain. The animals are our brethren. We can run with the wolf, soar with the owl, and become one with the rain itself. We are not human, Shea. We do not feed on flesh as humans do, and we do not love as humans do. We are different.”
“We are hunted all the time.”
“And we hunt. It is the cycle of life. Shea, look at me.”
Chapter Ten
Shea lifted her emerald gaze to the disturbing intensity of Jacques’ black eyes. He was so close that she could feel the heat of his skin reaching out to her. His fingertips brushed the curve of her cheek, her mouth. His need of her was as elemental as the storm itself. It burned in him like the hot sizzle of electricity, like the slowly spreading heat of molten lava. “Need me, Shea.” His voice ached with it. “Need me the same way I need you. I would give my life for you. Live for me. Find a way to live for me. Love me that much.”
Her eyelashes swept down, raindrops glistening on the ends of the feathery crescents. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
His hands framed her face, thumbs brushing her frantic pulse. Each light caress sent flames dancing through her body. Her gaze once more reluctantly found his, her eyes filled with a kind of hopelessness.
“Of course I know what the cost is to you, little one. I feel your reluctance, your revulsion of our feeding habits.” His hand slid to the nape of her neck, drew her close.
“I’ve tried to make the adjustment,” she protested. “I need more time.”
“I know that, Shea. I should have found another way to help you heal. I am trying to find out what kind of lifemate you have. I want to be what you need, someone you can respect and love, not someone who imposes his will and takes the expedient way out. There are ways, little love, to feed you without revulsion.” His mouth found her pulse, felt it jump under the velvet rasp of his tongue.
His lips moved to her chin, the corner of her lips. His voice was husky, aching. “Want me enough, Shea. Want me with more than just your body. Let me into your heart.” His mouth fastened on hers, not gently but wildly, hungrily. The hunger was in his eyes when he raised his head to look down at her. “Open your mind to me. Want me there, as you want me in your body. Want me coming to you wild with a need only you can satisfy. Take me into your soul and let me live there.” His mouth was roaming every inch of her face, the column of her neck, the hollow of her shoulder.
His body burned and ached and needed. His heart tuned itself to the rhythm of hers. His mind was a haze of desire, erotic pictures, and sensual needs. It was filled with tenderness and love, an intensity that scorched her as much as the hunger in him. The heat of his mouth found her breast through the thin cotton of her shirt, claimed her. His body reacted savagely, painfully, his jeans tight and uncomfortable.
Jacques dragged her closer, the storm in him, around him, a part of him. “Make me whole. Shea. Do not leave me like this. Want me back. Need my body in yours. Have to touch me as I have to touch you.”
Shea could feel it in him, the raging, wilddesire, the dark, sensual hunger. His eyes held so much need, there was no way she could possibly refuse him. Her hands were already sliding over his defined, sculpted muscles, the wildness in her erupting every bit as stormily as the weather around them.
Her mouth fed on his; her hands pushed at his clothes, at hers, to rid them of the unnatural encumbrances. She couldn’t get close enough to him; skin to skin was not going to do it. Jacques drew her shirt over her head, tossed it aside, nearly bent her backward to feed hungrily at her breasts. His hands slid up and down her sides, her narrow ribcage, the tiny waist.
“Let me into your heart, Shea,” Jacques murmured along the creamy swell of her breast, against the frantic rhythm beating in tune to his. “Right here, little one, let me in.” His teeth scraped her satin skin, his tongue caressed and stroked.
He dragged the jeans from her waist, pushed them down the curve of her slender hips. Dropping to his knees, he circled her hips with his arms, nuzzled the silk panties, burrowed deep. Shea cried out his name, and the wind whirled the sound and roared it back to her, surrounded her with him, with his scent and the strength of his desire.
“Want me, Shea. Like this. Like it is meant to be. Just like this. I have to have you. Out here in the middle of this storm. I have to have you right now.” He ripped the silk panties aside, clutched her to him, feeding on flowing, honeyed heat. Her body rippled with pleasure, and she writhed against his attacking mouth, but he didn’t stop, instead sending her over and over the edge.
Shea could only grab hold of his thick charcoal hair with her fist and hold on as the world rocked under her feet and the rain crashed to earth. Jacques somehow managed to do away with her shoes and drag the jeans from her body. She stood naked in the driving rain, so hot she was afraid the water would sizzle when it hit her skin.
“Do you want me, Shea?” This time his voice was hesitant, as if for all his strength, for all his power, one word from her would bring him crashing down. He was kneeling at her feet, his beloved face—so ravaged by torment, so beautifully male, so sensually Carpathian—staring up at her. He was lost without her; it was there for her to see. Raw. Stark. His total vulnerability. For just one moment the wind seemed to cease, and the storm held itself still as if the very skies were awaiting her answer.
“You can’t possibly know how much I want you, Jacques, even if you’re reading my mind.” She pulled him to his feet, leaned forward to brush his lips with hers. “I want you in my heart. I always have.” Her breath was warm on his chest. Her tongue tasted his skin, felt the answering jump of his heart. Her hands went to the buttons of his jeans, then slowly freed him from their tight confines.
A whip of lightning cracked across the sky, and for one moment his profile was lit up. His dark body, the taut muscles and his terrible need of her, was revealed starkly in the night. His eyes never left her, black and intense and so hungry. Shea’s arms circled him lightly, and she touched her mouth to his flat, hard stomach. Jacques jumped as if she had burned him. Her palms followed the carved contours of his buttocks, lingered for a moment as if memorizing him. Then she was on her knees, her hand cupping him, stroking and caressing the velvet shaft. Her every movement sent a shudder of pleasure dancing through his body, a rush of flames leaping to engulf him.