“We have a few short hours until the dawn, cara. If you insist on returning to Darius, then we must do so.” His voice was a soft, mesmerizing spell, seductive and masculine. Just the sound of it threatened her precarious will. His words said one thing, while his blatant, sexy heat whispered something altogether different.
“Julian, you have to stop looking at me like that,” she cautioned him, something blocking her throat so that it felt impossible to breathe. She tried to pull her gaze away from the intensity of his. “I cannot think when you look at me like that.”
His hand moved over the silken mass of her hair, his fingers rubbing the strands against the pad of his thumb as if he couldn’t help himself. “Have you always been an entertainer?”
There was a note in his voice, a drawling caress of admiration and sorcery that set her heart beating fast. He disarmed her entirely with that lazy, Italianate drawl of his. His question also threw her off track. It felt like a seduction, though it was innocent enough. “Yes, I always sang. We traveled to different continents every twenty-five years or so. That way no one ever noticed we did not age.” His hand, the one that had been so innocently fingering strands of her hair, had somehow slipped to her shoulder. Those fingers were now rubbing heat right through the thin material of her top so that she felt as if his skin were connecting to hers. Her voice faltered as she lost her train of thought.
Julian bent closer as if to soothe her. “Please continue. This is extremely interesting. I searched centuries for lost Carpathians but had given up hope. How all of you accomplished what you did is extraordinary.” His fingertips moved to the neckline of her shirt absently tracing its delicate embroidered edge.
Desari swallowed as little flames licked at her skin, as her breasts reacted to the pad of his thumb sliding sensuously over the soft swell. She glanced up at him, determined to reprimand him, but he was looking intellectual and earnestly interested in whatever she had been telling him. Except for his eyes. His eyes were molten gold and burning with a liquid fire that seemed to consume her, to mesmerize her.
“I have no idea what I was saying,” she finally admitted, her voice so husky it was an invitation.
His body crowded closer to hers, not touching, simply so close his heat and masculine scent enfolded her, surrounded her, swamped her. It called to her as nothing else could have. “You were telling me about traveling around from place to place singing.” His voice was aching with need.
She heard it clearly, and her body responded on its own, dissolving into liquid heat. Desari cleared her throat. “We simply became our own ancestors if someone remembered us. It was seldom necessary, as we made certain we stayed away from areas for decades at a time. Dayan is a poet, a master with words, and no one is better on a guitar. Syndil, too, is a wonderful musician. She can play almost any instrument. Actually, Barack is the same way. He seems to really enjoy playing for our audiences.” She gave him the information, but her mind was on the fact that his fingers had slipped inside her neckline and were moving hypnotically back and forth as if he were memorizing the feel of her.
“Barack and Dayan.” Julian repeated the names softly. There was the smallest bite to his voice, his perfect teeth snapping together, reminiscent of a hungry wolf. “Those two act as if they have certain rights where you are concerned.” There was a cruel edge to the set of his mouth, a darkness in his golden eyes. “They do not. In lieu of your father, Darius is the only one you are answerable to until your lifemate claims you. I have done so.” He leaned forward as if drawn beyond his own will and touched her collarbone with his lips, the harshness in his face at once softening. The touch was feather-light, but it penetrated her skin and made straight for her heart, setting it pounding with some emotion she didn’t want to try to understand.
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