She bent her head, long hair tumbling down to hide her expression. It didn’t matter. Gregori was in her mind, easily reading her thoughts. She was confused, afraid, sad. It pressed on her like a terrible weight on her chest.
Gregori lifted her as if she were a baby and tugged on her jeans, encasing her bare, slender legs. He sat on the bed and cradled her in his lap. Very gently he rocked her back and forth. “I am sorry I frightened you, ma petite. I would not do so for the world. But you have to realize that you are tied to a man of power. Many things that might endanger our kind do not work on me. I am capable of many things that have never been done by others of our race. I know my own capabilities.” He stroked her hair, a gentle, soothing caress.
She turned her face into his throat, hot tears spilling over. “I don’t know your capabilities.” Her voice was muffled, the tears clogging her throat. She tightened her fingers in his thick mane of hair, hanging on to him almost desperately.
He dropped his head protectively over hers. “You need to have more faith in my strength, Savannah. Have faith in me. I am not about to throw away my life now that I have found you. Believe in me, in my power and abilities.”
She burrowed closer, as if trying to get inside him.
Gregori tightened his arms, sheltering her close. “I know what I can and cannot do, mon petit amour. I did not take any unnecessary chances.” He held her to him, inhaling her scent, their combined scents, counting himself lucky that she felt so strongly for his safety. “I am very sorry I frightened you,” he repeated into the silken strands of her hair.
“Don’t do it again,” she ordered, nuzzling his throat. Her mouth moved over his skin and left behind a living flame.
Gregori’s body reacted, stirring to life. He could feel her discomfort, the sore spots on her hips and back because of his own carelessness. He laid a palm over her hip and sent himself seeking outside his own body. At once, Savannah could feel soothing heat easing sore muscles, speeding to heal bruises. She could hear the ancient healing chant in her mind, Gregori’s beautiful voice flowing into her.
She lay passively in his arms, staring up at sensual features etched and carved by time, at masculine Carpathian beauty. He was power and strength. He was her lifemate. She studied him, examining every inch of his face.
Gregori suddenly smiled at her, a genuine smile that warmed the cold steel of his eyes to molten mercury. “What is it you are seeing?”
She touched his chin with a fingertip. It was a nice chin. Stubborn. Determined. Nice all the same. “I’m seeing my lifemate, Gregori. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her hands framed his face. Very slowly she lifted her mouth to his. She kissed him slowly, thoroughly. Completely. Her tongue swept into his mouth, explored, teased, tempted. When she lifted her head, she rested her forehead against his. “Don’t ever do that again. Don’t leave me alone and helpless without you.”
He actually felt the wrenching deep in his heart. She was turning him inside out. She wasn’t condemning him as she should have, she was making herself sick with worry. He found her neck and trailed kisses along the slim column. His teeth scraped her shoulder. “So you like jazz.”
Savannah raised her head, her blue eyes searching his. “I love jazz,” she said softly. He could see the anxiety in her, the sudden hope.
“Then I guess we cannot miss the famous festival in New Orleans,” he found himself saying, just to take the shadows from her eyes.
She was silent a moment, her fingers twisting in the blanket. “Do you mean it, Gregori? We can go?”
“You know how much I love crowds of humans,” he said, straight-faced.
She laughed at him. “They don’t bite.”
“I do,” he said, the words low and soft, his silver gaze at once possessive. Just the heat from her smile wreaked havoc with his body. He had had her only a few minutes before, yet he was hungry all over again. Fiercely hungry. His body reacted urgently, savagely, and he allowed it, making no effort to conceal his great need.