Lisa leaned close to whisper, “Only you could look at a man too sexy to be on earth and reduce his incredible beauty to bad boy.”
Corinne felt herself a fraud. Lisa didn’t think Corinne was in the least susceptible to Dayan’s dark sensuality. But she was more than susceptible. She was enthralled, under a spell of enchantment. She even briefly wondered if his songs, or his voice, might have somehow hypnotized her.
Dayan reached out and casually removed Corinne’s purse from Lisa’s hand, then gave it to Corinne. He would have been amused at her thoughts had her heart not been stuttering again, a laboring that bothered him immensely. How could he fix it without harming her child? His eyes moved possessively over Corinne’s face as he watched her pull a small container from her purse and swallow a tiny pill. With the same easy strength he always exhibited, he shackled Corinne’s bare wrist and brought it up for his inspection. “Why are you not wearing a medical bracelet? In an emergency it would alert strangers how to help you.”
Lisa tossed her blond head. “At last! Someone with a little sense, unlike Rina. She never listens to anyone.”
A small sensual smile tugged at the hard edge of Dayan’s mouth. He leaned down close to Corinne so his warm breath stirred tendrils of hair at her temple. “You do not listen to others?”
“I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions,” Corinne informed him, her voice faintly haughty when all she really wanted to do was touch his mouth with her fingertips. Up close he robbed her of breath. Of good sense.
“Until now,” Dayan corrected with infinite gentleness. His voice was very soft and, like velvet, it whispered sensuously over her skin, making her shiver. He brought her hand up to his perfectly molded mouth, rubbed the pads of her fingers over his lips.
Her heart stuttered; butterfly wings brushed at her stomach. For a moment she could only stare at him, lost in his magic. She dragged her gaze from his, withdrew her hand to curl her fingers into her palm, holding on to his warmth.
Cullen stared up at Dayan in total shock. He had camped with their leader for several weeks during the Dark Troubadours tour, yet Cullen had never seen Dayan exhibit the slightest interest in any woman. Now Dayan’s body language shouted that he felt protective, even possessive, of Corinne. There was something else, something in Dayan’s eyes that had never been there before. A flicker of something dangerous. Cullen had assured Lisa that her sister was perfectly safe with Dayan, but now he wasn’t so certain.
“Perhaps we had better get the ladies out of the wind,” Dayan drawled. “Cullen, let’s escort them to their car, and then I’ll pick up my guitar.” His voice brushed over Corinne’s skin again like fingers.
She shivered in reaction. At once he drew her into the shelter of his arms. “I should have realized it was too cold out here for you,” he said softly, apologetically, his breath warm against her neck. His body was hot and hard against the satin softness of her cool skin. “I was being selfish, wanting you to myself.”
He glanced at Lisa, and she unexpectedly found herself leading the men to her small sporty car, wondering why it was suddenly so important to her to get Corinne out of the wind. Dayan kept possession of Corinne, handing her carefully into the front seat. “Where can we meet you so we can talk in a quieter atmosphere?”
He asked it softly, his black eyes suddenly on Lisa’s face.
Lisa blinked and blurted out her address, something she would never normally do. Corinne stared at her in horror. Lisa clapped a hand over her mouth guiltily and watched as Dayan reached casually across Corinne to buckle her seat belt.
Hard and defined with muscle, his body brushed Corinne’s. He smelled of spice and woods. Totally masculine. He dwarfed the small car. His chin nuzzled Corinne’s hair. “I am not a serial killer, although it is nice to know you have some instinct for self-preservation.”
He closed the door on her shocked expression, his arrogant, bad-boy grin very much in evidence.