Dayan dispersed the storm and, in the shape of an owl, flew quickly back to the safe house where Cullen waited with Corinne and Lisa. He was eager to get back to her, to be in her company, to see that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.
* * *
Chapter 3
Corinne sat curled up in a deepcushioned chair, her feet drawn under her and her head resting on her arm. Her hair cascaded in a silken curtain around her face. She sat in the dark waiting, her heart tapping out an uneven rhythm. She was trembling inside, feeling very shaky.
Lisa and Cullen had talked quietly for some time in the small bedroom off the hall before Lisa had finally fallen asleep. Cullen eventually sprawled close to Lisa, nodding off himself, his arm flung protectively around Lisa’s waist.
Corinne waited up, fear beating in her like the pounding of a drum, as irregular as her heartbeat. She had no idea how she had come to be so wrapped up in a virtual stranger. Every cell in her body needed to know that nothing had harmed him. She could remember every detail of his face, every fleeting expression. She felt alone and frightened without him, and that was totally out of character for her. Corinne was unsure what to do. She was the one who had always seen to the details of everyday life. She juggled appointments and paid bills, made certain Lisa was where she was supposed to be and that John’s business ran smoothly. She didn’t fall for tall, handsome strangers in bars, certainly not one who was famous. She wrote songs for many famous musicians, but it had never occurred to her to be impressed with any of them.
She heard nothing but her own heartbeat, yet when she looked up, Dayan was looming over her, tall and strong and alive. Air rushed into her lungs and she could breathe again. Corinne had an unexpected and entirely unacceptable desire to trace the angles and planes of his face with her fingertips. She needed to touch him, to assure herself he was unharmed. A small smile found its way to her soft mouth. “I was worried.”
Dayan reached down to lay his hand against her satin cheek. Her stomach did a funny little flip, his touch bringing a strange craving for more. “There was no need, Corinne, but I thank you for your concern.” He said her name like a caress.
She shook her head, astonished at her reaction to him. He was truly lethal. No one had ever looked at her as he did. His eyes were intense, fathomless, dark and dangerous and mysterious, moving over her possessively. So hungry. Could anyone ever refuse such longing? Such intense need? “I should have called the police,” she confessed in a little rush. “I don’t know why I listened to Cullen. I never listen to anyone when they aren’t being logical, but he was so adamant.”
“It is just as well you did not,” Dayan said softly.
She looked up at him from under long lashes. “You aren’t a criminal of some sort, are you? It seemed the only explanation for Cullen to carry on so.”
Again he smiled, a slow, sexy curve accenting the sensual line of his mouth. He hunkered down beside her chair so that his head was level with hers. “Do I look like a criminal?” His voice held that strange black magic, whispering over her skin so that she shivered, but deep inside her a flame began to burn hotly and spread liquid heat like molten lava throughout her body.
“Even if you’re not, you should be totally outlawed,” she blurted out before she could censor her words.
Those black, black eyes glittered with male humor. “I will take that as a compliment. You did not say if you liked my playing.”
She lifted her head, tossing her abundance of hair over her shoulder, the gesture purely feminine, entirely sexy. “You know very well you’re phenomenal, I don’t have to tell you. Everyone says so.”
“But then, not everyone’s opinion counts to me. Only yours.” He was perfectly serious, as if she were the only one in his world. His deep black eyes did not leave her face. Did not even blink.