“Don’t fall in love with me, Dayan,” she murmured softly, pleading with him. She was fighting for him, wanting him to understand he couldn’t feel so strongly about her. It was going to be bad enough with Lisa; she couldn’t bear for Dayan to count on her and then lose her too.
His hand cupped her chin, tilting her head so that her eyes met his steady gaze. “I know you better than anyone has ever known you. How could I not love you when I see into your mind and heart? You are everything to me. I know you cannot understand, and to you it does not make sense, but to me – a wanderer with no one to love him, no one to chase away the demons – you are a miracle.”
“Is that what I do for you?” She smiled in spite of herself, the thought beautiful to her. “Do I really chase away the demons?”
Without hurry, almost lazily, he bent his dark head and took possession of her mouth. He was gentle; there was nothing but gentleness in Dayan when he touched her, a gentleness so at odds with his enormous strength. But his mouth was pure magic, opening a door to a world she had never known existed before he had come into her life. His mouth was masculine and hot, dominating hers; the very earth shifted beneath her feet so that she clung to him for support. He swept her up against his hard frame, yet he held her with exquisite tenderness, infinite tenderness. His mouth was sheer magic.
He swept Corinne into another world, one of passion and exotic fantasies. One she had never dared to imagine. She might chase away demons for him, but he was something altogether different to her. Unreal. A mythical god. A man of legend. A hero. She smiled against his perfectly sculpted lips, velvet soft and hotly erotic. Every time she looked into his black eyes, so intense, so hungry, she melted inside.
‘I am reading your thoughts.’ The voice brushed intimately at the walls of her mind, a flutter of butterfly wings creating the same sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“Well, stop.” Corinne pulled out of his arms, the only sane thing to do with her heart pounding and her body turning to molten fire. “We have to stop. You know we do.” Her heart wasn’t going to take much more; it was already working far too hard.
He rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily, attempting to recover. “I’m sorry, honey. Think of something mundane for me.”
She laughed softly, nibbling at the corner of his mouth. “Lisa and I need clothes. We’ll have to go back to our house and get enough clothes to last a few days until these people lose interest in us.”
Dayan’s hand curled slowly around the nape of her neck. His fingerprints were like a brand on her skin. She could feel it all the way down to her toes. And she was melting again, coming apart inside, her heart somersaulting dangerously. He straightened slowly, his black eyes staring down into her beautiful gaze. “Those people will not lose their interest in you, honey. You cannot go back to the house. I will get the things you and Lisa need and bring them to you. Make me a list.” His voice was low, a whisper of sound like velvet over skin.
Corinne closed her eyes to shut out the sight of him. He was overwhelming at such close quarters. Every breath she took, she inhaled his masculine scent. Clean. Wild. Male. “You can’t go through our things, Dayan. It just wouldn’t be right. One of us will have to go with you.”
He shook his head slowly. He didn’t blink. Everything he did, he did with a fluid power, a ripple of pure energy impossible to ignore. “To keep you safe, Corinne, I can do this small thing.” He said it softly, patiently. “These people sprayed the stage with bullets where Desari was singing. She is a beautiful, vibrant woman, unique in this world, yet they were willing to murder her, to silence her voice for all time. They managed to wound Desari, Barack and me. We were lucky that Julian was there along with Darius to save us. I am not so willing to take a chance with your life. Or the life of your child.”