Dark Peril (33 page)

She brushed out her thick, wavy hair before really looking at herself in the full-length mirror. The dress not only brought out her eyes but showed off her body. The ladder bared her breasts, the fabric barely covering her nipples. As it was nearly see-through, she could see how beaded her nipples were right through the material. The ladder formed a V down to the hem of the dress so that her belly button showed through the thin slats and she even caught glimpses of her mound when she moved. She turned to look over her shoulder. Her back and bottom were covered only with the thin strips as well. She could just see the bottom half of her cheeks peeking out at her.

She stared at herself, shocked at how aroused just dressing in such a revealing sheath made her feel. It was sexy, and knowing Dominic had made it for her gave her the confidence to wear it. She wanted him to be in such a state of urgent need that the next time she found an opportunity, he wouldn’t be able to resist her.

When she walked into the cavern, the soft lights played over the walls, the flame burned in the pool and a table was set with candles. He was dressed in a suit. Tall. Handsome.
Gorgeous.
He was heart-stopping with his long hair pulled back with a leather cord and his ever-changing eyes a vivid turquoise. His broad shoulders and narrow hips were made for an elegant suit. He appeared more Old World than ever. Very gallantly he took her hand, and with a small half-bow, kissed her knuckles, tucked her fingers into the crook of his elbow and walked her to the table. He pulled out her chair and waited for her to sit.

“I can hear your heart beat,” he whispered as he leaned down, his mouth by her ear as he pushed in her chair. “It follows the rhythm of mine.”

To Dominic’s surprise and pleasure, Solange smiled up at him, and there was seduction in her smile. She shifted just an inch, but her breasts strained against the small thin strips of material, drawing his attention. His fingers drifted over the stretchy fabric to linger for a moment on her nipples.

“You please me, Solange, doing what I asked of you. Thank you.”

“I wanted to see that look in your eyes,” she admitted, lowering her gaze.

He opened his hand and showed her the two dangling earrings, the rubies and emeralds matching her bracelet. “May I?”

“Please.” She held very still while he put them in her ears. She expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. She touched one. “The green matches the dress.”

“The stones match your eyes,” he corrected gently. “And what look in my eyes?”

He walked around to the other side of the small table and sat down in the chair opposite her. He reached for a bottle and poured a sparkling liquid into her wineglass and a much darker one into his. The candlelight played over her face, caressing her soft skin and illuminating her cat’s eyes. Need punched low and wicked, an instant and rather brutal assault on his body. She was so beautiful to him, inside and out, whether she thought so or not.

“I like the way you look at me,” she said, “like you’re pleased with me when I do something so simple as to wear what you ask.” She ran her hand along her thigh. “It’s a beautiful dress. But aren’t you worried about the jaguars hunting close by?”

His gaze followed the nervous progression of her palm as it smoothed over her bare thigh. The dress was very sexy, her body breathtaking in the soft flickering lights. He loved how the light played over her face. She wasn’t adept at hiding her thoughts from him, and he found himself nearly flying when he touched her mind and saw her desire to please him—that making him happy made her excited. She was beginning to see herself as he saw her: feminine and sexy and wholly his.

He indicated for her to take a bite of her steak. He waited for her to do as he requested before answering. “Actually, I doubt they are hunting us. They seem more nervous, not actually hunting. Too many vampires in one area means anyone with warm blood is going to be in danger.”

She pushed around the small bites on her plate. “How you managed all this, I’ll never know.”

“I have never sat down to a table and shared a meal,” he said. “This is a new and very pleasant experience for me.”

He found he couldn’t take his eyes from her. Everything she did delighted him. The way she chewed and swallowed. Her nervous little glances. The hand that drifted down to tug at the impossibly short hem of her dress. Each time she shifted in her chair, her bare bottom slid over the polished wood and he caught a glimpse of the enthralling temptation between her legs.

He leaned across the table and waited until she raised her lashes. “I dream of taking your body over and over, while you are slick and hot with your sweet-tasting nectar. I love to hear the way you moan and whimper, such beautiful music, my little cat. I want to hear you beg me never to leave your body.”

He kept his tone the same, as if they were discussing jaguars and vampires. Her eyes went wide. Her body flushed and she shifted restlessly in her chair. He caught the scent of arousal. Her small tongue darted out to lick nervously at her lips. Beneath the thin green fabric, her nipples grew harder.

“You can’t say things like that to me.”

“It is true.” He nodded toward the bowl of fruit. “You need to eat some of that as well.”

“I can’t eat when you say things like that.” She pushed her hair from where it tumbled around her face. Her hands trembled. “I think, since we’ve been home, I’ve been in a constant state of arousal.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Her eyes intrigued him, but it was that little reprimand in her voice that sent a wave of heat through his body.

“It is when we’re supposed to be concentrating on planning out how you’re going to survive walking into a meeting with who knows how many vampires, all of whom would love to tear you apart and feast on your blood.”

“Before I consider trying to survive vampires, I have to figure out a way to survive this relentless ache you have put here. It refuses to go away, Solange.” His hand deliberately dropped to his immaculate trousers, calling attention to the thick bulge there. “And you put it there.”

Her eyes changed. The almost painfully shy woman disappeared, only to be replaced by a temptress. She flashed a small, rather smug smile as she picked up the glass of sparkling champagne even as she shifted again in her chair, drawing his attention to her lush breasts. “It’s very gratifying to know I’m not the only one suffering.”

His voice dropped an octave. “Are you suffering?”

She licked the drops of champagne from her lips. “You know I am.”

“Why?”

“I’ve had a few dreams of my own,” she pointed out. “While you sleep, I am thinking of all the things I’d like to do to you.”

“Now you have my full attention.” He sat back in his chair, his heart beginning to thunder. At last. She was thinking of
him
and how best to give him pleasure. He could see the determination in her expression and that sexy, intriguing tilt to her mouth.

“Actually,” she corrected, playing with the stem of her glass, “I
always
have your full attention, your complete, absolute focus. You make me feel not only beautiful, but important and sexy and everything you need. You make me feel important.”

“You are all of those things.”

She ate another bite of her steak, a small frown of concentration on her face. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about things while you were sleeping, and I realized it’s really all about courage. I have to find the courage to put myself totally into your hands.” She looked up at him then, her eyes showing that same determination, but this time mixed with fear. “That’s what you’re saying to me, isn’t it?”

He nodded. In that moment of self-discovery, she was more beautiful than ever to him.

“You want me to recognize this side of me is every bit as important as the fighter in me.”

“Important not only to me, Solange,” he agreed, “but to you as well.”

“It’s much easier to contemplate all of this when I’m in my jaguar form. I feel safe.”

“I want you to feel safe with me.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “Yes and no,” she pointed out, proving to him that she was every bit as shrewd and intelligent as he’d suspected. “You like me a little off balance with you. I get the feeling that tangling with you is a bit like trying to play with fire.” The pulse in the side of her neck fluttered. “I don’t want to get burned.”

He flashed a predatory smile at her. “Only you can decide if it is worthwhile to give yourself into my care. Only you can decide to trust me with your heart, Solange.”

She took a bite of apple, her expression thoughtful. “If we do this, Dominic—”

“When,” he corrected. “When we do this. Because,
kessake
, there is no question that you belong to me. You will come to accept me eventually.” She was so close. He could feel her reaching for him in her mind, wanting to give herself to him, but fear of betrayal held her paralyzed. He loved that she was working it out, analyzing each step cautiously, just as her cat would. Her reticence endeared her to him even more.

She took a breath. “
When
we do this, we’ll have a future. What does that mean to you?”

“I would bind you to me, of course,” he said, locking his gaze with hers so she was unable to look away.

She swallowed almost convulsively. “Okay, I get that. But then what?”

“I will take your blood—and your body—and make you wholly mine.” There was no compromise in his voice, or in his eyes.

Her breasts heaved as she drew in a ragged breath. She put down her fork and once again picked up the crystal flute. “You always make everything sound so simple.”

“It is very simple, Solange. When we are in a battle, you trust me with your life, as I do you. Here, when we are alone, you need to give me that same trust. I already have your complete honesty, and you are more loyal than anyone I have ever known. I give those same things back to you at all times.”

She moistened her lips again. “I trust you,” she said. There was hesitation in her voice.

He smiled at her. “You are beginning to trust me, and I find that an amazing gift. I thank you for your belief in me. You sit there wearing a dress I made for you because you want to please me. And you do, very, very much.”

She flushed a soft pink, the color enhancing the green of her eyes. “Dominic, what about after? Juliette was converted. MaryAnn, too. Are all lifemates converted?”

“As a rule, but it is a choice. If you chose not to, you would grow old and die, and then, of course, I would choose to age and die when you left this life for the next.”

The flame in the candle leapt, throwing a dark shadow across the wall. Dominic was on his feet immediately. No enemy could penetrate his safeguards. He knew that. Yet . . . He turned slowly, tracking the dark shadow.

I caught sight of him for just a moment. He blends into the dark when he ceases all movement.

Solange pulled the dress from over her head and laid it carefully over the back of her chair as if it was precious to her. There was no panic in her movements, and he wanted to smile at her. She was the right woman for him, no question about it. All business. Everything else set aside, all doubts and fears gone so that his strong warrior went back-to-back with him against any adversary.

Vampire? Jaguar?
He couldn’t scent an enemy, but every instinct told him they were no longer alone.

I don’t think so. My jaguar may be of more use.

She shifted without asking him if she should, trusting her own instincts as she always had in battle. In spite of the danger, he felt the first whisper of unease at the idea of losing her.
She
had been the one to worry about what would happen should something happen to him, but in that oddest of moments, he knew he wouldn’t want to face life without Solange. Without her fierce fighting spirit and the sensual, shy woman he was coming to know.

Let me in front of you.

Every muscle in his belly tied itself into a tight knot of protest. He didn’t know what they were dealing with. She hadn’t really asked him, so much as told him she needed to get closer and the warrior said yes while the man said no. He found he was at war with his own instincts.

My cat is raging already. She knows we have company.

She made no demands, simply waited. Dominic couldn’t bring himself to step behind the large animal, but he glided to the side of her. She crouched low and raised her muzzle.

He likes the dark. Light the room.

Dominic did so without hesitation and caught a glimpse of something skittering across the walls into the crack of the nearest pool, where the water streamed in. He couldn’t identify it, but now that he was merged with Solange, his senses tuned differently and he could “feel” the creature. He didn’t have the same sense of it as Solange. She and the cat were one and the same, and she could make sense of the pattern in the jaguar’s mind.

I’ve never encountered anything like it.

Tell me.

It seems very small, much like a house cat, but shadowy, as if it might not be all substance. It came in through the water, so it swims.

He had seen four distinct legs, so it was an animal, or at least had been.
Claws? Webbed feet perhaps?

Dominic inhaled sharply and noted the jaguar relied on her hearing and sight. There was little scent to betray the creature, so he couldn’t identify it that way.

Maybe both. It moved into the dark before I could really get a sense of it. I heard fur slide along the wall of the cave. A whisper only,
she informed him.

Is it hunting us?

It is hunting something. I don’t scent fear. Do you?

He didn’t. Now that he knew where the creature was hiding, he dissolved into vapor, streaking across the room to pour into the crack. A howl filled the cavern, and the thing launched itself into the center of the room, clearing a good twenty feet, growing in size as it soared through the air, claws outstretched, aiming for the jaguar’s eyes.

Solange twisted away at the last second, and the claws raked deep furrows across her neck and down her side as it dropped to the floor. Dominic, merged as he was with Solange, felt the burst of raw, burning pain as the shadow cat attacked. She whipped around and slashed at the intruder. Her huge paw went right through the insubstantial creature. It took a second bound and scurried into the shadows near the boulders and the entrance to the chamber, once more diminished into a small, almost house cat size.