Carpathian 10 - Dark Symphony

inside his coat and turned it over so that the paper rustled with invitation. "Would you like me to open it?"
    "Have you looked into Paul's mind, Byron?" Her voice was suddenly tight. She caught at him. "Did he try to kill me? I love Paul. I'm not certain I can bear his wanting to murder me.
    Or worse. If he wanted to harm Nonno."
    For a moment, a black violence swirled in his belly, a reaction to her pain. His hand caught her chin. "I would take you away from this place and these people. We would love and live and never look back if you simply said the word to me."
    She heard the words in her head. Felt them in her soul. Byron was magical to her. If she was asked to explain it, she couldn't, but she longed to be with him. Not for a few stolen moments but always. In his arms. Listening to his voice. Laughing at his antics. His sense of humor appealed to her. He appealed to her on every level.
    "This is my home." There was a trace of regret in her voice. "I love my family. I worked hard for my career. Would you be happy here, with me?"
    His gut lurched. The doubt in her tone had him tossing the package aside and pulling her right out of the chair and into his arms. "I can be happy anywhere, Antonietta, as long as I am with you." He pulled her to her feet, into his arms.
    "I don't know what you are, do I?"
    "Does it matter? Will you love me anyway? Can you? Does it matter that I am not Jaguar? Or human? Can you share my mind and know I am of the earth, a Carpathian male, with honor and integrity? Can you not see what I stand for?" His fingertips brushed her face, down her arms to slide up inside her white lace blouse. Her skin was warm and inviting. A lush temptation far too exotic for him to ignore. He cupped her breast, took the weight in his palm, his thumb sliding in a caress over her nipple, Celt, a little privacy would be nice.
    The borzoi shifted positions, padding a few feet away and dropping down to curl up, no doubt thinking him crazy.
    "Can anyone see us?" Antonietta's knees were already weak with desire. Her body flooded with hot need. How could she possibly want him, no need him, so quickly? So completely? It was actually frightening to think she could be so out of control at a mere touch.
    So out of character for someone who thought through her every move and planned everything down to the smallest detail.
    "Does it matter?" He demanded, "Tell me, Antonietta, will you want me if I am not what you expected?"
    She pushed her breast deeper into his palm, savoring the way her entire body responded to the friction. Behind her dark glasses, her lashes drifted down. "You aren't at all what I expected. This terrible hunger I have for you isn't at all what I expected. You make me feel desperate."
    "I am feeling a bit desperate myself."
    "You're distracting me from the package."
    "We would not want to forget the package." He leaned down to brush a kiss on the top of her head. His fingers massaged her body. "I cannot take my hands off of you. I am trying. But
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    Dark Symphony
    Page 103 of 188
    it is not working."
    Antonietta found it fascinating the way her body tightened and clenched in reaction to the stroking caress of his fingers. She wanted him right there. Right at that moment, in the solarium with its glass walls and hanging plants. With the waterfall in the background and her body wrapped around his.
    "You are not helping," he said, confirming he could easily read her mind.
    "Someone could see us, Byron, walk right in, couldn't they?" The package was beginning to be a distant memory. She should have been embarrassed that he could read her mind, read her every erotic thought, but she was grateful. She wanted him to take her, wanted to feel his body plunging deep and hard inside of hers.
    He replaced his hand with his mouth. Antonietta cried out with the wave of sensations swamping her. Her arms circled his head to cradle him to her breast. Ravenous hunger rose to swamp her. Her legs shook.
    "Byron? What's happening to me? I'm not like this." She was always cool and confident and in control in her dealings with lovers. She was never a flame burning with the raw force of a firestorm. Uncaring where she was. Whether someone might see her. She was a private person. Sex was never intense and hungry. The most