Carpathian 18 - Dark Possesion

pressing her mouth to his to see if rockets went off again. Because she sure didn't want to think about being alone when the sun came up, and he was going to point that out any minute.
    He brought her hand to his mouth and nibbled on her fingers, his teeth sending little electrical currents zapping through her bloodstream with each nip. "The dark ages? I thought I had adapted to this century quite well."
    She laughed; she couldn't help it when he sounded so shocked. "I suppose for someone as ancient as you, you have adapted." And maybe it was the truth. He was born into a species and time when males protected and dominated women. He lived in a country where the same rules of society still often held. Of course he would feel he had a right to her if he believed she was his lifemate.
    Husband. She tasted the word, aware of the very breath moving through his lungs. He was too gorgeous for her, too wild and far, far too dominating, but she could dream and she could fantasize. She couldn't imagine really belonging to the man, not like Destiny belonged to Nicolae. But if he kept looking at her with those black, black eyes filled with such raw hunger, she might just forget all of her misgivings and try for one glorious night with him.
    "I just know what is right for my woman, how to protect her as well as please her, and she should have faith enough in me to trust that I will see to all her needs as well as every pleasure she—or I—could imagine."
    His teeth nipped at the sensitive pads of her fingers. It shouldn't have been erotic, but it was. He made everything sound that way, even his ridiculous suggestion of punishment. It was the velvet rasp of his voice, the way he could make it slide over her skin like a caress. If' someone else talked the way he did, she would have laughed, if not aloud, at least to herself, but with Manolito, she was tempted to try some of his more outrageous fantasies.
    "I'm reading your mind," he said softly, "and we need to be concentrating on how to get you out of here."
    "Well, they are just fantasies." She was not going to blush. Being stripped naked and tormented until she begged was frankly as sexy as could be, although the reality might not be the same as the imagination.

    "I can promise you that you will enjoy every moment with me," he assured her, and bit lightly on her finger before sucking it into the warmth of his mouth.
    His tongue teased and danced until she wanted to scream surrender. And he was just kissing her finger. She fanned her face. Maybe she was up for the reality of it after all. "Would you consider terms? Like not ordering me around? I might concede to working on being adventurous."
    "To be adventurous, you have to be willing to surrender yourself into my care," he countered.
    There it was again, that slow, sexy smile that burned through her skin and found hidden wild desires she shouldn't be contemplating with a man who was bent on her utter and complete surrender. "Tempting. But no. I'm not a woman who could ever turn over my life to a complete stranger."
    His chin nuzzled the back of her hand. Her breasts ached, as if his shadowed jaw had brushed her soft skin there. "But surrendering in the bedroom is not the same as surrendering out of it."
    "Is that an option with you?"
    "There is no option. There is only what is. You are my lifemate. We will find a way because that is the way of lifemates." The smile faded from his face. He kissed her knuckles and brought her hand once more over his heart. "You cannot stay here with me, MaryAnn; it is much too dangerous. I cannot tell what is real or illusion, and with our bodies in one world and our spirits in another, we are vulnerable in both places."
    "I don't know how to leave, and I wouldn't if I could. Not without you. How about I forgive you for anything you may have done to me." She looked around at the dull gray of the world. It appeared to be the rain forest, but without the vibrant color and sounds. Water ran out of the rocks and down the slope, but instead of clear or white, it ran in dark streaks.
    "I do not think it is that simple. First I have to figure out what I did to bring me to this place of ghosts and shadows."
    Chapter Six

    Ghosts and shadows. She so didn't like the sound of that. MaryAnn rubbed her chin on the top of her knees.
    There was always an answer; she just had to use her brain.
    Manolito leaned in close—close enough to envelope her in his pure male scent, to warm her body and make her feel