Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

Adalasia rubbed her temples with her free hand. “Let me think about it, Sandu. This has been a very difficult evening to try to take in so much information.”

“It isn’t the information you need to comprehend, Adalasia,” he said gently. “It’s your feelings. Whether or not you can fully commit to me. All along, that has been made more difficult because I withheld important issues from you, and you felt you didn’t have a partner.”

He stroked a caress down the back of her head, fingers lingering in her hair. “Liona approved our relationship. Even I could see that when the roses and vines displayed their vivid colors. She knows you and I belong together.” His voice was soft, and she was so susceptible to it.

Rain began to fall in a steady rhythm, sounding musical on the stone roof of the cottage. Sandu’s black eyes seemed to darken even more. “Adalasia. Ewal emninumam. Come to me all the way. Give yourself into my keeping.” His voice was low. Mesmerizing. Seductive.

He was temptation and sin. She knew she wanted him from the first moment she had ever heard the sound of his voice. From the moment she entered his mind and formed such an intimate connection with him. From the moment she saw him, that masculine body that was perfection to her.

Her nod was barely perceptible, but she knew he saw it because those embers smoldering in his eyes suddenly leapt, just for one moment, into red flames. Sparks flew along her nerve endings as she reached slowly for the pearl buttons on the formfitting blouse she wore. Her gaze on his, she slipped each one from the buttonhole and pulled the material from her body. Next, she removed the velvet pouch that lay next to her heart, her palm automatically concealing the seventy-ninth card, sliding it easily into the deck, where it was welcomed. She wrapped the pouch with her blouse and set it on the end table, turning to face him in her simple blue bra and jeans.

It was a huge leap of faith to reveal the last card to Sandu, to let him know she carried it at all times on her person, right next to her heart. Now, she was trying to tell Sandu she was giving him her heart. That he was hers. She trusted him with who she really was. Not the shell she showed to the outside world but the real Adalasia Ravasio.

Pushing down shyness, when she’d never been shy, she reached behind to unhook the bra. She wasn’t a small girl. She had curves. She was fit—had to be—but she had curves.

“My woman. So beautiful.” He murmured his admiration softly. “I have never seen anyone more beautiful, and inside, the woman you are, even more beautiful, more pleasing to me.”

“I’m nervous. I want this. I want you, but I’m nervous. I don’t know what to do.” She didn’t. She wanted him to take over.

He seemed to know what she wanted, because she didn’t have to remove her jeans—he did it for her, reaching across the bed, not using Carpathian skills but his own hands to pull down the zipper and slide the denim and her panties from her hips and legs. He tossed them aside and then he was kissing her. The room spun. She caught fire. Tension coiled low, a fist of dark need that grew hotter and tighter. Flames poured down her throat and through her veins. Rushed through her nerve endings and set her on fire. She wanted him until she couldn’t breathe without him. Skin to skin. She had to touch him. Feel him against her. He had to feel the way she did. Desperate and hungry for him. Craving him.

His mouth left hers and she felt bereft. But his hands were on her skin, stroking caresses over her breasts, his thumbs moving in time to the rhythm of the rain—at first. He kissed his way to her throat and then her neck. Down to the curve of her breasts. Dio, the heat of his mouth as he pulled her right breast deep and stroked with his fingers her left. His tongue did something delicious and sinful. She felt the blood pounding through her sex, hammering in her clit. Her craving grew as his scent enveloped her.

His mouth wandered higher up the curve of her breast over the beat of her heart, lingered there, his lips pressing, kissing there. Her sex clenched. Her fingers fisted in his hair, wanting to keep him there. Her heart called to him. Sandu. She moaned his name. Frantic now. In her mind, she found his cock and stroked a caress. She wanted him to feel the same desperation she did.

His teeth sank deep, and the pain sent fiery shock waves straight to her feminine channel. That dark fist of lust wound even tighter. She felt a warm, welcoming slickness increase, the need for him heightened into more as the bite of pain turned to pleasure. She cradled his head, fingers deep in his hair, watching him take her blood. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen—or felt. She couldn’t stop her hips from moving restlessly, an urgent reminder of her need. One leg slid along his thigh, over and over, trying to find a way to move the immovable. He finally lifted his head, his eyes staring down into hers.