Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [50]
Her eyebrow went up, and a small dimple appeared in her right cheek. He couldn’t help brushing his thumb across that little dent. Her breath caught in her throat.
“So it’s real.”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant; he knew. He nodded his head, holding on to her gaze, unwilling to let this moment between them slip away. “I didn’t think it was possible for me after all this time.” That too was a Stefan Prakenskii truth.
His heart clenched unexpectedly. Never in a million years had he thought it possible to feel the way he was. The euphoria should have gone away. The need inside him should have dissipated, not grown—and it was still growing. Being with her was like being caught in a dream world, a wild, impossible fantasy.
“What are we going to do, Thomas? Because this can’t happen.”
The little hitch in her voice, that innocent trust in him, the belief in her eyes that he was a good man, shook him as nothing else could have. She looked at him as if he could find a way to save them. There it was again, the need to be her white knight. His armor was tarnished a long time ago and he acknowledged to himself that he had no idea what he was going to do about their situation, but he wouldn’t walk away from her.
His fingers curled around the nape of her neck and he pulled her another step closer. Thomas Vincent was long gone and Stefan Prakenskii was not about to give up this woman, not here, not now.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
She blinked rapidly. Those long feathery lashes knotted his gut and tightened his groin. His physical reaction to her remained terrifying and exhilarating, even stronger than the night before. This woman had a hold on him that was unbreakable. He was already lost, craving the genuine emotions she brought out in him. She opened floodgates. His needs poured out of him around her.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Her voice was no more than a soft whisper, a caress that teased his cock into aching thickness.
“No.” He knew better. He knew he’d be damned for all time. “But I’m going to kiss you anyway.”
“It might be awful,” she pointed out with a brief flare of optimism.
He had to smile. “Perhaps. We can only hope.”
There was a small moment of hesitation. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, betraying her nerves. She nodded slowly, knowing just as he did, that it was a very bad idea. “Okay then.”
He stared into her eyes for a long time. Forever would never be long enough for him to live there. Right there in her eyes. He saw inside of her, into something so beautiful it made his heart ache. She didn’t move, didn’t pull away, just absorbed him in the same way he needed to absorb her.
He was in no hurry. Craving rose like the sun, hot and bright and shocking. He wanted to savor this moment. Her acceptance of him. He felt her trembling—or maybe that was him. The great Stefan Prekenskii, seducer of women, trembling, needing.
Her tongue touched her bottom lip, her breasts rose and fell beneath that thin tee. Inexorably, he drew her another step closer to the heat of his body. She blinked, but didn’t look away. Her scent enveloped him. The faint aroma, fresh and elusive, was a fragrance he expected he might encounter on an island paradise. Her hair fell over his arm, soft and unbelievably silky. Every detail burned into his mind, the individual strands that brushed his face as he bent slowly toward her. The flutter of those feathery lashes, her lips parting, the swift inhale.
His mouth settled on hers, the softest of touches. A slight brush only, just to savor that first feel of how soft her lips were—to test the strong magnetic pull between them. He should have known better—should have known it would never end there. He should have heeded all the warning signs—and there had been many. In one moment of honest clarity, he had known but it didn’t matter. He wanted this and, once he’d touched her, there was no way to stop. Both of them were falling and it was too late to save them now that they’d made that first slight contact.
He pulled her across that