Chapter 8 #3
“Sarika.” Dominic drew her attention with his gentle voice. “It is impossible for a Carpathian lifemate to, in any way, harm his woman. She is his world. He protects her at all costs and sees to her happiness. She is his first priority.”
She pounced on that. “So if Tomas is seeing to my happiness, then he will escort me to the river and see to it that I get safely on a boat so I can leave this place. That’s what would make me happy.” There was pure challenge and triumph in the look she shot Tomas.
His answer was to wrap his arm around her and pull her close to the heat of his body.
He felt rock solid. Immovable. He also felt like a tower of strength.
It was strange how her body reacted to him when her brain was nearly paralyzed with fear.
She felt the burn of tears behind her eyes, and she stiffened, one hand going to his rib cage to push him away.
She could not break down in front of these men.
Tomas didn’t so much as rock back. She could feel them all staring at her. She decided her only out was to test him. “I have to go into the other room for some alone time. I really, really need you to let me do that.”
His palm cupped the side of her face gently.
Too gently. The first tear spilled over before she could stop it.
Instantly, he swung his body completely in front of hers, blocking the sight of her from the others as if he knew she would despise them seeing her cry.
One thumb slid over her cheekbone, erasing the wet mark.
“If you need to lie down for a little while, you should do that. I can feel how tired you are.” Don’t be distressed.
We’ll work this out the way we’ve been doing for years.
His lips brushed the top of her head, and he walked with her, using his body as a shield to keep the others from seeing her face.
“Did you know when we wrote letters that you were connected to me?” She whispered the question because suddenly his answer was very important. Had she been lured to the rainforest? Had Luiz conspired against her?
You insist on thinking the worst of me, little cousin. If Tomas makes you miserable or ever raises his hand to you, I will kill him. It wouldn’t be easy, and his brothers would retaliate, but I would never allow my family—and that’s who you are to me—to be abused in any way.
She’d gotten to Luiz. Gotten under his skin. At least she meant something to him. She didn’t understand why he hadn’t come to her defense and stopped whatever Tomas had done before she was bound to him, but at least now, she knew she mattered to Luiz.
“I didn’t know we had a connection,” Tomas answered her question. “Having said that, the longer we wrote to each other, the more I felt a connection. I was a hunter incapable of emotion, yet I looked forward to every single letter.”
He took her elbow and gently steered her through Luiz’s open floor plan to the bedroom behind the screen. The hammock looked inviting. She suddenly needed to lie down more than anything. She was exhausted.
Sarika sank down onto the hammock, and Tomas crouched in front of her, lifting her right foot to remove her shoe. Once he’d pulled off the right shoe and sock, he massaged her foot, his strong fingers bringing instant relief to her sore muscles.
“I have never been a man to be jealous. It is a very unseemly emotion and quite an ugly trait in a man.”
Her gaze flew to his face. He raised his eyes to hers as he placed her foot on the floor and lifted her left foot to remove the shoe and sock.
There was no levity on his face. None. What he was saying meant something.
Was important. She got the impression it was difficult for him to say this to her, and that both intrigued her and made her like him more.
Admitting a character trait in himself he didn’t like made him appear vulnerable to her.
“I am struggling with new emotions. They come in waves and are difficult to process when it comes to my feelings for you. I did not expect them to be so strong. And they are, Sarika. Stronger than anything I’ve ever felt.
I’m going to make mistakes with you because this is all new to me.
I have never felt these emotions for a woman, not in all the centuries of my existence. ”
Her heart skipped a beat. He was crouched at her feet, his strong fingers massaging aching, tired muscles while he made his confession. It had to be said; she thought him devastatingly beautiful.
“Part of the problem is that we aren’t settled yet. I’m intelligent enough to know that and to know the fault lies with me. Unfortunately, I am a very dangerous man.”
He didn’t have to spell that out for her; she knew.
Anyone looking at him knew. She had a difficult time equating this man with the letters he’d written to her.
She understood why there were no photographs of him.
Aside from the years he’d lived, if anyone saw his picture, they would question what they knew of T. Smolnycki Jr.
“I know I have no right to ask favors of you, not after claiming you without your consent, but perhaps our past interactions might earn me one.” His hand slipped into her hair, fingers caressing her scalp.
“Tell me what you need from me.” She had no idea why she’d blurted that out. She was exhausted. Scared. Angry. Holding back the need to dissolve into a little puddle of self-pity. Still, her heart reacted to his confession.
He gave her that brief smile. This time it lit up his eyes. Only a small flash, but it was there. “You have a tremendous amount of compassion in you. You’re soft inside, sivamet. That will be something I’ll bend over backward to protect.”
She knew he was right. She felt emotions intensely.
She had from the time she was a child. His fingers in her hair wreaked havoc with her senses.
She was too tired to fight her body’s reaction to him.
She was going to crash hard. She knew she was, and she just didn’t care.
She did care about what he needed from her.
“Say it,” she encouraged. “I’m not making promises, but I’ll try to help you.”
“I will warn you it is an unreasonable request, and I’m well aware of that fact.”
He was stalling. This confident, bordering-on-arrogant man was stalling, reluctant to tell her what his unreasonable request was. She could tell it meant something to him.
He straightened in one graceful move, a fluid, easy movement.
Muscles rippled beneath his shirt, fascinating her.
He very carefully removed the pack she still had around her neck and tossed it to the little table close to the hammock before shimmering nearly transparent and then materializing completely in the middle of the woven threads.
Easily, he caught her around the waist and eased her body beside his.
She should have fought that far-too-intimate position, but she was just too tired. Instead, she cuddled up to his warmth, and when he took her wrist to draw her arm across his waist, she let him.
“I would very much like you to help me out by not speaking mind to mind to Luiz, or any other man, without inviting me into the conversation.”
She closed her eyes against the ominous burning behind her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. Tears were useless, and she was so exhausted she nearly forgot what she wanted to sob her heart out over.
“I don’t really understand why it would bother you that Luiz talks to me. He is my cousin. Believe me, I know when a man is interested, and he most certainly is not.”
“That doesn’t matter. I need your help to deal with this while I’m learning to handle the emotions.”
As if he knew her head felt like it was stuck in a vise, he began a slow massage of her scalp. She had to admit that felt nice.
“I’m not telepathic.” It didn’t matter that Luiz had said she was. She had never spoken mind to mind to anyone before her cousin. She tipped her head to look at Tomas. “I would help you if I could, but Luiz bridges the gap between us. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to invite you in.”
“It is easy enough to establish a connection between us.”
She nearly came off the hammock, but one arm locked around her waist as if he knew she would attempt to bolt.
“Absolutely not if your solution is the same as Luiz’s.
I’m not okay with any of this. It’s crazy.
The entire lifemate thing. It isn’t just crazy, it’s scary and wrong.
I don’t like anyone taking away my rights as a human being.
Or as a woman. You don’t get to make my decisions or tell me what to do. ”
He waited, unmoving, not responding until she lay back against him and relaxed. His fingers settled on her scalp, and he began that slow massage that was taking away the headache from hell.
“I would like to promise you that I would not make decisions for you, or that I wouldn’t tell you what to do.
For instance, I told you I wouldn’t enter your mind, but your head is hurting.
I can easily take that away. I need to take the pain away.
You’re my lifemate, and that means I see to your care.
I’ve held off in order to get your consent, but I know, if you do not give it to me, I will still remove the headache. ”
As confessions went, it was straightforward.
He was being honest with her. She didn’t like what he said, and yet she did.
She didn’t know if she was confused and conflicted because she was too tired and couldn’t think logically or because her head pounded and she feared she might start throwing up.
Maybe that would send Tomas packing. A vomiting lifemate. Lovely.
“Woman, you’re too much sometimes.” There was definite amusement in his voice. “I don’t have to read your mind to know your thoughts. When you’re tired, you broadcast fairly loudly, at least to me. I would like your permission to take away the pain in your head.”
What was the use of saying no when he’d already informed her he would simply do it anyway? And it would be wonderful if the migraine was gone. Sometimes they lasted for days.
“Have at it. Both of your brothers called me sisarke. What does it mean?”
“It is a term of endearment meant only for family. It means little sister. The three of us always wanted to have that. You are already in their hearts and minds. They consider you family and hope that one day you will feel the same about them.”
That felt nice, to be thought of as family by his brothers. She knew she couldn’t get complacent, but she was exhausted, and she was willing to take anything good at this point.
She felt warmth moving through her head. Weirdly, it felt good. And just like that, the pain vanished. It was completely gone.
Sarika closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You do have your uses.” She’d give him that. No meds, the migraine was gone, and the relief was tremendous.
His hand went to the nape of her neck, and he began a slow massage of her shoulders and neck, helping to ease the tension from her.
Her exhaustion settled around her like a heavy blanket.
She felt the weight of it, the physical and emotional toll on her.
As a child, she had never been in the best of health.
Her adoptive parents had worried far too much about her, but she refused to allow anything to slow her down.
She went after the education she wanted and went from country to country interning in as many places as possible in order to learn as much as she could to become better at taking care of the animals and their habitats.
“I’m going to have to fight with you later, Tomas. Right now, I just want to sleep,” she confessed.
“Good plan, sivamet.”
She hadn’t asked what that meant for a reason.
Whenever he called her that, his voice softened.
The velvet deepened, stroked over her, got inside where she didn’t want it.
She didn’t want T. Smolnycki Jr. inside her anywhere.
Not her head, not her body. Still, she turned into his warmth, wrapped one arm around his rock-hard abs and drifted off.