“Just accept them and let them go.”
She tried. Her stomach roiled. She could make out something blurry in the distance. Byron was focusing on something. She strained backward, pressing against him. But she forced her eyes to stay open. She wasn’t certain it was necessary to do so, she could tell the vision came from him, not her, but she wanted to feel as if she were truly seeing. The edges began to clear. Her stomach lurched again. Everything tilted and spun.
“This isn’t right. I don’t think I’m doing it right. Everything is moving and spinning so fast.”
“Hold on tight to my hands. Anchor yourself. It is not your eyes, Antonietta. They are mine. You do not need your fingertips to tell your brain what you are seeing.”
Something dark danced on the walls. She ducked to avoid it.
“A shadow, the firelight reflected on the wall. You can put your hand through a shadow. Concentrate. I am going to narrow our vision to see one thing. Celt is lying peacefully beside your bed. I want you to see him.”
Antonietta fought a very real case of vertigo. She turned her head, and objects burst at her much like rockets. She cried out. “It isn’t working.” She pressed her hand hard against her churning stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”
“No you are not. We can stop if you want.” His hands held hers tightly.
“Just look at Celt. Only Celt.” She was a Scarletti. Her family never backed away from a challenge. “I can do it.”
She focused on the distant, blurry object. The borzoi lifted his head, and everything dipped and spun. She refused to look away. The image began to clear. Celt. Sprawled next to her bed. He was enormous, black, a noble head. She had no way of judging distances. Antonietta flung out her hand, thinking him close enough to touch.
“He is across the room.”
“He’s beautiful. I want to see your face. Show me your face.”
He used the small mirror in the vanity, staring at his own face. Her hands went to test for herself, moving over his face, mapping familiar territory. He was far too handsome, his eyes mesmerizing, his mouth sinfully kissable, his jaw strong. She loved his hair, even pulled back the way it was and secured at the nape of his neck.
They examined a variety of objects in her room from her four-poster bed to her stained glass windows. “I do not want you to get tired. I want you to see yourself.”
Antonietta shook her head. Byron was behind her, his body pressed very close to hers. She could barely breathe with wanting him. His mind was fully merged within hers, and the sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep her hands off him. Especially after seeing his face. And the idea of seeing herself visually was disturbing. Although she had to admit to curiosity.
“Do you know what a mirror is?” Byron persisted. “Do you recall from the days of your childhood? You can see your own reflection. I want you to look at yourself.”
Her mouth went dry. “I’d rather not.”
The visual belonged to Byron. Antonietta experienced her sexual reactions from touch, but he had all of his senses. He wanted her to feel what he felt simply by looking at her body. “Look at yourself, Antonietta. Do not fear who you are.”
“I’m afraid. Whatever I see will be with me for the rest of my life.”
“Trust me. Trust in the way I see you.”
She reluctantly lifted her head and stared into the full-length mirror. A stranger stared back at her. Her hair was wild, cascading around her, shiny and black. Flickering lights from the fire put a glossy sheen in it. Her eyes were huge and black. She could see tiny white scars near the corners of her eyes when she stared long and hard. Her mouth was wide and generous, curving upward at the corners. Her skin seemed flawless, glowing even. She had a woman’s voluptuous body.
Antonietta reached a shaking hand toward her reflected image. Then reached up and felt her own face in wonder. She ran her fingertips over her face in an attempt to recognize her own features. She reached out again toward the mirror, touched the smooth, hard glass. She felt her own hair. “No one is that beautiful. I don’t look like that. That can’t be me.”
“That is how you look to me.” His voice was soft in her ear.
As deeply merged as they were, she felt his sexual excitement. The need to see her like this. He was aroused at the thought of her naked in front of the mirror. There was a heady power in the ability to make him want her so much. She was unbearably aroused already; to bring him to the same fever pitch was enthralling.
“Take off your blouse, Antonietta. See yourself the way I see you.” He was temptation itself. The devil with his arms around her. She could see him in the mirror, his black hair shining in the firelight, his features hard and angular. His eyes burned over her reflection, stamped with possession and promise.
Antonietta caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head and for a moment, the image in front of her wavered. She felt Byron’s breath leave his body. Her full breasts were encased in lace. It was an odd thing to be looking at herself, seeing and feeling through the eyes of a man. He was violently aroused. She could feel the thick length of him pressed hard into her buttocks.
“Take off your bra.”
She wanted to take it off. She wanted him to want her this way. She wanted to see him aroused, his features harsh with need and implacable resolve. Her hands went to the front clasp, her palms brushing her nipples. Lightning danced through her bloodstream at that small touch. Lace fell away. Her breasts jutted out, high and firm and tempting. Byron’s hands came up under hers, pulled her hands to her aching flesh.
“Feel how soft you are. Feel what I feel when I touch you. This is you, Antonietta. Beautiful. Perfect. Mine.” Her hands curved around her soft breasts, his hands holding her fingers in place. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever done.
Keeping her eyes on her reflection in the mirror, she turned her head slightly to send her long, unbound hair cascading around her bare shoulders. Byron’s hands gently began to knead her breasts, using her fingers. His thumb teased and stroked her nipples into hard peaks of blatant desire. Silky hair only heightened the effect on her skin. She couldn’t stop the little moan that escaped from her throat.
Byron rubbed his shadowed jaw against her neck. “Tell me you are not beautiful. You even feel that way to me.” His hands left hers to drop lower to the waistband of her slacks. He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the mirror.
Antonietta watched her own hands on her breasts, watched his hands unfasten her slacks and slowly peel them from her body. He hooked her thong at the same time, stripping it away to leave her bare. She stepped out of her clothes and just looked in wonder at her legs, the curve of her hips. It didn’t seem possible that that woman in the reflection could be her.
Byron stood behind her, fully clothed, his hands shaping and caressing the curve of her buttocks. His every touch sent waves of desire flooding her until she squirmed with need. She watched his hands move around her thighs, his long fingers stroking so close to that small triangle. Her muscles clenched, her knees went weak. His teeth nibbled on her shoulder, went to her neck. His tongue tasted her frantic pulse, swirled and glided. All the while his eyes were open. Watching her. Allowing her to watch.
“I am going to move around you. For a moment your vision will blur, but then my memories will be your memories, and you will see us together.” His hands slid up her body to once more cup her breasts.
“Take your clothes off, Byron. I want to see you.” She sounded breathless even to her own ears.
“I do not see me in quite the way I would want you to see me.” There was a trace of self-mockery in his tone, but right there, in front of the mirror with her watching, he shed his clothes in the manner of his people.
Antonietta gasped. “How did you do that?”
“I am Carpathian. Clothes are fashioned from natural fibers or simply illusion, whichever is easiest.”
He tried to look at himself object
ively, to see his body the way a woman might see it and be pleased. His muscles were subtle but defined. His shoulders broad, hips narrow. His erection was large and thick and eager to find its way deep inside of her. There was a small silence while he waited for her response. When it came, he was unprepared for it. The flood of sexual excitement. The pouring of heat into her body, into her mind. The pleasure at seeing his naked body.
He stepped to her side, careful to keep looking at his own reflection. His fingers were long, the hands of an artist. He never noticed it before, but against her skin, he could see the shape and size.
“You’re beautiful, Byron.” She watched her arm go up, her fingers twisting in his long, black hair. “I can’t believe I’m really seeing us. I don’t want it to end yet.”
“I’m moving around in front of you. Keep your eyes on the mirror and your mind firmly merged with mine. Expect the blurring and distortion, but it will not last.” He moved around in front of her, watching himself over his shoulder. He saw the firm muscle of his buttocks flex and contract, felt her surge of damp heat and heightened pleasure. His gaze dropped to her breasts.
Antonietta swayed, closed her eyes, but she couldn’t block out the strange, dizzy feeling assaulting her. Shadows and edges blended. She wanted to cry out a protest. His tongue lapped at her nipple. Once. Twice. He drew her breast into his mouth, suckling strongly, teasing her nipple with his tongue. Her body nearly convulsed, and she wrapped her arms around his head and stared at the gray and black shadows in the mirrors while wave after wave of sensation swamped her.
She saw them together the images so clear in his mind. Byron feeding at her breast. Devouring her body Ravenous for her and making no apologies. His hands moved over her, his fingers splayed wide to take in every bit of skin he could find. He stroked and caressed her, his hands cupping her breasts, then her buttocks, then gliding over her stomach to nestle his fingers in the tight, black curls.
“I don’t care if I am a cat in heat,” she said, widening her stance for him in invitation.
He spent time lavishing attention on her breasts while liquid heat trickled on the inside of her thigh. Until she was hot and wet and couldn’t stop moving her hips in sheer frustration. When his mouth left her breast, she cried out a protest, but then watched, fascinated, as his mouth drifted, feathered down her body to her waist, lower still to her navel. He stayed there a few moments, his tongue lapping gently, his hand cupping the heat between her thighs.
“I can hardly breathe.” She wanted him so much. Her hands moved constantly, finding every defined muscle, wanting to touch him even while her mind saw them together. “I’m burning up, Byron.”
She watched as he knelt in front of her and without haste, wrapped his arms around her hips, forcing her body to him. Her mind nearly exploded with scent and taste and sensation rocketing through their merged senses, their merged brains. She heard her own small scream as his tongue stabbed deep, pushed inside of her.
Antonietta caught two fistfuls of hair, held him to her, pushed her hips into him, tears running down her face. Their shared intimacy amplified her sexual need tenfold. She felt his heavy fullness. The gathering pressure that threatened to blow the top of his head off. She felt his possessive nature. The implacable resolve to hold her to him, to bind her for all eternity. Two halves of the same whole. His hunger for her. His need of her. His need to convert her, fully bring her over.
She tried to hold on to that strange thought, but her body imploded, a vicious, wild orgasm that took her into another dimension. Her vision was gone as he swept her into his arms, carried her across the floor into her bedroom. Antonietta gasped for breath, her muscles convulsing as he thrust into her.
He filled her completely, driving deep, his hands gripping her hips, holding her still while he surged forward relentlessly, mercilessly, demanding she take every inch of him. Skin to skin. Heart to heart. He took her body and gave her his as if he were possessed. Craving her. Never getting enough. As if it could never be enough.
Antonietta didn’t want to relinquish her hold on his mind. He was everywhere, in her, surrounding her, a part of her. When she was alone, in her wildest dreams, with her fingers on the keys of her piano, she allowed the intensity of her passion to pour through her, to envision such a joining between man and woman. Whatever strange needs her body had plagued her with throughout the evening, all the suffering was worth it for the time she spent in his arms.
She clung to him, held on tightly as he surged deep and strong inside of her. She wanted him deeper still where the fierce pressure gathered and built until she was burning, a firestorm she couldn’t control. “Byron.” She whispered his name as her muscles tightened around him, gripped convulsively. As he shuddered with the effort to hang on. One long stroke sent them both careening over the edge.
They clung to one another, fighting for air, fighting to calm their pounding hearts. Byron didn’t move, his body melting into hers. They lay locked together as they were meant to be. Antonietta. My love. I love you very much.
She knew his face now, even more vividly than she had before. Every detail was etched in her memory, both from her fingertips and seeing him through his eyes. His whisper was against her throat. His words found their way straight to her heart. Antonietta feared she was very much in love with her dark poet. She slipped her arms around him, holding him to her, not wanting him ever to leave her. All through the night she held him close. Each time he woke her to make love to her again, she turned to him eagerly. She loved the soft whispers and shared laughter, and she didn’t want their time ever to end.
13
Antonietta woke to the knowledge she was in danger. Tiny beads of sweat formed on her body, her heart pounded in terror. She fumbled at the nightstand for her dark glasses to cover her eyes even as her mind reached for Byron. She found a dark, black void instead of comfort. Her lungs burned for air. Where was he? And what manner of monster prowled just outside her windows, seeking a way in.
Byron. She called his name sharply. Imperiously. Where the hell is my white knight when I’m in danger? Wake up!
Predatory eyes watched her with a single, focused purpose. Antonietta could feel the burning malice in the stare. With a slow, unhurried movement, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Drawing the sheet up to her chin, her hand went out instinctively to the dog. The borzoi remained absolutely silent, but she could feel the tension vibrating in the animal’s body. Celt was on the alert, his posture that of a hunter. It was night, Antonietta didn’t know how she knew, but it was definitely night. Once again she had slept away the day. Something terrible and dangerous prowled outside on her balcony, looking for a way into her home. A dark malevolence poured into her room.
I am with you. Stay connected to Celt. Byron sounded calm.
Something heavy thudded against the stained glass. Pushing relentlessly, steadily, scratching to get in. The dog bounded to the window, a ferocious protector rushing with teeth bared and ready. The breathing coming from behind the thick walls was a terrible thing to hear. It sounded like air rushing through a tunnel. The footfalls should have been silent, but Antonietta could hear the soft padding across the balcony, the nails scraping on her windowsill.
It’s at the window, trying to get in. I can’t hold Celt back. He’s pacing between the windows. I’m afraid, Byron. Antonietta pulled on her robe. She smelled the pungent odor of the large, heavy cat and wanted to gag. It wants me. Not just anyone, but me. I’m not being hysterical. I can feel it reaching for me.
Her body itched beneath the skin, much like it had when she had been so terrified as a child, knowing a bomb was on her parents’ yacht. Her senses sharpened even more. There was clarity in her mind and a tunnel narrowing to take in and amplify every sound. Colors shimmered, reds and yellows, brilliant and vivid and blinding. Antonietta couldn’t shut them out. She was seeing with another part of her, not her eyes, and the colors remained in her mind. The colors took on the blurry but recognizable
form of a large animal. Bright splashes of red at its chest and abdomen, surrounded by shades of orange fading to a perimeter of glowing yellow. She watched a paw print, pale yellow fade to blue and disappear and realized she was seeing body heat. Thermal images as the animal went from window to window, pawing and scratching and digging to get in.
I have it now. Jaguar. Large one. Celt is tracking its movements. Get out of the room. Go downstairs into Franco’s wing and remain with him until I reach you. I am on my way.
Antonietta didn’t need to be told. The sheer malevolence coming from outside the thick walls of the palazzo was alarming. She could feel black hatred. A need to rend and kill. “Celt, come with me.” She yanked open the door.
The cat yowled. A nasty note that climbed to a high-pitched scream of rage. Sensing she was getting away, it slammed its body against the stained glass nearest the door. She heard the terrible thud as the heavy body rammed the glass and lead in a determined effort to gain entrance. There was the ominous sound of something cracking. Celt growled low in his throat. Antonietta heard a crunch as the borzoi closed its great jaws over something she was afraid to identify. She felt, more than heard, the dog shake its head savagely.
Get out of there. He will hold the cat at the window. Close the door behind you.
I won’t leave Celt alone in here. The jaguar is evil. I feel it. She wanted to drag the dog out, but no amount of coaxing or commanding could call him from the window.
Do as I command. Byron used a soft voice, pitched low, one that cut deep into her mind and forced obedience when her entire nature insisted she couldn’t leave her dog behind to face evil.
Byron exploded out of the earth, a black vapor cloud streaming relentlessly through the sky. One part of his mind followed Antonietta’s progress through the palazzo, down the sweeping stairs and through the long rows of rooms toward the wing where Franco and Marita resided. Another part of him stayed connected with Celt. The borzoi locked on to the muzzle of the cat, slashed and crunched and let go, springing back. The jaguar retreated with a hideous screech of pain.
Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS Page 23
