“You are my soulmate. If I can’t trust you, then I can’t trust anyone.”
His statement made me feel about two inches tall. I hadn’t trusted him when it was important. “I thought you stayed alive all these years by making good decisions,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
He watched me. “I don’t think you realize exactly what you mean to me.”
I focused on Andre, my mind going silent.
“When I met you, you were—and still are—the most frustrating girl I ever met. No one talked to me the way you did. At least, not if they valued their lives.”
I knew it! No one had ever told Andre to shove it. They’d all been feeding his ego.
Andre gave me a whisper of a smile. “I couldn’t believe you had the audacity to act that way around me. But even less believable to me was that I enjoyed it.
“Being around you . . . it was like regaining a part of me I never knew I lost. Maybe that was simply because we were soulmates, or maybe it was just your refreshing personality—which, when it comes to women, I have to admit I have undervalued over the centuries.”
“Damn straight,” I said, folding my arms. “Us women have had to deal with men being visual learners for quite some time.”
Andre’s smile deepened. “Of course you don’t appreciate that aspect of learning at all.”
I blushed. He had me there; he could hear my heart pound away anytime he so much as gave me a steamy look.
His face got serious. “The evening of my birthday—when Theodore raised that gun and aimed right at you—all I could think was that the one person who’d made me feel again, the one person I’d already knew I couldn’t lose, would be snuffed from existence.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “That was all that went through my mind. I wouldn’t even say it was that thought out. After that, I didn’t feel anything but anger until I picked you up from the stairs and carried you outside.”
I could still see that Andre in my mind’s eye—the rough way he’d lifted me into his arms and his complete disregard for Caleb.
The Andre in front of me furrowed his brow, his eyes sad. “But once I could feel again . . . the way you looked at me . . .” Andre dragged his gaze from mine. “I realized I’d done something fundamentally and irreversibly wrong. Something that even with all my money and power, I couldn’t fix.
“I knew the moment you left my arms to run back into the burning building that I’d lost you. Either you’d die inside or you’d never want to see me again.”
He worked his jaw. “And I was too much of a coward to go after you. I was too afraid I’d die. It was only later that I realized I’d rather die along with you than be separated from you.”
He stopped talking, and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know he felt that way. “Can you forgive me?” He said it so low and his voice was so rough that I almost didn’t hear him at all. By the uncomfortable way the words fell from his lips, I was willing to bet serious money that Andre hadn’t said that line in centuries.
“You’ve forgotten something really important,” I said. “I am your soulmate as well. Even if I wanted to stay mad at you or stay away from you—and I tried—I can’t. Sorry Andre, but you’re stuck with me.”
***
Suddenly his lips pressed hot and fervent along my own. I gasped into his mouth, my skin instantly feeling feverish. Andre stretched out over me, the sinewy bulges of muscle along his arms standing out as he held himself up.
He pushed away from me to drink me in. “I am so glad you feel the way you do because staying away from you for two months almost killed me.”
“You and me both,” I said under my breath.
I ran my hands down his chest. Beneath the thin fabric of Andre’s shirt, his muscles tensed. All that is on God’s green earth, this man should need a permit to feel this good.
The siren within me began to rise and I pushed her back down. I was so not going to cut this short because she decided to crash the party.
Andre lowered himself so that our bodies were flush with one another and kissed me again. I shivered at the sensation of having him so close.
One of his hands skimmed up the side of my torso, brushing against my breast as he did so. His other arm was propped up on his elbow, his hand combing back the hair that surrounded my face.
He ran his free hand down my face. “It goes without saying that you are the loveliest creature in existence.” His gaze filled with longing. “But even if you weren’t, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful girl in all my years.”
The heat of his words threatened to consume me. My breathing came in short bursts. “I want to—”
Andre put his fingers to my lips. As I watched, he shuttered his eyes. When he opened them again, they were full of affection and regret.
Uh oh. “Just so we’re clear,” he said, “we’re still not going there.” He didn’t have to clarify where there was. Party pooper.