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.“It’s very gratifying to know I’m not the only one suffering.”His voice dropped an octave.“Are you suffering?”She licked the drops of champagne from her lips.“You know I am.”“Why?”“I’ve had a few dreams of my own,” she pointed out.“While you sleep, I am thinking of all the things I’d like to do to you.”“Now you have my full attention.” He sat back in his chair, his heart beginning to thunder.At last.She was thinking of him and how best to give him pleasure.He could see the determination in her expression and that sexy, intriguing tilt to her mouth.“Actually,” she corrected, playing with the stem of her glass, “I always have your full attention, your complete, absolute focus.You make me feel not only beautiful, but important and sexy and everything you need.You make me feel important.”“You are all of those things.”She ate another bite of her steak, a small frown of concentration on her face.“I’ve had a lot of time to think about things while you were sleeping, and I realized it’s really all about courage.I have to find the courage to put myself totally into your hands.” She looked up at him then, her eyes showing that same determination, but this time mixed with fear.“That’s what you’re saying to me, isn’t it?”He nodded.In that moment of self-discovery, she was more beautiful than ever to him.“You want me to recognize this side of me is every bit as important as the fighter in me.”“Important not only to me, Solange,” he agreed, “but to you as well.”“It’s much easier to contemplate all of this when I’m in my jaguar form.I feel safe.”“I want you to feel safe with me.”Her eyebrow shot up.“Yes and no,” she pointed out, proving to him that she was every bit as shrewd and intelligent as he’d suspected.“You like me a little off balance with you.I get the feeling that tangling with you is a bit like trying to play with fire.” The pulse in the side of her neck fluttered.“I don’t want to get burned.”He flashed a predatory smile at her.“Only you can decide if it is worthwhile to give yourself into my care.Only you can decide to trust me with your heart, Solange.”She took a bite of apple, her expression thoughtful.“If we do this, Dominic—”“When,” he corrected.“When we do this.Because, kessake, there is no question that you belong to me.You will come to accept me eventually.” She was so close.He could feel her reaching for him in her mind, wanting to give herself to him, but fear of betrayal held her paralyzed.He loved that she was working it out, analyzing each step cautiously, just as her cat would.Her reticence endeared her to him even more.She took a breath.“When we do this, we’ll have a future.What does that mean to you?”“I would bind you to me, of course,” he said, locking his gaze with hers so she was unable to look away.She swallowed almost convulsively.“Okay, I get that.But then what?”“I will take your blood—and your body—and make you wholly mine.” There was no compromise in his voice, or in his eyes.Her breasts heaved as she drew in a ragged breath.She put down her fork and once again picked up the crystal flute.“You always make everything sound so simple.”“It is very simple, Solange.When we are in a battle, you trust me with your life, as I do you.Here, when we are alone, you need to give me that same trust.I already have your complete honesty, and you are more loyal than anyone I have ever known.I give those same things back to you at all times.”She moistened her lips again.“I trust you,” she said.There was hesitation in her voice.He smiled at her.“You are beginning to trust me, and I find that an amazing gift.I thank you for your belief in me.You sit there wearing a dress I made for you because you want to please me.And you do, very, very much.”She flushed a soft pink, the color enhancing the green of her eyes.“Dominic, what about after? Juliette was converted.MaryAnn, too.Are all lifemates converted?”“As a rule, but it is a choice.If you chose not to, you would grow old and die, and then, of course, I would choose to age and die when you left this life for the next.”The flame in the candle leapt, throwing a dark shadow across the wall.Dominic was on his feet immediately.No enemy could penetrate his safeguards.He knew that.Yet.He turned slowly, tracking the dark shadow.I caught sight of him for just a moment.He blends into the dark when he ceases all movement.Solange pulled the dress from over her head and laid it carefully over the back of her chair as if it was precious to her.There was no panic in her movements, and he wanted to smile at her
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