"Cute. But seriously, what's back there?"
Damian walked to the curtain, hunched over a little since the wagon wasn't as tall as he was. He pulled back one side of the curtain, revealing a bed accessed by wooden steps. Cream-colored sheets and a scarlet blanket covered the bed, with cream-colored pillows scattered across the length of it up against the wall. Sunlight shined through a small window at the center of the wagon's back wall.
"Your love nest?" I asked.
"The wagon came this way. I didn't ask for a bed." He let the curtain fall shut. "I do occasionally sleep in here, but I've never seduced a woman on that bed—or anywhere in this wagon."
I shouldn't have cared whether he had done that or not, but I felt bizarrely relieved to hear him declare he hadn't. "You seduce women outdoors, then? Or in your room?"
"No, Heidi, I don't. I haven't had sex since before the first time I came here."
He'd been celibate? Why? Damian seemed like the kind of passionate man who would never go without sex for long. But it had been months for him?
"I shocked you," he said, sitting down at the table, cross-legged on a royal-blue pillow. "You've been assuming I'm the kind of guy who screws a woman every night, haven't you? I'm not like that."
"Yeah, I, um, can see that now. Sorry I leaped to that assumption."
"Don't worry about it. What other people think doesn't matter to me." He folded his hands on the tabletop. "Except for you."
He cared what I thought. That was weird and slightly disturbing.
But it also made me feel warm all over like I'd drunk a glass of brandy. Yeah, Damian was intoxicating—and I hadn't even slept with him yet.
Not that I would sleep with him.
"Did you want a palm reading?" he asked. "Or maybe tarot? You must've come here for a reason."
"I wanted to see your wagon, the inside of it." I glanced around to admire the lush surroundings again, then I ran my palms over the velvet cushions beneath me. "It's beautiful. Very cozy."
"No other reason? Just wanted to get a look at my secret den of mystical sorcery?"
He smiled with his lips sealed, the expression sexy and mysterious, worthy of the Ludar prince he claimed to be.
And God, I wanted him.
"I should go," I told him. "You must have paying customers waiting for you."
"My gypsy hours are over. I'm all yours." He patted the pillow next to his on the floor. "Come over here, Heidi. Let me read your palm."
His voice had gotten lower and rougher, so enticing that I couldn't stop myself from sliding off the bench and crawling onto that cushion. I sat cross-legged like he did. No more than a foot separated us, and the proximity sent a warm tingle of excitement rushing over my skin. The hairs on my arms shivered erect. So did my nipples.
"Are you right-handed or left-handed?" he asked.
"Right."
"We'll start with the left, then. It can tell me more about your character and personality than your dominant hand. Though I don't need to read your palm to know what kind of woman you are." He held out his hand, palm up. "Trust me, this won't hurt."
I wasn't worried about that. If he touched me, even my hand, I didn't know if I could stop myself from kissing him again. I should've walked out the door, but I couldn't move except to hold out my left hand to him.
He turned it palm up and cradled my hand in his. "Ready?"
"Uh, sure. Never done anything like this before."
"I'd love to be the one who pops your palm-reading cherry."
Why did he have to phrase it like that? Spoken in his sexy rumble, those words sounded like the most erotic come-on ever.
With my hand cupped in his, he bowed his head and lifted his free hand to skim his fingertips over my palm, moving them slowly, focused on the task of…whatever it was he was doing. The sensation of his fingers on my skin elicited a shiver of the sensual kind. I'd been acutely aware of him before this moment, but now, my body awakened in ways I'd never experienced before. I swore the touch of his hand and his fingers reached beneath my skin, like he was already inside me, thrusting with leisurely strokes of his cock while his skin brushed over my entire body. The memory of kissing him replayed in my mind. The heat of his mouth. The softness of his lips. The sensuous way his tongue coiled around mine and flicked out to taste me. I loved kissing him, and I hungered to do it again, right here, right now.