Dark Secret - Feehan Christine. Страница 26

There was such pain. She was desolated. She didn't like him, didn't trust him. She had no tender feelings of being his lifemate as he had for her. Shocked, Rafael pulled away from her and sat up, pushing his fingers through his hair. She meant it. She wasn't lying to him. Her body responded, but it was only her body. He had aroused her, knowing she was inexperienced, thinking she wouldn't be uncomfortable when they came together. He had not wanted their first time together to be painful to her, but she hadn't wanted it at all. She hadn't wanted him at all. He pressed his fingertips to his temples.

What had he done? Lifemates were meant to be together for all eternity. Her reactions made no sense to him. He thought of her every moment of his existence. She wanted him out of her life.

Rafael. You are weeping.

Nicolas's voice moved through him, making him aware of the burning in his chest. Rafael touched his cheek and found a blood red tear. He didn't weep. He was a man. A Carpathian. A hunter of the vampire. I understand none of this. It is her pain I feel. I have taken something precious from her.

Her virginity belonged to you. Nicolas was pragmatic about it. She has no choice but to accept you. Convert her, bring her home, and she will eventually come around.

Rafael winced. It hadn't been the taking of her virginity, it had been the taking of her right to choose. He swept both hands through his hair. Was he so close to becoming a monster that he already behaved as one? Is that it, Nicolas? Are we both so close to turning that we cannot behave in an honorable fashion? If that is the case, we no longer belong on this earth.

Colby rolled away from him, her back to him. Her body throbbed and burned and she felt sick with wanting him. How was she going to get through the rest of the night? The rest of her life? She could taste him in her mouth. Feel him in her skin. She ached for him between her thighs. She may not want him, but she needed him the way an addict did a drug. The terrible pressure in her body would never go away without him. It wouldn't matter what man she turned to, Rafael's possession of her would haunt her every relationship. She burned. There was no other word for it. She lay there crying, tears running down her face, despising him, despising herself, but she wanted him buried deep in her body, hard and hot and taking her beyond any place she could go herself. He had made her his whore, pure and simple.

"You are not my whore." Rafael was appalled that the thought had come into her mind. "Where do these thoughts come from?" He laid his hand gently on the small of her back, fingers splayed wide. "I'm sorry, Colby. I did not understand what you were telling me. I did not think beyond my need for you." He was sorry for the pain he caused, for taking her without permission, but try as he might, he couldn't be sorry for possessing her. He ached inside. He wanted to find a way to fix his mistake, but without knowing why she wasn't responding to him other than physically, he had no way of doing so. He wanted more than her physical love. She was his lifemate and she was supposed to love him wholly.

His palm, meant to comfort, burned a hole through her back. Sent electricity sizzling through her bloodstream. Her body ached for his. She buried her face in the coolness of her pillow with a soft, desperate cry of protest.

"Colby," he coaxed softly, "look at me."

"I can't. I can't stop crying. Go away." Her words were muffled.

"You know it is impossible for me to leave you like this. You need me. Let me help you." He swept her hair from the nape of her neck and brushed a kiss there. He couldn't leave, not when she was in tears and her body was screaming for his. Every instinct he possessed demanded he see to her needs. He kissed his way down her spine to the small of her back. "Let me take care of you."

"I can never look at you again. After tonight, I never want to see you again." Colby turned over, her eyes swimming with tears. "I mean it. I'll never be able to face you if I have to have you do this". She needed him. She was terrified to let him touch her. The moment he did, she would be lost. She knew that. She was certain of it.

Rafael didn't wait for her to fully make up her mind. He was already damned either way. If he left her frustrated sexually she would hate him and if he satisfied her she would hate him. His body was already hard and hot and making demands of its own.

"Colby, I am not a gentle man." It was the only way he could warn her. He couldn't find the emotion, even when he wanted it, not when it came to sex. He was dominant and passionate and demanded she follow his lead. He trailed his hand from her lips to her breasts, making her shiver with response.

"There's a bit of news I wouldn't have known," she whispered and closed her eyes as he bent to take her peaked nipple in his mouth.

At once he lifted his head to pin her with his gaze. "Do not look away from me. You have to know that this is not just me taking you, querida. Not without your consent." Her sorrow was killing him. He ached inside. It was a terrible feeling, claws raking his heart and lungs from the inside out. He touched a tear on her lashes, brought it to his mouth.

Even that was sensual. Everything about him, his eyes, his mouth, his smoldering expression. He didn't have to touch her to make her body come alive. "You're taking all my pride, Rafael," she said.

He despised the sadness in her voice. He heard his own cry, deep in his mind, a cry of pain and sorrow as his despair merged with hers. "You accused me of something vile, meu amor. For me, you are the only woman I will ever have in my life. I thought it was a mutual feeling between us." The shock still rocked him.

All the while he talked, his hands moved possessively over her. Large, strong hands that cupped her breasts and teased her nipples. That swirled small circles across her stomach and slid between her thighs. Colby gave in because there was no other choice. She was desperate for his body. If he didn't assuage the terrible hunger building inside of her, she didn't know what she was going to do.

"How can you make me feel this way, Rafael? I'm so afraid, but it's worse without you."

He kissed her throat, his hair sliding over her sensitized skin making her shudder with pleasure. "You do not ever have to be without me, Colby. Lifemate is forever. Tonight, be in my world with my laws. I can do no other than to see to your every happiness. Your health and needs and desires will be forever mine." He kissed his way down the valley between her breasts. "My world was one of darkness until you gave me back life. I know absolutely you are everything to me. You will always be everything. I may command you in bed"-he swirled his tongue around her beloved belly button-"but you command me in all other things."

His voice was a soft seduction in itself. "I can take you places no other man can take you and always I will keep you safe. No man could want you more. No man could ever desire you or need you the way that I do. I am as much a prisoner as you feel you are. The need to be with you is as deep and as elemental as your need to be with me. Find a way to love me a little, Colby."

His tongue stroked and swirled, moved over her skin, his teeth scraping, adding a small bite of pain that only seemed to enhance her pleasure. His hands shaped her body, the pads of his fingers finding every sensitive spot so that she jumped and writhed beneath him, flaming to life. Her blood rushed with a kind of liquid fire. She couldn't find the strength to do more than lie there while he examined every inch of her, tasted every inch, learned a very thorough, intimate knowledge of her body. Tears burned in her eyes for the ache in his voice. There was honesty, even purity in his tone. He meant the things he said. His words, his absolute assurance, frightened her, but it drew her to him, closer to the fire. She tried to hold on to thought, to understand, but his hands and his mouth were destroying her so it was impossible to keep a single thought.