Dark Secret

from hers. The way her slick heat poured over him as he emerged from her sent his blood pounding all over again.

Colby touched her tongue tentatively to her swollen lips. Her breasts ached. She was sore between her thighs. She couldn't look at him. Couldn't look away from him. She had no idea having sex could be like that, a pleasure so deep it actually bordered on pain. A hunger so strong it bordered on insanity.

His fingertips brushed her face, her neck, trailed over her breasts. Her nipples tightened, and between her legs she felt an instant throbbing response. Colby turned her face away from him. 'What have you done?' She whispered it, grateful for the darkness. 'What have you done to me?' Tears burned behind her eyelids. She would never be free of his sexual web. Colby, who had always been free, always been in charge, would be forever addicted to the things this man could do to her body. And that terrified her.

His tongue rasped over the underside of her breast, dipped into her belly button, and traced her birthmark once again in a leisurely foray. He kept his body firmly over hers. She was exhausted and sore, but Colby might try anything. He could feel her fear, alive and breathing in the room with him. 'I told you that you were mine.'

'I don't understand this.' There were tears in her voice. 'How did you get here? How did I let this happen?'

He lifted his head, lazy facade gone. 'Do not cry.' Deus. If she did that, she'd take him apart. He gentled his voice. 'Tell me why you fear me so much.'

'How can you ask me that? I'm naked in my own bedroom with you and you just crawled through my body as if you owned it. You take control of me somehow. I can't get away from you.' She wasn't fighting him. She was lying beneath him like a sacrifice, an offering. She couldn't even manage to summon the energy to do battle because she knew it wouldn't matter. She would never win. Rafael was too powerful and he owned her body and maybe even her soul. 'You don't have any idea what you've done to me, do you?'

The despair in her voice raked at him, clawed at his gut. Rafael touched her mind. Colby had thoughts of waiting for the right man. She wanted her first time to be with someone she loved. She had visions of a tender, romantic union.

His hands framed her face. 'I know that I was rough, pequena. But I am the right man for you. I felt your pleasure. You were drowning in pleasure.' And she had been. Was she disappointed because he was so rough sexually? Damn it, he made absolutely certain he had given her pleasure. Why would she dream of some tame man who would never satisfy her the way he could? If he bent his head and took her breast in his mouth, she would shiver with need. Hunger would flare instantly. He knew it. Why didn't she? Who was this other man she wanted? Rafael could feel the fangs aching to explode but he fought back the urge, struggling to understand. Her sorrow beat at him. Was it so impossible for her to love him? She loved Paul and Ginny. She had loved her stepfather. She even loved Ben. He was beginning to detest Ben.

'I was drowning,' she said, her voice quiet. 'You've taken me over without my consent, Rafael. I have no pride, no way out. You left me with nothing.'

He had been prepared for anger, but not this quiet hopelessness. Colby was a fighter. He could turn anger to sexual need. He had no idea what to do with her as she lay staring up at the ceiling, her heart so heavy he ached inside.

As a young Carpathian he had thought often of what his lifemate would be like. Later, he'd dreamed of having a woman of his own. As the endless centuries passed, he despaired of ever having one. Colby was an unexpected and treasured gift and yet she didn't feel what he felt. She was supposed to love him. Supposed to want him. A part of him stirred with anger, the animal in him that demanded a mate. The man tried to work out what was wrong. She belonged to him. They had shared unbelievable mind-numbing sex, their bodies so compatible, he couldn't imagine anything better. He was already eager for more, yet she was far away from him in her mind. She believed he might own her body, but was determined he would never touch her heart. He had no way to combat that.

What was he doing wrong? 'I do not understand what you are telling me. We merged. I felt it. I know you felt it. How could that mean I left you with nothing?'

Colby wanted to turn away from him. She wanted to be left alone to figure out what she was going to do. There was no running away. No pretending it hadn't happened or that it wouldn't happen again. 'I have no choice. You left me no choice.'

Her sorrow beat at him. He would have preferred her anger.

He could only nod in agreement. Of course he left her no choice. There was no choice for either of them. She was born for him. 'You do not object to my touch.'

'Of course I object to your touch.' Anger was beginning to smolder in the pit of her stomach. It darkened her eyes and little sparks leapt around the comforter.

Heat flared instantly, his jaw tightening. 'You lie both to yourself and to me.' His hand slid possessively over her breast, tugged at her nipple. He bent his head, watching her face, watching the helpless desire in her gaze, felt her body arc into his mouth. Deliberately he slid his hand between her legs to find her damp. He lifted his head to look at her. 'Your body does not lie.'

She slapped his face as hard as she could. She didn't have a good angle or a lot of room for movement, but the sound was loud in the room. 'What you did to me was the same as rape. I don't care how much you lie to yourself, but it was. And you can do it again and again, but unless you have my consent, which you don't, it is rape when you touch me. I despise you. I despise what you can do to me. I don't want it. I don't even like you, let alone want you touching my body.'

Anger was hot and ugly, churning in his gut, welling up like a fountain that she dared to defy him, dared to strike him, worst of all, dared to call him a rapist. Next to vampire, it was the worst condemnation he could think of. He slammed her wrists to the sheets, rising above her, his mouth coming down hard on hers. He meant it as a punishment, but the moment he touched her, the moment his tongue swept inside her mouth, he also swept inside her mind.

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