Soul Bonded (13 page)

Damn it. “No, you didn’t. We just aggravated the wound. It happens.”

“You’re crying.” He swallowed hard.
 

“These aren’t tears of pain. I promise.”

Rafe dismissed her words with a shake of his head. “I held you down. Like you were an animal.” He deflated, suddenly looking so very small. “I raped you.”

“Whoa.” She put her hand on his arm and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “You definitely did
not
do that. I didn’t say no.”

“You said, ‘
Don’t.
’”

“I said, ‘
Don’t stop
.’”

“Did you?” He stared at her with haunted eyes. “I don’t remember giving you a chance to say that much.”

“You knew I wanted it,” Katie said. “I refuse to believe that you would have done that if you hadn’t.”

“Why are you defending me?” Rafe looked totally disgusted—with himself or with her, she wasn’t sure. “Don’t.”

“I’m telling you that you just gave me the most intense sexual experience of my life. I’ve never come like that before.” She rubbed her thumb over his arm, playing with the fine hairs that covered his skin. “It may have been rough, but it was completely consensual.”

Rafe shrugged away from her touch and stood up. He brushed past Shilah, who had jumped up to greet him, and hurried to his dresser. “It was disrespectful and degrading and it will never happen again. I promise you that.”

Katie got off the bed and crossed the room to stand at Rafe’s side. He pulled on a pair of loose linen pants without meeting her eyes, his movements stiff and controlled. She wanted so badly to touch him, but his body language made it clear that the contact wouldn’t be welcome. “Please don’t do this. Not after we just found each other. Not
today
.”

He handed her a T-shirt without looking at her. “Put this on. You need to get cleaned up.”

She took the shirt but didn’t cover her nudity. Instead she inhaled deeply and stepped closer to him. “If you’d raped me, do you think I’d be standing here telling you that I love you?”

“What choice do you have?” Self-loathing twisted his handsome features. “We’re bonded.”

“Rafe—“

He edged around her and walked to his bedroom door. Opening it, he paused and stood with his back to her. “Put on the shirt and go take a shower. I’m going to let Shilah outside for a minute and then I’ll clean your wounds again.” He hesitated. “If you want me to.”

Clearly he wasn’t going to be talked out of his self-flagellation so easily. Fine. She would just have to be persistent. “I was hoping you’d shower with me.”

His shoulders tensed. “I can’t.”

A nauseating wave of sadness rolled over her. “I hope you don’t mean what you said. About it never happening again.” Her voice wavered. “I need you, Rafe. I sure as hell need you today, but I need you after today, too.
I need you
.”

“You need to get cleaned up.” Rafe glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later. Okay?” He fled the room before she had a chance to answer.
 

Numb, Katie pulled the shirt she was holding over her head. The familiar smell of Rafe shattered her tenuous hold on her control, and she sat down on the bed and cried.

Katie forced herself to take a long, hot shower. As much as she ached to be with Rafe, she sensed he needed space right now. He needed to calm down and collect himself so he could listen to her instead of drawing his own conclusions about what had just transpired between them. That he was convinced he’d taken her against her will was disturbing, to say the least. Just yesterday he’d sworn that he was incapable of hurting her. Now, hours later, he’d decided that he was a rapist—regardless of what she said. It made her wonder about his state of mind during the act. She simply couldn’t imagine that he’d
tried
to hurt her. But then why did he feel so guilty?

“Shit.” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks only to be washed away by the spray from the shower head. It was good to have this time alone. She didn’t want Rafe to see her upset. He would just take it as evidence that he’d traumatized her in some way. The terrible irony, of course, was that the only harmful thing he’d done was to dismiss the most exciting sex of her life as an act of violence.
 

Glad for the opportunity to work through her own emotions, Katie made sure to be thorough as she washed. Her biggest worry was the possibility of infection from the bite wounds on her calves, though truthfully, she hadn’t felt any pain since Rafe had performed his magic healing trick the night before. His horror over her spilled blood was sweet but misplaced. She didn’t care that the wound had reopened. It was a small price to pay to be the object of Rafe’s wild, uninhibited lust. Never before had she felt so desired—or so
powerful,
strange as that might seem. She craved Rafe and he craved her back, and she could see nothing wrong with that.

By the time she’d dressed in Rafe’s T-shirt and her panties, she was desperate for their separation to end. This distance between them was killing her—and they’d only been apart for thirty minutes. For her own sanity, she needed to convince him that he’d done nothing wrong and that her love and desire for him remained steadfast. After the emotional roller coaster of the past twenty-four hours, she needed Rafe by her side. He was the only thing keeping her sane right now.
 

She didn’t even want to imagine what being separated from Rafe would do to her after thirty hours. Or thirty days. She shuddered, too afraid of the implications to pursue that train of thought any farther. She would worry about the future later. Right now she had to focus on the situation at hand. First they had to reestablish the trust and openness she’d thought they’d forged last night. She’d hoped that Rafe would knock on the bathroom door and initiate the conversation he’d promised they’d have, but she sensed that if she waited for him to approach her, she would be waiting a long time. So she made a decision: If Rafe wasn’t going to come to her, she would go to him. They would hash things out and repair the damage the full moon had caused.

Katie opened the bathroom door and walked into the hallway. She looked toward the kitchen and caught Rafe staring out the window next to the front door. He’d dressed in a long-sleeved thermal shirt and his hair was wet as though he’d also showered—where, she wasn’t sure. Eyes narrowed, he leaned forward so his face was only inches from the glass. Thoughts of the rift between them receded as the very real problem of vengeance-seeking werewolves came to the front.
 

“Do you see something?” she asked. Rafe jumped slightly, bumping into the window frame. Katie couldn’t suppress a smile as he rubbed his forehead. “Sorry.”

He barely glanced at her. “Nothing yet.”

“When do you think they’ll come?”

“I don’t know.” Rafe pulled the curtain back over the window and stepped away. He kept his eyes lowered, refusing to look at her. “I’m guessing before they transform. Question is whether they’ll let us know they’re here or not.”

“How many do you think there’ll be?” She hoped his estimate didn’t freak her out too badly.

He shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. We don’t exactly have a werewolf census, so I don’t know how big their pack is. Or how many of them will be interested in initiating a fight over that wolf I killed.” Rafe peered out the window again. “I’ll be outnumbered, but hopefully my protective instinct toward you will work to my advantage.”

“Hopefully,” she echoed. Praying she wasn’t making a mistake to bring up their encounter so soon, she said, “Although I think that protective instinct is working to your disadvantage this morning.”

Rafe’s entire body tensed. “This isn’t about me being overprotective.”

“Sure it is. Why else would you insist that you’d hurt me even when I keep saying you didn’t?” Katie joined him at the window. She touched his arm as she peered outside. “By the way, coping with the thought of an army of pissed-off werewolves would be a lot easier if I knew that you and I were okay.”

He pulled her away from the window and closed the curtain. “Stay out of sight.” She raised an eyebrow, irritated by his brusque manner. He surprised her by giving her an apologetic shrug. “Please.”

Katie nodded and sat at the kitchen table. Her stomach growled at the mere thought of food. “Will you at least eat breakfast with me?”

Rafe walked to the icebox without meeting her eyes. “Do you like sausage?”

“That sounds wonderful. Any chance you could whip up some eggs, too?” It might be a long shot, but she was desperate for sustenance.

“Sure thing.” He gathered a handful of items from the icebox, then walked to the counter.

The man was a mystery. He lived in the middle of nowhere without an obvious income or access to technology, and yet he had a fully stocked kitchen in the middle of winter. “Do they have a grocery store out here?”

“There is a general store a few miles down the road. I go on occasion and stock up on what I can. But most of my food comes from hunting. And trade, with other members of the pack.”

Her last boyfriend hadn’t been able to grill a decent steak, let alone go out and kill one. To say that Rafe wasn’t her usual type was the understatement of the century. She found his self-sufficiency incredibly attractive. “A man of many talents.”

Color rose on his face as he lit the burner on the stove. “Not sure I’d go that far.”

“Well, you’re damn sure the best lover I’ve ever had. So that’s one talent. Pretty amazing kisser, too.”

Rafe closed his eyes. “Don’t.” He paused. “Just…don’t.”

“Why?” Katie stared at Rafe’s profile, willing him to look at her. “You are.”

His jaw twitched. “We shouldn’t have slept in the same bed. I knew what I would be like when I woke up this morning. I knew I’d want you again—and that it would be rough. It always is.”

“During the full moon, you mean?”

Rafe nodded, his mouth a grim line. “When werewolves fuck close to the full moon, it’s primal and aggressive and…it’s not something I should have ever subjected you to. I’m ashamed that I did.”

“Even if I liked it?”

His lip curled in disgust. “How could you? I treated you like a piece of meat. Like a tight, wet hole for me to stick my dick inside.”
 

Katie tried to ignore the twinge of arousal between her legs. If not for the tortured look on his face, his words would serve as tantalizing foreplay. “When I woke up, I wanted sex. That’s why I put your cock in my mouth. That’s why I ignored you when you told me to wait. That was
my
choice. I wanted sex and you gave it to me.
Fantastic
sex.”

The sausage sizzled in the frying pan, making Katie’s stomach growl. Rafe prodded at it with a spatula, angrily. “You didn’t know what you were getting into when you decided to wake me up like that.”

“I knew the full moon was tonight and that you were worried about being too rough with me.” Katie got up and crossed the kitchen to stand beside him. He stiffened. “Rafe, you gave me a chance to say no. I didn’t. I didn’t
want
to.” She caressed his arm, ignoring the way he flinched at her touch. “So unless you were trying to hurt me—or
wanted
to hurt me, in that moment—you did nothing wrong. You did nothing that I didn’t want you to do.”

Rafe didn’t take his eyes off the skillet, silent for the span of several breaths. She’d almost decided he was going to ignore her, but then his shoulders dropped and he said, “Seeing you with your mouth on me, so beautiful and playful and sexy…I just lost control.” He stopped what he was doing and leaned heavily on the counter, exhaling. “I lost control. But I never
wanted
to hurt you. I would never intentionally cause you harm.”

Her chest constricted at the guilt that poured from him, so overpowering she almost couldn’t breathe. “Losing control isn’t always a bad thing. Not when you’re with someone you trust.” She curled her fingers around his. “You told me that if I hurt, you feel pain.” Ducking her head to force eye contact, she said, “Did you feel pain when you were fucking me?”

His throat bobbed. “No.”

“What did you feel?”

Rafe finally met her gaze. “Pleasure.”

“How about now?” She let the agony she felt at his torment come to the front. “What do you feel now?”

He blinked rapidly, then pulled away from her to swipe his arm over his eyes. “I ache.”

“So do I. It’s this distance between us.” Katie pulled on his shoulder so that he faced her. “If you and I are going to work, you can’t see me as this fragile, helpless human who’s going to get broken by the big, bad wolf. I’m your bond-mate. I still don’t believe that you would ever intentionally cause me pain or discomfort. Yesterday you believed the same thing.” She waited for him to relax, to understand, to accept what she was saying, but he stood rigid and stared at the floor. “Trust our bond, Rafe. Listen to what it’s telling you. Listen to
me
.” She took a breath. “Trust me.”

He surprised her by curling an arm around her waist to draw her into a tentative hug. When his erection bumped against her thigh, he jerked away quickly. Katie snugged in closer and returned his embrace, but Rafe remained guarded. “I just wish I’d given you the chance to actually consent.”

“You did. I consented and you knew it. Deep down, you knew.”

He set down the spatula and put his other arm around her, splaying his fingers against her lower back. “I don’t understand how you can be okay with the way I treated you this morning, especially after what those animals put you through last night. But I am listening to you, I
do
trust you, and I know you’re telling me the truth.” He released her with a gentle squeeze. “Doesn’t mean I want to do that to you again, though.”

Katie ran her hand down Rafe’s chest to his stomach. “I hope you don’t mean that. I’m not saying I want it to be like that every time, but once a month or so might be nice…”

A strained smile played across Rafe’s face as he turned his attention back to breakfast. “I suppose if we establish boundaries and work out the terms of the encounter beforehand…and you promise not to surprise me with good-morning blow jobs during the full moon…”