Dark Solstice by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page B

know!” Rhea said a little desperately. “I really don’t remember. Something about he was sorry. It felt good. It was just … love talk.”
    “Love talk,” he repeated, sarcasm in his voice now. “Baby, he fucked you. You were just a piece of munch. Get over it.”
    She sent him hurt look. She couldn’t help it. He made a sound of disgust, seemed to wrestle with himself for several moments, and finally joined her on the bunk. Dragging her down until she lay full length against him, he caught her chin and tipped her head back, forcing her to look at him. “You are so far out of your league it would be disgusting if it wasn’t so pathetic. Don’t fall into the way of thinking he’s going to rescue you from me, baby,” he growled. “Nobody’s going to rescue you.”
    Rhea swallowed with an effort against the knot of emotion that clogged her throat. “I didn’t think that.”
    “No?”
    She shook her head slightly.
    His gaze wandered over her face. “You thinking about pitting the two of us against one another? Maybe changing partners? Because it’s not going to work. You’re mine and I’m sure as hell not trading you off for a little bit of information that may or may not be useful to me.”
    She stared at him speechlessly since the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Is that what that was about?” she asked finally. “He was trying to convince you to trade me for information he has?”
    His expression closed. It was like a door had slammed in her face. She tried to look away, but his grip on her chin tightened. When she shifted her eyes to his face again, she discovered he’d leaned closer. His lips brushed hers, startling her. He transferred his grip from her chin to the side of her face, curling his long fingers along the back of her head and holding her while he leisurely explored her lips with his own.
    “What are you doing?” she whispered uneasily.
    “Something incredibly stupid, probably,” he responded, molding his mouth more firmly against hers.
    Heat cascaded through her in a fiery tide as he settled more snugly against her, pressing her back against the mattress even as he slipped his tongue between her lips and raked it boldly along the surface of hers, infusing his drugging essence into her system. She struggled briefly against the tide of desire that rose temptingly inside of her, but it was a lost cause. There was no stopping the passion he aroused so easily in her, no slowing it down. Her body burgeoned, caught fire as he nestled the evidence of his arousal against her cleft and arched against her rhythmically, the synchronized motions of his tongue lifting her higher.
    Regret filled her that she’d dressed, that they were both clothed and she couldn’t feel his skin against her own. As welcome as his weight was, and the hard pressure of his engorged cock, it teased at the pleasure she might have had.
    “You’re a bad liar, Rhea,” Raathe murmured when he broke the kiss at last and wove his way toward her ear, making her shiver with delight at the brush of his lips and the heated caress of his breath on her sensitive skin. “He called you Rhea, didn’t he? I’m wondering how he knew that.”
    Enthralled as she was already, the questions, murmured softly, almost hypnotically, still pierced her consciousness enough to arouse wariness. “I told him,” she lied breathlessly.
    He lifted his head and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “That is your name, then.”
    Rhea stared at him blankly, still too rattled by the desire he’d evoked in her to think clearly.
    His lips tightened. He drew away from her abruptly, turning and settling upright on the edge of the bunk with his back to her. “Is he that fucking good, Rhea?” he growled, sliding a narrow eyed look at her. “One good fuck and you’re his slave, is that it?”
    A cold dose of reality swept the desire away so swiftly that it left her cloaked in shock. “I don’t know what you want,” she said breathlessly,