Dark Secret by Christine Feehan Page A

Rafael. She just wanted to snuggle with someone familiar and safe.
    Never once did those black eyes leave her face. They had gone back to hiding all emotion. Ice cold. Hard. Flat. The direct, focused gaze of a hunter locked on its prey. There was something very dangerous in those eyes as they touched on Joe’s face. She shivered, suddenly afraid for the great bear of a man who had always been her friend. She pulled out of his arms, driven by fear. Colby tried to appear as normal as possible as she stood on tiptoe to kiss Joe’s cheek before slipping outside into open air.
    Crossing the parking lot to the sanctuary of her beat-up pickup truck, Colby swore under her breath, lots of unladylike things the cowhands had taught her at an early age. It was impossible—she had seen Rafael on the other side of the bar when she went out the door—but he was there, lounging against the hood of her truck. He looked lazy and contented, not a mass of nerves like she was. His long legs were stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his clothes were impeccable, black jeans and black silk shirt, his arms folded across his powerful chest.
    “Do you know what harassment is?” Nobody should lookthat good. Nobody. It wasn’t fair. Colby didn’t fall all over herself staring at good-looking cowboys; she was a busy woman, she didn’t have time to faint at their feet. Besides, she was the independent bossy type, according to Paul, and every man within a hundred-mile radius was afraid of her sharp tongue. “I don’t know about your country, but in mine, it is against the law.”
    “And you have much faith in these laws?” His voice was very quiet, a mild question, gentle almost, but she heard the edge of humor.
    “I suppose you’re above the law,” she snapped, yanking open the door to her truck. It wasn’t going to start; she knew it wouldn’t. It never started first time out.
    He moved then, a ripple of muscle, but he was standing beside her, crowding her body with his superior height, the heat from his skin causing her bloodstream to catch fire. He seemed to glide across the ground, as silent as any cat, his attention fixed on her with the same intensity as a jungle beast hunting night prey.
    “We have a code of honor my family lives by. That is the law that binds me.” He touched her hair with his fingertips, drew strands of fine silk into his palm almost as if he were mesmerized. “Have you ever felt your hair? Really felt it? It is truly beautiful.”
    She stood there, afraid to move or speak, her body restless with unfamiliar demands. As hard as she could, she gripped the door of the truck, needing something solid. “I have to get home to my brother and sister.” Colby wasn’t entirely certain, at that moment, whether she was asking his permission or not. He was that potent, that powerful.
    His perfectly straight white teeth flashed. There in the darkness he seemed a lord of the night. His realm. Invincible.
    “Miss?” The voice was soft, but it pulled Colby out of her mesmerized state. She spun around to see a young woman standing hesitantly near them. “Do you need help?”
    Colby recognized her as the new waitress, only because she was a stranger in a small town filled with people Colby knew very well. She didn’t once look at Rafael, even when there was a small surge of power and Colby knew he was influencing the woman to walk away.

    Rafael reached out and settled his fingers around Colby’s arm. You wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.
    The woman turned her head then and focused wholly on Rafael. “You could try to hurt me,” she said, as if he’d spoken aloud to her, “but you’d get more than you bargained for. If you try to hurt her, I’ll find a way to make you pay.”
    Colby looked at the woman’s face. She was young, but her eyes were old. A startling green, almost sea green, deep and fathomless. “Thank you,” Colby said, meaning it. “I can handle him. He’s from Brazil where women fall at his