Cat's Lair (19 page)

She sipped at her coffee, surprised to find it was warm, not hot. She’d always been good at figuring things out. She just had to get past the horrible hole in her heart. She still felt as if she’d been ripped to pieces, shredded inside and left empty. The problem was, she only felt that way when she was alone, when Eli wasn’t right next to her, and that, she knew, was a very bad sign.

With a little sigh she got up and checked the fridge and cupboards and then found Eli’s pots and pans. She liked the kitchen and the views it had. She could look out the wide windows while she cooked and watch the wind playing through the trees. It was beautiful country. She had chosen to come to Texas because she was certain the state was so large Rafe wouldn’t be able to find her there.

This countryside was beautiful, with far more trees than she expected. Eli said his leopard could run free here. She wondered what that would be like. What it would feel like. She suddenly had the desire to run free as a leopard, just to experience it. She was afraid, because she’d seen Rafe’s leopard and she knew the animal was even more dangerous than the man.

Even as a teenager, Catarina realized the leopard drove Rafe hard and it took a great deal of discipline and energy to keep that part of him under control. The leopard’s traits were definitely infused in the man and now, after seeing Eli and knowing what was inside of him, she knew his leopard drove him as well.

She paused in the act of stirring her sauce to press a hand to her stomach. Her leopard drove her as well. She’d been violent with Eli twice. More, she had practically forced him to have sex with her. She gained just a little sympathy for Rafe. Her sauce bubbled and she quickly began to stir it again. Leopards, like people, had to have their own personalities, and some had to be more difficult than others. More prone to violence. More alpha.

She glanced toward the open archway leading toward the master bedroom. The water had gone off. Eli would be with her again soon. His leopard was pure alpha, the same as Rafe’s leopard had to be. She couldn’t imagine the two men coming together in any kind of agreement. They would each view the other as a threat and would feel the need to neutralize that threat.

She fixed two plates, arranging them artistically, because for her, it wasn’t just about really good food, but good presentation as well.

Remembering the look on Eli’s face when he’d said that about losing her made her heart beat faster. He walked in when she was setting the plates on the table. He looked good. He smelled good. And when he smiled at her, he took her breath away.

She sank into the chair across the table from him, pulled up her bare feet and sat tailor fashion. “I hope you like it. I made us a skillet breakfast with hash browns and country ham biscuits. The beignets just came out of the oil and are very hot, and you have fresh coffee.”

Eli flashed another smile and something inside her responded with a warm glow. “You have no idea what a treat it is to smell food cooking in this house. I bought the place and nearly burned it down the first time I ever used that stove.”

“Someday I’m going to have my dream stove, Eli,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a Viking.”

He paused to eat two bites of the egg scramble. “This is heaven. Every time you get in a kitchen you produce a miracle for the taste buds.”

She laughed. “‘Miracle for the taste buds’? You didn’t just say that, did you?”

He shrugged and kept eating. “Sometimes even corny crap is the only thing a man can say because it’s the fucking truth.”

“You swear a lot.”

“Does it bother you?”

“How could it? I grew up in Rafe’s home and all his men used foul language.”

“House,” he corrected. “You grew up in his house. That was no home, Cat, any more than the number of foster homes I was in were homes.”

She hadn’t known he’d been in foster homes. His parents had been murdered but he hadn’t said what happened to him after that. “I’m sorry, Eli, I didn’t realize.”

“It was a house.”

“It was my house,” she said. “I didn’t know any other way of life.”

“Do you love him?” he asked, his fork halfway to his mouth. His body still. Utterly still. His eyes on her face.

Something moved under her skin, rolling through her like a wave. It left behind prickling as if it had agitated her nerve endings.

“Cat?” he prompted.

“I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean. It was never like that between us. He didn’t kiss me or show affection, at least not like other people. I don’t know if Rafe is capable of actually loving anyone. I think he wants to, and if he does, I’m probably the one person he does.”

He put a forkful of food in his mouth, still regarding her steadily. “That’s not an answer. Do you love him? Do you feel loyalty to him?”

Her first reaction was a resounding “no,” but something stopped her. He was asking not as the DEA, but as Eli, sitting across from her at the breakfast table. At least she thought that’s who it was.

“No. I feel sorry for him. I do. I don’t know what his life was like when he was a child, but it wasn’t good. I think his leopard is hard to control and enjoys violence. But he does things that are wrong. Morally wrong. More than that. So wrong there’s no redemption.”

“You know this for a fact? I ask because appearances are often deceiving, especially when it comes to shifters.”

“I don’t. But women would be brought to the house, prostitutes, always on his bad days. He would come to my room first and just stare at me. I was always afraid. Something in his eyes, feral. Not right.”

She shivered and put down her fork. Her thighs tingled. Burned. She rubbed her palms up and down them.

“Did he say anything to you?”

She shook her head. “Never. Not those nights. He left and then the prostitute would come. He would spend hours with her and then he would go out into the swamp in his leopard form.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think he hunted and then killed her.”

He leaned toward her. “Why would you think that?”

She took a breath. It didn’t matter what she told him, she couldn’t prove any of it and neither could the DEA. “I would see missing persons signs tacked to telephone poles and the sides of buildings. I recognized more than one of them. I just didn’t think it could be coincidence.”

There was no way to explain Rafe and the way he was, or the difference in him when he came back from his trips to the swamp. He was more relaxed for a short period of time, less likely to retaliate with violence for some infraction among his business acquaintances or his men.

She pushed at the heavy fall of hair hanging down her back. She should have put it up. The room was too warm. She lifted the heavy mass off her neck and felt the rise of her breasts. Her nipples rubbed against the flannel and the air left her lungs in a gasp as a wave of heat rushed over her to settle between her legs. Burning. The fire came fast, hot and ferocious, a hungry, blistering blaze that ignited before she could catch her breath. Her breasts seemed to swell to an aching need, her nipples pressing against the flannel, liking the feel of the material pushing against their hardened tips.

Her gaze went to Eli across the table from her, taking in his wide shoulders, his thick, heavily muscled chest. Everything in her urged her to slide from her chair and crawl under the table, pull at his sweats and feast on her prize. Her mouth actually watered, remembering the taste and feel of him. She wanted to drive him out of control, to be the one to bring him to the very edge and push him over.

She gripped the edge of the table, hard. She didn’t even know
how
to feast on him, and yet the erotic images were in her head refusing to go away. Her skin hurt, the weight of the shirt pressing into the raw nerve endings. It was happening again and this time felt even worse. She had to be able to stay in control.

She dropped her head and took several deep breaths, struggling with the need to claw at Eli, to rake at him, ravage him, devour him. Her body shuddered and her legs moved restlessly, unable to stop that terrible burning that demanded to be sated.

She wasn’t like this. She wasn’t. She didn’t know the first thing about sex and she didn’t want it like this. Not without love. Not without caring. Just tearing at each other, a wild, hard mating that meant nothing at all. She couldn’t do this.

“Baby.” His voice was soft. “It will be all right. We’ll handle it.”

He knew. He saw her state, probably smelled her call. He knew – that was even more humiliating than being so out of control.

She shook her head. “This isn’t me. It’s not me.”

Even her voice was different. Sultry. Low. A distinct velvet whisper designed to play on a man’s senses. She wanted to scream. Rake the table with her claws. Bite Eli’s lower lip and rip the sweats from his body.

Her skin felt too tight. Her breasts were aching so badly it was painful. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She knew in another minute she would pull the shirt from her body and crawl all over Eli. She couldn’t do that again. She leapt up, and raced for the door. She had no idea where she was going, but maybe she could run so fast and so far, the fire building so hot inside would go away.

She’d taken three steps when Eli’s fingers settled around her wrist. She spun back to him, a low warning growl escaping, one hand swiping toward his face. He was prepared and he moved just in time, the claws missing by a scant inch.

The moment he touched her, she knew she was lost. His fingers burned a brand in her skin. She still tried, still fought the wild, uninhibited creature that she didn’t even recognize, but it was too late, she’d already aroused Eli.

His face was stamped with pure male sensuality. His eyes had gone molten, intense, lust rising to match her own. He caught the front of her flannel shirt and yanked down. Buttons popped and he stripped it off of her. The air hit her skin, fanning the flames even more, pushing the terrible need higher. She couldn’t think, not with the roaring in her head.

“I have to go” was all she could get out. But she wasn’t going. Her hands were already sliding down his chest to find the hem of his shirt.

He caught her face in his hands, yanking her chin up. “Look at me, Catarina. You can’t run from this. She’s too close. When you’re like this, you need me.”

She didn’t know whether she was going to scream at him or weep. She couldn’t stay still, not with the fierce heat sweeping through her like a firestorm out of control. What did a shifter do when they were out in public? It was horrible. Beyond anything she’d ever imagined, and far, far worse than the first time.

She had nowhere else to turn. Only him. Only Eli. It didn’t matter that he had betrayed her, or that he might be lying. That he’d brought her to his home without her consent. There was only Eli, and he had to know what to do because she didn’t.

“Eli.” She breathed his name, looking up at him, feeling helpless and vulnerable.

Eli looked down into Catarina’s face. She was so beautiful and she looked so frightened. He dragged her close, tight into him, fitting her body into his while his hands held her face tipped upward toward his. He brought his mouth down gently. He didn’t feel gentle, but she needed this moment. She needed gentle and tender.

He kissed her with love. He even tasted it on his own tongue. He didn’t have a clue when it happened, maybe the first time he found himself laughing with her, but he definitely knew when he stretched out beside her and tugged her body into his in bed. He didn’t sleep with women. He had no problems fucking them, but then they were gone. He was gone. He didn’t bring them home, especially not here.

Everything changed the moment Catarina stepped into his house – everything – because it felt different. It felt like home instead of a house. So he held himself back, and it took a lot of restraint to control the wildness building inside of him. He kissed her over and over, his tongue stroking caresses, teasing and dueling with hers until her breathing was ragged and her hands were frantic.

Then he devoured her with a ravenous appetite that knew no boundaries. He took her mouth like the savage cat he was, bit her lower lip, the one he couldn’t get his mind off. He loved her mouth and he made certain she knew it intimately.

He left her mouth to burn kisses down her throat. He liked that she was naked and he was fully clothed. There was something very decadent about that. He kept her hands from pulling his shirt off. Instead he dropped his hands to the waistband of his sweats and pushed them down over his hips.

Her gaze dropped. Her breath caught. He widened his stance as he bunched her long hair in his fist. Her leopard was rising close to the surface again, and as much as he wanted to give her the time to heal, there was only one way to stop the terrible burn.

“Kneel down, baby,” he said, keeping his voice low, an authoritative whip.

“I need…” She trailed off.

“I know what you need, just kneel down, knees wide. I want to see that you’re wet and ready for me. I want to see that you enjoy giving your man pleasure.” It was subtle enough, he slipped that in there, knowing in her highly aroused state she wouldn’t notice that he’d called himself her man. She’d get used to it though.

She moistened her lips and he nearly groaned. She was sexy without trying, her body flushed, her breasts swaying with every move she made. He wanted to touch her, but he didn’t allow himself to. That would lead to other things, and right now, he wanted her to learn about pleasing him.

He kept his gaze on hers, not giving an inch when she hesitated, and finally, she dropped her eyes to his fully aroused cock and then slowly sank to her knees. She was graceful, beautiful, her dark hair a sharp contrast to her light skin. Her breasts drew his attention, full and round and high, her nipples taut, waiting for his mouth.

Her hands slid up his thighs and then she was cupping his sac and he wanted to throw his head back and roar with primal need, but he breathed his way through it, using his hand in her hair to pull her head over him.

“That’s what you need, Cat, right there. You learned a little last night. You’re going to learn more right now.” He exerted pressure on her head.