Cat's Lair (53 page)

Jake gave him a small salute, one that said “what are friends for.” Emma was crying with relief, and that’s what really mattered to him. Jake turned her into the shelter of his body and held her gently. He might be angry that she came, but there was only gentleness in his touch.

“I need to see her.” Eli made it a demand.

“She’s in recovery right now. In a couple of hours…”

“I need to see her,” Eli said again. This time his voice was a low growl. His leopard needed to see her as well.

Mulligan was a leopard. He knew the signs of a male at his limit. He nodded his head. “I’ll show you the way.”

“Elijah will stay,” Jake said. “He’ll have anything you need, Eli. Let Liam take care of your wounds while you’re with Catarina in recovery. You’re scaring the hospital personnel looking like that.”

He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t breathe without her. He needed to see her. That was all that mattered. Until he did, his leopard prowled too close. Until he did, air wouldn’t move through his lungs. He nodded a little curtly to Jake to indicate he understood and stalked through the double doors and down the wide hallway.

Dr. Mulligan hurried after him. “She’s strong, Mr. Perez.”

“Eli. Any man who saves Catarina’s life can use my first name.”

Mulligan smiled for the first time. “I’m not altogether certain I was the one who saved her life. She was a pretty determined woman.”

He opened a door, and Eli actually caught hold of the doorjamb to keep his legs from going out from under him. Only Catarina could make him this weak. She lay on a hospital bed, so pale she was nearly as white as the bleached sheets she was on. Her eyes were closed, her long lashes two thick feathery crescents standing out starkly against her white skin.

She had bruises everywhere. Her face was swollen and shadowed with blue and black. She was swathed in bandages. But she breathed. In and out. He sagged there, gripping the doorjamb to keep from sliding to the floor. She breathed. She was restless, fighting the sleep, or maybe reliving the attack, her body moving constantly as if trying to flee. Shadows flitted across her face. The nurse fussed over her, clicking soothingly, but that didn’t stop the agitated movements.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Mulligan said briskly. “The nurses in here like things sanitary. If you’re going to stay, you can’t be bleeding all over the floor.”

He nodded. He was going to stay whether they liked it or not, but he could cooperate now, his Catarina was breathing.

Ignoring the doctor and the nurse sitting so close to his woman, Eli crossed the distance to her. He laid his hand very gently over her small one, the one fisting over and over in the sheet. They were still giving her blood and intravenous antibiotics. Shifters carried venom and bacteria in their claws. He’d need a round of antibiotics as well.

He leaned down, uncaring in that moment that the doctor and nurse could see the stark, raw love he had for Catarina so naked on his face. “Kitten, I’m here now. Just relax and let me take care of things. I’ve got you now.”

Her lashes actually fluttered. He held his breath. Cobalt blue stared at him for a moment and then all the wild color was gone. But her body relaxed. Went still. Beneath his hand hers relaxed and stopped gripping the sheet.

“That’s right, baby,” he said softly. “Just rest for me.”

The nurse smiled at him for the first time. Mulligan stepped up to him with the look of a leopard, threatening to throw him out if he didn’t cooperate. Eli cooperated.

22

C
ATARINA
woke to the feeling of hands moving over her body. Almost from the moment she’d come home from the hospital, Eli had awakened her with his need to feel every inch of her body. He was always gentle, but as time went by, his touch brought her far more than reassurance of his love. She needed him inside her. Dominating her body. Giving her the scorching fire that always brought her pleasure beyond belief.

He had been so careful with her, forcing her to stay in bed the first few days after her hospital stay and then carrying her to the porch or the sitting room, placing piles of books beside her. He waited on her hand and foot. Each night he held her tight, so tight she could barely breathe. Always, at some point, in the middle of the night, she awakened to his hands moving over her body to feel her heart beat. To assure himself she was alive.

She relaxed into his touch as the pads of his fingers moved over her face, tracing her bone structure. His lips feathered over each eye and trailed along her cheekbone down to the corner of her mouth. That was new. She looked at him, seeing him there in the darkness. His masculine face, lines carved deep. So beautifully male. His eyes had already gone from a dark whiskey to pure gold.

Instantly her body stirred. Came alive. Every nerve ending awoke. She felt an electric burn sizzle through her veins. His lips moved over hers with the same tender touch, back and forth, rubbing along her lips as if he had all the time in the world.

She shivered beneath his touch. She couldn’t help it. No matter how gentle he was, there was an unmistakable possessive feel to his hands. He knew her body, and he knew it intimately. Even the lightest of touches could bring fire to her body, let alone the sweet assault on her senses he’d been conducting nightly.

His mouth moved against hers again, this time coaxing. A little firmer. More demand. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips, while his fingers smoothed up and over her breasts, one palm directly over her heart so he could feel it beating into his hand.

She opened her mouth to his and the world shifted around her. His kisses had always been able to bring her to her knees, but now, after waiting what seemed to be forever, his tongue ignited a firestorm inside of her. She felt the burn pour down her throat, straight to her swollen, aching breasts, radiate outward to spin through her body down to her groin. Instantly her womb clenched. Her sheath spasmed. She went wet and a little desperate, the fire no sweet ache, but a roaring monster of hunger and need.

Eli kissed her over and over, each kiss more aggressive, more passionate and more primitive than the last one. All the while his hand stayed over her heart. His other hand wasn’t so still. His fingers stroked the curve of her breast. The pads of his fingers circled her nipple, round and round until she wanted to scream in frustration. She tried to move just enough that his wandering hand would swipe over her taut, needy nipple, but he kept her trapped with one heavy leg draped over her thighs and his chest partially pinning her to the mattress.

His kisses sent more flames licking along her nerve endings until she was kissing him back fiercely, just as demandingly. Nearly as primal as he was. Then his kisses changed and more liquid spilled from her body. He went dominant, demanding, taking rather than asking. She loved that trait in him the most. The way his mouth was starved for her, the way he devoured her, eating at her as if she was his last meal.

His mouth was wicked. Sinful. Beautiful. A miracle. His fingers found her nipple and tugged. Instantly the shocking current of electricity rushed to her clit. Her hips bucked hard against him.

Eli lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes golden, glowing in the darkness at her. Predatory. Possessive. Nearly all cat. She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. Only hungry for him. Desperate for his touch. She wanted rough and fast, but already he dipped his head and kissed his way down her chin to her throat.

His mouth covered her pulse there. His tongue stroked over the beat. He kissed it again, his lips rubbing back and forth to the rhythm of her heartbeat. She couldn’t help the small sound that escaped her throat.

“Easy, baby,” he murmured against her pulse. “I want a long journey. I want to feel every fucking pulse in your body, with my hand. I want to feel your heart beating in my palm and in my mouth. You just lay there and take it, because you scared the holy hell out of me and I need this.”

There was no hurrying Eli when he didn’t want to be hurried. His tone was back to the Eli she knew and loved. Rough. Dominant. Absolutely arrogant and confident. She was going up in flames, and he simply took his time. She knew what he was doing – reclaiming her body for his own. She felt possession in every stroke of his fingers, every touch of his hand.

Eli ignored her shifting, restless body and proceeded, trailing kisses from her throat to the cleft of her sternum. He paused to dip his tongue there. He traced the curve of both breasts and then ran his tongue in the deep valley. Her body shuddered with pleasure. She wanted his hands on her. Her breasts were hot and aching. She craved the feel of his mouth and teeth, the pull and massage of his large, rough hands.

Her head tossed on the pillow. She couldn’t stop writhing. Her body dripped for his. Wet and wild and on the very edge of control. He could do that without even trying. She felt the hard, thick length of his cock, just out of her reach, pressed tight against her hip. She felt the small pearly drops leaking into her skin and her mouth watered.

“Eli. Let me.”

“Shhh, baby. Not yet. You don’t get to take this from me. I need this.” He lifted his head to look at her.

She saw the warning in his leopard eyes. It only made her need stronger, her craving increase. She loved that look. She loved to know that he was every bit as hungry and in need as she was. She loved to push him right over the edge of his control. His warnings only served to give her more incentive.

She had her hands and she brought them to his hair, curling her fingers into the shaggy mass as his mouth finally –
finally
– moved to her breasts. She cried out as hot pleasure speared through her. His mouth settled over her left breast, drawing it into a vortex of scorching heat. His tongue lashed her nipple, flicking back and forth. He used the edge of his teeth and she wanted to weep with need. Her body did it for her, spilling more nectar along her thighs.

Without warning, his thumb and finger caught at her right nipple in a hard pinch that sent fiery sensations sizzling through her body. The pleasure bordered on pain and made a straight line for her sheath so that she nearly convulsed with its onslaught. His mouth moved over her breasts, teeth nipping and tongue laving. She wanted more, always more, and she arched her body, offering him her breasts, willing him to feast there. He suckled, first her nipple, then along her delicate skin, leaving his mark everywhere, leaving his prints and even the small burn of his teeth. She reveled in his claiming, cradling his head close to her, giving herself up to him.

He demanded a full surrender and she gave it to him, nearly sobbing for relief as she did so. Her body was so tight and hot, the tension building without respite. He licked over her heart. Pressed his ear there, while his fingers and thumb slid back and forth over her nipple in the same rhythm.

She felt the jerk of his cock against her hip, a throbbing of heartbeats between them. Her feminine channel clenched desperately to be filled. “Eli, I’m burning up.”

“I know,” he whispered back, his lips against the underside of her right breast. “We’ll get there. I just need to feel you’re alive.”

“I am alive, but if you don’t hurry that could change.”

He laughed softly, his breath warm against her left breast. She felt the stinging nip of his teeth and the slow slide of his tongue. “So impatient, my little Cat. We’ll do this my way.”

Secretly, she was glad her Eli was back with all his arrogant dominance. He’d been too sweet to her, too controlling of her every move. In bed was one thing – outside of it, she knew if he kept it up eventually she’d kick him in the shins, hit him over the head and totally defy him and run free when he wanted her to sit on the porch and read.

Eli kissed his way straight down from her breasts to her belly button. He made a side trip exploring each rake mark on her sides over her ribs. Six altogether. His touch was magic. Healing. His tongue soothing. He could make her forget the raw scars and the terrible moment when she’d been certain she was going to die under the rogue leopard’s teeth and claws.

Still, the leisurely way he licked and kissed her body, sipping at her as if she were a fine wine, stroking her skin with the velvet rasp of his tongue like a leopard might do, drove her insane with desire. She was drenched. Hot. Needy.

Eli framed her womb with his hands and kissed her belly over and over. “You saved our child, Kitten. You couldn’t have known, but you instinctively kept our baby safe. It’s going to be beautiful, just like you.”

She closed her eyes. She hadn’t known. Her leopard had still been too inexperienced to tell her, and she hadn’t felt the pregnancy, but Eli had known the moment he’d gotten her pregnant. She brought her hand to her face and looked at the ring there. Jake and Emma had come with a justice of the peace and Eli had married her a week after she’d gotten home.

Catarina blinked back tears and reached once again for the silky mass of Eli’s hair. “I love you so much sometimes I don’t know what to do with it,” she admitted, the sound so low it was barely there. No one in her life had given her compliments until Eli. No one had ever said they loved her until Eli.