"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.