She could barely make herself turn her head to him. Her face was red, but it was the truth. She wanted to make him feel the same things she felt.
He caught her face in his hands, his thumbs sliding over her jaw. “I’m not a man who would ever pretend even if I could. If you don’t know anything else about me, you have to know that. You please me, baby. You more than please me.”
Her eyes slid away from his. He growled low in his throat. “Kitten. I said look at me – that means your eyes are looking right into mine when we’re talking about this.”
Catarina sighed, but forced herself to look him in the eye again. “It’s just a little embarrassing, Eli. I don’t know what I’m doing, you have to tell me everything.”
“Sweetheart, I love coaching you. I love that no man has been inside you and you’re all mine. I love that I can teach you the things that please me and you’re so willing to learn. That matters to me, that you want to please me.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” she advised. “I want to kick you more often than I want to please you.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I intimidate everyone, especially women. Where the hell have I gone wrong with you?”
“You intimidate me,” she admitted. “But that only makes me want to kick you all the harder.”
He stretched his legs out in front of him and looked out over the slightly rolling land. “I fell in love with this place the first time I saw it,” he said. “But it never felt right. It never felt like home. Not until you walked through the door.”
Catarina didn’t like the way her heart melted at his statement. The sex was bad enough, but it was just sex. She could handle just sex with no emotion attached to it. She didn’t want to like him so much and the way he talked to her, the things he said, even the way he looked at her, made her feel special.
“I think I was handcuffed and maybe carried,” she pointed out.
“Yeah. Like I said, felt like I was coming home for the first time.”
His voice had dropped an octave lower, sliding over her skin like the touch of fingers, and she shook her head. The problem was, Eli was a very sensual man and right now, she was finding she liked sensual. She even craved it. So Eli was somewhat irresistible to her.
“I need a few more supplies from town.” Changing the subject was the only safe thing to do. “For cooking. A few more spices, just some things.”
“You like to cook, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “I told you I did.”
“Make a list, I’ll get you whatever you need. I like the fact that I get to reap the benefits, especially if you’re in the kitchen in one of my shirts.”
She glanced sideways at him and realized he was teasing her. She took a breath. Oh, God. She shouldn’t for one minute trust this man enough to feel like her insides were melting, but she did, she was nothing but goo inside and that didn’t bode well for keeping him at arm’s length.
“My shirt and no panties,” he added.
Her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip. Of course he had to remind her she’d been a crazy perv, on the floor, for God’s sake. On the floor.
“Baby.” His voice gentled and his fingers curled around the nape of her neck. “Stop being embarrassed. What we did was beautiful. I know you’re scared right now, but I’ll take care of you, get you through this.”
“What happens when Rafe shows up?” She asked because… well… Rafe would find her. He always found her once he had a starting point.
“Catarina, don’t ask me questions if you don’t want answers,” Eli said, and his voice went hard. Scary hard.
She turned her head to look at him again. She’d always thought of him as sweet. Dangerous maybe, but still sweet. There was nothing sweet about Eli in that moment. Danger radiated off of him. He gave off a vibe every bit as scary as Rafe did. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Maybe it was the leopard in them, but suddenly, she felt a little bit like prey, caught between two powerful predators. Eli hid it better than Rafe, but he was just as lethal.
“Don’t.” He said it softly.
“Don’t what?”
“Be afraid of me. I’m a shifter and my leopard is difficult to handle at times, but I handle it. I don’t kill people unless I have no choice. I’m not Cordeau. I wouldn’t slash my woman’s back to punish her or bite her so fucking deep she has scars. Don’t look at me like that, like you’re afraid of me.”
“I am afraid sometimes,” Catarina said honestly. “Right now is the first time I really saw it in you. The stamp of danger that means you’ve battled and won a million times and you don’t back down – ever.”
“Why would that scare you? You’re under my protection.”
Her body jerked. She knew he saw it because his eyes narrowed and moved over her face. “I was under his protection. He told me that a million times.”