His eyes narrowed. Fury burned. She didn’t care. She stood her ground. She wasn’t backing down.
“Do you think I don’t know when my woman wants me?”
“You’re talking about my body, Eli, which strictly speaking isn’t all me. My body wants you. I’m not denying that. But I don’t. Me. The woman. You hurt me. You didn’t notice, or you didn’t care. You demand all the time that I talk to you – that I tell you everything going through my mind, but you don’t bother to give me that same courtesy. I asked you if you were angry with me and you refused to answer. I have no idea what I’ve done to set you off and quite frankly, right at this minute, I don’t even care.”
That was such a lie. She did care. It hurt to have him upset. She’d trusted him all over again. Given herself to him. Declared she’d stay with him and start their relationship over. She knew she was going to cry and that upset her more. Those leopard eyes staring at her without blinking, coming out of the dark like they did, were terrifying. But she refused to back down.
“You’d better start caring, Cat,” he snapped back.
“Why? So we can have sex and you can walk off a happy man again? That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it, Eli. If you’d just left it there it would have been fine. We could have sex and you could be in control and I’d just go along with it, because really, in your eyes, that’s all I’m good for.”
“Do you really believe that the only thing I value you for is for sex?” he demanded, his voice harsh.
“Why would you value me even for sex?” she shot back. “I don’t know the first thing about it. You tell me to put my mouth on you in the mornings when I wake up and you did so knowing I couldn’t possibly do more than give you a brief kiss. That’s a set-up, kind of like when Rafe forced me to read that poem so he could make fun of me. For you, I’m more like a body you can use, and if I don’t do exactly as you say, you go up in flames.”
His face changed. The anger glittered in his eyes, and the lines in his face hardened more. He was up, crossing the distance between them so fast she almost didn’t see him move. He was intimidating up close. He smelled wild. Feral. His hands belied his scent and those golden eyes. He reached for her and drew her reluctant body against his – and he was gentle when he touched her, which shocked her.
“Catarina, I don’t understand how you could think you mean so little to me. Or that I’d be capable of making fun of you when you do something so beautiful and giving as waking me up in a loving way in the mornings.”
She turned red. She felt the color sweeping up her neck into her face. At night, erotic images played through her mind. His body heat scorched her. She could taste him in her mouth. Feel him on her skin. Sometimes she even felt him inside of her. She wanted to be able to match him in every way, but she didn’t know what she was doing. He knew that.
“Why are you angry with me, Eli? And don’t say you’re not.” It was painful to ask him. She’d done everything she could to please him and it wasn’t enough. She never seemed to be enough, no matter how hard she tried.
His hand moved through her hair, as if soothing her, yet his eyes were still all predator watching prey. “I’ve given you every opportunity to think about it, but you chose not to take any of them.” The edge in his voice increased and his eyes went from amber to a fierce golden liquid, taking her breath.
“I don’t know what that means, Eli,” she admitted.
“It means, baby, I’m done with the fucking bullshit. I’ve wanted those lips of yours wrapped around me every fucking morning but you haven’t exactly been cooperative.”
“You wanted your cock in my mouth?” she echoed, thinking of every morning when she’d been too shy to do what she wanted, which apparently was what he’d been waiting for. “You were waiting for me to… um… initiate it?”
His expression softened. “Yes, Kitten. That’s what I was waiting for. I’m always the one initiating sex. Just one damn time I’d like to know you wanted me for a change.”
The raw loneliness in his voice took her breath away. How could he not know she wanted him? “I attacked you first. More than once,” she said. He always seemed so confident, arrogant even. For just that moment he seemed almost insecure.
He shook his head. “Not the same thing, baby, and you know it. That was the leopard’s heat talking mostly. But then, a few days ago, you gave yourself to me and then you took you away. You dangle paradise in front of a starving man, give him a taste and then take it away, he gets angry and he isn’t going to accept that loss.”
She didn’t understand and it made her more frustrated than ever. He held her close to his side, his arm around her waist. His body language, face and eyes said anger, but the gentle way he held her said something altogether different.
“My parents died and my life turned to total shit, baby. Not like yours. Not even close, but I had this leopard and he was riding me hard, struggling for control. I was always in fights. Didn’t matter where I was, honest to God, or how much I wanted to stay there, I couldn’t stop the fights. And the need to fuck. All the time. It never let up. If I didn’t give in and find myself someone to ride hard then I was beating the crap out of someone. I was a teenager without direction and a leopard that needed sex and violence all the time. That got me kicked out of a dozen homes in a few very short years. It also got me pitted against the male adults in the homes where I stayed. That meant fists and beatings and forcing me to hold my leopard back. Once…”
He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, she could see that leopard, feral and wild with hunger and needs of its own. She held her breath and her fist twisted in his loose shirt.
“Not just once,” he confessed, the words sounding as if each was bitter and disgusting. “Many times, I had to fight my own nature. My leopard wanted free rein. I was young and it felt like protection, but he would have killed them. I knew he would have. I couldn’t allow it and it just made it all the more difficult to take those beatings when I knew I could let him loose and it would be over.”
She inhaled sharply, her natural compassion rushing to overtake her.
“I’ve never told a damn soul this fucking shit, baby,” he confided. His hand slid under her chin and he tipped her face up to his. “Just you. Because I trust you. Because you make my life worth something. You make all those years worth fighting and being strong, learning control. I know I’m controlling. I know I can get mean. I’m trying, Kitten. Really. My life has to be control. I can’t take too much chaos, because as I’ve grown stronger, so has he.”
She pressed closer to him. She didn’t know what to say. “I have no idea how I make your life worthwhile, Eli.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Catarina?” He all but snarled it. “Look around you. Look at our home. You made this place a home. You take care of me. No one has done that for me. It isn’t that you cook for me, it’s that you love cooking for me and I can taste it in every bite I take. When you give yourself to me, it’s full surrender. Everything. All of you. In the mornings when I wake up, you’re cuddled into me all soft and warm and you always smile. Always. The sun rises right there. I know my day is going to be good because you smiled at me. I could give you a million more reasons, and I know I’m being damned selfish that I wanted – no I need you to make a move on me. I have to know that you aren’t staying with me because I fucking forced you to.”
God. He was giving her everything. Stripping himself of pride. Of his ego. Of the confident, arrogant, controlling man that he was. She fell a little bit more in love with him. How could she not?
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted, embarrassed. Not just embarrassed – humiliated. Nearly as humiliated as when Rafe had insisted she read a poem to his visitors. “And it’s mortifying. You’re so experienced, Eli, and I hate doing anything wrong in front of you because I don’t want you to think I’m stupid.”
“Baby,” he said gently, cupping the back of her head in his palm. His eyes softened. His face gentled. He slid his thumb over her lips. “Is that what you’ve been afraid of? That you wouldn’t do it right? And never again, ever, believe that I would think you were stupid. I’m very aware how intelligent you are. You not only outsmarted Cordeau, but you fooled me a time or two as well.” His head dipped down to hers, his lips feathering gently over hers. “You really didn’t make a move because you were afraid you wouldn’t do something right? Baby, there is no right way.”