Without hesitation, he reached for the key on the nightstand and deftly stretched one arm up to unlock the cuffs. He tossed them aside along with the key and caught her wrists to look at them quickly.

She didn’t care about her wrists. She wanted him inside of her. She wanted to feel his hot skin under her palms so she wrapped him up as quickly as she could, as tightly as she could. Her arms. Her legs. She hooked her ankles around his hips, her breathing ragged, while her nipples rubbed tight against the heavy muscles of his chest.

She ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders, over and then down his back, taking him in, pulling him closer. She couldn’t get enough of him.

“Honey, you have to be inside me,” she whispered against his chest, her tongue licking at his skin. He tasted wild. Masculine. Like rain forests. Her fist clenched in his hair for a moment, pulling his head back. She felt wild with pleasure, with hunger. “I need you inside me, Eli.”

His eyes glowed like those of the leopard he was. Hot. Golden fire. Piercing her soul. He was hers, as wild and primitive as a man could be. A shifter. Dangerous and dark, but he loved her. And he could bring her to ecstasy.

His cock slammed deep into her, driving hard, forcing her delicate, tight muscles to give way for his intrusion. At first, like it always did, her feminine channel resisted, but there was no holding back against such a force.

She knew he thought he held her prisoner, just as Rafe had done, but she knew she could get away from him. He would never hurt her. He would never kill to force her to stay. “You saved me,” she whispered. “Eli, honey, you saved me.”

His head reared back, those beautiful, golden eyes blazing with heat. Then her ability to think was gone entirely. He thrust hard and deep, over and over, a wild, primitive taking, a claiming. She recognized that much, but her body was making a climb, tension coiling and flames racing.

Eli watched her face carefully as he pistoned into her body with hard, deep strokes. She gave him everything. Surrendered everything to him. She gave him control of her body, trusting him to give her pleasure, to make certain she was never harmed. She gave him so much that the only way he could give back was this wild, driving force inside of him to possess her. To love her. To give her more pleasure than any other man possibly could.

He took her savagely, almost brutally, feeling her wildness, feeling her spiraling out of control. He loved to see the dazed look in her eyes, the flush on her body. Her nipples like hard little pebbles tempting him.

She was beautiful all the time, but especially so when she came apart in his arms. He felt her surrounding him with her soft body. Her arms. Her legs. Her sweet, hot channel squeezing the life out of him.

He loved her soft, ragged pleas. Her gasping, broken cries. Her music only added to the agonizing pleasure through every cell in his body. She bared his soul to the world, and she had no idea she did it. He needed the desperate hunger flowing through her body just as much as he needed air to breathe. He could give her this. So much pleasure. She had no idea how high he could take her, but he pushed her limits just a little more each time.

His body wasn’t his own anymore. It belonged to her. To Catarina. He was hard every damn time he looked at her. His needs and cravings only grew with his addiction to her soft cries, her tight, hot body and the pleasure coursing through her at his touch.

“Eli.”

A plea. Music. Such need. Such surrender. She never held anything away from him, not even her emotions, not even when she feared what they were together. She gave and gave. He needed to give just as much. More.

He poured himself into loving her. Bringing her as high as he dared, watching her face for signals, for when the pleasure was too much for her, her body too sensitive and the need too great. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened in a long wailing scream as he sent her crashing over the edge.

He loved her body clamping down like a scorching silken vise, milking him, gripping so hard his cock was strangling in all that hot, wet silk. He felt the explosion start, a wild ecstasy, somewhere in his toes, rocketing through his body, straight to his skull. His cock swelled, pushing back at those tight, vise-like muscles, stretching and burning her to the point where pain and pleasure came together in a single point to set off another wild, earth-shattering quake in her body.

This time she took him with her, her keening cries and breathless whispers nearly shattering him just as much as the hot sheath surrounding him and her sweet declaration of love and surrender to him had. He threw his head back, wanting to roar with the shocking pleasure. It had never been like this, an all-consuming passion that wrung him inside out.

No other man had ever had her. He was the one to be gifted with such a sensual woman, to teach her, to mold her into the lover he wanted and needed. She matched him, fire for fire. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck, holding her tight, feeling her body surround his, the aftershocks that shook them both. Her ragged breathing. Her hands in his hair, gripping and stroking as her tight delicate muscles did the same to his shaft.

“God, Kitten, it’s a damn good thing you have no idea how much I love you,” he whispered into her soft skin. Feeling her pulse. Feeling her tight, feminine channel spasm around his cock at the admission. She could destroy him. So easily. So very easily.

He had no idea when he’d surrendered himself body and soul to her, but somewhere along the line it had happened. He’d never felt more stripped down and vulnerable to a human being, but she needed to hear it. She needed the reassurance, and he wasn’t about to allow pride or ego to get in the way of giving her anything she needed.