With a little sigh she got up and checked the fridge and cupboards and then found Eli’s pots and pans. She liked the kitchen and the views it had. She could look out the wide windows while she cooked and watch the wind playing through the trees. It was beautiful country. She had chosen to come to Texas because she was certain the state was so large Rafe wouldn’t be able to find her there.

This countryside was beautiful, with far more trees than she expected. Eli said his leopard could run free here. She wondered what that would be like. What it would feel like. She suddenly had the desire to run free as a leopard, just to experience it. She was afraid, because she’d seen Rafe’s leopard and she knew the animal was even more dangerous than the man.

Even as a teenager, Catarina realized the leopard drove Rafe hard and it took a great deal of discipline and energy to keep that part of him under control. The leopard’s traits were definitely infused in the man and now, after seeing Eli and knowing what was inside of him, she knew his leopard drove him as well.

She paused in the act of stirring her sauce to press a hand to her stomach. Her leopard drove her as well. She’d been violent with Eli twice. More, she had practically forced him to have sex with her. She gained just a little sympathy for Rafe. Her sauce bubbled and she quickly began to stir it again. Leopards, like people, had to have their own personalities, and some had to be more difficult than others. More prone to violence. More alpha.

She glanced toward the open archway leading toward the master bedroom. The water had gone off. Eli would be with her again soon. His leopard was pure alpha, the same as Rafe’s leopard had to be. She couldn’t imagine the two men coming together in any kind of agreement. They would each view the other as a threat and would feel the need to neutralize that threat.

She fixed two plates, arranging them artistically, because for her, it wasn’t just about really good food, but good presentation as well.

Remembering the look on Eli’s face when he’d said that about losing her made her heart beat faster. He walked in when she was setting the plates on the table. He looked good. He smelled good. And when he smiled at her, he took her breath away.

She sank into the chair across the table from him, pulled up her bare feet and sat tailor fashion. “I hope you like it. I made us a skillet breakfast with hash browns and country ham biscuits. The beignets just came out of the oil and are very hot, and you have fresh coffee.”

Eli flashed another smile and something inside her responded with a warm glow. “You have no idea what a treat it is to smell food cooking in this house. I bought the place and nearly burned it down the first time I ever used that stove.”

“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?”