“Where were you that day? You always came to walk me home, but you didn’t that day. It was Tuttle, not you.”

“He’s a moron. He doesn’t do undercover work and he sure as hell can’t tail someone without them spotting it. I’d heard they were going to move on you and I wanted to stop them. I spent the day arguing. During the meeting I got wind that maybe someone had tipped Cordeau and I needed to run that down. If it was true, I planned to lay the entire thing out for you myself.”

Catarina swallowed hard. “Eli, I don’t want you to change your life on the chance that I might want to stay. I don’t know if I can get that trust back. I don’t even know what’s going on here between us. Is this just until my leopard emerges? Is this supposed to be a lifetime deal and I’ve got no say in it? I can’t tell you I’ll stay.”

“You’ll stay. Shifters mate for life, Cat. You’ll stay.”

She winced, afraid he was right. If her leopard only had two choices, Eli or Rafe, and she didn’t even know if Rafe would take her back or kill her, she knew she would rather be with Eli. He might never love her, or she him, but he cared enough to take care of her after they had wild, crazy sex. She blushed again just thinking about it.

“You sore?”

She moistened her lips. Her body ached from the pounding on the floor, and deep inside with every movement, she still felt him there, but it was a kind of delicious soreness. She liked it. She liked knowing how she got sore.

“Baby?” he persisted.

She nodded, liking the way his hands moved in her hair. “Not bad. The bath helped. Although I think I have skid marks on my butt.”

“I think your leopard is very close, Cat. When she emerges, I’ll have to let my leopard out. We’ll both be affected by their very unrestrained passion.”

She could tell he had chosen his words cautiously. Her heart jumped and she felt a sudden rush of damp heat at the idea of what unrestrained passion was. She thought they’d been pretty darned unrestrained.

“I’m not certain what you’re telling me. Is this going to get worse?”

He laughed softly and tugged on her braid. He leaned over and nipped at the soft spot where her neck and shoulder met.

His hands transferred from her hair to her shoulders and he began a slow massage, easing the tightness from her sore muscles. She felt almost as if she were melting into the chair. His fingers were strong and then moved to her neck, back to her shoulders and down her back. She’d never felt more cared for in her life and she didn’t know how to think or act so she did nothing at all. Again, she just allowed herself to enjoy the moment.

He pulled up the more comfortable deck chair beside hers and sank down into it, reaching for his coffee.

She glanced at him. “You didn’t answer me. Is it going to get worse? The sex?”

“You’re such an innocent. Not worse, Kitten, better. You’ll like it.” He said that with confidence.

“You only say that because you’ve discovered I’m a perv,” she said. There was a part of her that wanted to laugh and another part that wanted to cry.

He laughed. “Woman, if that’s you being a perv, I’m all for it.” He reached across the small end table and curled his fingers around the nape of her neck. “You’re sitting next to the real thing, and I can tell you, absolutely, truthfully, you are not there. I won’t mind trying to shape you in that direction. The moment I sat down I thought about sitting out here watching the sunset with a fresh cup of your coffee and you sitting right here between my legs, your mouth very busy.”

Her eyebrow went up. “I think you have an oral fixation.” She had to make a joke of it, because, honestly, the moment he sat down, she wished he wasn’t wearing any sweatpants and she could practice all she wanted to. And her leopard hussy was nowhere in sight.

He grinned at her. “You think? Don’t worry, baby, you’ll like it.”

She already liked it, she just wasn’t certain she should like it so much. Because he was talking about it and she was thinking about it, she just had to ask him. She was very grateful she had an excuse to stare straight ahead. “Um. Eli. Why counting?”

He didn’t answer right away and she figured she hadn’t given him enough information, but really, what was she supposed to say? That she wanted to be really, really good at pleasing him and he obviously liked her mouth on him?

“I didn’t want you to panic when you couldn’t breathe, baby. You have to learn to breathe through your nose and even then, when I’m deep, if you don’t relax and trust me, you might still think you’re going to choke, or strangle. First, I wouldn’t let that happen, and second, you’re learning. I don’t want anything we do to frighten you.”

His voice was matter-of-fact. They could have been discussing the weather.

“Once I learned to read, I found a few how-to books about sex,” she admitted, because he made it easy to talk to him about anything. “I didn’t dare go online and look at anything because he always had me watched on the computer and he checked my history and everything else. I knew he tracked the keystrokes on my computer so I used his. He never knew.” She said it rather smugly. She felt smug about that.

He flashed a grin at her. “You outsmarted him.”

“Yes.”

“You read about sex in a book?”

“I was afraid Rafe might want that from me at some point. He’d begun coming into my bedroom some nights and just watching me. I actually went so far as to eavesdrop on some of the girlfriends of Rafe’s closest soldiers when they were talking about things they’d done with their men.”