He took another deep breath, studying the long sweep of her lashes. "Cat, I can't take any chances with you. I can cuff you to me or the bolt. You choose." It was the best he could do. He had the feeling she planned to jump out of the truck on the highway when he was going at a high speed.
They were almost out of the car wash. "Choose, baby, and hurry."
She extended the arm closest to him, turning her head to look out the window. "Just don't talk to me anymore. I can't take any more."
That was a body blow. He could feel her trembling through the connection of metal. "Let's just get somewhere safe where you can sleep," he said. "No safe house or trying to get you to testify. Just sleep."
She swallowed and nodded her head once. Eli supposed that was a better response than nothing. He'd taken the fight out of her, but she was battered and bruised emotionally. He set his teeth and went through the car wash a second time. The moment they were clean, he hit the highway.
He took them out of the city. "Malcom and David are safe. I told them both to get out of town for a while and take a long vacation. They both said they would."
"Thank you."
He hadn't expected that. She sounded like she meant it.
"I didn't know they'd gotten word to Cordeau. I didn't have any idea they intended to."
She didn't respond. She kept her head turned away from him and he was afraid the tears were falling again. She made no sound, but that just made it worse. The way she held herself, he knew she wouldn't accept comfort from him.
"I fucked up, Catarina. Big-time. I totally fucked up with you."
She swallowed again, but she remained silent. He drove fast, heading for one of the three houses he kept for safety issues. No one knew about them, not even his friends. This one was situated on a hundred and twenty-five acres and was fairly remote. His ranch bordered another much larger one. The ranch was in his mother's maiden name.
Catarina was asleep by the time he drove down a maze of roads to the dirt track that went to the house. He was grateful for that. She didn't wake up, not even when he parked and sat there in the cab just inhaling her.
There had been something about her from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. He was often undercover. He was good at it. He was leopard and he could sniff out lies and trail people with no problem. Catarina was correct when she'd said leopards were violent, rough and killing machines. He could kill fast and efficiently when needed, but he certainly didn't kill indiscriminately. He'd chosen the side of the law for his hunting grounds.
Leopards were also fast and cunning, and he was every bit of that. Somewhere in the back of his head he had suspected Rafe Cordeau was a shifter. He couldn't exactly blurt out that information to the team. They would probably freak if they knew about shifters in general, let alone that one was in their midst. He should have put two and two together the moment he met Catarina.
All the signs were there. In the dojo when she worked out, she was just that little bit too fast. She had power when she punched or kicked, real power. Her hair, wild silk that fell down her back like a waterfall, grew thick, much thicker than normal.
Eli uncuffed his hand and swung out of the truck to walk around to the passenger side. He really should have put it all together when he'd reacted to her. Not just physically, but emotionally as well. That never happened to him. Not once. Not on an assignment and not with any of the women he took to his bed.
The fact that his leopard hadn't protested was the biggest sign of all. It was just all so unexpected, and he found himself wrapped up in her. He thought about her day and night. All the time. He couldn't walk into a room she occupied without his body reacting. That gentle side he didn't know he had, the one that had come out when she looked at him with her sad, beautiful exotic eyes, had taken him over and the cop and the leopard had faded away.
"Come here, baby. Let's get you inside. No one will disturb you here," he murmured softly.
She woke enough to push at his shoulder, when he bent over her, getting one arm under her knees and one around her back.
"I'm just taking you inside, Kitten," he crooned. "That's all. Putting you to bed."
He lifted her into his arms. She didn't weigh much. She had curves, beautiful, lush curves, and he'd been looking at her breasts pushing against the thin material of her tank for the last few hours. He could see her nipples outlined there. Her hair was everywhere, brushing against his face as he cradled her tight against his chest. He couldn't resist burying his face in all that hair and inhaling her deep into his lungs.
Catarina didn't protest, nor did she hold her body away from his. If anything, the heat of her body melted into the inferno that was his. That kind of hot he had going usually meant he'd better have sex soon or the rough edges would begin to fray. She'd done that. She'd taken his discipline and control and he'd made a mess of everything.
The only thing he had left to him was to keep her safe. And he was going to do that whether she liked it or not. He carried her into the house. He hadn't been there in a while, but he had the neighbor woman looking after it for him and he'd called ahead to tell her he was coming. She'd had the heat turned on so the rooms weren't ice cold. She always stocked his fridge for him when he called, and he knew there would be food.
He carried Catarina through the open great room to the master bedroom. The bed was made and he made a mental note to be certain to do something special for his neighbor to thank her.
"Sweetheart, you're going to have to wake up. Do you need to use the bathroom before I put you to bed?"
She nodded against his shoulder and he took her on through to the master bath and set her on her feet, one arm around her waist to hold her steady until she got her balance. She swayed a little and clung for a minute, looking around her while he removed the handcuff from her wrist. Her long lashes swept up and down, blinking, and something shifted in his chest. She was beautiful and sexy just standing there half asleep. Without even trying she was under his skin and wrapped around his heart.
Eli pushed back the sweep of hair from her face and bent to her. "You good, Cat, if I leave you here? There are new toothbrushes in the second drawer. And toothpaste. I'll go get your bags if you promise me you won't fall on your head while I'm gone."
She nodded and lifted her hair from the back of her neck, exposing her back. His breath caught in his lungs and his leopard slammed so hard against him, he felt the animal in his throat. Raking. Snarling. Roaring with rage. Mad with the need to be free. Eli's hands tightened on Catarina just for a moment.
A shifter had marked her. Claimed her. A leopard. He could see the top of a rake mark. The unmistakable scar of two puncture wounds up near her shoulder. He'd marked her in a callous, brutal, ugly way. Branded her his. His own leopard responded, roaring against another male trying to take his female.
Eli knew then without a doubt. He knew by his own reaction. By the reaction of his leopard. Catarina Benoit was meant for him. She belonged to him. Cordeau had made certain her leopard would recognize him--accept him--when she emerged, but she wasn't Cordeau's mate. She was Eli's.
Catarina blinked sleepily up at him. "I really need to be alone for a few minutes."
She had no clue. He dropped his hands, and it was a difficult thing to do with his leopard so close. He didn't speak because he knew his voice would be too much of a growl. She was exhausted and he'd wanted to get her in bed. Now he had one more thing to do, and she wasn't going to like it.
He turned away from her and hurried out of the house to retrieve her bags and put the truck in the garage.
Catarina's emergence was close. She was at her time--the Han Vol Dan of his people--where the human's and cat's cycles came together, allowing the leopard to emerge. That couldn't happen until he knew her leopard would accept his as her mate.
Cordeau would be frantic to get to her. Eli knew he would pull out all the stops to find her. Eli knew that because, again, Catarina had been right about him. He was like Cordeau in some ways and i
f a man took his woman, he would hunt that man to the ends of the earth. Eli knew if he wanted to keep Catarina Benoit, he would have to kill Rafe Cordeau, and he was definitely keeping Catarina.
She was standing in the middle of the bedroom looking around her a little helplessly when he returned. He walked up to her and took her hands, turning them over to examine the bruised ring on her skin. "Fucking Tuttle put the cuffs on too tight, didn't he?"
She gave a halfhearted attempt to pull her hands away but subsided when he tightened his fingers around hers. She nodded.
"I'm going to beat the crap out of him."
He slid the pad of his thumb over the bruises on her inner wrist lightly. She shivered. She definitely wasn't immune to him. She was every bit as aware of him as he was her, but she didn't like it. He had to find a way to change that. Right now, she was too sleepy, too exhausted to protest anything he did so he took full advantage.
He brought her wrists to his mouth and brushed a kiss over each. Her cobalt blue eyes went wider. Darker. Shades of violet. Again he felt her tug and he allowed her fingers to slip from his. She pressed both wrists to her thighs, but he didn't rub his kisses away. He reached out and tucked strands of hair behind her ear.
"You need to climb in bed, sweetheart. You're so exhausted you're nearly falling over." He kept his voice gentle.
Tenderness crept in and that shocked him. He didn't know he knew how to be tender. She stripped him bare, looking so young, the terrible bruise standing out so starkly on her pale skin.
"Something's wrong with me." She whispered the confession to him, her eyes avoiding his. He scented her. The age-old call. The need rising in her. Her breasts lifted, her nipples peaked beneath the thin tank. Her legs moved restlessly and color swept through her body.
The moment she admitted it, tension filled the room. He almost groaned aloud. His cat roared at him, desperate to get at his mate. His body flooded with hunger, the need so strong it shook him. He'd blown it with her once already; he wasn't about to do it again by stripping the clothes from her body and pounding into her.
He took a breath and forced calm into his leopard. "It's not wrong, Kitten, it's the Han Vol Dan. It's as natural as breathing. She's close to emerging and she's giving you a little taste of what it will be like."
"I don't want it."
He winced. Not wanting your leopard was denying who and what you were. Leopard was pure freedom. Once she experienced that, no one, not even her mate, could take that from her.
"You don't want it because you don't understand it. Your experience with shifters hasn't been good, but you're wrong. We're not all killers. We can kill when we have to, but we can choose not to. We don't hunt for fun. Those that do are considered rogues, living outside our laws. Our kind goes after them and removes them from society. Like the police would do." Only rather more permanently, but he didn't add that.
He took her hand gently and tugged, leading her to the bed. With one hand he pulled back the covers. "Get in, Cat. She'll subside in a minute and that need will go away. Just breathe."
"It's strong. Very strong." She frowned and lifted her gaze to his.
He caught his breath at what he saw there. Hunger glittered in the deep blue of her eyes. Speculation.
"I know because I'm looking at you and suddenly wondering what it would be like to have you touching me," she continued honestly. "And I despise you. I don't trust you. I don't want anything at all to do with you. But I'm still wondering."
She had always been honest, or tried to. That was one of the things he admired in her. She'd been frank about what was going on with her when she hadn't been able to share much else of her life. He swept his hand over her hair. "I know, baby. It can be like that. Just breathe. She'll calm down and you'll be able to sleep."
She slipped into the bed.
"Lay on your tummy, Kitten."
"I don't like you calling me that."
She sounded so hurt his heart ached. "I know. You don't have a defense when I do, but I'm not going to stop. I know you think none of it was real between us, but you're wrong about that too. I don't blame you for not believing me, but that doesn't make my feelings for you any less true, or any less strong."
"You're right, I don't believe you."
"Just lay on your tummy for me." He pushed a little more command into his voice. His hands went to her shoulders, urging her to turn over.
Catarina was too tired to fight him, too stressed and the leopard inside her too close. She was terrified of the monster getting out of her, but now, with the burning between her legs and the heat rushing through her body, she feared she might throw herself at this man she didn't know or like and she would never, ever, get over that humiliation.
She lay on her belly, her hands under her face, her eyes closed, shutting him out. He was a lot to shut out. He took up space. A lot of space. And he wasn't any less gorgeous. She thought if you didn't like someone they became ugly to you, but that hadn't happened with Ridley--Eli--whatever.
She was aware of every little detail about him. Especially his scent. It called to something wild in her. Something needy and so hot. She wanted to squirm around on the sheets, and it took discipline not to give in to that need. She liked the wide width of his shoulders and the way he moved, the flow of his muscles and the way his eyes went from amber to gold and then molten gold. She'd even dared for one supremely frightening second to drop her gaze to the front of his jeans. It was impossible to miss the impressive bulge there and that just plain freaked her out.
She felt his weight on the bed as he sank down beside her. Her heart began to pound. She couldn't just lay there with him next to her, not feeling the way she was. Her nipples were on fire, moving against the tank and sheets with every tiny shift of her body. She couldn't stop her hips from their restless movements either.
His hand skimmed down her back. "I'm just going to take a look at what he did to you. This was your punishment for running from him, wasn't it?"
She tried not to react to his hand. It felt good, almost a caress, and she didn't want anything good from him. She didn't want gentle or sweet. She wanted him to be mean so she could never associate him with the fantasy man she'd fallen for.
"You heard. You watched." She made it an accusation. Of course he'd listened to Tuttle interrogating her.
"Cordeau did this because you ran from him, didn't he? He showed you his leopard." He ignored her accusation.
She couldn't stop the shudder that had gone through her body. He wanted to know so she told him the stark truth. What did it matter anyway?
"He stripped right there in front of me, his hard body naked, his eyes glittering. I was terrified that he intended to rape me. There was nothing to stop him."
Eli swore aloud, biting out ugly words between his teeth, but his hand never once stopped that gentle stroking. Maybe she wanted to shock him. Maybe she just wanted him to know why she despised that entity inside of her. Either way, she told him the truth.
"His body contorted horribly and then he was all teeth and claws and fur, stalking me across the length of my bedroom. I tried to run but the leopard caught me easily, bringing me down like prey. I felt the hot breath against my skin and knew I was dead, that he was going to kill me."
She turned her head to look up at Eli. "The strange thing was, I didn't care if he did. I wanted it all to be over. But he didn't kill me. He hurt me so bad." She turned her face into the pillow. "So bad," she whispered.
His hand moved under her tank, over her bare skin, his fingers finding each rake scar as he pushed the tank all the way up and out of his way. He shifted the hair off her back to expose the scars even more. She felt the skim of his mouth against each mark and tears burned again. She wanted to roll over, push him away, but she couldn't move.
Her body was no longer her own. The touch of his hands and his mouth proved she had no real defense against him.
"What he did was wrong, sweetheart." He stretched out beside her, his hands continuing
to massage her back and shoulders. "All male leopards are affected when a woman goes into the Han Vol Dan, but you don't take what doesn't belong to you. He knows the rules. He knew better."
She kept her eyes closed. His hands felt wonderful and that terrible burning need was subsiding just as he'd said it would. She felt him shift position again, moving almost over the top of her back, and now his mouth trailed kisses over the rake marks again. She should have stopped him, but she didn't. She couldn't. She felt tension coiling tight inside of her. She felt the leopard inside of her leaping toward him.
There was the slide of fur against her bare skin. She felt hot breath against the nape of her neck. Still she couldn't move, not even when the leopard sank his teeth into her shoulder in the holding bite of his kind. Her leopard surged forward toward the male and she felt the larger male's response.
Her body went up in flames as her female neared the surface in answer to the male's call. She cried out, writhing beneath him, but he moved one strong thigh over her, pinning her down, holding her until her female accepted his male. More hot tears soaked the pillow. She went from never crying to a flood she couldn't stop.
The fur was gone, replaced by Eli's mouth moving over the bite with small kisses and a soothing tongue. He didn't bother to try to hide the urgent hunger in his body from her.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
"What I had to do. It's over. There's no need to hurt you, Catarina. Your female will accept my male. She's going to emerge whether you like it or not and you'll need a man, a male shifter to take care of you."
She rolled then, expecting him to move away from her but he didn't. He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her body into his. She held her head back, glaring at him.
"If I have to choose between you and Rafe, I choose Rafe." She ignored the fingers digging into her midriff. She ignored the warning in his glittering eyes. "At least he's honest. I know what I'm getting. You're all deception, and you don't care about me any more than he does. Neither choice is ideal but better the devil you know than the one you don't."
His golden eyes moved over her face. Brooding. Moody. Scary. She found herself holding her breath.