She sounded close to tears. He brushed kisses on each eyelid and then trailed more to the corner of her mouth. He still felt her tight sheath surrounding him. He should have been empty. Finished. But he was still hard. All that scorching fire and that honey and spice. But she was done. She needed care. Time to come to terms with what happened between them.

“This isn’t your fault, Catarina. It just is. We’re shifters. We didn’t ask to be shifters, and this comes with the territory. I know you’re afraid of her. Your leopard, but you don’t have to be…”

“Are you kidding? I would never have attacked you in a million years. She did that. She made me into a slut.”

His hands tightened on her and he gave her a little shake. “Don’t you ever call yourself that, Cat. She didn’t make you anything but what you’re supposed to be. My mate. She recognized my leopard and mine recognized yours. It’s that simple. She’ll give you a freedom you’ve never had, one that no one can take from you. When you run in that form, there’s nothing like it on earth, except this. What we have together.”

He forced himself to roll off of her. The moment he was out of her body, he felt alone again, an ache instantly, a need to be connected physically to her. It was all he had with her and he knew it. Having sex, even great sex with her, didn’t mean their problems were solved. He’d betrayed her and that betrayal had gone deep.

“I’m going to run you a bath. If you don’t soak in hot water, you’ll be sore.” She was going to be sore anyway. Leopard sex was savage at best. Brutal most of the time. His leopard clawed and raked for his mate. She wasn’t ready, but that didn’t stop the fierce cat from driving Eli to cement the relationship. Who was he kidding? He was a rough man and he liked sex hard and wild.

He pulled up his sweats and padded across the room to the master bath. He left the door open, keeping his eye on her while he ran the water as hot as he thought she could stand. She didn’t speak, but he felt her eyes on him.

“What is it, baby?” he asked as gently as possible.

She looked upset, and he didn’t blame her. She was dealing with too many things at once.

“Why? Why did you use me like that?”

For a moment he thought she was talking about sex, but when he looked at the expression on her face, the raw hurt there, he knew what she meant. Her question was a potential bomb. How could he answer that without her feeling even more betrayed? He had betrayed her.

Eli was acutely aware of what she’d said about making the choice between Cordeau and him. She wanted honesty. She even deserved honesty. He sat on the edge of the tub and kept his eyes on her face even while one hand trailed in the water to make certain it wasn’t too hot for her.

“Looking the way I do, Cat, rough and mean, gives me a certain edge in the kind of work I do. Being a leopard helps me to have a better than average rate for arresting and prosecuting very bad men. What I’m saying is, I go undercover a lot. I live undercover for months at a time. Most of it is bad. Most of it sucks. You live in the dirt long enough, baby, and it rubs off on you.”

“But you believe in what you do.” She propped herself up on one elbow, watching him just as closely as he was watching her.

He was surprised at that insight. More, he was surprised at her interest. He felt his way carefully, afraid they were doing a little dance and he didn’t yet know the steps. Still, he wasn’t going to lie to her. Not again. She asked him a question, and she was going to get an answer whether or not she wanted to hear it – or he wanted to give her one.

“It’s what I dedicated my life to. My parents were murdered because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They’d gone to visit old friends, took a wrong turn and got caught in the middle of a drug deal gone bad. I was just a kid, but I guess that was what first made me decide I wanted to get into law enforcement.”

She had pulled up the sheet but it barely covered her breasts. He could see the pale curve of the swell and there were a few marks there. His marks. Had she not been a virgin he would have said the hell with the bath and pounded into her all over again. His cock jerked at the thought of teaching her the things he liked. At the thought of doing the things to her body that she was going to like.

“So is part of your job seducing women?”

Shit. Fuck. Son of a bitch. How the hell was he going to answer that? “I didn’t seduce you, Cat. I was very, very careful to keep my hands off you, and it wasn’t easy. Right from the beginning I knew you were different. You got under my skin. I wasn’t going to go there with you. Not you.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, instantly drawing his gaze, reminding him he wanted to bite her lower lip himself. She was beautiful, bruises and all. Even with dark shadows beneath her eyes and suspicion and hurt in all that wild blue.

“So the answer is yes, you do or have seduced other women as part of your job.”

He nodded slowly. “Unfortunately yes. It isn’t a part of the job I enjoy, but sometimes it’s the only way inside an organization I’m penetrating, or the only way I can get information.”

“What makes you different from a prostitute? She trades sex for money, you trade sex for information.”

He winced and reached out to turn off the taps. “I never looked at it like that. It’s never comfortable, Catarina, and I’m not particularly proud of it, but I wormed my way into a human trafficking ring by sleeping with a fucking bitch who acquired young girls. I shut that shit down. Am I sorry I slept with the skank? Do I wish I didn’t have to do it? Hell yeah. But I closed it down and a hell of a lot of young girls were rescued and more saved from being forced into that kind of life.”