“Rio, it’s too much.”

“It’s never too much.” He breathed the words against her, his finger pushing deep into her so that her muscles clenched around him and she cried out with pleasure. “This is the two of us, Rachael. The way we’re meant to be.” He bent his head and replaced his finger with his tongue.

She clutched the sheets for an anchor. Her body exploded, rippling with life, with pleasure, nearly sending her off the bed. Then his mouth was fastened to hers and he was lifting her hips, surging into her. He was thick and full and thrust through her orgasm, sending shock waves of fire through her body.

“More, Rachael, take me deeper, take all of me.” His voice was hoarse and he tilted her hips as he thrust deeper, wanting to bury himself inside her body, inside her sanctuary. He wanted to share her skin, her heart, her very soul. “That’s right,sestrilla, more, take all of me.” He could have wept tears of joy. Everything in him remembered, knew he had come home. He felt her shift, just that tiny bit, felt her take him deeper into her tight sheath. Her muscles gripped and clung and performed an amazing tango of heat and fire on his body. He found a perfect rhythm, surging deep, thrusting hard, immersing, losing himself in a paradise he thought lost to him.

He knew instinctively, or maybe it was a past life together, exactly how to please her. He knew what she wanted, what made her gasp and moan and cling to him. He wanted their first time together to be a memory for both of them. He forced his body under a semblance of control to give her complete satisfaction, driving her up and over the edge again and again until she cried out for mercy. He wanted to give her the perfect joy she gave to him.

Rachael dug her fingernails into Rio’s back, desperate to hold on, to take him with her when she was flying so high. Lights burst behind her eyes. Her body shuddered with pleasure. She felt him swelling even more, growing larger, harder, exploding with life and joy, his growl of sheer pleasure mingling with her own cry.

They lay in the heat of the night, their scents mingling, their hearts racing. Rachael traced one long scar just over his left shoulder with her fingertip while wave after wave rocked her. “How did you get this one?”

He couldn’t move, sweat beading his body. He settled into her, shifting slightly to take some of his weight off of her. “That one was a knife. I was pulling a sixteen-year-old boy out of Tomas’s camp and the kid panicked and ran from me before I could stop him. A guard nabbed him and swung a machete at him.” He nestled his face closer to the war mth of her breast. “That’s where this scar came from.” He showed her his arm and the deep scar running along his forearm. “I was able to save the kid, but a second guard knifed me from behind during the fight. That wasn’t my most shining moment.”

Rachael lifted her head enough to press her mouth to his forearm, her tongue swirling over the long scar. He tasted as if they’d just made love. “And this one?” She reached lower, deliberately sliding her finger tips over his fir m buttocks to rest in the small white concave over his left hip. “How did you get this one?”

“A bullet.” He grinned, his breath teasing her nipple into a hard peak. “Obviously I was running.”

“Well at least you were showing good sense.”

“There were more of them then there was of me. I walked into a hornet’s nest that time. I was only scouting, looking for signs, and walked right into them. It seemed the right thing to do was to leave since I didn’t have an invitation.” He leaned into her breast and suckled, just for a moment because she wasn’t opposed to the idea. His laughter was muffled. “I’ve improved my running times since then.”

Just the pull of his mouth on her sensitized breast sent her body into another orgasm. He was still locked deep inside her and velvet-soft muscles gripped and clenched tightly, adding to his own pleasure.

Her finger tips avoided the raw wound on his hip and went to the myriad of deep slashes on his back.

“And these?”

Rio went absolutely still. Even his breath caught in his lungs. He waited a heartbeat, listened to the air moving in and out of her lungs. Slowly he lifted his head to look down at her. “Those scars came from a few fights I had with a big cat.”

Her dark eyes moved over his face. He could see her taking it in, accepting it. “A cat like the other night. A big leopard. Not Fritz or Franz.”

“Not Fritz or Franz,” he confir med. Very gently he separated from her, easing his body from hers, rolling over to take his weight completely from her. He lay staring up at the ceiling. “A very large, fully grown male leopard.”

Rachael could feel the stillness in him. The waiting. There was something he needed to tell her, but he was extremely reluctant. She reached for his hand, laced their fingers together. “Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to say things you need to say, but don’t want to say, in the dark?” Her fingers tightened around his. “You know you’re going to tell me, so just say it.” She waited, her heart accelerating. She had a flashback of his face changing, of fur and teeth and eerie glowing eyes. The longer she lay in the dark waiting, the more she was afraid.

“I murdered a man.” Rio said it softly, his voice so low it was barely audible. She heard pain, stark and raw in the ugly confession.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe. It was the last thing she expected him to say. The last thing she expected of a man like Rio. It didn’t fit with the man who cared for his leopards first. It didn’t fit with the way he always put her first. “Rio, defending yourself or having to defend others by taking them back from a man like Tomas is not murder.”