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.