She laughed. “‘Miracle for the taste buds’? You didn’t just say that, did you?”

He shrugged and kept eating. “Sometimes even corny crap is the only thing a man can say because it’s the fucking truth.”

“You swear a lot.”

“Does it bother you?”

“How could it? I grew up in Rafe’s home and all his men used foul language.”

“House,” he corrected. “You grew up in his house. That was no home, Cat, any more than the number of foster homes I was in were homes.”

She hadn’t known he’d been in foster homes. His parents had been murdered but he hadn’t said what happened to him after that. “I’m sorry, Eli, I didn’t realize.”

“It was a house.”

“It was my house,” she said. “I didn’t know any other way of life.”

“Do you love him?” he asked, his fork halfway to his mouth. His body still. Utterly still. His eyes on her face.

Something moved under her skin, rolling through her like a wave. It left behind prickling as if it had agitated her nerve endings.

“Cat?” he prompted.

“I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean. It was never like that between us. He didn’t kiss me or show affection, at least not like other people. I don’t know if Rafe is capable of actually loving anyone. I think he wants to, and if he does, I’m probably the one person he does.”

He put a forkful of food in his mouth, still regarding her steadily. “That’s not an answer. Do you love him? Do you feel loyalty to him?”

Her first reaction was a resounding “no,” but something stopped her. He was asking not as the DEA, but as Eli, sitting across from her at the breakfast table. At least she thought that’s who it was.

“No. I feel sorry for him. I do. I don’t know what his life was like when he was a child, but it wasn’t good. I think his leopard is hard to control and enjoys violence. But he does things that are wrong. Morally wrong. More than that. So wrong there’s no redemption.”

“You know this for a fact? I ask because appearances are often deceiving, especially when it comes to shifters.”

“I don’t. But women would be brought to the house, prostitutes, always on his bad days. He would come to my room first and just stare at me. I was always afraid. Something in his eyes, feral. Not right.”

She shivered and put down her fork. Her thighs tingled. Burned. She rubbed her palms up and down them.

“Did he say anything to you?”