Eli didn’t make a sound. He waited in silence. He knew it was an effort on her part, he could tell by the way her body stiffened, but she forced herself to turn around and face him, to walk toward him with his coffee, but she studiously looked at the floor while she did so.

“Baby, are you asking me a question? Because if you are, I need your eyes on mine.” His voice was low, but it held a clear command.

Her lashes fluttered and then her gaze jumped to his. He took the coffee. It smelled almost as good as she did. He couldn’t resist smoothing his hand over her bare bottom again. Just having her standing there so close made him hard. He knew it wasn’t all about how she looked, or even the fact that she was a wildcat in his bed. There was far more to it than that.

It was this. Her bare ass, no panties under his shirt because he’d asked it of her. It was her inexperience, her shyness, yet her willingness to learn from him, to let him guide her and teach her the things she wanted to learn. Her trust in giving him her body—that trust—in spite of his earlier betrayal of her. How could he not be so in love with her that it hurt? How could he possibly be with her and not know she was his world and always would be?

“I suppose I am. How do shifters handle that sort of thing?”

“Shifters mate for life. Over and over. They find one another and they choose each other. I would never leave you, or take another woman. When you carry my child in your belly, baby, it will only make me love you more. I’m not going anywhere.”

Her eyes began to move away from his and toward the floor. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Keep your eyes on mine. You hide when you avoid someone’s eyes. You’ve practiced it enough, for years, obviously, but there isn’t a reason to hide anymore. I want to know what you’re thinking, so you look at me not the floor.”

“I’m thinking you’re extremely bossy,” she snapped, her eyes coming back to his.

Deep blue. Flirting with anger. That made him hard too. He’d seen her a lot of ways, but anger wasn’t really one of them. Hurt, yes, anger not so much.

He grinned at her and then took a sip of coffee. “My woman makes a great cup of coffee, and she has a temper.”

“Why would that make you happy?”

“Best kind of sex there is, baby. Make-up sex.” His grin widened when her eyes turned a deep blue and flashed at him. There was just a hint of a smile in the midst of her mad.