“I need something from you, baby. I need it more than you need what I can give you, so let’s trade.” Again he didn’t look at her. He was too busy with his clever tongue and his exploring fingers.

She swallowed fear. This man of hers made her crazy, there was no doubt about it, but he was hers. She’d given herself to him for a reason. He was her choice and he had been since the first time she’d even seen him in the dojo, instructing advanced students. She’d known then that she could belong to him.

She had never given her trust to another human being. Not ever. Eli had been the first person she’d given even a part of herself to and now he wanted it all. Demanded it all, which was just like him.

“Baby?” he prompted gently. “Give it to me. I need to hear it.”

This time he raised his head, his glittering cat’s eyes suddenly focused completely on hers. Her heart pounded harder. She tasted fear. She tasted love. She didn’t want to love him. She wanted to belong to him, but she didn’t want to love him. Loving him was terrifying. He already had too much of her, and what if she disappeared when she was just finding herself? What if she couldn’t stand up to him? He was a dominant male and he’d be more so if he knew.

“Baby?” he coaxed again, his gaze holding hers captive. “Say it. Tell me. Give me what I need.”

Tears tracked down her cheeks. “What if I can’t?”

“You can. You’re just afraid. Say it once. Give that to me.” With his gaze still on hers, he pressed little butterfly kisses up and down her thighs, his tongue lapping at the spilled spice coating her there, fluttering along her skin until she thought she might go up in flames.

Catarina swallowed fear. He knew. He already knew. What difference did it make that she say it aloud to him? Why was he making her? She forced herself to really look at him, to get past the haze of hunger and lust driving her.

His face was carved with lines of need. The set of his jaw, so stubborn, the straight nose and hard features that were purely masculine. But it was there, in his golden eyes, eyes that had gone molten and nearly all leopard. She saw the truth there. The need. He wasn’t just playing some sexual game, out to force her to obey him. He was telling her the absolute, stark truth. He needed to hear the words from her. They meant something to him.