“Sit down, Alonzo, tell me about yourself. About your leopard.” She came up behind him and extended her arm toward the inviting living space that opened through the archway of the dining room and kitchen so that the house seemed to be much larger than it really was.

He took two steps toward the room with its comfortable chairs and then turned so that he was towering over her. His hand curled around her throat, tipping her head up because if he was going to give her this, he damned well was going to look into her eyes. “Be very sure you want the truth about me, malyutka, because it will scare you to death and I’m still not going to let you go. And when we’re together like this, I am Fyodor. Give me that.” Because he was giving himself to her whether she liked it or not.

She took a breath. He felt it in his lungs. The way they’d shared breath when he’d kissed her. He tasted her in his mouth. His cock jerked, already hard and hurting. Already making demands.

“Then tell me the worst so I know what I’m facing.”

“You hear this, there is no turning back. The things I tell you can get you killed. Not by me, Evangeline, so don’t think I’m threatening you. You just have to be certain you really want to know the real me.”

“What’s the point of this if you aren’t sharing who you really are?”

He could hear that she genuinely wanted to know him, but not for the reasons he wanted to know her. She was looking for affirmation that he was a bad bet—and he was. Still, in her home, when he was alone with her, he would give her truth.

“I’m a shifter. Shifters need sex. A lot of sex. My body is as hard as a rock most of the time, a painful ache that refuses to leave me seemingly ever. Night and day, that need never changes other than to get worse sometimes. It doesn’t matter how many times I jerk off, it doesn’t help. My leopard makes fucking a woman a nightmare.”

He saw the trepidation in her eyes, but also the arousal. His thumb moved over her skin because he couldn’t help himself. There was no way not to touch her. It was a compulsion. A need far stronger than he was. He was scaring her, yes, but she was also feeling the beginnings of hunger for him just at the thought of his need.