“And cool under fire—cunning, careful. Burn their dead in the hottest fires possible. Find remains of any who died by accident. Band together to retrieve a body if one is taken by a hunter. The society would have to be a superior one, dependent on one another and highly skilled and secretive.”

“Like you.” She couldn’t get the picture of his face changing, rushing at her with the muzzle and teeth of a fully grown male leopard out of her head.

He returned to the bed, towering over her, his vivid green eyes moving over her face. “Like me,” he agreed. Rio bent and scooped up the fifty-pound clouded leopard, cradling it close to his chest.

Rachael’s fingers curled in the bedcover. Was it possible? Was it her fevered imagination or was Rio able to shift into the form of a leopard? She looked at him crouched down beside the cat, streaks of blood on his back and sides, down the columns of his thighs, and a tear up near his neck. She didn’t car e what he was. It didn’t matter to her, not when he was petting the injured cat and murmuring soft nonsense to it.

Rachael swallowed the tight knot of fear blocking her throat. “You’re bleeding, Rio. Come here to me.

How badly are you hurt?”

Rio stood up and turned around to look at her. There was genuine concern in her voice, in the dark depths of her eyes. Her compassion touched him somewhere deep inside, somewhere he wanted to forget existed. She shook his control, and that was more dangerous than she could possibly understand.

Rio shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no big deal, a few scratches.”

Rachael studied him as he padded across the floor on bare feet. There was a slight stiffness to his normal graceful, sinuous walk. The scratches looked deep and ugly and she thought there was more than one puncture wound. “You always take care of everything and everybody before you take care of yourself. You fought that leopard, didn’t you? You didn’t have a gun with you. I doubt you had a knife.

What did you do? Fight it with your bare hands?”

Rio dragged out the medical kit and began dousing the angry looking wounds with burning liquid.

Rachael sighed softly, feeling helpless. He looked tired and out of sorts and she knew the gashes had to hurt. He didn’t respond to her comments, but she was certain she was right. He had to have been involved in a vicious fight with a cat of some kind without a weapon. And it couldn’t have been a small cat. She bit down on her lip to keep her mouth closed, determined not to aggravate him with questions.

He bent to duck his head over the tub he used as a sink and poured water over his hair. He was breathtaking, there in the dark with just the sliver of moonlight falling across him. His hair gleamed liked silken webs. Shadows from the heavy foliage stirred by the wind threw the broad outline of his back and buttocks into sharp relief and then just as quickly covered him from her sight as he washed himself. As he straightened and half turned toward her, his eyes caught the reflection of light from the moon and glowed an eerie red. The eyes of a predator. The eyes of a leopard.

Rachael held her breath and made every effort to keep the wild pounding of her heart under control. It wasn’t just his strange eyes that could frighten her; he always carried a dangerous, untamed look about him. She was certain she was right about his eyes being different, more like a cat’s. He took a step toward the bed and she could see him more clearly, see the weariness and pain etched into his face.

Immediately fear was swept aside in her concern for him.

“Rio, come to bed.”

He studied her expression. Soft. Inviting. Temptation. Her mouth was sinful. He had more than his share of fantasies about her mouth. Her lush body, so soft and warm and perfect for his, was an invitation he couldn’t ignore much longer. The longer she stayed in his home, the more she belonged ther e. “Damn it, Rachael, I’m not a saint.” His voice was harsh, deliberately challenging. He was so edgy and moody he wanted a fight with her. He wanted to go back into the jungle and sulk far away from her. If his obsession with her continued to grow, he didn’t know what he was going to do.

Rachael did the unexpected like she always did. She burst out laughing, the sound carefree, not in the least bit frightened. “You have no worries, Rio, I am not about to mistake you for one.”

“Well why the hell are you looking at me like that then? Don’t you have any idea how vulnerable you are right now?”

“I think you’re the one who’s vulnerable, Rio, not me. Come to bed and stop acting so macho. You can put on your he-man face in the morning and I’ll do my best to act afraid if that’s what you need, but right now, you need sleep. Not sex, sleep.”

“You think I need sleep,” he groused, but obediently slid into the bed beside her. She was warm and soft and everything he knew she’d be. Rio wrapped his arms around her, fit his body around hers, snuggling his heavy erection tightly against the cradle of her hips, his head against the soft swell of her breast.

“I know you need sleep. Just lay it down for a while. If you’re worried about someone sneaking up on you, I’ll watch over you.” She could feel the silk of his hair, damp from washing, teasing her nipple.

Rachael wrapped her ar ms around his head, cradled him to her, her fingers woven in the thick mass of hair.

“I should check your leg after that idiot cat jumped on it.”

His breath was warm against her breast. She felt desire pierce her like a sword. “Go to sleep, Rio, we can check it in the morning.” For the rest of the night, she would pretend he belonged to her. Her own gentle warrior, fresh from battle, a mixture of danger and tenderness she found impossible to resist.