He was pushing fairly hard to get the construction done on transforming the two garages into one massive greenhouse so they could have a tropical garden. He had been thinking about what types of equipment he would want hidden amongst the plants. He liked the idea of waterfalls and streams. He wanted to have very comfortable chairs to relax in and many places to inspire his imagination for tying on the ground as well as in the air. Flambé looked beautiful in ropes and, although new at erotic bondage, she was more than willing to try anything with him. He also wanted a place for the leopards to relax.
She was soaking in the steaming bathwater when he walked in, barefoot and naked himself. He simply stepped into the tub and joined her, sinking into the water opposite her so he could watch her face as they talked. The hot water was working its magic. Her hair was wet and piled on her head. Her face was clean and free of all lines of worry. She looked hopelessly young, as she did sometimes, and very relaxed. Her eyes were closed and she smiled faintly when he joined her, but she didn’t open her eyes.
He circled her ankle and picked up her foot to stroke her calf with strong fingers. “You were going to tell me about the conversation that had your crew so concerned, Flambé.” He kept his voice low, that velvet-soft, mesmerizing voice that played over her senses, the one she responded to the most.
“They were mostly giving me a hard time about the rescue operations. My team is bringing in a woman and her three children. She was caught on camera recently in her leopard form. Strawberry leopards are so unusual that they make huge headlines if they’re seen. She was seen in a big way because she had three kittens with her. Scientists are trying to prove why their spots are red, not black, and where the strawberry leopards come from. But there are so few because poachers want their furs . . .” She broke off, sighing. “It’s a big mess.”
He waited, not hurrying her. He pushed his thumb into her tense, tight muscle and rubbed until he felt it slowly give way and then massaged gently. There it was again. The truth. Misleading him. What was she hiding?
“They think I trust too much. Maybe I do, Sevastyan. The internet has made it so much more difficult for me to go anywhere without being seen. My father could slip in and out of a country and no one was the wiser, but now, if I take two steps somewhere, Franco knows or those people who put a price on my head are watching the airports and they know.”
That was all true. “Is that what these men were worried about?”
Her lashes fluttered and she frowned as she opened her eyes to look at him. “Sort of. It all kind of fits together. Are you sure you want to hear this? I haven’t really figured out if they’re right or wrong. They gave me a lot to think about.”
He didn’t want to tell her that he was the only one she needed to figure it out with, but it was the truth. If he didn’t get a satisfactory answer from her, he would be talking to all three of the men, one at a time, until he was satisfied. Something in the way they were acting really bothered him. He kept his fingers relaxed as he switched to massaging her other calf.
“Bounce it off me.”
“The woman, Shanty is her name, insisted on meeting only with me when she’d never met me. My team was going to extract her, but she wanted me to go to South Africa myself to escort her and the children to the United States. I have a perfectly good team and they explained to her that it was impossible for me to come. When she balked, I had to tell her that if she didn’t go with them, we couldn’t pull her out. For some reason, all three of the men didn’t like that she was insistent I go to her. They thought it was strange.”
He kept his gaze on her face. He didn’t allow his heart to accelerate or any change to his breathing. If these three men thought there was a problem, there most likely was a problem.
Her teeth sank briefly into her lower lip and then she sighed again. “My father didn’t want me to continue with rescuing. He said it was becoming too dangerous.” She made the confession in a little rush. “I disagreed with him. It was the only thing we argued about right up until he passed away. I have a team of investigators and they’re very good, but maybe the men are right and I hurry them because I’m so afraid of losing someone. I need to be more careful.”
Or not do any more rescuing. Sevastyan didn’t say it aloud. He was going to consider how to keep her safe and not sound like a dictator. Clearly, she felt passionate about what she did. To just tell her she had to stop when she wouldn’t do it for her father wasn’t going to work. He needed a better solution.
“It’s nice to know the men who work for you also look out for you,” Sevastyan said, his voice mild. He was going to make certain he knew everything there was to know about them. He hoped to enlist their aid. He also wanted to talk to her investigation team and find out about this woman, Shanty.
“Don’t fall asleep yet, baby. You need to eat. You haven’t been eating much at all lately.”
11
SEVASTYAN lay awake for a long time, his body burning hot. Flames licked over his skin and ignited like gunpowder in his veins. It seemed that every time he woke now, Flambé beside him, his body woke first, already in a state of need. He always savored the buildup of heat and fire. He let it happen rather than trying to suppress it the way he had for years. Now, there was his woman.
She lay curled up in a ball the way she did, making herself so small in the middle of their bed, that red hair of hers already spilling out of its braid, proclaiming to him that she couldn’t be tamed. She always turned on her side, away from him, as if she could get away in her sleep, but he slept with his body around hers, his arm anchoring her to him, one leg thrown over her so there was no way she could possibly escape.
He enjoyed lying awake while she slept, imagining her tied in various ways. Seeing erotic images of her with the different ropes against her skin. She had such perfect skin for ropes, for the various colors and textures of ropes. She was extremely limber and she had done what he’d asked and stretched every day, several times a day, taking care to get her body into the best shape possible for the rigorous demands needed to be a rope model.
With Sevastyan, she wasn’t just his rope model. She was his partner in bondage and sex. He would demand all kinds of difficult erotic things from her that meant she needed to be in top physical condition. He took her training seriously and he was very grateful that she did as well. He studied her face for a long time while she slept. She’d been very quiet, nearly falling asleep in the bath the night before.
Sevastyan had insisted she eat, and she had, but very little. She had been seductive as she readied herself for bed, but he had been aloof, settling himself in a chair across the room from the bed with a book until she finally gave up. She threw herself on top of the covers and almost immediately fell asleep. Denying himself had taken discipline, but she needed rest and he needed time to figure his woman out. He also knew that he had to be the one controlling the sexual situations between them at all times. He was missing something big and if he didn’t figure out what that was soon, he might lose her altogether.
There was a problem with her leopard—or with her. He couldn’t decide which one it was. Her female was in her first cycle. Male leopards were known to their male counterparts almost from the moment they were born, but it wasn’t the same with most shifters. Often, women had no idea if they even had a leopard until she made herself known when their cycles united and she was ready to emerge. That was an intense time for the human female and extremely disorienting, at least based on everything he had observed from Ania’s experience.
Flambé’s leopard had retreated so far that Shturm couldn’t seem to reach her. His male was furious and getting more and more difficult to handle. That meant he was having difficulty controlling the building rage inside of him. Something was very wrong and he had to figure out what it was as quickly as possible.
It was very possible, even probable, that the female leopard was terrified of Shturm. Quite frankly, he was
a brute. He would terrify any female leopard, let alone one as small as a strawberry leopard. She had no idea what to do or what to expect, and her human counterpart didn’t either. Flambé’s body was hypersensitive, so her reaction to the feeling of the female leopard coming close to the surface was distressing. That could suppress her rising.
Or . . . he didn’t want to think about the other possibility . . . that Flambé was the one terrified and was somehow stopping her female from rising. Was that even possible? He didn’t know. He’d never heard of such a thing, but if he didn’t find out soon, Shturm was going to tear him apart to get to the female. The fact that Flamme had come close to the surface around three other males and then retreated when Shturm came close had turned the big male wild.
Sevastyan resisted touching Flambé’s face, tracing her high cheekbones with the pads of his fingers. There was a strange melting sensation in the region of his heart from just looking at her that was beginning to alarm him. She was becoming necessary in his life. He liked having her around. He liked hearing her laugh. He wanted to get to know her—the real her—the things about her no one else knew. He wanted her to let him into her life. For the moment, the best he could do was keep her safe, and work on their relationship.
Drake Donovan had his best people along with the Amurov people tracking Matherson. His private jet had filed a flight plan to Miami with nine people aboard. Supposedly Matherson was one of them. From there, the jet had taken those nine people to a small island owned by one of Matherson’s friends. He stayed there overnight and left in the afternoon for France. He was expecting confirmation that Matherson was on the plane at any time. He knew the man would come back, but for now, he could concentrate on one enemy at a time.
And he had today with his woman. He needed it to figure out what was going on with her leopard—or her. He caught Flambé’s messy topknot and tugged gently. “Time for you to wake up, baby.”
As he tugged, he sat up and turned to put his feet on the floor. His heavy sac slid over the side of the bed and his cock strained toward his abdomen. He avoided touching himself when he needed to give in and give himself relief. He kept tugging her head with little gentle movements toward the edge of the bed until she made her usual drowsy murmurs of protest.
Those sounds always put more steel in his cock. He loved her little morning protests before she really woke. Flambé stirred, started to roll over and found his fist in her hair. Her gaze instantly jumped to his face and then swept down his body. Her tongue slid out and moistened her lips. His cock jerked in anticipation.
“Good morning.” He kept his tone strictly neutral. “I want you to get ready. Hydrate. Stretch. Don’t take long. Come back when you’re ready.”
She nodded, her long lashes sweeping down, but not before he caught the excitement flaring in her eyes. She was up immediately, gliding to the bathroom in her fluid cat’s walk. Her bottom was enticing, hips swaying as she faced away from him.
He stood and stretched, feeling every muscle expand and contract before he began to prepare his scene. He tied the ropes he needed to the suspension cables. Hemp. Plain this time. Not particularly comfortable but not the harshest in his collection by any means. He had plenty of time to think about what he wanted to use that morning and just how he would tie her.
He waited until she returned and stood in the center of the room under the suspension hook before he sauntered into the bathroom. He took his time, knowing she would stand still waiting for him. He knew from experience that waiting built her excitement. The endorphins released in her body would add to the sexual excitement, the hunger building in her as well as the feeling of well-being and comfort in the ropes.
Flambé stood very still, her back straight, head up, but eyes down as he approached her. He circled her, the way he always did, touching her gently, trailing the pads of his fingers along her skin, testing for temperature. Testing her pulse. Murmuring to her, questions about her health, how she was feeling, if she was up for a prolonged scene with him, if her body could take what he planned to do to her. The more he talked, the more he touched her, the more she shivered, her nipples peaking and her hips shifting restlessly.
Sevastyan stopped in front of her, yanked her hands with unusual aggression toward him and immediately bound them together in a fast cuff tie. From there he wove straps that looped around her neck and knotted into her cuffs. He locked her arms down tight, quickly weaving double strands of rope to match the straps and then moving around to her back to knot a harness around her waist to anchor everything to.
Using her cuffed hands to guide her down, her urged her to settle her bottom into the depression in the long egg-shaped crimson chair he’d placed close to her. It was soft and instantly molded to her.
“Lie back, Flambé.” He deliberately didn’t help her.
She complied, lowering her spine until her neck sunk onto the very edge of the chair so that the back of her skull rested along the edge of it. Grasping her bound hands, he attached them to the ropes he had already affixed to the pulley system overhead. Immediately he caught her right thigh and looped rope around it in two places, working quickly, drawing her leg up toward her belly. Adding in knots, he then attached those to the bindings going down to her ankle so her leg was tied close to her body in a frog-like manner. He attached that leg to the same pulley as her cuffed hands. Grasping her left ankle, he tied it and attached it to a second pulley so that leg was stretched out and straight in the air.
He walked around her, inspecting his work, adjusting the knots, making certain no rope was cutting off her circulation.
“Are you comfortable? Or at least reasonably so?” He stopped at the bottom of the chair, just between her legs. The fiery curls glistened with her damp liquid. Casually he reached down and swept his finger across her slick opening, collecting what he considered his own personal treat. Her sex clenched. It had been a very good decision to let her sleep the night before. She was more than ready to play.
He sucked on his fingers as he walked away from her to stand across the room to study her from different angles. “I have the day off today. You didn’t. I know everyone was coming out today to work, but I gave them the day off with pay. They were very happy to hear that.”
He watched her carefully. Color flooded her face. Her eyes went fighting mad. He drifted back to her as if he hadn’t noticed, trailing his fingers over her body, from her dripping sex to her breasts. Tugging at her nipples, he bent and took her mouth before she could voice a protest. She had opened her mouth and he slid his tongue in and they both caught fire. He rolled her nipple, slid his hand along her soft body until he found her curls and dipped his fingers into that sweet, hot slit. Immediately her sheath bit down hard on his two fingers. He fucked her and then pulled his fingers away before she could get off, pressing them to her mouth, silently instructing her to clean them off. Flambé sucked them clean, her gaze back to need. To desire. To lust. Still, he could see she wanted to protest his heavy-handedness with her business.
Once again, he preempted. He stood just over her head, his hand circling his pulsing cock. “I woke up this morning thinking about your mouth, Flambé. Those lips of yours and how sweet they look when you try so hard to stretch them around me. I love looking at that. You’re going to want to get me really wet because you’re going to be swallowing me down farther than you ever have. It’s not like you can do much else, can you?”
He rubbed the head of his cock over her lips, smearing the droplets of his seed over her mouth back and forth. When he pulled away she licked at her lips, and just that sight sent another heat wave rushing through him. To him, no one was more sensuous than Flambé.
“I think I spent most of the night lying awake next to you, thinking about how I wanted to tie you today. We both are always so busy and we never seem to have time for us.”
Deliberately, before she could protest, he bent over her body in the sixty-nine posit
ion, laying his cock right over her mouth as he ran his hand over her body, stroking his tongue this time over her clit. The way he had her tied left her sex completely open to him. He pulled back just enough that he could pat her pussy with his hand. Gently. He flicked her clit. Patted harder. Flicked harder. He straightened up and rubbed his cock all over her lips, smearing his semen again. She opened her mouth and he moved back.
“Stay still. I’m taking my time. I was the one awake all night with my body hard as a fucking rock while you got to sleep.” He made it an accusation.
Once more, he bent over her, this time much more slowly so that his heavy balls slapped her hair as his cock covered her face and mouth and his chin settled in her mound while he smacked her pussy gently. She was so wet. He licked at the coating on his palm and then repeated the action. His cock hurt, jerking in time to the blood hammering like mad in his veins and the sound of his hand as it played a gentle beat over her pulsing pussy. Her tongue took long swipes at his shaft, adding to the heat running up his spine.
He forced himself to straighten again. To keep his mask in place. To look indifferent, as if nothing affected him when his body was burning and blood pounded through his cock. “Open your mouth.”
She complied readily.
“Get me wet, Flambé, or you’re going to have a difficult time.” He stroked her throat. “You’re going to take me deep. You love this. You love my cock, don’t you?”
“So much, Sevastyan.”
“You concentrate on swallowing me, taking me all the way down. I’m going to try some new things that might scare you, but you’ll love them. They’ll feel so good, baby. You’ll come so hard for me. I promise you will. Get my cock deep. Really deep.” He massaged her breasts with his hands roughly. She tried to arch into his hands, silently begging him to continue. “You just have to trust me to take you there.”
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