“Flambé, you misunderstood me. I should have explained what I meant.” He turned, closed and locked the door. She stood by her desk, turning back to him, her expression wary.
“I would never question you about past lovers out of jealousy, not that I’m not capable of that very unattractive emotion. I’m a possessive man and not into sharing.”
“Those women at the club had other men.”
He shrugged. “Those men were their partners. In their relationships, they wanted or needed things someone outside their relationship could provide. The male liked to watch and his female liked to be tied and fucked by someone else. I needed release and to be able to practice my art. My leopard wanted to kill anyone I touched. It was the best solution in order to get what I needed and keep everyone safe. I don’t want any other man touching you. I thought I made that clear to you. I don’t want you touching any other man. I have no intention of being with another woman. My leopard wants only your leopard. We’re exclusive in this relationship. I would hope that you feel the same way.”
He watched her face, her eyes, the entire time, needing to see, to read her expression. He wanted Shturm to be alert. Did she love and need sex so much that he wasn’t enough for her? Was that what was putting that niggling doubt that had been so slowly growing in his mind? Was that what was making his leopard restless? He couldn’t believe that he was even entertaining the idea.
Relief crept into her eyes. Relaxed the tension in her face. She didn’t want another partner. That helped with the knots in his gut, but there was something elusive about her, something he wasn’t quite getting.
“Matherson seems to have a pattern, malen’koye plamya. He left his lair when the elders ran him off because, even though with his money he could have hired an army of mercenary shifters to take one of the women and run with her, it was too dangerous. Too much trouble. He goes hunting for easier prey.”
She frowned and shook her head, resting one hand on her desk, leaning her weight on her palm and one hip. That small shift in her stance gave him an intriguing view of her body, pushing her bare breasts and one rounded hip forward so that he could just glimpse the fiery curls covering her mound. His body tightened the way it always did when he looked at her. Hot blood roiled in his balls and pounded through his cock. He forced himself to stay in complete control, refusing to react, even though her nipples stood out in stark relief, tempting, enticing him to stop all conversation and just go to her.
“It isn’t exactly easy to find women shifters, Sevastyan, as you well know. Most of those people in that club aren’t shifters. Cain may own it and he may be a shifter, but the vast majority of his clients are just regular humans. Even going to the rain forests or Africa won’t guarantee Franco finding a female shifter.”
“That’s true, but he found a few. Unfortunately, while he was looking, he got a taste for hunting. We’re all leopard, Flambé, never forget that. We aren’t human. We may look civilized, but we aren’t. Some may be more than others, but the bottom line is, we’re leopard and we’re predators.”
He could see the goose bumps rise on her skin. The heat in her eyes. Her body responded in spite of her determination not to at his declaration. She was a female leopard and there was no doubt that she was wired to find the male who could see to the survival of her children. She might not want to have that trait, but she did. Like him, she was very strong in many of her leopard’s attributes.
“Matherson should have moved on. He shouldn’t have sent his men against me once he had me investigated, and when his men disappeared, believe me, he had me investigated. The name Amurov, as you know, is very suspect. He had to think in terms of a crime family, yet he still attacked us and tried to get you away from me. I had to wonder why he would do that.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Leopards were oral and their shifter counterparts were equally so. He refused to let his gaze linger on that perfect sinful temptation. The image of her lips stretched around his cock might be in his mind, but he wouldn’t let it show on his face. She had to believe he was in control at all times. They seemed to be in some kind of battle and he’d missed the reason why altogether.
“Why would that be, Sevastyan?”
Her voice had gone very soft, but he heard her and was very tuned to her. She didn’t seem to realize that the more he tied her, the more he had to learn to read her body, her face, all the little nuances that made up Flambé Carver. He had memorized her body, every damn inch of her. That beautiful face, the bone structure that lay beneath it. He heard the small note of fear and his leopard heard it as well. Shturm clawed and raked, furious. They both knew what that note meant.
“No man would just walk away after fucking you, Flambé. You set up a craving in a man. He gets addicted.”
He stalked her with slow, measured steps, purposefully giving her the impression of danger. Letting her see the inherent cruelty in his leopard, in him. He could be without mercy. It made him very good at his job. It also made his leopard a very good mate. He knew it was the very trait that both attracted and repelled her.
She was addicted to him. To their wild, passionate, feral relationship. She was addicted to the ropes. She never knew what he was going to do or ask of her and she was addicted to that as well. He kept her off balance and craving him. Flambé might be a submissive woman in the bedroom, but she was a woman with such a demanding sexual nature that unless a man could satisfy her needs, she would move on fast.
He knew he was right about Franco Matherson. At some time, they must have met casually in a bar. In a nightclub. He’d probably had no idea she was leopard. They’d talked, they’d danced and she’d spent a couple of hours with him and left. A couple of hours hadn’t been enough and somewhere along the line he’d realized she was a shifter. Matherson wasn’t going to let her go.
Sevastyan stepped right into her. Close. The height difference between them was over a foot. His shoulders were wide. He caught her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Where did you meet him?”
“A club. In South Africa. I was staying at a hotel near the airport.”
Her gaze tried to shift away from his, but he refused to allow it, his eyes wholly focused, boring into hers, forcing her to face him. He didn’t blink, giving her the stare of his cat. The hunter. She was damn well going to answer him this time. He was standing so close to her he felt her body hitch as she tried to pull in air.
“I was at the bar and he came in. He looked like he could handle himself and I was . . .” She broke off, her voice low.
“Keep going. You were looking for someone to fuck, I get it.” He was deliberately crude. He wanted to shake her. He didn’t give a damn that she’d been with men before him, only that she hadn’t been safe.
“I’m not ashamed, Sevastyan, if you’re thinking I am.” Her eyes went golden on him. “I do feel guilty because I was so needy that I just wasn’t paying attention to the warning signs that were there. I should have been. I let him spot me and it wasn’t that hard to get him to take me to his room.”
Sevastyan was certain that was the truth. She was beautiful. Small and curvaceous. To a man like Matherson, she would look like someone he could have his way with. Little did he know she was a tigress in the bedroom.
“I knew he was leopard. I could see it in his eyes. He had no idea I was. She wasn’t close to rising. I wasn’t even sure she would ever rise at that point. He wasn’t that great in bed and I just wanted out of there as fast as possible afterward. I had to initiate everything and it isn’t my thing, as you well know.”
Sevastyan knew that was most of Flambé’s problem and why she went out so often seeking partners. She was never satisfied. The men might look like they could satisfy her, but they had no idea how. Thankfully, he did.
“He wanted my phone number. I gave some lame excuse and that’s when I realized I could be in trouble.” She shrugged. “I soothed him, made noises like we’d meet up again
and then got the hell out of there. I was coming back to the States. I’d never told him where I was from so I didn’t think he could find me.”
Sevastyan ran his hand down the back of her head, down all that soft silk. He bent and brushed a kiss over her upturned mouth. “Thank you, Flambé. I needed to know or I wouldn’t have asked.” His thumb slid over her lower lip. “If you need me, baby, text me.”
He brushed his mouth very gently over hers a second time and then dropped his hands, although it was difficult not to touch her body when he could feel her hunger for him all over again and his blood pounded through his cock so hard, he thought it might burst.
He strode back across the room, pausing at the door. “Wait for me to bring you home. If you get hungry, text me and I’ll get you something to eat, or we’ll have dinner with Mitya and Ania.”
She shook her head, her hands gripping the edges of the desk until her knuckles turned white. “I’m not that comfortable with them yet.”
He dropped his hand on the doorknob, hating to leave her. Not because she was naked and he wanted her all over again, but because she suddenly looked vulnerable and a little unhappy.
Flambé was very self-sufficient. She didn’t require entertaining. She didn’t ask for much. She hadn’t balked when he told her he wanted her to work from his cousin’s home rather than theirs even though he knew she would be less comfortable. She didn’t object to the bodyguards he sent with her when she went to work on other projects and he couldn’t go.
“You mean Mitya. You and Ania are thick as thieves.” He couldn’t exactly blame her. Mitya hadn’t been that welcoming, although that was because he was worried for Sevastyan.
She shrugged. “Go to work, Sevastyan. I’m perfectly fine. I’m trying to design the indoor garden and it’s a massive project.”
“I thought we were designing that together.”
“We are, but I have to put together the skeleton for it. We need a foundation.”
Sevastyan nodded his head, not entirely certain what she meant. His mind was already on what he needed to do about Franco Matherson. Closing the door behind him softly, he stalked down the wide hall, wondering what the hell he was going to do about her. She was getting to him. He wasn’t so certain he was getting to her. That was the thing about Flambé. She was as elusive as hell.
He set up a security detail to watch over his cousin and those in the residence while he was absent, and he indicated to Kirill and Matvei to accompany him. He wanted to slip away from the Amurov estate without his woman’s knowledge. Her office was at the back of the very large house and unless Ania noticed and mentioned his absence to her, she wouldn’t be the wiser. In any case, he came and went often. She rarely asked, but if she did, he didn’t want to try to lie to her. He would have to tell her the truth and that might not go over very well.
The sun had already set some time ago as they made their way silently through the streets toward the large estate Franco Matherson had leased on the outskirts of San Antonio. They took a roundabout route so if their vehicle was caught on camera, their destination could easily be Evangeline’s bakery or one of the many businesses the Amurov family owned. Sevastyan would make certain to stop somewhere along the way long enough to make it appear as if he had a destination that would hold up in court if necessary.
He had reports on Matherson, none of them good. It seemed to him that the man’s mental condition was deteriorating slowly over time. He had become somewhat of a megalomaniac, much like Sevastyan’s uncle Lazar, who had ruled the lair with such cruelty. He had gotten away with murder so often that he sunk lower and lower over the years, thinking he was entitled to kill anyone who crossed him. That meant that Matherson was doubly dangerous to Flambé, because it made him unpredictable.
“The estate is a few blocks over, Sevastyan. Your club is up two blocks on the left. We could leave the car there, walk to the park and shift and make our way to his home. It’s a little risky because it’s still a bit of a distance and there’s bound to be dogs out, but it’s a cover,” Kirill ventured.
It was a solid plan. He could go in after he took care of business, talk to Cain for a few minutes and then get back to Flambé. “Sounds good. Let’s go for it. But keep your leopards under control. We can’t start killing any animals in the neighborhood no matter how obnoxious they are.” Dogs were always barky around cats. It was more than annoying.
“If you have to spend any time at the club,” Matvei added, “you have your locker there. You can get dressed, wander around and let the cameras pick you up. The fucking cops aren’t going to know what you do or don’t do there.”
That wasn’t a bad idea either. He’d have that for an alibi when Matherson and his bodyguards disappeared and people started asking questions. The cops always came to the Amurovs. Knowing Matherson had been stalking Flambé, they would question Sevastyan straightaway.
The club parking lot was full, not a bad thing at all. That meant more witnesses to him being there. The three quickly made their way through the dark streets, avoiding any street lights. They jogged through the empty park and cut through a lot that took them to the upscale neighborhood where Matherson leased his estate. It was a two-story contemporary home on one acre behind a tall wrought-iron fence. With a custom pool and multilevel decks, it was a dream home for people and would have been nice for leopards with the landscaping, but Sevastyan doubted if Matherson allowed his men the use of the amenities the place provided—the game room and spa.
He had the blueprints of the house and had memorized the layout of the yard. As they approached the fence, they stripped, rolled their clothes and placed them in the small bags they could sling around their leopards’ necks when traveling. In this case, they stashed them. Shifting, they easily leapt over the fence and landed in the yard. All three let the leopards take a few minutes to inhale, to prowl around in silence to get a feel for the shifters guarding Matherson.
Scents were everywhere, heavy on the ground, in the trees and shrubs. Male leopards had sprayed and raked, claiming territory. Tracks were in the dirt, but there was no sign of anyone, human or leopard. The three split up, Matvei jumping up on the deck to walk around the outside of the house and then up on the roof to look for sentries while Kirill and Sevastyan made their way around to look for a way inside.
Doors were locked, but one window was open about half an inch. It appeared to be stuck and Matherson’s men were too lazy to bother with it, or it was a trap. Kirill carefully worked at it until he got it to move. Cautiously his leopard stuck his head in and looked around. He sniffed the air and jerked his head out again, shifting head and shoulders. Sevastyan did the same.
“Something’s dead inside,” Kirill warned. “Someone,” he corrected. “You’re going to need that alibi.”
“Let’s see what we’re facing.” Sevastyan hoped whoever they found was Matherson, but he knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. Men like Matherson seemed to have the devil guarding them.
Kirill pushed his way inside, Sevastyan right behind him. The house had been abandoned hastily. There were three bodies, two women and one man, all human. All three had been killed by a bullet to the head. None wore clothing. It looked as if there had been a huge party thrown, with wine, champagne and various sorts of liquor bottles strewn everywhere along with glasses and broken bowls of chips. To Sevastyan, the room looked staged.
“We can’t stay here, Sevastyan. You have to get to that club fast and make an appearance. The timing has to be right,” Kirill said. “Matherson is missing and could be presumed dead if they don’t suspect him for this. For some reason, he always seems to get a pass.”
“I wonder why that is,” Sevastyan said, and shifted back fully to his leopard.
10
THERE was pure satisfaction in watching a barren landscape transform into something lush and beautiful. Flambé loved putting her hands in soil. She found the soil grounded her. She also found that watching the people who worked with her moving the trees
into position with confidence and sometimes outright joy made her happy.
She loved what she did at every stage. One of her gifts was talking with the client and catching images of what they really wanted when most of the time they were unable to describe with actual words what they envisioned or needed. Often, the client had no idea what they really wanted and she would look at a space and know, after spending time with them, what would best suit them. She loved providing something special and unique for them.
She enjoyed picking out plants that would suit the various landscapes. She worked in all sorts of areas, the urban and rural. She worked in malls and business buildings as well as clubs and private estates and modest homes. She had very wealthy clients who owned acres of land planted with grapes. Others had ranches. The fact that her clients were so different provided the artist in her with continual varied canvases to work on.
Knowing that Sevastyan had bought the Dover estate and her father had done the original layout and planting of the trees, shaping them into an arboreal highway for the leopards, gave her an extra joy in working the property. She felt as if she needed to make certain every single tree she planted added to the beauty of the original vision. Sevastyan wanted the woods continued all the way to the very edge of the property lines between the Dover and Amurov borders. Her father had planted the trees on the Amurov property as well.
Her goal was to eventually grow the trees to connect the branches, make it easy for leopards to run along the limbs and leap from one tree to the next without hindrance. The trees had to be sturdy, with broad trunks and thick, strong branches that she could twist and shape with wire to get them to grow into the positions she needed. The first step was the planting, and that meant primary spots with plenty of room. The roots had to take hold and grow deep. Other taller trees couldn’t block the younger ones from the sun. She took great care to give each tree the best start possible while filling in the woods as best she could.
Leopard's Rage (Leopard People) Page 19
