Leopard's Rage (Leopard People)

by Christine Feehan

  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 fie
ry 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 position, 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.”

  He saw it in her eyes. That adoration she gave him when they were connected this way, through the ropes. She liked rough play. She even needed it and he gave it to her, pushing his cock into her mouth, letting her tongue lube his shaft first and then pushing deeper, repeating and going a little deeper. The sight of her lips stretching around his girth was so fucking beautiful he knew he’d never get over it. Adding to that was the beauty of her in the ropes and the look in her eyes as she gazed up at him.

  Flames rushed down his spine, tore through his body like a fireball straight to his groin. He spent a few minutes letting her get used to his cock, the size of it in her mouth. The angle that helped to open her throat. He bent over her slowly and then pulled back, allowing her to get used to losing the security of his gaze, which kept her feeling safe and focused. When he’d established a rhythm, he cupped the side of her face.

  “I’m going to give you something new, baby. Keep taking me deeper. Work at taking me deeper after each breath. You ready for this?”

  He kept his gaze fixed on hers. She didn’t stop sucking hard, her tongue lashing at him. He pulled back to give her air. She nodded. Her eyes said yes, even with liquid swimming in them. He touched her face to give her courage and show his approval. Very slowly he bent over her, his cock sliding deeper, taking care not to allow his body to shake. He had to appear to be in control.

  He had to be careful. He couldn’t see her expression. He didn’t want her to panic. She couldn’t talk nor could she fight him. He had to be aware of the subtlest body movement. He already had gotten her rhythm, when she needed air, but she no longer had the reassurance of his eyes. He timed the first withdrawal of his cock so she could see that she could rely on him to give her the air she would need. When he pushed deep, he smacked her pussy a little harder than he had before and then flicked her clit before sucking it. Her entire body quivered.

  Shturm, do you feel her cat close? It makes no sense that she rose when the others were near but disappeared when you came close to her. Flambé is extremely strong, but right now she is vulnerable and in a weakened state. Reach out to Flamme. Draw her to you. Now, Shturm. God, you’d better do your part because I can’t hold out.

  His leopard rose while his hips thrust over and over, sending his cock into her mouth, matching the rhythm of his hand smacking her. He sucked her clit, using his tongue to fuck her the way his cock was using her mouth. He felt his leopard close to the surface, the male nearly as ferocious in that moment as he was, demanding his mate.

  His head was already nearly exploding with the way her mouth felt so tight around his cock. It was difficult to force himself to pull back. His cock was at her throat. She was good at controlling her gag reflex and this time he smacked harder, flicked and sucked. Then it was several smacks. He was adding fucking her with his fingers, flicking and sucking as he was gently pushing his hips deeper each time he let her have air.

  It was difficult to think, almost impossible. He knew he had to stay in control. This was dangerous all the way around, but she was pulling hard at his cock with her fierce suction, surrounding him with a scorching, moist fire so tight she was squeezing and then lashing him with her velvet tongue as he pulled back. The feeling was unlike anything he’d experienced.

  He felt his leopard close to the surface, moving in him, a fierce beast, demanding the female come close. At once her presence was there, her heat adding to the fire in Flambé’s body. Sevastyan felt the change, the added sensitivity. Already Flambé’s nerve endings were extremely responsive to the merest touch. A brush of his finger, no matter how light, could set a flame going off in her bloodstream. He was tuned to the slightest change in his partner when he worked with someone. He had to be. He’d never known any woman’s body to be as sensitive as Flambé’s body was.

  As the female leopard came closer to the surface and her hormones merged with Flambé’s, the sensations he cr
eated when he smacked and flicked her heightened the coiling tension in her belly, in her sex. He’d deliberately chosen a new sexual technique to incite the leopard as well as Flambé.

  She was rocking her hips, pushing herself into his mouth, raising her pussy to his hand, desperate for him to put out the flames he’d created, and the coiling tension that just wound tighter and tighter in her body. By now the fur would be moving under her skin, creating an itch, only now it would feel different, more like the brush of fire, strokes of flames over and over as if he was licking her with a fiery brand. Her moans vibrated through his cock, adding to the ecstasy so that he wanted to prolong the session, not end it, although he didn’t see how it was possible.

  Her body was so close. His was too. He wanted to feel the tight clasp of her throat and this time he pushed deep, all the way, letting his cock feel that squeeze while he spanked her soaked pussy hard enough to bring her to a violent orgasm. Between his mouth, fingers and smacking palm he prolonged the orgasm while he rocketed long jets of hot semen over and over into her. It was all he could do to keep his feet and pull back so she could breathe.

  Sevastyan, in all his years of dark sexual practices, had never experienced such a violent or long, intense release like that one. His body felt like he had been thrown into another world, a fiery ascension that took him to a place of pure feeling. He looked down at her face. Pure beauty. She coughed once but managed to keep breathing, not choke.

  He waited, catching his breath, his gaze fixed on her face assessing her the entire time. He needed to make certain she was all right, that he hadn’t hurt or damaged her. Above all else, her safety came first. After that, he wanted her addiction to him to grow. That was very, very important. Something was terribly wrong between them and he absolutely knew that the only real possibility he had to keep Flambé tied to him was the sex that no one else could give her. He was going to give her things that would blow her mind. Things she’d never thought of. Things she knew she’d never get anywhere else or from anyone else.