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Walking back to face her across the room, where she could see him, he leaned against the wall, looking casual, taking a slow drink of water, studying her. Just looking at her could make his heart accelerate, the air move through his lungs faster. All that red hair, bright like the sun, those eyes that were green or gold by turns, depending upon her mood, but it was the little things he’d learned about her that moved him the most.
“You told me you saw me first at the club and you were drawn to me. I saw you when you were talking to one of the workers on the property. A curvy, obviously shifter woman with dark blonde hair. She was hunched over and looked like she was upset. I was a good distance away and I couldn’t hear what you said to her, or read your lips because you were turned at an angle, but your body language was very protective.”
He didn’t take his gaze from her as he talked and he could read the subtle difference in her. She had stiffened slightly, was holding herself very still, waiting.
“You crouched down beside her, put your arm around her and talked to her for a long time. You weren’t in the least bit caring of time passing or being on the clock. You made certain that she was taken care of. I know that your business means everything to you. Your customers matter and those plants matter. That woman mattered to you more. I thought you were the most extraordinary woman I’d ever seen in my life.”
He kept his gaze on her. That mattered to her. She didn’t want his opinion of her to affect her, but it did. She didn’t want to believe in him, but she heard truth, as did Flamme. She didn’t want to rely on her leopard’s senses, but they were there and she couldn’t help but draw on them.
“I can’t help what I am. My father, Rolan, was a vor in the bratya. The lair was fucked-up, and he was cruel and enjoyed the power of hurting others every chance he got. His older brother, Lazar, was Mitya’s father and controlled a much larger lair. He was also a vor with a worse reputation, much deserved. It turns out, Lazar, not Rolan, was actually my father. While my mother, Tatiana, was pregnant with me, Lazar delighted in tormenting and terrifying her, saying that he would tell Rolan so he would beat her to death. He didn’t, of course, because that would end his fun.”
Unexpected emotion welled up. It came out of nowhere and hit him hard. He turned away from her and took another drink of cool water, let it slide down his throat to soothe him. He’d been alone all of his life. He reminded himself he didn’t need anyone and he didn’t need what he’d never had. He waited until he was absolutely certain his voice was under complete control before he paced back in front of her with those same deliberate steps he’d used to walk away.
“Lazar tormented both his wife and my mother, and eventually, when he thought Rolan was too close to me and I was getting to the point I might be able to aid his brother, he told Rolan the truth. Rolan murdered my mother and proceeded to make my life and Shturm’s life as miserable as he possibly could. I was beaten daily until Shturm couldn’t take it and he would emerge and Rolan would let his leopard loose on him. When Rolan wasn’t attacking us, Lazar was. They both despised us. Rolan despised Mitya as well and vowed to kill him.”
He once more went to her, needing to touch her. She was compassionate. He didn’t want her pity. He could see that now in her expressive eyes. That look wouldn’t be there in another minute, but right now, while she was still looking at him with something close to caring, he was going to touch her again.
First, he slid his arms around her to fit his hands over hers to ensure she wasn’t cold and hadn’t lost any feeling. He slipped his fingers through the ropes to check that none of the strands put any pressure on her skin. Very gently he allowed the pads of his fingers to skim down her belly to her mound. Next, he caught the ropes of her harness to tug her close. Her breasts were a temptation impossible to resist. So beautiful. So feminine. That was Flambé. All woman and willing to give herself to him when she was in his ropes.
Sevastyan settled his mouth over her right breast, flicking her nipple with his tongue, his free hand feeding her to him. She was warm and soft and sensual, her body arching into him, even though there was little play in the ropes and nowhere for her to go. She still moved into him, making little delicious moans around the bit in her mouth. Abruptly, he pulled back. As much as he wanted her, he couldn’t fall into her trap and make this about sex. If he was going to clear the air between them, he had to get her on board.
He put distance between them because it was impossible not to touch her if he was close. She didn’t need to know that. She thought him cold, and maybe it was far better that she always thought that.
“I’m making a point, Flambé. I was raised in a lair, brought up to torture, to interrogate, to be the one to raid other territories Rolan wanted to take over. Eventually, I devised the plans to strike at Lazar’s drug and gun pipelines, to disrupt them, hoping to weaken him. When Mitya left Russia, he left without a word to me, but I still followed him, found him and guarded him as his cousin, not his brother. I do his dirty work for him. I always have. I’m always going to be that man, Flambé. I’m not a good man. I do my best to never hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it. I investigate carefully, but I’m ruthless and I don’t have the mercy and compassion in me that someone like you has in them.”
Again, as he paced, he kept his gaze fixed on her face. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of him as he made his confession. He shrugged and once again crouched down in front of her.
“The thing is this, baby. The moment I saw you, I wanted you for myself. Then, Shturm claimed Flamme. She was very certain. Then you both backed off. I couldn’t tell if it was you or your leopard, and I had to find out. When you’re in the ropes or anytime we have sex, you’re one hundred percent in, but then you retreat. You don’t really want to sleep in bed with me. You want to curl up in a little ball. You’d much rather sleep in the hammock above the bed, not with me. I try to reach out to you and your immediate response is sex.”
She squirmed in the ropes, a flush coloring her body a soft rose. She couldn’t deny a single word he said. It was all true.
“Shturm deserves Flamme whether or not I deserve you. I can provide you with a good home. I can give you the kind of sex you need whenever you want it and I’ll be faithful to you. I don’t believe in beating women. You don’t have to love me, Flambé, but I do want respect. And I won’t tolerate you going to the club or having one-night stands. I wouldn’t hurt you, but I would kill your lover.”
He told her that truth in the same mild tone he had told her everything else, looking her straight in the eye, needing her to see that he meant it.
“What I’m going to do now is ask you if you’re ready to tell me why you feel so strongly about shifter males being such bad mates. And what you’re really doing that you’re afraid to tell me with your rescue business.”
She stiffened again and this time not only looked afraid, but gave a little shake of her head.
He shrugged his shoulders again. “I have no problem if you feel the desire to hang around in the ropes all day. Sooner or later Flamme will rise. I’ll cut you free and we’ll let the leopards have their fun. We can start again when you’re rested. We’re going to get past this, because there really isn’t a way to begin a life together until you talk to me. I told you the truth about me. None of it was good, but then you made it plain you didn’t really want anything to do with me other than a sexual relationship. I’ve accepted that, although there are a few rules. We can go over those while you’re thinking things over.”
A strobe went off. He turned, without seeming to hurry, making his way to the table where his tablet was. Matvei and Kirill were patrolling and had deliberately tripped a wire in the denser woods to the back of the property. He sent them a quick text to indicate all was well, in their prearranged code.
“As I said, you will show respect for me at all times, particularly in front of others. I will expect you to sleep in the master bedroom with me in my bed unless we discuss it ahead of time for other reasons. As you�
��re very aware, like you, I enjoy a healthy sex drive and like to have you close to me. You will not sleep with others, male or female, as long as we’re mates. I’d prefer to get married, but as you seem violently opposed to the idea, I refuse to make that mandatory and will take that off the table.”
He stayed at the table, looking out the window, completely out of her line of sight. His heart felt peculiarly heavy. He refused to acknowledge the feeling.
“We’re going to be truthful with each other. If you ask me a question, be certain you really want the answer, because I will be giving you the truth. When I ask you a question, I will expect the truth from you.” He pressed his palm on the window, just for a moment, not letting himself breathe. Not letting himself admit that just once he’d wanted something for himself.
There was a long silence. Minutes passed. Sevastyan forced himself to take another long drink of water and then he went to her and removed the rope circling her mouth, gently wiping her lips before holding the bottle up for her to take a drink. Her green eyes had golden flecks in them, and they stayed on his the entire time he took care of her.
“Are you ready to talk to me, Flambé?” He kept his tone the exact same. Mild. Not trying to sway her one way or the other.
“Are you finished with the rules?”
“There are more, far too many to list in one day.”
Her lashes fluttered. A faint smile pulled at her full lips. It was all he could do not to stare at her mouth instead of her eyes. She was so beautiful when she smiled.
“I am afraid,” she suddenly admitted. “I was so shocked when Flamme enticed Shturm to claim her. She was terrified when Franco ran us off the road and he attacked me. He was so much bigger and even with my training, I barely was able to get away. He followed me off the road and into the woods. Had I not had prior knowledge of the terrain, he might have caught me. Flamme felt she put us in that position with her heat.”
“There was Shturm, the biggest badass leopard she’d ever come across,” he supplied.
“Exactly. She chose him and enticed him, luring him to her like a little hussy. She was determined that he would keep Franco and his leopard from claiming us or ever hurting us.”
Sevastyan narrowed his eyes at her, allowing Shturm close so she could see the merciless gold glaring at her. He reached for the bit again. “Don’t fucking talk to me if you’re going to mix lies with truth, Flambé.” He started to shove the knot in her mouth.
“Wait.” It came out muffled. Her eyes went wide. A little wild. A sheen of tears.
Ordinarily, he would have tied off that rope and walked away, allowing the sudden surge of rage-fueled adrenaline pouring through his body to be walked off, but those tears left him stripped of anger and very vulnerable to her. He yanked the knot away from her and just stood waiting.
“She did choose Shturm to protect us. She was so scared. I was too. I was disoriented from the blow to my head and I couldn’t stop her. After that, I suppressed her because I was too afraid to rely on her. I didn’t think she really knew what she was doing. You’re a big man and could easily hurt me, which meant your leopard was big and could really hurt her. She didn’t take that into consideration. I was just so shocked and didn’t know what to do or how to get out of a claiming. I knew mistakes could be made with a first time so there was a huge chance she was wrong.”
“But you didn’t think it was a good idea to share your confusion with me?” He kept his tone mild when that ever-present pool of rage threatened to swamp him.
“I wanted you even more than Flamme wanted Shturm,” she confessed in a small voice, her gaze sliding away from his.
There was no mistaking the ring of honesty or her embarrassment at the admission. She was giving him something back for all the truth he’d given her. He remained silent, waiting for her to gather her courage to speak again.
“As long as I just could keep what we had between us to great sex, I could handle things, but when we’d stop and I was with you, and you’d do nice things for me, or say things I didn’t expect, it was more terrifying than Franco’s attack.” The admission came in a small voice. “I knew better than to let myself believe in you. Shifter men use women and then throw them away. I see it all the time. Maybe it’s just the way shifter men are so primal—I don’t know, and I really don’t care, but I’m not going to get caught in that horrible emotional mess that keeps women in a place they shouldn’t be.” Now there was defiance and anger creeping into her tone.
Sevastyan paced across the room while he turned over and over in his mind what she’d revealed to him. It wasn’t anything entirely unexpected. Ania had prepared him for Flambé’s opinion of shifter males. He’d reinforced that belief when Mitya had told her in front of his men to go back to the office and instead of reprimanding Mitya, Sevastyan had sided with his cousin against her—or at least it had looked that way. He’d explained his reasonings to her, but already he’d had too many sins against him.
He stayed silent, willing her to tell him more. To show her that he expected more, he returned to the spot just a few feet from her and crouched down, looking up at her, his gaze meeting hers. Waiting. She pressed her lips together. He knew it was difficult. He had opened up to her. Told her his truth. The worst of him, knowing he would never have her fully, but accepting it because his leopard deserved to have his mate, and, as humbling as the truth was, he would take Flambé on any terms.
“My father rescued shifters, that much is true,” Flambé said, her voice very low and hesitant. “I think, in the beginning, his heart was in the right place. Maybe it always was. So many of the shifter species’ numbers are so low it’s scary. He thought if he could bring some to the United States and give them a good start here, they could bring others and it would set up a chain to help. The landscaping business thrived and he bought the property so he could build dorms and the big house with multiple bedrooms.”
Her voice broke and she coughed as if to keep from crying. It took discipline not to go to her and wrap his arms around her. He consoled himself with the fact that the ropes were the substitute for his arms. She accepted the ropes when she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—accept his arms.
“He slept with a lot of the female shifters. They were given rooms in his home and sometimes they went into heat, or they were attracted to him. In any case, however it started, for whatever reason, he found himself surrounded with women and he didn’t want to give that up. He became addicted to all that ready sex. He told himself they were willing. Whether they were or just thought they had to give him whatever he wanted because they were afraid in a new country, who knows?”
“Did you hear differently?” He couldn’t let that go.
She took a breath. A deep one. He moved closer to her, again acting as if he was checking the ropes, her temperature, but more to offer comfort. Running his hand over her hair, down the nape of her neck, along her shoulder. Brief touches, but ones he knew she responded to when she was tied.
“Yes. Later. When I asked about my mother. She was a strawberry leopard and he apparently was quite enamored with her.”
Sevastyan could well imagine if she was anything like her daughter. Hot like the sun, all fiery passion in bed. She would have been irresistible to a man like Flambé’s father.
“He had several women housed there, but she was his favorite. He put her through culinary school but when she got a job, he wanted her to mate with him, marry him. He talked her into it. She was . . . like me. She needed sex all the time. It was getting worse, according to her friends, so she said yes. He got her pregnant, but he was never faithful. He kept other shifter women in the house and carried on with them while she was pregnant. It was quite horrible for her because her need never let up.”
Sevastyan could see the stark fear in her. Not only could he see it on her face, but he felt it pouring off of her in waves. She was terrified of that same fate. It was all making sense to him. It hurt that she would think that of him, but if her own father would d
o such a thing, why would he think she should trust a complete stranger, one she’d first seen at a sex club?
“He put me out of the house when I was seven because he wanted my room. He had several rooms for his women but it wasn’t enough and he wanted me out of the way. What was the difference between taking their passports and forcing them to work for nothing, and making them think they had to have sex and do whatever was asked of them? Because he did that. He never beat them and he always treated them the same, paid for educations, got them started in business, that sort of thing. If anything, he might have been slower to help the ones sleeping with him. But many of the women still felt as if they had no choice.”
“Did they tell you that?”
“After his death, not when I was a child.”
“Did you ever talk to him about it?”
“I tried once when I was talking about my mother and her medical history. He got very angry with me and denied that he ever forced any woman to sleep with him. He said he and my mother agreed to an open marriage and the arrangement wasn’t my business. That’s when he told me the clotting shots wouldn’t work and I wasn’t going to live long. He also told me to stop rescuing, that with the cameras now it was making things impossible to get in and out of countries without the poachers knowing we were coming. It was one long terrible argument. He died a couple of days later.”
“But you continue to insist on rescuing as many shifters as possible.” Sevastyan kept his voice very mild. He wanted to shift the conversation to what she was really doing, because something was going on that had nothing to do with what her father had been doing. He thought her father’s rescue operation had been used as a cover for her real operation.
“I can’t bring that many shifters in,” she denied. “Not if I want them legal.”
She wasn’t going to volunteer any information. She was too closed off. He was going to have to nudge her harder. Sevastyan sighed and shook his head. He draped himself casually against the opposite wall and let the silence stretch out between them. He knew each minute that went by, her anxiety rose. He let a good ten minutes pass.