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Sevastyan wrapped his arm around her waist, ignoring the slight stiffening of her body. They had to start somewhere. He pulled her to him. “I didn’t make it easy, Flambé. Between visiting the club, my work, and a thousand other things . . .”
She bumped him with her hip. “Don’t. You tried way more than I did. I just tried to run. In any case, we’re hopefully past that now.” She turned to Ania. “Flamme finally made her appearance, thanks to Sevastyan. I don’t know how he was able to get her out without it killing me, but he managed.”
She smiled up at him and ran her hand up and down his arm. It was just once, but she did it, a small sign of affection she never would have done before. His stomach did a slow, weird flip and he tightened his hold on her.
“Her leopard is gorgeous,” he told them. “I’ve never seen one like her. Her rosettes are actually red, not black, and her fur is definitely ginger, or closer to pink.”
“Pink?” Flambé looked outraged. “Definitely not pink. Red. My leopard is red. I can’t believe you even said pink. Strike that word from your vocabulary.”
Ania giggled and Mitya coughed behind his hand.
Sevastyan’s fingers danced their way up her rib cage, sliding intimately over her thin T-shirt. “I just dyed more rope this morning, various colors, and one of them was a bright pink. I think we’ll be using that quite often.”
“We will not be using that. Not only does it clash with my coloring, but I’m allergic to pink,” Flambé declared, tossing her head. Several thick sheets of hair dislodged from her ponytail and fell around her face. She tilted her face up toward his, eyes mostly green, looking like twin jewels, high cheekbones flushed with rose.
“Baby,” Sevastyan said, his voice very low. “It’s impossible to be allergic to a color.”
“You don’t know. Strawberry leopards have strange maladies. I very well could be allergic to colors.”
He bent his head to hers before he could stop himself. There was no resisting her. He wasn’t a man who would ever be able to not kiss his woman in public. Or hold her hand. Or put his arm around her. He could refrain from slamming her up against a wall—he was fairly certain he had that much restraint—but he was a shifter and he was oral. He was also tactile. He needed to touch and taste. And claim. The damn truth of it was, he was drowning under her spell.
Sevastyan very gently framed Flambé’s face, his thumbs sliding over her chin, her jaw, tracing the delicate lines. He sipped tenderly at her lower lip. Her long lashes swept down as her breath hitched. He kissed the corners of her mouth and then pressed his lips to hers, his tongue sliding along the seam in a silent command for entry.
Flambé obeyed without hesitation. One hand slid around, shaping the back of her skull, pressing into her thick red hair, all that silky brightness. His heart pounded hard in his chest. His thumb stroked over her chin, back and forth in a small caress.
“I need you, malen’koye plamya, just to breathe, to live. I’ve never said that to another human being, but it’s the truth. Not for Shturm, but for me.” He whispered it to her and then, before she could answer him, or even lift her lashes to look at him and see his intense mortification, he kissed her, this time taking them both into that fiery place that consumed them fast and voraciously.
Flambé kissed him back, her slender arms sliding around his neck, her body pressed tight against his. She gave herself to him the way she did when she was in the ropes. She’d never done that before unless she was tied or in the heat of her leopard. Sevastyan found he could barely stand. As always, his body was completely out of control, his cock diamond hard, ready to shatter at the least little provocation just from having his woman in such close proximity. It wouldn’t do to collapse in front of Mitya and Ania or make a fool of himself.
He lifted his head cautiously and glanced around to check how close the nearest chair was. Could he make it without breaking anything important? Keeping his hold on Flambé so she was in front of him, he took a step back and lowered himself gingerly into the chair, sprawling, legs out in front of him.
Mitya snickered. The ass. He glared at him as he gently guided Flambé onto his lap, making certain he positioned her onto his thighs and not his straining cock. She did a little shimmy thing with her body and he had to stifle a groan. Mitya snickered again.
“Do leopard ashes make good compost?” He glared at his brother while he asked his woman the question, biting down on her shoulder as he did so.
A little shiver went through her. “I suppose it would depend on the leopard. If you’re talking about Mitya, probably not. In fact, his ashes could be toxic to plants.”
Ania burst out laughing. Mitya scowled darkly. “Toxic to plants? You think I’d be toxic to your plants? Woman, you’re insane. I’d nurture those plants.”
“The way you nurtured little Sevastyan,” Ania prompted, and gave in to another fit of giggling.
“Baby Sevastyan,” Flambé corrected, and laughed with Ania.
Sevastyan put his mouth against her ear and stroked his hand along the cheeks of her bottom. “I have a special tie I can’t wait to use on you just to show you what happens to my woman when she teases me like this and I can’t retaliate.” His teeth bit down on her earlobe, tugged and let go.
He waited, heart pounding, to see if she would recognize that he was teasing her in the same way she was teasing him. He wasn’t adept at outward play, but then she wasn’t either. They were both feeling their way.
Flambé turned her head and smiled at him, her eyes bright, but she didn’t say anything aloud. Like Sevastyan, she was uncertain what to say in front of the others.
“Flambé,” Mitya said, sobering, indicating the chair beside Sevastyan’s. “I know you’ve taken over the rescue operation your father started some years ago, which is quite admirable. Drake Donovan is a good friend of mine and he came into contact with your father once or twice. That was how I first came to know of Carver’s work.”
Flambé sank slowly into the chair beside Sevastyan and drew her legs underneath her, curling up very small. That was never a good sign with her. She definitely didn’t want to discuss the rescue operation with Mitya and Ania. She was barely able to discuss it with him.
“Mitya,” Sevastyan intervened. “I can talk to Flambé about this later.”
“You might not have later, Sevastyan,” Mitya said, sounding as if he was striving to keep his voice gentle. He sounded more like a cross between a growling bear and a lethal leopard.
Ania punched his shoulder, which made Flambé, who was trying to look nonchalant while she drank water, spit it out and Sevastyan turn his face away. Ania wasn’t in the least intimidated by her husband.
“Flambé and I will work it out,” Sevastyan insisted, trying not to smirk at the way his sister-in-law got away with everything.
Flambé regarded Mitya steadily and then turned green-gold eyes on Sevastyan. “I think it would be best if you just told me what you’re worried about.” She pressed the cold water bottle to her head.
“Do you have a headache, baby?” Sevastyan asked.
She nodded. “Big-time. Whatever you’re going to tell me is bound to make it worse, so get on with it before Flamme decides to make another appearance.”
“Tell us how the protocol worked when you were going to the country to meet with the individual yourself and bring them out,” Sevastyan said.
Flambé shrugged. “We contact a lair that’s unstable, in trouble, and ask the elders if any of their members are interested in relocating to the United States. If they are, our investigation team takes a look at them to make certain they don’t have anything in their background that would in any way detract from them entering the United States, working here and eventually becoming a citizen. While they’re doing that, another group works with the attorneys, ensuring all the paperwork is filed properly, and I fly over to meet them. The extraction team is with me and we escort them out.”
“How much trouble is there?” Mitya asked.
“And there is a price on your head,” Sevastyan added. “From two different factions.”
Flambé nodded. “Yes. My team thought it would be smarter for me to stay out of the mix and meet the shifter here in the US rather than on their home turf. I agreed with them, although I seem to be able to tell when one is not who they say they are even if they slip past the investigation team.”
Mitya frowned and stroked his jaw. “Wait, I have to get this straight, Flambé. You don’t just go to greet the shifter coming into the country to be welcoming, you are there to serve another purpose.”
She nodded. “As a rule, when I talk to them and ask a series of questions, I can usually ascertain whether or not they are legitimately looking to fit into the program we’re offering or if they want a handout. We don’t give handouts. We expect everyone to pull their own weight. There are too many others waiting in line. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. If I can give someone an education and set them up in business and the contract reads they bring someone over to pay it forward, that helps someone else.”
“How can you tell if your investigation and your extraction team can’t tell?” Sevastyan asked. “Leopards hear lies, it can’t be that.”
“It has nothing to do with hearing lies,” Flambé admitted. “Even as a child, when I went on trips with my father, I could tell. There was something in the way their eyes shifted back and forth. I would tell my father and he would pass on that particular shifter. Not at first, but later, when I had a proven track record.”
“What you’re saying,” Ania mused, “is the shifter really did want to come to the US and was even willing to work for you or your father, but he wasn’t going to follow through and hire other shifters. You could tell that even as a child.”
She nodded. “They weren’t bad people. They just didn’t have the same vision as my father—or me. There were other ways for them to leave their lair.”
“These last couple of years, when things have changed . . .” Sevastyan continued, pushing his luck, seeing how uncomfortable she was. Flambé didn’t squirm or move restlessly. She sat very calmly, but he could tell this was the last conversation she wanted to have. She’d agreed to it, but was still unsure of all of them—him included. She wanted to take that chance with him, but everything about them was so new. This was her business, her passion, and she didn’t understand where they were going with it. “Flambé,” he persisted, keeping his tone as gentle as possible, using his low, authoritative voice that she responded to the most. “What changed with this particular woman? Shanty Jacobs. Who made the initial contact?”
“We first were contacted by a source at National Geographic. They had to run with their story and the photographs they had, but they sent word to us. Our extraction team immediately deployed into the field and were able to make contact fairly quickly with Shanty and the children. Her lair had been destroyed. There were so few left that there hadn’t been a way to protect them when they were attacked and those left were scattered and on the run.”
“Did your investigation team have time to do a thorough investigation before your extraction team picked her and her children up?” Sevastyan pushed.
Flambé hesitated. She set the water bottle very carefully on the table as if she was afraid of spilling it. Her hand didn’t shake. She looked perfectly in control, but that slight pause was unlike her. She was always sure when it came to her business. The hesitation added more knots to Sevastyan’s gut.
“No. We had to deploy our extraction team fast. Once we made contact with her and determined she wanted to leave, we realized it wasn’t safe for her to stay there. She was being hunted, not only by the government, but by poachers as well.”
“If you turned her over to the government, would they have protected her?” Ania asked.
“As a leopard,” Flambé said, “she would have been subjected to tests and separated from her children. They wouldn’t have known she was a shifter or that her children were.”
“But she could have escaped easily,” Ania pointed out. “If there was an immediate risk . . .”
“True, but our extraction team was right there and they provided her with an alternative.”
“But you told me she didn’t want to leave with them,” Sevastyan objected. “You told your workers that Shanty refused, at first, to leave unless you came personally to South Africa to escort her back to the United States.”
Flambé frowned again and rolled the bottle of water over her forehead. He knew her mind was puzzling out the steps that she normally would take on a rescue. This one had been different from the start. They had been contacted right before the photographs had gone public, putting the remaining strawberry leopards in jeopardy. The shifters had scattered, driven from the lair by poachers and now hunted by the government and tourists as well. They were frightened, not knowing where to turn.
There wasn’t time for a thorough investigation, everyone understood that, Sevastyan included. It was also the perfect time for a setup if someone was in a position to get there first. The questions were, how? And why?
“How would she even know your name, or for that matter your face, Flambé?” Sevastyan persisted gently. “It isn’t attached in any way to the extraction team. Why would she fixate on you and insist on you coming to South Africa instead of getting her children to safety as fast as she could? You said yourself you haven’t been going with the extraction team for close to two years now.”
Flambé didn’t answer. She closed her eyes, her long lashes, two thick crescents fanning down, making her look more vulnerable than ever.
“Could the extraction team have mentioned her name?” Ania ventured. “She’s a woman. If Shanty was frightened, she may have wanted a woman to reassure her.”
There was a small silence while the wind tugged at the loose dirt in the yard, whirling it into little eddies, making small dust devils, sending them bouncing and dancing in a wild display.
“That was the exact excuse I used when Etienne and Rory asked me why she had insisted on me meeting her in South Africa. They thought it strange as well. I said that very thing. She was a woman and she was frightened. I never thought to ask how she knew me. No one on the extraction team would ever mention me.”
“But you had acquired a reputation,” Mitya pointed out, playing the devil’s advocate.
“So had Drake Donovan. A much bigger one than mine. His security company is very well known all over the world. Why ask for me? Why not him? It’s true he mostly goes after hostages, but he’s been known to bring out shifters from troubled areas,” Flambé said with a small sigh. “He would have gotten there fast, probably faster than our team.”
“Why would this woman want to set you up?” Ania said. “She doesn’t know you.”
Flambé shook her head.
Knowing she wasn’t used to physical comfort, Sevastyan still couldn’t help offering it to her. He leaned toward her, sliding his arm around her shoulders. “Come here, baby.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not. Come sit on my lap.”
She gave a little shake of her head.
He kept the pressure on her shoulder and didn’t say anything else. He simply waited. Flambé took time to work it all out. To make up her mind. She had committed to him. She was still in the process of deciding just what that meant to her, what their relationship would be. She did derive comfort from him after being in the ropes. They’d established that over the last few weeks. He had that going for him.
With a soft sigh, Flam
bé capitulated, sliding from her chair to curl up on his lap, pulling her legs up the way she did, making herself small, cuddling into him. He wrapped his arms around her, giving her firm pressure. His arms were like the ropes, binding her, making her feel safe.
“Most people will betray others for money, power, revenge or if their loved ones are in jeopardy,” Mitya supplied into the silence. “This woman could have any of these motives.”
“Not power or revenge,” Sevastyan ruled out immediately, nuzzling the top of Flambé’s head with his chin. “She doesn’t know Flambé, and what kind of power would she achieve? So, money. Someone could be paying her a good amount, or her mate is being held hostage. Where is her mate? What’s the story on that, plamya?”
Flambé had begun to relax into him by slow increments. Her body was used to the feel of his from all the nights they slept together so close, Sevastyan refusing to allow so much as an inch between their skin. She had been shivering, but even that was slowly dissipating. She rested her head against his chest, her palm pressing into his thigh.
“According to the extraction team, every time they asked about her mate, she became hysterical. She would cry and talk about guns and poachers and everyone being dead.”
“Others escaped the massacre because at least nine other strawberry leopards were caught on separate cameras in various areas, isn’t that correct?” Ania asked.
“Yes,” Flambé said. “As far as I know, the teams are trying to find them. You know as well as I do, shifters are notoriously difficult to find when they don’t want to be tracked.”
“How does it work on your end?” Sevastyan asked. “You don’t use your private cell phone. You said someone at National Geographic gave you the heads-up. How?”
“I was working at the club when the call came in. There are only two of us who can answer that phone. Blaise Brodeur, my foreman, or me. He’s worked for us for years. My father brought him over years ago, when I was starting into my teens. He went to college, really excelled and came back to work with my father. He loves the landscaping business the way we do. My father gave him enough money to start his own business, but he wanted to stay on as the foreman and has. No one else has been there that long and knows both sides, the rescue and the landscaping.”