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For the first time, Matherson’s absolute confidence was shaken. It was a small stumble only. A brief strain on his face as he gave a barely imperceptible shake of his head. Sevastyan bent his head, his eyes going cat, banding with heat. He brushed kisses along the nape of Flambé’s neck and then on the soft skin of her shoulder before he allowed Shturm to surface. Even then, it was a partial shifting, Sevastyan staying in control as his cat sank his teeth in a holding bite in Flambé’s shoulder, drawing her female to the surface, injecting chemicals into her body.
The female rose fast, needy, a little desperate for her male, communicating with him, letting him know she feared the other male leopard’s intentions. That she tried to hold back but she was close to emerging and she feared Flambé would have no choice but to accept Matherson. Shturm, to Sevastyan’s astonishment, let the female know Sevastyan would never accept that outcome. It was a fierce denial. The images so savage Sevastyan thought they might upset the little female cat, but instead, they seemed to give her reassurance. She settled.
Sevastyan shifted back to his fully human form and pressed kisses to the bites. Blood trickled down her shoulder blade in a steady stream. He had expected a little blood, but not quite that much. His cat had licked at the bites and that should have helped to clot the blood, but it hadn’t. He frowned.
“I don’t want you to move. Matherson is going to come to the door, or the window, and be very dramatic. Remember, he can’t get in. He can threaten and posture, but he’s like the Big Bad Wolf in the children’s fairy tale. He can huff and puff for all he’s worth. I’ll get a first-aid kit and see to that bite. Your female accepted my male.”
He caught her arms and turned her around to face him. Flambé kept her head down so he tipped her chin up. “Are you crying?” His heart stuttered unexpectedly at the dampness the pads of his fingers encountered when he touched her face. “Did Shturm hurt you? Surely he was careful.” If he wasn’t, Sevastyan was going to have a few choice words to say to his leopard.
“It just felt so permanent between them. Intimate. Everything is happening so fast. I always hoped if I ever got into a permanent relationship it would be about love. Not protection.” Her lashes swept down to veil her expression. “I just thought I might have that someday.” There was vulnerability in the red-gold tips of her lashes as well as in her tone.
Sevastyan leaned forward and brushed kisses over her lips and then sipped away the tears on her face. “It would be impossible to have the kind of relationship we’re going to have and not be in love. I intend to love you with everything I am. What you do is up to you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to give you a proper courtship. You deserve one and we’ll take every minute we can to get to know each other.”
She blinked up at him, confusion swimming through the liquid in her eyes. “You’re . . . unexpected.”
He hoped he would always be unexpected to her. “Stay right here, baby. I’ve got a first-aid kit behind the bar. We stash them in all the rooms. Evangeline, my cousin Fyodor’s wife, is the one who insisted we do that, and it has really come in handy.”
“You have a lot of cousins.”
That was true. He did. Sevastyan was halfway across the room but keeping an eye on Matherson. He had deliberately showed the man he was leopard and that he had claimed Flambé. He hoped that was enough to take the pressure off her and the idiot would go home and annoy someone else. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. Franco Matherson was furious that his prize had been stolen out from under him.
“Evangeline has the bakery in San Antonio a few blocks from the huge building Jake Banniconni owns downtown. Her bakery is called The Sweet Shoppe,” Flambé said. Her voice shook as she informed him she knew of Evangeline’s bakery.
Sevastyan made his way back to her and turned her around but put her hands on the windowsill to steady her. He wanted to take a look at the lump on her head as well. “Look at the floor, not at him.”
Matherson had come straight to the window and was staring in, his eyes glowing with his cat’s menacing presence. Sevastyan ignored him, once more pushing up Flambé’s shirt in order to expose the leopard’s bite. It was still bleeding. When he wiped the blood away, he could see that Shturm really had been careful to keep his bite shallow, just enough for holding to call to the female. That was shocking to Sevastyan.
Shturm was fierce, a rough, brutal leopard, honed from the many beatings Sevastyan’s father and uncles had given him when the cat had tried to protect the boy. They’d let their larger adult cats loose on the young, immature leopard, tearing him nearly to pieces at times, until Sevastyan had forced a shifting in order to protect him, willing to let the leopards kill him rather than see Shturm suffer any further. Theirs had been an ugly childhood with little room for gentleness. He was thankful his leopard had shown that trait to Flambé.
Sevastyan applied pressure to the puncture wounds until he was certain the bleeding had slowed to trickles. He smeared on the antibiotic cream, placed Band-Aids over the two puncture wounds before pulling down her top and turning her almost in one motion so she wouldn’t see that Matherson was right at the window, the threat of death in his eyes. He pulled Flambé into his arms, tight against his chest.
“We’ll find our way through this. I’m excited to see what you’re going to do with the landscaping. I’ve been looking forward to hearing your ideas and seeing them drawn out since I made the call asking you to meet with me.” He brushed a kiss on top of her head, his gaze meeting Franco’s without hesitation.
There were cameras everywhere recording every threat the man might make. He might destroy one or two, but he wouldn’t find them all. Sevastyan had every confidence that he wouldn’t be able to breach the house, not as a man, and not as a leopard.
Matherson gestured toward the door. Sevastyan looked him up and down as if he were so far beneath his notice he couldn’t be bothered. The man hadn’t had the decency to go to the door before he peered through the window like some Peeping Tom. Worse, he’d actually run Flambé off the road and then struck her. He’d be paying for that, just not at that moment, not when Flambé, or anyone else, would know Sevastyan had anything to do with retaliating.
“Tell me how you got your name. There must be a story behind it.”
Sevastyan ignored Franco’s pounding on the window and took Flambé’s hand to walk her deeper into the living room, where he found a chair that kept her just out of Franco’s sight. The man would be able to see her legs and lap, but not her face. The chair had wide arms and a deep cushion, meant for a big man like him.
Flambé sank into the chair and he immediately went to the floor and positioned himself between her legs, kneeling there, so his wider body kept her legs spread open for him. That would torment a man like Franco. Drive him absolutely insane. It would ensure that Matherson would come after him and not Flambé.
Flambé’s eyes went wide when he dropped to his knees, his arms circling her waist, but she didn’t protest. She moistened her lips, indicating she was nervous, but she reached out and pushed at his hair, touching him tentatively. When he didn’t pull back, she stroked his hair away from his temples and gave him a little half smile. Her other hand rubbed her thigh restlessly.
“My mother was a chef. She worked at a famous restaurant. Apparently, one of her most famous desserts included something where she poured alcohol over it and lit it.”
When she smiled, even that little half smile, her eyes lit up and he found the experience extraordinary. Her eyes could be green or gold or light brown or amber. So many colors depending on her mood or what she might be wearing. With her leopard added to the mix, his woman’s eyes could be any number of colors and he would have to learn what each of them meant. It would take a lifetime, maybe nine of them.
“Flambé. Of course.”
“My father wanted children.” Her voice had gone neutral. Almost as if she was retelling a story. “She had a multiple pregnancy, but lost two early on. I was the last, and at first the
doctors thought she had lost me as well.”
Her voice had gone soft and very sad. Sevastyan thought she might be reflecting her father’s sorrow at the loss when he told her the story. She had a lot of empathy in her. That told him he would have to shield her. He would take care to do so without making her think he saw her as weak. He wished he had that quality. He never saw empathy as a sign of weakness. Evangeline, his cousin’s wife, had that trait in abundance. Sevastyan was drawn to Flambé because she had that characteristic in her nature.
“The pregnancy was very difficult on my mother and she was weak when she had me. There was a huge blood loss. Both my father and the doctor knew she wasn’t going to live. My father insisted that she wanted me more than anything, that she considered me her greatest gift to him.”
She gave him another smile, but this one was sad. “I’m not so certain of that. I really hate that she lost her life giving me mine.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Flambé,” Sevastyan pointed out.
Matherson was at the door, pounding with his fist. It sounded like his men were taking a battering ram to it. He hoped so. He hoped the recording would show the damage so he could sue them. There might not be evidence against Matherson for his assault on Flambé, but everything he did at Sevastyan’s house would be on the security tapes.
“Yes, I know. They say it is a myth that redheads are prone to bleeding, and maybe it is just our species, but apparently, we have lost many of our women in childbirth due to blood loss. That was what happened to my mother.”
Sevastyan was taking note of that. Flambé had the thick hair that marked the leopard species, but it was as bright red as could be. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she was a natural redhead and between her legs would be red curls. Her leopard would be strawberry. There was no taking chances with his woman. If they were going to have children, a surrogate could carry them, not Flambé. That would be a discussion for the far future, not for now.
“And your name?” He prompted again, because the door banging was really loud and twice her gaze had jumped in that direction. “How did you come by it?”
His hand moved on her thigh, fingers running up and down just as hers were doing, pressing deep, soothing the raw nerve endings. He stroked caresses upward, every now and then moving his fingers toward the inside of her thigh. Just one deep brush then another. Close to the heat and then back to the surface, distracting her from the door.
“My hair was thick and red and about an inch long. My father said I looked wild. Eyes too big for my face and hair as red as flames. My mother looked up at him and smiled. She said one word. Flambé. He told me he wasn’t certain if she wanted me named that, but after she passed, he couldn’t think of another name that meant fire or flame that would honor her as well. So Flambé was what it was.”
“I like it,” Sevastyan said. “It suits you.” He touched her hair. It felt like silk. He was going to have to move back away from her. Fortunately for both of them, her leopard was subsiding, giving them a respite. He hoped that once her female retreated, Flambé wasn’t going to try to change her mind.
“Stay here, plamya,” he said, calling her flame. He stood, towering over her, his body very close to her. Too close. The moment he stood he was all too aware of exactly the position of his cock and her mouth. Sometimes he detested that he was such a sexual dominant. It was stamped into his bones, so much a part of him.
Sevastyan stepped away from her and caught up his forgotten water bottle so he could make his way leisurely to the window. He angled himself so he was fully visible to Matherson and his men as he stood watching them as if they were circus animals and he was enjoying a show. He waited until they were fully aware of him and had stopped their furious pounding and battering on the door, which they clearly weren’t going to get through. He opened the intercom.
“Gentlemen, I suggest you leave the property immediately.”
“Before you call the police?” Franco sneered. “You coward.”
Sevastyan smiled and took a long drink of the cool water. “I prefer not to involve the police. I think when grown men act like children throwing tantrums they need to be treated like children.”
He reached down to the long row of buttons hidden just below the windowsill, activating several. Water gushed out in long pulsing streams like firemen’s hoses, coming from the eaves of the house, blasting the men and driving them back and away. Within seconds they were soaked and on their butts, sliding in the puddles on the walkway.
Cursing, Franco tried to rise, only to fall several times. Sevastyan never cracked a smile. He simply watched dispassionately from his vantage point at the window. Behind him, Flambé jumped up and rushed toward him. He didn’t turn around.
“Stop right there. I don’t want him to see you looking afraid or alarmed. Back away from the window.” He kept his voice low but commanding. “Now, Flambé.”
She came to an abrupt halt, one hand going to her throat defensively. “You don’t know him, Sevastyan. You haven’t done any research on him like I have. He’s vindictive. You’ve humiliated him in front of his men. He’ll never stop until he kills you.”
Her voice trembled and Sevastyan, in spite of his resolve to continue looking at Franco as if he were an ant, couldn’t help but turn to look at his woman. She was genuinely upset. She wasn’t a woman easily intimidated and yet Franco Matherson had really shaken her up. It wasn’t the fact that he’d struck her. She knew Sevastyan came from a family of criminals and yet she was that shaken.
“Baby.” He whispered the endearment softly.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s evil. He’s truly evil. I spent a great deal of time finding out as much as I could about him when the cops wouldn’t help me.” Even though she was so distressed, she still backed away from the window, keeping out of Franco’s line of vision. “There’s a subspecies of leopards, of shifters, the Arabians he and his brothers first went after to find wives. They bartered with the elders and tried to get them to give them several females. The elders told them it didn’t work that way, but Matherson became angry the way he does and, in the end, tried to take the females.”
Again, there was a mixture of truth and a lie. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was to call her on it. “I can see him doing that. He doesn’t like being thwarted in the least. If he can’t have his toy, he’d rather break it so no one else can have it.”
She nodded. “That’s exactly what he did. He and his brothers began a systematic hunt, and they used the natives to help them stamp out the Arabian leopards by putting bounties on the leopards, poisoning them, capturing them for zoos, killing them for various body parts and their pelts. That’s how vindictive they are.”
“You’re afraid he’ll come after me.”
She started to answer and then fell silent, studying his face. “You’re deliberately angering him. You sized him up in five seconds and you’re drawing his attention away from me and putting it onto you. On purpose.” That was an accusation. “Sevastyan. You can’t do that.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “I can do anything I want, Flambé. I’m very familiar with evil. I grew up surrounded by it. I know the kind of man he is. I recognized what he was immediately. I want his attention centered on me, not you. Still, it’s best if you stay close to me where I can protect you. Since you’ll be working for me anyway, and you don’t want to endanger your crew, that will work. We’ll get whatever you need sent here.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
“Your female is emerging anytime. You can’t have her breaking free in front of anyone either,” he pointed out, and turned back to the intercom and Matherson. He shut off the valve for the water. “I suggest you gentlemen leave my property immediately. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”
Matherson jerked his head toward the road and his two security people went with him, stalking down the walkway, looking more like wet, wretched hens than tough guys. Sevastyan didn’t belie
ve it was over for a moment. Franco wouldn’t leave quietly. He wanted to show Sevastyan he wasn’t in the least afraid of him. He had a larger force of men hiding in the brush and there was no doubt that he would leave instructions to retaliate in some manner. When, was the question. Franco didn’t have a clue Sevastyan knew the men were out there.
Flambé threw herself into the wide chair again, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around her legs. “You shouldn’t have done that, Sevastyan. I can’t thank you enough, but you shouldn’t have done that. He’ll never stop coming after you. He’s really a monster.”
“I could see that. What are his brothers like? Have you seen them? Met them?” Sevastyan moved across the room from her, resting one hip against the bar, regarding her carefully. She looked strained, trying to cover it up. The smudge by her lips had darkened. She continually covered the swelling at the side of her head.
“I’ve seen them, but they always stay in the background. He’s the one out in front at press conferences. He does the talking. He can be charming when he wants something. He’s good at smiling for the cameras.”
“You look tired. Are you getting hungry?”
“I need to deal with my car. It’s off the road, but it’s going to have to be towed.” She put her head back and closed her eyes. “I don’t know how I managed to get away from him. It was my female. Flamme. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life.”
Sevastyan couldn’t help it. He found himself smiling. He wasn’t that given to the real thing. But Flambé? Flamme? It was possible there was a warning in those two names. Shturm and he had better take heed and listen to it.
“I’ll have your car taken care of. Are the keys in it?”
“I threw them on the front seat. At least I think I did. I just hit the ground running. He was coming at me. He was on me so fast and I was so scared. I knew I couldn’t let his leopard anywhere near Flamme.”