“Did he hear about Carver’s marriage?”
Mitya nodded. “Drake heard all the rumors, that Carver hadn’t stopped having sex with other women, even with his wife pregnant and in the same house. That she was miserable. Drake said there was little he could do since the women Carver was with refused to make any complaints against him.”
Sevastyan sighed. That was what Flambé had told him. Carver had kicked his own daughter out of the house in order to have one more room for another woman. She’d been alone. She’d learned to be alone. From the time she was a child she’d learned that shifters were unfaithful. Her father might not have been physically abusive to her, but he was emotionally abusive.
“Damn it, Mitya. I don’t know the first thing about how to be right for her. I can protect her. I can give her great sex. But the things she needs to know about, I don’t know. I never had those things either.” Sevastyan was beginning to sweat. He couldn’t sit still. He leapt up and began to pace restlessly.
Ania stood and leaned into her husband. “Sevastyan. Honey. Listen to me. Loving someone isn’t terrible like you think it is. It isn’t something to be afraid of.”
He let his gaze drift over her, dark and savage, banded with red heat. “It is, Ania. I’m not good with emotions, you know that. Look at how I handle you. And what I feel for Flambé . . .” He stumbled, trying to find words, the pressure in his chest so severe that for a moment he was afraid he might have to go to his knees. “It’s getting worse. The more I’m with her, it’s getting worse. I don’t want to be without her.”
“Women don’t really need grand gestures all the time, Sevastyan,” Ania insisted. “You’re making things too hard. Tell her you don’t want to be without her. Say what you feel.” She burst out laughing. “You should see the expression on your face. I haven’t told you to lie down in front of a steamroller. Just say what’s in your heart once in a while. By that I mean a few times a day. Give her something to hold on to. Then when you’re an ass, which you will be, she’ll be more inclined to overlook it.”
“Is that what you do?” Sevastyan demanded, his focused, leopard’s eyes boring into Mitya.
Mitya nodded. “Keeps me out of trouble.”
“Not entirely,” Ania corrected. “But it goes a long way. Sit down, Sevastyan. You’re going to do all right. Admitting to her how you feel isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
He’d done that. He had told her, and somehow, she had given him so much back. He forced air through his lungs and waited for Ania to sit before taking the chair across from his brother.
“This woman, this Shanty, Drake shares the same concerns as Flambé’s three employees. Not because he found anything on her, but because something just didn’t add up to him,” Mitya said. “She’s strawberry. She was caught on camera and her picture was put in just about every newspaper from here to hell and back. Flambé’s team did a cursory investigation and filled out the necessary paperwork to bring her and the children to the States. The team has a holding area they take every shifter to before bringing them into the States while the necessary paperwork is being done. They get shots, all the work is done there and they’re protected. Shanty’s paperwork had to be pushed through quickly and favors had to be called in. She was told ahead of time and yet she still pitched a fit, insisting that Flambé come to meet her personally in South Africa.”
Sevastyan’s gut tightened the way it did when something felt wrong to him. The woman should have just wanted to get out as fast as possible.
“Could she have been so frightened she just wanted to see Flambé’s face? Flambé would have been the most recognizable, right?” Ania asked.
“How?” Sevastyan demanded. “She provided an extraction team. They would have sent their photos, not Flambé’s. She wouldn’t have been involved at that point. She wouldn’t be involved until the woman and her children were turned over here in the United States. Flambé had stopped going on runs for a while, especially with her leopard so close to emerging. She has a price on her head. She knew better than to go. So how did this woman know to ask for Flambé personally?”
“Did you ask Flambé?” Mitya said. Surprisingly, his tone was mild. The angrier Sevastyan became, the calmer Mitya became.
“No.” Sevastyan shoved both hands through his hair. “I don’t want her to think I’m taking over her business. Our relationship is very fragile.”
“Her life could be in danger, Sevastyan,” Mitya pointed out. “If it was Ania, you’d throw her over your shoulder like a caveman, scowl at me and toss her into the panic room.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sevastyan snapped, but his tone was conciliatory. Mitya was right. He would do that. He would expect Mitya to protect Ania and he would be furious if he didn’t. He was just so damned afraid of losing ground with Flambé.
“You have to ask her,” Mitya pushed. “You don’t have a choice.”
Sevastyan knew he didn’t have a choice in the matter. In a way, Shanty had saved him. He doubted if Flambé would have stuck around if she hadn’t been waiting for the woman. But if so many others had a bad feeling about her, then something had to be off.
There was no sound but he turned to look toward the kitchen. Now that Flamme had finally made her appearance and fully integrated with Flambé, she moved even more like a leopard, but there was no covering her scent, not from Sevastyan. Everything around him faded in comparison to her. The colors of the leaves and plants, the clouds drifting across the sky. The way the property rolled and seemed to go on forever.
He inhaled, tasting her on his tongue. Cinnamon and spices, setting up the craving for her the way it always did. Flambé opened the kitchen door and stood framed there, her gaze on his face before she took a breath and looked at their company.
Mitya stood, Ania tucking in quickly beneath his shoulder, giving him her full support. “Flambé,” Mitya greeted her first, not waiting. “I had to come to tell you how very sorry I am for the way I’ve treated you. Please let me explain, although there really is no excuse. I can only throw myself on your mercy and hope you’re as compassionate as Sevastyan says you are.”
She released her death grip on the edge of the door and stepped onto the porch, a hint of a smile lighting her eyes, turning the green a jeweled emerald. “He says I’m compassionate?”
Mitya nodded. “He does.”
Flambé took the chair beside Sevastyan’s. “He wishes I was compassionate with all the crap he pulls.”
Mitya burst out laughing. “She has your number.”
Ania nudged him. “Probably in the same way I have yours. Get on with it.”
“Yes, well.” Mitya sank back into his seat and pulled Ania down onto his lap. “I’ve been looking out for Sevastyan since he was a boy. It hasn’t been easy either. He’s always in some kind of trouble.”
“That’s easy enough to believe,” Flambé said.
Sevastyan scowled. “Flambé, I’m the head of security.”
“That means nothing.” Mitya waved that airily away and then bit lightly on his wife’s neck. “Already, you’ve lived with him. You know how he is. Hot-tempered. But still, a good man. My baby brother, although few know this.”
Sevastyan groaned. “Not baby.”
“Yes. Baby. You were the baby. I had to change your diapers. What a mess that was.” Mitya gave a long-suffering sigh.
“You know how to change diapers?” Ania asked, swinging her head around to look at her husband. “You never once mentioned this talent to me. I don’t have a clue how to change a baby’s little butt. Guess who will be doing that particular chore if we ever get lucky enough to have one of those creatures?”
Mitya wrapped his arm around Ania’s shoulders and dragged her even closer. “We’ll have a baby someday, kotyonok. One way or another we’ll have one, although I’m not certain I will remember how to change diapers. You may have to learn.”
>
“Ha!” Sevastyan pounced on that. “He never changed my diapers in the first place. Don’t believe a thing he says, Flambé.”
“In any case, I was being overprotective of him. I feared he entered into the relationship too fast. He was lonely. I knew this. You are beautiful. Anyone can see that. You both have the same interests but you never looked at him the way I thought a woman who would love him would look at him. I had no right to judge you or the relationship the two of you choose to have together. I wanted so much for him and I put my desires and what I believed was the only right way to love on the two of you. I’m very sorry for that.”
“I can’t really blame you for thinking I had one foot out the door,” Flambé said. “Since I did. I’m not good at relationships, or trusting anyone, especially a male shifter.”
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.
Sh
e 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.
Flambé made a little face. “In the last couple of years, more often than not, we ran into all kinds of problems, so much so that the extraction team preferred that I didn’t accompany them. There was no hiding traveling anymore with the internet. We didn’t used to have to hide. It wasn’t a big deal when my father was bringing shifters over. No one knew or thought anything about it. All of a sudden in the last two years, no matter if it was a male or female, we ran into people with guns.”
“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.”