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 believe 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.”
“Why did you name her Flamme?”
“I didn’t. She told me that was her name. I haven’t seen her, but I presume she’s strawberry like most of us.” Flambé opened her eyes and regarded Sevastyan. “Your leopard is Amur?”
Sevastyan nodded. “He’s big for any leopard. He can ride me pretty hard, Flambé. There are times I can be edgy. I won’t ever use that as an excuse to mistreat you. If you don’t like something I say or do, speak up.” Pulling out his cell, he texted Mitya, his cousin. There were plenty of security personnel who could take care of towing Flambé’s car to the garage and get it fixed for her.
Her smile was a thing of beauty. Fascinating to him. It came slow, a curve of her mouth and then lighting her eyes and then her face. “I have no problems whatsoever expressing myself when I don’t like something, Sevastyan.” She pointed to her red hair. “That is the warning signal, after all.”
“My woman has a temper?”
“I prefer to say I have a sense of justice and when someone crosses it, it is at their peril.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. It might have sounded a little rusty, but it was definitely a laugh. He liked her. He liked being with her.
“You don’t have to take care of my car for me, Sevastyan. I can do it, although I appreciate you volunteering. I was procrastinating. You’ll find I do that. Not anything to do with work. That’s what will frustrate you the most about me. I tend to get everything done to the smallest detail with work and the people I’m trying to help, but once I come home and need to take care of my own things, I put it off all the time. You’ll want to pull out your hair—or mine. I miss important appointments like doctor appointments all the time, and you know how hard it is to get in with a shifter doc.”
He frowned down at her. “You miss doctor appointments?”
She nodded. “All the time. They even charge me for my missed appointments.” She sighed. “Nothing helps. I just can’t seem to be bothered to remember my own things once I get home after taking care of everyone else.”
“That will change. I have my ways to make certain you do the things in our household that need to be done—especially those that pertain to your care.”
Her eyes widened. “You do? You have your ways? You have ways?”
He nodded with deliberate slowness and paced around her chair with a leopard’s prowling gait. The silence stretched between them, tension heightening suddenly, all raw sexuality.
“Are you going to tell me what those ways are?” She turned her head to follow him as he circled behind her.
“I prefer to let you find out when the time comes. According to what you just told me, you often neglect your important appointments. If that is true, it won’t take long before you find out just how I deal with my errant woman when she doesn’t take care of her health.”
She laughed and drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. “I guess I’ll have to figure out inventive ways to take care of my errant man when he doesn’t take care of his health. I’m fairly certain you don’t even know what a doctor is.”
Sevastyan laughed. “The women in my family are going to love you, Flambé. Let’s go out and grab something for dinner. We can stop on the way home and pick up whatever you need from your house and bring it back here.”
For the first time she looked uncomfortable. A shadow moved across her face and she shifted slightly in the chair. “I shouldn’t stay here, Sevastyan. I think it’s like pouring salt into the wound. At least study Matherson before you make up your mind. I can forward all the research I’ve done on him to you. I’m very thorough and I’ve dug up quite a bit.”
“Then you should know you aren’t safe.”
She looked down at her hands. “I honestly didn’t think he would really make so blatant a move on me here in the States. I should have known better. The road out here isn’t very well traveled. He must have been able to get into my phone to know I was on my way here.”
“The two appointments you cancelled?” he prompted. “Did Franco have anything to do with them?”
The color crept up her neck and into her face. “My leopard introduced herself with a vengeance. I didn’t dare walk out the door. One moment I was perfectly fine and the next I was all over the place. It was really terrifying being that out of control.”
Sevastyan could hear the underlying fear in her voice. She was struggling to maintain. As a rule, Flambé was a confident woman, but between Matherson and her newly emerging leopard, she was off-balance.
“That’s understandable. A leopard in heat can be difficult for any female, even one expecting it. We’ll get you through her emergence.” He poured confidence into his voice. “But, baby, you know you have to stay close to me, not only in case Matherson tries again but in case your leopard rises. Shturm isn’t going to stand for a separation any more than I am.”
He crouched down in front of her, his hands on her knees. “I know you’re nervous. This is the last thing you expected. I’m a stranger to you. I swear, Flambé, we’ll go as slow as the leopards al
low us. There are plenty of bedrooms. You can choose one a distance from mine and stick a gun under your pillow if you’re worried I’m going to try to break down the door.”
“I doubt a gun under my pillow would stop you, but okay, I’ll stay here with you.”
He cupped the side of her face gently with his palm and slid the pad of his thumb over the bruise at the side of her mouth. His gaze dwelled on the lump in her hair. “This looks bad.”
“It gave me a headache is all.”
“I hope that’s all.” He bent forward and brushed a light kiss over it, feeling her shiver in response. “Thank you, Flambé, for agreeing to stay. After Matherson, it can’t be easy to give your trust to anyone, least of all a man like me.”
“A man like you?”
Her lashes made her look so innocent, those red-gold tips turning up right at the ends. He loved them already and knew he could spend a lifetime looking at them and never get tired.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I am or where I came from. There might not be mention of me in the papers, but there is of Mitya and Fyodor.”
Her eyes searched his. “I was holding out hope that the things they said in the papers weren’t true. Everyone wants to accuse people from Russia of being in organized crime just like they do if you’re Italian.”
“They’re true, Flambé. I was up front with you about what and who I am.” It was very possible, with the leopard’s heat on her so severely, she could barely understand a word he was saying.
“Leopards hear lies, Sevastyan, and that’s the first lie you’ve told me.” She tilted her head and studied his face. “Why would you want me to believe that you’re in the mob?”
He swore to himself but never changed expression. Didn’t blink. Didn’t look away from her. “My father was a vor. He ruled a lair in a brutal and savage way and trained me to be that way. Mitya’s father and Fyodor’s father were the same. Gorya’s father tried to get out and they killed him—his own brothers and sons. They would have killed Gorya—an infant—but Fyodor’s father had plans for him. I come from a very long line of evil leopards, Flambé, all of whom were bratya. That is the Russian equivalent to the mob. Perhaps the interpretation is lost in the way I speak and I sound as if I am speaking an untruth.”
Flambé searched his eyes. “Perhaps.” There was pure skepticism in her voice.
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Out of curiosity, do you have any of your mother’s skills when it comes to cooking?”
“I hear pleading in your voice. Are you telling me you can’t cook?”
“It depends. I might be able to cook when it matters to me. That’s not when I’m hungry, only when it matters. I have no problem sharing the kitchen duties, in fact I like that idea, but it would be nice if you’re good at it.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m okay being the modern, hear-me-roar, I-can-do-it-all kind of woman, but what exactly are you bringing to the table?” Her gaze swept him up and down. “Aside from the obvious really good looks. Okay, brutally good looks. Aside from that, what are you bringing to the table?”
He stepped close to her, letting her feel his raw heat. The hot blood pounding through his veins. He dropped his voice to that velvet whisper of sheer command. “Sex, Flambé, the way no one else can or ever will give it to you. You’ll scream with pleasure, you’ll beg me for my cock. You’ll do anything I ask of you, just to feel that pleasure, knowing I’ll take you there over and over.”
He dropped a kiss on top of her head and put her hand in the crook of his arm when she continued to stare up at him looking shocked. “We’re going out the back way. Matherson has men watching the house. We’ll take the car in the underground garage. They don’t know about that one yet. There’s a tunnel that goes straight to Mitya’s property and comes out on the other side of his drive. I’ve texted him we’re using it and to alert his security people so they don’t decide to treat us like we’re the enemy.”
“You have a secret underground garage?”
“We do. Technically, since we’re going to be together and Shturm claimed Flamme, it’s our tunnel. I didn’t think of it first. The Dovers owned the property before me. They were all about cars and they had the underground tunnel put in. Ania, Mitya’s wife, didn’t even know about it until after her father died. We discovered it when we were clearing out the garage of all the cars the Dovers owned. We had to reinforce the tunnel with steel in a few places, but it’s a nice escape route for us and for them. Dover had a few surprises for us.”
She looked around. “I love the house.”
“The best is upstairs. The entire floor is dedicated to a bedroom, sitting room and bathroom. That floor has a wraparound balcony. It wasn’t the master bedroom. That’s downstairs, but I prefer the upstairs room. I had that one remodeled before anything else. I’ll show it to you sometime.” Sooner than later, he was certain, going by her leopard’s antics. In the meantime, he was going to do whatever he could to earn her trust.
3
WHAT do you know about the Matherson family?” Mitya Amurov asked Jake Bannaconni. He sat back and regarded the billionaire across the wide expanse of the cherrywood desk. “The bastard Franco Matherson went to Sevastyan’s home and threatened my cousin after running Flambé Carver off the road, assaulting her by punching her in the face and then trying to force his leopard’s claim on her. She got away and ran to Sevastyan’s home. Who is this man that he dared do these things and think he is safe from the police?”
Mitya Amurov was a big man with flat, cold eyes that right now spoke volumes. He sat at the table with Jake Bannaconni, Fyodor Amurov and Drake Donovan. Standing in the shadows were Gorya, Timur Amurov and Sevastyan Amurov, all cousins, and another bodyguard by the name of Logan Shields.
“Franco Matherson is safe from the police,” Jake said. “The evidence against him would simply disappear. That’s why he’s an arrogant prick. He gets away with murder. He always has, he’s just more blatant about it now. His family has tried to get him to see reason, but he doesn’t listen to them. There are five boys. Franco is the oldest. They come from old money, somewhere in the Congo area, I heard.”
Drake Donovan nodded. He owned a small but trusted international security company, one that was made up of mainly shifters, although very few knew that. He was probably the leading authority on the shifters and various lairs around the world. “They’re African leopards, big ones and fighters. They keep their leopards in combat shape.”
“Sevastyan deliberately provoked him to get his attention off Flambé,” Mitya continued. “She’s very close to the emergence. She’ll be staying with him until her leopard makes an appearance. Right now, Matherson has several men watching Sevastyan’s home. They can’t get in and if they try to burn him out, he’s prepared for that as well. We’re on a wait-and-see policy at the moment. We wanted to find out what you had on Franco,” Mitya added. His voice was clipped. It was evident to everyone in the room, Jake included, that Mitya didn’t want to wait at all. He wanted to take care of the problem and just go after Matherson right then.
“Let me find out how extensive his reach is into law enforcement,” Jake said. “That shouldn’t be difficult. Franco is relatively new to this area. He had to have reached out to someone to get in. He had to hire locals to help him. He brought leopards, but he can’t have that many. His brothers travel with him, but they don’t always stay if they think he’s going to pull them into deep shit. Messing with the local mob might constitute deep shit to them.”
“Did you not hear that he left his men on Sevastyan’s property?” Fyodor snapped.
Sevastyan stirred, just the slightest of movements to remind his cousins that it really didn’t matter what the decision was at the table. In the end, he was going to kill and burn the bodies of every leopard Franco Matherson left behind for whatever purpose. He would get his woman to sleep and then go hunting.
His cousins would want to hunt with him, but he was the head of security and he was forbidding that. He had already contacted the team he wanted with him. They were on standby.
Drake Donovan glanced over his shoulder, more like flicked his gaze at him, but then turned his attention to Mitya. “We know. We heard. They can’t get to him. This is really about Flambé. Matherson wants her and he can’t have her so he’s throwing one of his fits. It’s what he does. He’s dangerous when he’s like this.”
“I don’t get it,” Fyodor said. “Why isn’t he going after the women in his lair? Or one of the lairs closer to his? He has the money. He had the opportunity. You said he’s a fighter and so is his family. The chances of his mate being among the women there are so much greater.”
Drake shrugged. “He still has to abide by the shifter laws within his lair. The elders refused to allow him to search. He has a reputation for cruelty and they fiercely protect their women and children. It didn’t matter how much money the Matherson family had, the lair didn’t care. They drove them out.”
“Yet Franco didn’t retaliate by hunting and killing the leopards in his lair,” Mitya pointed out, “the way he seemed to do with the Arabians.”
“There were too many of the African leopards. The lairs would have banded together and hunted Franco,” Drake said. “They have an enforcer team. I’ve tried to recruit members for my security team—they’re that good—but so far I haven’t been able to persuade them away from their home turf. I wouldn’t be surprised, given Franco’s reputation, if these boys don’t come hunting him.”
“They’ll have to get in line,” Mitya said, his voice grim.
“Unfortunately, if Franco disappears now, the cops will look at Sevastyan first. He’s already gone to your house, Sevastyan, and he hit your woman.”
“She didn’t report it,” Mitya said when Sevastyan didn’t so much as stir in the shadows. “And she isn’t going to.”
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