She made a little moue with her lips that put steel in his cock. “At first his vision was quite simple, but his clients love it and so does he. It’s really good for me monetarily, but a pain because he goes online and looks at plants not knowing anything about them before he tells me what he wants. In any case, this particular supplier is my go-to when I have exotics to order fast. Honestly, I’ll be all right with just one bodyguard. Franco caught me off guard. I’ll be watching for him this time.”
Sevastyan tightened his hold on her foot and then began his slow massage again. He didn’t have to find a way to circle back to Cain, she’d just given him that. “No worries. I can rearrange my schedule. When you work at Cain’s residence, do you have to go out there alone?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of time. I oversee the work. I lay it out, leave, come back at the end of the day to make certain it’s what I wanted to have happen and then I check it off as a good day’s work. I only work at the club by myself.”
He was surprised at the relief he felt. He didn’t want to address Cain further with her, not unless it became necessary. She was already falling back asleep, giving in to the earlier exhaustion. He continued the slow massage of her foot and calf until she was nearly out and then he simply stood, lifted her out of the water, dried her off and carried her to their bed.
7
FLAMBÉ’S meeting with her supplier, a man by the name of Brent Shriver, was actually in San Antonio itself. Ania asked if she could accompany them into town as she wanted to drop by the bakery to see Evangeline and Ashe. Mostly, she said, she wanted to see the twins. Evangeline had the little nursey finished and while she worked in the bakery, the twins were in the playroom. Ania wanted to go sit with them for a little while and get out from under her husband’s “bossy” company.
Flambé had looked up at Sevastyan several times for guidance, no doubt hearing the blatant lies in Ania’s voice when she gave her excuses for coming, both to Flambé and to her husband. Both knew she lied, but both thought she was teasing Mitya. Truthfully, Sevastyan wanted her driving the car. Ania could handle just about any car on the road and when it was one her father and she had worked on to make into a little road rocket, there were few cars that could overtake it.
Kirill and Matvei were in a car somewhere ahead of them and trailing behind were two others. Leonid Chernov was Kirill’s younger brother who had come over with Kirill but had gone his own way for a short while. He’d joined them some time ago but hadn’t been put in a trusted position until recently. Sevastyan, being Sevastyan, still wasn’t entirely certain of him. Partnering with him was Zakhar Kotov, a man few wanted to cross. He was quiet, watchful, and loyal to Sevastyan and no one else. Not even to Mitya.
Zakhar’s father owed money the family couldn’t pay. Rolan’s lieutenants set their leopards on the family, hunting them down and ripping them to pieces. Sevastyan had saved his life when he was a young man, concealing him from the brutal vor and the lieutenants hunting him.
Zakhar had seen the savage beating the vor, Sevastyan’s own father, had cruelly subjected him to and then his leopard had visited on Shturm. Neither had given away Zakhar’s hiding spot. In the end Rolan concluded that Sevastyan couldn’t know where Zakhar was hiding. Sevastyan had smuggled Zakhar money and a passport to get out of the country so Rolan couldn’t kill him. Eventually, when Sevastyan had left Russia, Zakhar had joined him.
Sevastyan made certain Mitya was well guarded at his home and had promised to remain there before he took off with Flambé. The two cars with the other bodyguards left well ahead of Sevastyan’s leaving the Dover estate. He didn’t want anyone to think he had bodyguards traveling with them or that he might think they needed them. He wanted Franco to make his move. The sooner he could make certain Flambé was safe to carry on with her landscaping business, the better he’d feel.
He felt a little guilty telling Mitya there might be a five percent chance there could be a problem when he thought it might be higher, but Mitya was every bit as protective of Ania as Sevastyan was of Flambé, so there would have been zero chance of Mitya allowing Ania to go. Ania was becoming restless. Sevastyan could see all the signs in her, where Mitya chose to ignore them. Sevastyan didn’t want to be that kind of partner. He knew he was worse than Mitya in lot of ways, but he wanted to see his failings and hopefully correct them so he had a good chance of keeping Flambé happy.
He laid out everything to Ania. He didn’t want her going into trouble blindly. Being Ania, she was more than happy to come with him. Not only more than happy to come, she was eager to come. She told Mitya she was driving and danced around the room joyfully, kissing him good-bye before catching up the car keys and proclaiming they were taking her car and did Sevastyan mind?
Flambé was quiet a good portion of the way into San Antonio, looking out the window. She seemed distant from him and Sevastyan found he didn’t like it. She moved in the seat as if she couldn’t quite be still, her hand rubbing along her arm or her thigh. She sat away from him, clearly trying to avoid touching him.
Shturm? Has Flamme indicated that Flambé is upset? She has been very quiet all morning.
Now that he thought about it, she’d been quiet since they’d had breakfast and he’d taken her with him to Mitya’s. He’d left her with Ania while he’d been with Mitya attending endless boring meetings.
Flamme seems—moody. She is resting before rising. She is not talking.
How close is she to rising?
I cannot tell.
Still, his leopard was content. Shturm had gone from raging to calm as long as Flambé was close. Sevastyan found he felt the same way. He thought that the female leopard being moody could be affecting Flambé, just as his leopard’s moods often affected him.
He reached for her hand, threaded their fingers together and pressed her palm to his thigh. Even though she stiffened slightly, she didn’t pull away, and she kept her face turned toward the highway. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Look at me, plamya.” His voice might have been low, but the order was clear.
She glanced toward the front seat and their driver, but obediently turned her head toward him, her eyes reluctantly meeting his. His belly knotted. Was there hurt there? She wasn’t good at subterfuge, but her expression was clouded by the ever-changing color of her eyes.
&n
bsp; “We promised each other that we would talk things out. I can’t make it right if I don’t know what I did. Clearly I did something.”
Color swept up her neck into her face. She frowned and shook her head. He liked that she blushed. She was too fair to control that telltale sweep of color.
“Flambé. You know these things add up fast with me when you don’t do me the courtesy of replying. I am asking you a very simple question that requires a very simple answer.”
She shook her head a second time and then capitulated, but he could see she was very reluctant and was going to be just as upset with him for forcing her to divulge why she was upset. “You made a big deal about me sleeping in the room with you and then this morning you were gone. You had nothing to say or do with me. I felt . . . abandoned.”
She’d felt more than that, he could see. She had been just as sexually frustrated as he had. So much for being noble. His body had awakened him as it did nearly every morning, roaring to life with insane demands, and with Flambé beside him, that voracious hunger had been worse than ever. Even asleep, she had looked exhausted, and some of his marks looked like faint smudges, almost bruises on her skin. Where the night before they’d been erotic, in the morning light he didn’t approve of that look. He wasn’t going to take any chances with hurting her.
Sevastyan had gotten up quickly and left the room, showering and dressing in the master bedroom downstairs. Flambé’s scent still lingered there, surrounding him, entering his lungs every time he took a breath, driving him nearly insane, yet he’d managed to control himself and kept his hands off of her by staying a distance from her.