He smiled down at her. “Don’t be embarrassed. The leopards can get us worked up. The chemistry between us without them is bad enough. With them, it’s off the charts. Matherson would have forced your female to accept his male.”
The color leached out of her face. “How could he do that?”
“If you were mine to claim, I would push the back of your shirt up so my leopard could coax your female to the surface. He would hold you still and they would touch if she agrees to his claiming. Once that happens, Matherson’s leopard would not be able to mate with her. He knows that. That’s why he’s tried so hard to keep you away from every other shifter. He doesn’t want your female to run across any other she might accept.”
Flambé turned her body toward his, her front to his side, rubbing her body against his like the little cat she was, amorous, so naturally sensuous and provocative he thought his control might actually shatter. One leg wound around his thigh while her hand caught at his shirt, fingers clutching.
Her little leopard was very close to the surface, calling continually for Shturm. The scent was so potent, filling Sevastyan’s lungs, it was all he could do not to throw Flambé up against the wall and take what she was offering. Her hands burrowed under his shirt, hot, stroking caresses over his skin while her hips rocked against his thigh, pressing her sex against him.
“He scares the hell out of me,” she admitted in a low voice. “I don’t want his leopard anywhere near mine.”
“Your leopard is in heat, and her heat will affect you,” he said, keeping his voice low and soothing. “It may sound terrible and might be after, depending on how he treats you, but at the time, it might not be the end of the world. Although, once he claimed you, you would have to stay with him.”
A little shudder went through her body. “Don’t even say that. Don’t even think it.” Her gaze jumped to meet his. Daring him. Challenging him. “You said your leopard was willing to mate with mine.” There was pure seduction in her voice.
“A claim isn’t for just a heat, Flambé. You have to understand that. The shifter world has rules. We live by those rules.”
“I’m aware of that. My father told me. I don’t know about claiming, but I do know we are not human and we live by a different set of rules.” She was becoming frantic, her body moving against his, hot, shaking with need.
“I wouldn’t let you go. I’m not an easy man to live with. I’m dominant in and out of bed. I like sex and I need it often. Leopard sex can be rough.” Even as he explained this to her, he kept his voice gentle, his fingers on the nape of her neck massaging the tension from her. One finger traced the lobe of her ear. He leaned down and nipped that same lobe with his teeth, watching goose bumps rise as endorphins rushed through her body.
Flambé’s gaze continued to stray to the man walking with such confidence up the walkway. Franco couldn’t fail to see Sevastyan and Flambé framed in the window watching him.
She moaned low, the sound somewhere between sensual and desperate. “Do you want me?”
“Yes.” He took her hand and blatantly, right there in front of the glass, curved her palm over his denim-covered cock. “You know I do.”
“I mean me.”
“Yes.”
“Does your leopard want my leopard?”
He turned her to face the window, pressed her against the glass so Matherson couldn’t fail to see her small figure facing him with Sevastyan towering above her. Sevastyan’s eyes met Franco’s through the glass as he slowly began to push up the back of Flambé’s top. Inch by inch he gathered the material in his hands, pulling it up to the nape of her neck, leaving her front fully covered, but exposing her back and shoulders to Sevastyan.
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.