skin, where before he thought it was to prevent the mass from bothering her while she worked or from getting it wet when she was in the tub.
“I don’t?” Her long lashes lifted and then she stared down into her coffee cup as if it would somehow help her to remember if she talked about her father or not. Her lashes were naked of all mascara, strawberry blond with those red-gold tips that got to him every time.
He had studied the photographs of the leopards in South Africa, interested to see what her species looked like. They were very small. The heaviest female strawberry leopard known so far was only sixty pounds. That was extremely small for a shifter. He was Amurov and his male was a big brute, coming in close to two hundred pounds of pure muscle.
“No, baby, you don’t. I never met him. What was he like?”
She moved her shoulders as if she was stiff. “Why did your leopard bite me again?”
“Flambé.” He pushed warning into his voice. Mild. But still a warning. “Things got heated in the bedroom. Is there a reason you don’t want to talk about your father?”
She shrugged. “It’s just difficult to know what to say about him.” She pushed the coffee away after taking a sip. “He was great with plants. Really great.” Enthusiasm slipped into her voice.
She hadn’t eaten much. She’d pushed the food around on her plate more than she’d actually put it in her mouth. He got her a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and set it close to her hand, removing the coffee cup. “Honey, if you don’t like what I make for you, you need to tell me. I can cook other things. I just don’t admit it to the family. The chef can make anything for us and I can reheat it.”
Flambé sat up straight and shook her head, her eyes meeting his. “No. This is good, Sevastyan. I’m not a big eater as a rule.”
Her voice was very low. Husky. It played along his nerve endings. He watched her take a long drink of water and work her throat. A drop of water from the condensation on the bottle splashed on her top and stained the color a darker hue.
“I know Leland was amazing with his business, Flambé, but that doesn’t tell me anything about what he was like as a father. Or as a husband. I know he took a mate very late in his life. Your mother was a good twenty years younger than he was. She was a chef, wasn’t she?”
He was a rigger, a rope artist, and he paid close attention to everything to do with his partners, but now, especially to his mate. The slightest change in her breathing, the sweep of her lashes, the press of her lips. She was very uncomfortable discussing anything to do with her parents on a personal level.
“You know my mother died in childbirth, right?”
His heart stuttered. Clenched hard enough that it gave him pause. The moment he saw those steady trickles of blood running down her shoulder from Shturm’s claiming bite he knew something was wrong. He felt protective of Flambé. Not just protective. His sentiment went far beyond that. They’d spent time together, but mostly he expressed his passions in his art. He allowed his emotions for her to be wrapped up in his rope. He felt his connection growing with every knot, every tie. The touches on her skin. The sex was inflammatory, wild, the best, but it wasn’t nearly as intimate as the laying of the ropes. Wrapping her up—in him.
“Yes, malen’koye plamya, I’m well aware your mother died in childbirth. That’s one of the reasons I’m against you having children. I don’t want to risk you. I know it’s practically impossible for birth control to work for shifters, so I’d like to talk to a doctor about how to keep that from happening or how to best take care of it before you’re at risk.”
She tilted her chin at him. “Has it occurred to you that I might want children?”
The moment she gave him that defiant little chin lift of hers, Shturm roared and his body stirred, his dominant side rising fast. “Naturally. Which is why I said I was against you having children. I don’t want you carrying our children. We can use a surrogate. There has to be a safer way. When we find it, we’ll have children if you want them.”