the future as much as they both might want to think he was gone. There was no getting a woman like Flambé out of one’s mind.
Her parents. He needed to do some digging into what life had been like for her mother with her father. “When did you move out to that little studio? How old were you?”
The Carver property was fairly extensive, landscaped beautifully, so much so that it was a showpiece. The house was a long, U-shaped, single-story dwelling with many bedrooms and a wide covered verandah. There were two other houses, both of which had been built as dwellings for the male shifters who worked for them or the rescues who were training under her father. The studio was off by itself a distance from the main house.
She finished washing the dishes and wandered back to the window, avoiding his gaze. “I was seven. He needed the bedroom.”
Sevastyan felt like Shturm did most of the time, wanting to claw and rake, to break free and murder something or someone. She was very subdued, no expression in her voice, but he had been to her property with her to get her things.
The studio was situated right next to a koi pond where lavender and lacy ferns sprang around the wide bluish-black rock and tree limbs wept long green fringe into the water. The walkway leading to the studio was paved in the same bluish-black stones and the building fit perfectly with the setting, a small artsy one-bedroom cottage with a kitchenette and bathroom. The porch overlooked the pond, as did the front windows, giving Flambé a wonderful view, but that view would be far different as an adult than it would be as a child, not to mention it wouldn’t have been all that safe for a child alone.
“Get your shoes, baby,” he said softly.
He was the one who needed to run now. His body raged at him. Normally he would have turned to sex, going to Cain’s club, losing himself in the sheer beauty of tying the ropes, laying down a masterpiece on a blank canvas, and after, giving his body the release it needed, a totally unsatisfying mindless fuck that never did anything but let some of the volcanic rage go long enough to get by for a few days or, if he was lucky, weeks.
Now that he had Flambé, everything was different. His art was personal. Her body was the perfect canvas and each time he tied her, no matter how he decided to lay the ropes on her body, the color or texture, the pattern, it had to be on her because she was the one who made his art a masterpiece. She made it come alive. She took his cock and actually, in spite of his addiction to her, sated him enough that he could sleep. She managed to quiet the ferocious rage in him that he had thought was impossible to ever tame. Sadly, whatever she needed from him he wasn’t giving her—yet. He was determined to figure it out. His little strawberry leopard mattered to him, whether she thought so or not.
He waited for her at the bottom of the stairs. She hadn’t tried to change one thing in the house. She hadn’t asked for her own office. She’d barely moved her clothes into their bedroom. Each time he’d named a day to get married, she’d come up with an excuse why she couldn’t make that work. He was so busy with Mitya’s business, so used to being at his cousin’s beck and call, that he’d let that all slide. The only thing he’d really demanded of Flambé was for her to work at Mitya’s estate when she was drawing up plans and to sleep in their bedroom. She’d given him both.
He gave a low growl as he paced back and forth. How was he different than anyone else in her life? He was truly neglectful of her. He needed to find a way to spend more time with her, to make her know she was his priority. They had sex. Crazy, kinky, hot, wild, insane, insatiable sex. She distracted him with sex and he let her. He distracted her with sex and she let him. Their relationship was founded on sex and seemed to be about sex. She was comfortable with that and wanted to keep it that way. She hid herself from him unless . . .
Sevastyan abruptly stopped pacing. Flambé couldn’t hide from him when she was in