about Blaise after all. She didn’t want him to be working against her. She felt real affection for him. He might not be what she wanted in a life partner, but she felt close to him.
“You realize I don’t have any family at all, Blaise. No siblings, no cousins. No one. You’re the closest thing to family I have.” She meant it. There was an ache in her voice. She couldn’t help it. Blaise heard it and he turned around to face her, his back to the railing.
“What’s wrong, Flambé?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. I don’t think you’re happy and I want you to be. Why don’t you date anymore? You used to go out all the time.”
He hesitated. Like Flambé, he was well aware leopards could hear lies. “I want a life partner, not a one-night stand. I got damn tired of those.”
“Can I ask you a personal question? It’s really personal,” she warned.
He shrugged, looking wary, but he nodded. His gaze on her face was very focused, indicating his leopard was close.
“Are your nerve endings in your body close to the surface?”
He frowned. “I don’t know what you mean exactly.”
“In some strawberry leopards”—Flambé chose her words carefully—“nerve endings are very close to the surface. It can cause real pain if touched the wrong way. It can also develop into a need for sex all the time. I just wondered if that happened to you.”
Those eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t leave hers. He shook his head slowly. “Do you have that problem?”
She had been afraid if she asked, he would retaliate. It was natural that he would. Male strawberry leopards seemed to have a healthy sex drive, like most shifters, but they didn’t seem to suffer the genetic affliction some of the women did.
“Are you a hemophiliac?”
He shook his head, frowning now, worry creeping into his eyes. “Flambé, what the hell? Are you? Your father never said a word.”
“My mother hemorrhaged in childbirth, Blaise. It was genetic, so yes, I am. I take iron, of course, but I need more than that if I’m going to stay alive. They have a few newer things to try than they did in my mother’s time.”
Blaise shoved his hand through his hair in agitation. “I wish your father had told me. You shouldn’t have been working with all the equipment, Flambé. Too many accidents can happen. One slip of a pruning knife and you’ve got a dangerous cut.”
“I try to take precautions.”
“But you didn’t tell anyone. You should have at least told me.” He swung around, his fingers biting deep into the wooden beams of the railing. “I didn’t understand your father. He put you out of the house, left you on your own and then never once reined you in when you needed it. Hell. You could have died.”
There was real caring in his voice. Again, she didn’t want to believe he had anything to do with betrayal.
“I can’t live my entire life shut up in my room, Blaise.”
“No, but you could be more careful,” he said. “A hell of a lot more careful. What did you mean about nerve endings and needing sex all the time?”
She took a slow drink from her water bottle, placed it carefully on the table and then kept her fingers closed around it. “There’s a condition some of the strawberry leopards have—and yes, it’s genetic as well—that I suffer from, where nerve endings can make life hell.”
Blaise turned back, kept his gaze fixed on her face, but the expression in his eyes had gone predatory. “You need sex all the time? That’s what you’re saying.”
She shrugged. “It’s a condition, not something you want to have anyone you care about sharing with you, you know?” That was true as well. She’d been ashamed of it for so long, and truthfully, no matter what Sevastyan said or how she tried to rethink it, she still was. She didn’t want to think that her body drove her. She wanted to be in control.
“Damn it, Flambé. You went to the bar and picked up human males and had one-night stands so you wouldn’t let anyone you cared about get attached to you.” He made it a statement.
Flambé was grateful he had made that a statement. There was no requirement for her one way or another to comment. She just looked at him and shrugged again. He could infer from that that Sevastyan wasn’t a man she cared for; she just hoped he didn’t ask her any questions. She could see