wasn’t involved. He was grateful she was responding to the man and not his leopard.
“What do they want?”
She wasn’t thinking anymore, not about Franco Matherson. She was thinking about Sevastyan and he wanted to keep her that way. He didn’t want to answer that question. Leopards could hear lies and he wasn’t about to lie to her. He didn’t want her to be afraid nor did he want her to know that he was going hunting the moment she fell asleep.
Deliberately he slid his hand deeper into her blouse, finding her left nipple through the thin lace of her bra. He tugged for a moment and then, watching her face, flicked with his thumb and finger. She gasped as he rolled and tugged again.
“I love that you’re so responsive.” He whispered it like praise and then bit gently on the lobe of her ear before letting her go and once more picking up her suitcases. “Come on, baby, we’ve got to get inside. I need you safe.” He led the way fast, clearly expecting her to follow him.
She was silent when she walked, a true leopard. She’d been brought up in a lair. Trained as a leopard. Her father had definitely taught her the rules of their world. She knew they weren’t entirely human and they weren’t animal. Theirs was a strict society because it had to be secretive in order for them to have a chance at survival.
Sevastyan didn’t understand, when there were such good men as Ania’s father had been, why aberrations like his father and Matherson were born into an already dying species. Sevastyan couldn’t claim he was a good man, although he tried to be. He wanted to be. He did his best when he knew he’d been fucked up since the day he’d been born. For the woman following him into the house, he would do his best to be a better man every day. For her.
He would find a way to make her life extraordinary. Fyodor managed to make Evangeline happy. But Evangeline was an angel. Sevastyan didn’t want an angel. He couldn’t afford to have one, not with the kind of man he was. He wanted a woman who would catch fire with him. Go up in fiery flames. Be fierce when she needed to be. Have no fear when she confronted him or with the kinds of things he would ask or demand of her.
He would be asking a lot of Flambé. He believed she had it all in her, just by the things he’d read about her and her father. She’d grown up beside her father, doing the things he’d done. Rescuing her people, giving them opportunities to make their way in life. She seemed to possess all the characteristics he admired and respected in a woman, the ones he most looked for.
He was an extremely sexual man. There was no getting around that. The way she related to him already, he could tell she was as well. The sex wasn’t going to be all about her cat; when the leopard subsided with her heat, Flambé’s needs wouldn’t just go away. She would match his nature, and hopefully be open to adventure.
“I thought this room would be a good one for you. It was the master bedroom and has a sitting room. You can use it for work until you move upstairs with me.” He pushed open the door to the enormous suite of rooms.
The Dover manor was large and the downstairs master bedroom could have easily been a city apartment complete with kitchen, dining room and living room. It was open, with two stairs leading up to the actual bedroom, where a gas fireplace was on one wall. Chairs and a small table were down below the two stairs on a thick gray carpet facing another gas fireplace. One wall was accented a dark color while the rest matched the silvery gray of the carpet. Two tall lamps were slashes of dark color with oval-shaped shades over the dim bulbs standing on either side of the enormous bed.
“The bathroom is through those doors. Has a shower and bathtub. Anything you need should already be in there for you, but if not, intercom me.” He gestured toward the phone. “Anything at all, Flambé, if your leopard rises, or you get frightened, you call me.” He walked over to the phone and showed her where to press the button. “That will call me. Don’t come up the stairs. That could get you