Flambé had never seen anything like it until she’d seen the artwork in Cain’s office. She’d looked up the ancient art on the internet and discovered all kinds of information on the practice. It had intrigued and shocked her just a little at all the various ways Shibari was used.
Watching Sevastyan lay those knots, so impersonally, so relentlessly, his face a merciless mask, she felt as if she was being lashed with lightning. She couldn’t take her eyes from him as he used his foot to shove the woman’s knees wide apart. Heart pounding, she actually watched as he took the woman almost brutally, his body a machine, taking her from behind, not looking at her face, as if she mattered so little he wouldn’t look into her eyes. When he was done, he glanced over his shoulder, beckoned, and another man hurried into the room.
Sevastyan tugged on the rope and loosened the knots, first on the olive rope and then on the dark green one. He indicated both loosened ropes to the newcomer and then pointed out shears he’d laid out on a table. The man thanked him and then gently removed the woman’s bonds and comforted her, his arms around her, as Sevastyan just turned and strode out without once looking back. It took Flambé a few minutes to realize that the other man was the woman’s partner.
She found herself gripping the edge of Cain Dufort’s desk, tears swimming in her eyes. Finding out about one’s submissive sexual cravings alone in a club when she knew she was leopard and the man she hungered for was also leopard was terrifying. Especially when that man clearly could have cruel tendencies and she was not only attracted to him, she desperately wanted him. She had always been careful to fulfill her sexual needs with human men—except she was never fulfilled.
There was something very, very wrong with her. She had to leave. Get out of that place. That first night, she resolved to never meet Sevastyan Amurov. Never be in the same room with him. She, more than any other female, knew exactly how dangerous it was to be with a dominating shifter. They could be very cruel, especially to a mate. She was never, never, going there.
As days went by, she found herself obsessively thinking of him all the time. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself to stop, or how many long hours she put in working; she couldn’t control her thoughts. She couldn’t sleep. Her body told her he could sate the terrible fire that burned in her night and day. She burned for him, for the things he could do for her. For the world he could open for her. Maybe she could go to Cain. He was interested in her. She could tell. She always could tell when a man was interested. He was also a shifter and she didn’t burn for him or obsess over him the way she did over Sevastyan. Would he be able to sate her? She doubted it.
She found herself trying to look Sevastyan up on the internet. She found articles about his cousins, but there was very little on him. That made him all the more mysterious and intriguing to her. In the end, she justified going back to the club because she had to begin work there. She stayed later and later, behind the cordoned-off glass, safe from those playing in the rooms. No one even noticed her there as she diligently planted the trees and bushes, or the delicate little flowers and bulbs that would make up the garden of paradise Cain wanted.
It was a couple of weeks before she saw Sevastyan a second time. Flambé knew he was there before she actually looked up and saw him. Her body reacted. She was on her hands and knees, head down, fingers pushing the dirt gently around plants when chills went down her spine and her sex clenched. Her heart accelerated. Went into overdrive.
She lifted her gaze to look through the glass. He was there, larger than life, crooking an arrogant finger at a woman who preceeded him into a room just across from her. He was so gorgeous. So beyond even what Flambé remembered. Her heart sank. She was never going to be rid of her obsession with him. It was just going to grow and grow. The worst of it was she could tell his leopard was riding him hard. He