He padded silently across the room, stalking her like the predator he was. He was leopard. A shifter. A very dominant alpha. She was a shifter and they lived by shifter law. No one broke those laws. She knew that. He crossed to the slider and stood for a moment regarding his elusive strawberry leopard.
Flambé sat outside on the balcony watching birds hopping from one branch to another in the trees, busy calling to one another as they flitted about. She didn’t look up or acknowledge him. She wasn’t drinking the fresh coffee he’d brewed. She had the same cold bottle of water. She preferred water to most drinks.
“I owe you an explanation.” Sevastyan pulled his chair around to sit facing her rather than beside her. He wanted to see her expression. Her eyes. Right now, she refused to look at him, even when he was right in front of her, larger than life. The night before, she had cried. He’d seen the evidence of her tears on her face, but she hadn’t talked to him. Hadn’t let him in. Now, she was more closed off than ever.
“I told you, I don’t need an explanation.”
There was no expression whatsoever in her voice.
He tried not to glance at his watch. He had to get to Mitya’s house soon. Time was getting away from them. He knew if he even mentioned his cousin’s home or his work, he wouldn’t have a chance to make things right with Flambé. “You’re going to get one. There was a reason I went to the club.”
She sighed. “Of course there was a reason you went to the club, Sevastyan. The first time I ever saw you it was at the club. I know what you do there. I knew you went there. I’m leopard, or did you forget that? I smelled it on you. All those men and women. The sex. It isn’t that difficult. I waited for you to give me an explanation and you didn’t. If you were going to, you would have at the time. Not now. Not when you humiliated me in front of your cousin and men by pointing out to me that I’m exactly what he said I was, a sex object to you and nothing more. Your toy, I believe I was called. I didn’t expect you to be going to the club already, but I knew, sooner or later, you’d go back to it.”
She shrugged and continued to stare straight ahead as if she was talking to the landscape. “Fortunately, I have a very strong sex drive and I’m familiar with the club and what goes on there. Had you just been honest in the first place and told me that was the kind of open relationship we were going to have, I would have understood the rules.”
In spite of his determination to work things out, that one little line and the casual way she said it sent crimson fire rushing through his veins. Shturm roared a challenge and leapt at him, clawing and raking wildly.
“What exactly does that mean, Fla
mbé?” He kept his voice low, strictly velvet, back to the dominant in him.
She shrugged again and took a drink of water. “Don’t you have to go to work? Naturally, I prefer to work from home. We both know this house is extremely safe. You went out of your way to make certain no one could break into it and there’s a tunnel between the two properties no one knows about. I don’t want to set foot in your cousin’s home. It would be utterly humiliating to me.”
He was fucked any way he responded to that. If he forced her, he was the worst partner on the face of the earth, but if he didn’t, he would be seriously worried and divided constantly over her protection. And then there was the question of what the hell her statement about the club meant. They had a lot to clear up.
“Flambé, what exactly did you mean about you and the club? I absolutely require an answer.”
“I meant, as far as I’m concerned, since I’m considered a sex object anyway and you feel you can go to the club and do whatever you want, there’s no reason I shouldn’t go. It certainly shouldn’t bother you.”
Shturm rose so fast that for a moment Sevastyan actually had to struggle with him for supremacy. What do you think you’re doing? If you hurt her, you hurt Flamme. Back off. Sevastyan stayed very still, breathing down the ever-present rage, reminding himself that Flambé was very hurt. Mitya had dismissed her in a cutting way and Sevastyan had let it stand in front of everyone, leading her to believe that the original things said about her were what they all thought of her—were what he thought of her.
She had smelled the club on him when he’d come home to her and she hadn’t said a word, waiting for him to give her an explanation. When he hadn’t, she’d pulled back. It was no wonder she had suppressed Flamme. The two had to be confused. Hurt and confused. He couldn’t compound errors by scaring them both with his temper and Shturm’s.
“There is a complete misunderstanding, Flambé, but I can see how that would happen. I’m going to start with the club. I did go there and I didn’t want you to know.”
She started to stir, moving as if she might stop him from speaking. He could feel her hurt, although she tried hard to keep it from him, but he was very tuned to her. He was a rigger and he’d had her in the ropes far too many times not to read the slightest nuance. He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, but he knew she wouldn’t allow it. Mitya—and he—had stripped her of her pride.
That damned first conversation Miron and Rodion had overheard and repeated where she could hear it, making her feel as if she were nothing but an object for him to have readily available for him to have sex with, that had started it. That was on him, not Mitya. His cousin couldn’t be blamed for that. Mitya treating her as if she wasn’t important, not his fiancée, not his woman or Shturm’s mate. Even that was on him because he never took the time to fully explain to his cousin what was going on between Flambé and him. He should have. He didn’t want anyone to know he couldn’t handle his relationship—or his fear that he might somehow lose her.
“I would like you to hear me out. Please let Flamme close to the surface so there is no mistaking whether or not I speak the truth. I needed an alibi that night. I planned on killing Matherson and I didn’t want you to know. The cops can track cars through traffic cameras and it just so happened that the place he was renting was a short distance from the club. We parked in the lot and made our way on foot to the residence he had leased.”
Flambé continued to look out over the property. The one thing he didn’t like about the open acreage was the fact that there were several knolls where a good sniper could conceal himself in the branches of a tree or up on a boulder. If Flambé was out on the balcony she could be killed. Inside the room, the bulletproof glass would save her, but if she was outside, that would be a problem. He needed a way to combat that. He forced his mind to stay with his explanation.
“Matherson and his crew were gone, but there were three dead bodies left behind, all human. I knew I could be in trouble if the cops came asking questions—and they might, given the fact that Matherson had been pounding on my door a few weeks earlier. The cops like to harass our family. So, I went into the club, changed and walked around, making certain to be on Cain’s security tapes, and then spent some time talking with him in his office about the gardens. At no time did I tie another woman or use one for sex. I didn’t provide a demo for anyone. I did what was necessary for an alibi and that was it.”
His head was pounding, never a good sign. His body ached, every muscle, an even worse sign. When he got like that, he knew he was getting close to a time when, before he had Flambé, he was going to have to go to the club for a long session. He would have to choose a partner who was no novice with Shibari, who could be in the ropes for long periods of time and could take a little discomfort and fairly savage sex.
Her leopard was throwing off hormones. Flambé was throwing off hormones. His male’s testosterone was off the charts; so was his. Flambé declaring she would go to the club and hook up with other dominants was a challenge. Cain coming to the house and Flambé responding to him the way she did set his teeth on edge. Her very silence could be construed as a challenge. The coming war with Rolan put him on edge. It was all brewing together into one perfect storm.
“As for what happened yesterday when the cops came to question me and Mitya acted like an ass . . .”
“I would prefer not to talk about it,” she interrupted.
“We have to talk about. I hurt you. I knew it was going to hurt you. I didn’t want you in that room with them and neither did Mitya. He sounded like the ass he can be when he stopped you from coming with us.”
She shook her head but refused to look at him. It might have been a mistake to make an excuse for Mitya. He should just keep his cousin out of it.
“The cops tried to shut down Evangeline’s business when they couldn’t get to Fyodor or Timur. They made a show of going into her bakery when customers would be there, during her busiest hours. Your business means the world to you. I know that. I didn’t have the time to explain to you that I didn’t want them to know we were together. Not yet. Not until I could put a plan together to better protect your landscaping business. We aren’t married yet. We aren’t partners. I have no real way to help you. The only thing I had was to keep you out of sight. And I knew they were going to question me about the club. I had to figure out a way to tell you I was planning on killing Matherson.”