The doctor closed his laptop and pointed toward a large bottle of lotion. “Rub that all over her. Rub it on your penis. That will help her with the burning sensations. You can get her through this, just remember everything I told you. The minute you get her back here, repeat all the same steps I’ve given to you. The pills, the shower, the bath, the lotion. Every time.” He lifted his hand as he started out of the room. “I’ll want to see her the minute you get her through this heat cycle so we can start working on the clotting problem.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Sevastyan said as the doctor left them alone.
Flambé had to hold on to the post of their bed to keep from falling when he set her on her feet. He patted her dry with a towel before he began to rub the lotion into her skin. He used firm, strong strokes, massaging it in. She expected the feel of his fingers on her coupled with the lotion itself to burn, but it actually felt good against the growing heat in her body. Deep inside her, a volcano was forming. Hot magma pooled all over again, welling up and spreading, to burn through her veins in a slow scorching well of fire.
“Sevastyan.” His name came out a breathy moan. A plea for understanding. “I can’t go through that again. I tried. I did everything I could. I couldn’t even get down the stairs.”
“I know you did, baby. I came upstairs and saw the smears of blood first thing when I walked through the door. My heart just about stopped. There was blood everywhere. For a minute, I thought you were dead.”
His voice had gone strictly neutral. She couldn’t help looking up at his face. It didn’t do her any good. He was wearing his unreadable mask. In some ways that was a comfort. Sevastyan wore that mask when he became that man—the one she’d first seen at the club—the one who would insist on his way no matter what. She would need that man if she was really going to help Flamme emerge because she didn’t think she had the courage to face that kind of agony again.
“According to Ania, the emergence is uncomfortable the first time for both you and your leopard. You’re in a highly sexual state. It isn’t just part of your condition, it really is a part of the emergence. I’m here with you. I can help you with that and Doc says this lotion will help with your nerve endings so they don’t burn quite as
much.”
“What if I can’t do it?” There was apprehension in her voice.
Sevastyan ignored her question. “I’ve sent everyone home. We’re the only ones here. We’re going to go downstairs and let Flamme come to the surface. Once she’s out, she can run free with Shturm so they can have their time together. When they come back, we’ll go through the steps the doctor gave us so when the next wave comes, we’ll be ready.” He spoke very matter-of-factly. Completely confident, as if there was no question that she could shift.
“Sevastyan.” She repeated his name. Needing him to see how afraid she was.
His hands were gentle on her waist and he turned her to face him. “Look at me, Flambé.”
He used that voice, the one that brooked no argument. She wasn’t in his ropes but she might as well have been. She lifted her lashes and looked into his glittering, turquoise-over-icy-blue eyes. Once she looked into his eyes, there was no looking away. She was caught there as certainly as if he had tied her.
“You will do this because you have no other choice. Flamme will die if you don’t get her out. If she dies, you die, and I’m not willing for that to happen. I will get you through this. Do you understand me?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her mouth. A touch, no more, featherlight, but it was enough to remind her of all the times he’d touched her before he tied her, giving her courage. Telling her he was there for her. She was safe with him.
“Get ready. You know what to do. You need to be prepared for a long session, but you only have a few minutes. Can you walk or should I carry you?”
She managed to pull her gaze from his to look back to the bathroom. She doubted if she could manage and he’d drilled it into her that she always had to be honest with him before he tied her. She’d slipped into that space in her head. “I don’t think I can walk that far, Sevastyan.”
He lifted her immediately and carried her straight to the bathroom, putting her down beside the perfect porcelain toilet. Any other time she might have been embarrassed, but she didn’t have that luxury. The heat inside was welling up, the volcano spewing that terrible hot lava into her belly and veins so that it spread fast, a wildfire out of control.
Breathing through it, she did exactly what she had always done when Flambé knew she was going to be tied. She concentrated on how he might tie her. On preparing her mind, shedding herself, giving herself to him, letting go of all fears, giving them to him. He handed her the bottle and she took it, drinking down the cool water, feeling it flow over her throat. His hands were big. Sure. When the rope moved through his hands, it was always such an extension of him. He always wrapped her in him, tight. Secure. She handed him back the water bottle and turned toward the mirror, determined to do something with her hair, ensure it stayed up so not one single strand would touch her skin when the sensations worsened.
A burst of flame between her legs nearly shattered her, and she tried not to cry out, not to make a sound, but suddenly her hunger for him was voracious. Her breasts felt too heavy, aching. Nipples on fire. Her hands involuntarily slid down her body, as the flames licked at her skin everywhere.
Sevastyan caught her hands and brought them to his abdomen, stroking her palms over the heavy muscles there, lower. He curled her fingers around the girth of his cock. Her breath rushed out of her lungs. His cock was thick and long and already she could taste him in her mouth. The moment his shaft was in her palm and her fist had closed around him, he felt hot and heavy and so hers. Need and hunger rose so sharp and fast, an urgent demand that had her moving into him, her mouth watering, her gaze dropping to that beautiful crown where he was already leaking delicious pearly drops she needed desperately.
“We’re going downstairs, Flambé.” Sevastyan’s voice was low. Velvet soft, sweeping over her body, fanning the flames. “I’m going to be carrying you and while I do, you think about my cock and nothing else. Not your body and what’s happening to it. That’s for me to think about. I take care of your body. You take care of mine.”
He lifted her in his arms, once again cradling her close to his chest. She wanted to cry when she was forced to let go of his cock. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder as he carried her down the stairs, through the house and straight outside.
She hadn’t thought he meant they would actually be going outside, where the cool night air would hit her body, fanning the flames even more. She breathed deep, trying to concentrate on Sevastyan. “I need your voice. Talk to me.” His voice steadied her. “Touch me the way you do when I’m in the ropes.”
He set her down on the covered front porch, but near the corner where two supporting columns came together in a vee, making a small alcove. There was one on either side of the porch. He set her down, facing the railing so she could hold on to the beams if she felt weak. He stood directly in front of her.
“Spread your legs, baby.”
Her heart accelerated. Her body was so hot she thought she might spontaneously combust, but she did realize that the lotion, or maybe the bath, had helped. She wasn’t trying to rip her skin off, even though the terrible hunger was building and her skin felt as if one touch might make her go insane if she couldn’t have sex immediately. Her hips wouldn’t stop moving, no matter how hard she tried to keep them still. The moment she spread her legs, the cool air hit her clit and her sex screamed at her.
He sat up on the railing, casually circling his cock with his fist. “I’m going to touch you, get your body used to the feel of my hands on you. There’s no way to fuck you, Flambé, the way you need to be fucked without my hands and mouth all over you.” His voice was the one he used when he expected obedience. His dominant voice. The one she always responded to, and now, more than ever, she desperately needed it.
“You are going to think about nothing else but pleasing me. Taking care of me. Not yourself. This isn’t about you. I’m the most important thing in your world. You want me to feel the most pleasure you’ve ever given me. That’s all that’s going to be in your head. Anything else comes in, you push it out. Do you understand me?”