Leopard's Run (Leopard People 10)

Timur could have told Ulisse that a shifter like Lazar would never keep his bargains and his loyalty was only to himself. He’d given Gavyn much-needed water and let him rest for a few minutes, had let him think that there would be no more. When he’d approached again, he’d asked how they knew the layout of Fyodor’s house.

Gavyn hadn’t known where the information had come from. There’d been no reason for him to lie about that or hold back, and his voice had held the ring of truth. Timur had asked about opium. Yes, Ulisse dealt in opium and it was good product and plenty of it. Ulisse had finally revealed his source, after Lazar had refused to do business with him. The source was the Mercier Perfume factory in New Orleans.

How many snipers had Lazar sent with the hit squad? Gavyn had been adamant that there were no snipers sent. Lazar wanted them all alive. The orders had changed, and they weren’t to kill any of them. Hurt them, yes, but not kill them. As soon as they had them secure, Lazar would come, but he wouldn’t set one foot in the country until he knew all of them were scooped up.

There had been something in Gavyn’s voice that told Timur he hadn’t been lying, but knew more than he had said. Timur had let it go for the moment. He had to ask the right questions. There had been things Gavyn hadn’t admitted.

Lazar had seen what Fyodor had done to the lair, and he was leery of them. Fyodor was a force to be reckoned with. He’d killed his own father, Lazar’s brother, and then the other members of the bratya that had followed his father. Lazar had reason to be leery. He had helped to create the monsters, and now those monsters had turned on him.

Timur pressed both palms to the wall of the shower and watched the red blood turn pink as it flowed into the drain. He had spent the day before, as well as the night, with his woman and her warm, soft body. It was like sliding against satin, her skin amazing when he held her against him, or covered her with his own, heavier much harder body. The difference in the way their bodies felt amazed him. He knew he would always want to wake up next to her, his body tangled with hers.

When he was inside her, she surrounded him with the tightest silken fist imaginable. Scorching hot. A vise of sheer pleasure. She gripped and milked his cock until he thought he’d go out of his mind. There was no walking away from something that intense and overwhelming. When he touched her, when he fucked her, when he made love to her with every breath in his body, it was always perfect. Every time.

He forced himself to keep his eyes open, to watch that blood slowly be swallowed by the drain. He needed to know what he did. To own it. In some ways, watching the blood swirling at his feet, mixed with water, was a tribute to the dead man. Gavyn Zherdev was now another ghost to haunt him. To keep him awake.

Could Ashe’s soft skin and hot pussy combat a fresh kill? What about the haven of her mouth? He loved when her lips were stretched around his girth and she was kneeling in front of him, eyes on his, while he fed her his cock—while he watched it disappear down her throat. That might make him forget temporarily.

He shook his head and moved his hands down several inches, measuring her height. Holding both palms that height, he let the water finish washing what was left of Gavyn off of him. She had to save him, because without her, there was only this. Hell. He lived in hell. He had all his life and Ashe had given him a glimpse of paradise.

It wasn’t the fucking. It wasn’t her mouth, or her pussy or her soft skin. It was the laughter she shared with him. The way she looked at him, that softness in her eyes. More. She looked at him as if he were more than a killer. More than a machine. She looked at him as if he were a man and a good one at that. She gave him something no woman should ever give a man like him—her trust. All of it. Everything. He tasted trust in her kisses. It was there in her eyes when she knelt before him. When she offered him her body.

Timur groaned and his fingers curled into two tight fists. He hit the wall of the shower. A loud thud of protest. He was going back to her with Gavyn’s blood on him. The water wasn’t going to take it away, no matter how long he stayed in the shower. He had his answers, the truth of the large team of hit men, the truth he hadn’t needed confirmed because he knew, not only in his gut but in his soul, Lazar had found them and that it was Ulisse who had betrayed them. Still, it had to be confirmed, and Gavyn had held out a long, long time.