Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Now, Flambé rolled over and pushed herself into a sitting position. She’d made a bed for herself in the closet. The main room was just too big for her. A part of her wanted to sneak away and go back to her small studio that felt safe, homey and hers. This place was too large and masculine for her and it smelled like Sevastyan. He was everywhere. Stamped into the walls and floor. He might not reside in the rooms, but his presence was everywhere and she found it too overpowering. She hadn’t counted on that.
She wasn’t a weak person. She could stand up to anyone and often had to when it came to her business and the people she brought into the country to save. Her species of leopard was very submissive to their mate, but they were ferocious fighters and extremely protective of their children. Still, those things Sevastyan had made her feel when she’d been at a distance from him in the club were a thousand times more intense this close to him.
She forced herself to her feet and out into the main bedroom. The privacy screens had been lowered on all the windows, blacking out any light from the moon, but she could see easily in the dark. Pacing, Flambé thought about what to do. She had to be practical. Really assess who she was and what she could do now that she’d met Sevastyan in person. When she’d gotten the request for work, she’d been thrilled. She was going to get the chance she wanted.
The first meeting had to be cancelled because Flamme had made her presence known in a big way. Already, Flambé’s body had been crawling with need, her nerve endings alive and raw with a kind of fiery burn that translated to a sexual heat of its own. Her leopard’s sudden appearance added even more of an urgency, so much so that she couldn’t trust herself to go out of her room. Her body was in a frenzy of need. Hot and aching. She’d called and cancelled, because she couldn’t trust herself around him.
At the same time, Franco had contacted her and tried to set up a meeting with her. He let her know he was watching her. That was really frightening and she had been extremely careful, making certain she stuck close to her crew whenever she left her offices or home after that.
The second meeting she was supposed to have with Sevastyan had gone way wrong as well. Her leopard was spinning out of control. Completely. Flambé had found herself on the floor of her room when she’d been so carefully dressing for her meeting with Sevastyan. She’d been thinking of him, fantasizing, and the next thing she knew, she was burning up, her blood so hot, pounding with need so intense she was on the floor on her hands and knees sobbing, hips bucking out of control. Nothing had helped. Toys had made the sensation worse. It had taken what seemed like forever for the terrible sensation to ease enough for her to even text an apology to him. She knew he wasn’t a man to be very forgiving.
Now that she’d met him, she realized she should have taken into consideration what kind of person she was. Who she was. Wild sex was what she totally needed, but not with a man like Sevastyan. Sevastyan was the kind of man who could own a woman with his brand of sex. She should have been paying more attention to how many of those women came back night after night in the hopes of being Sevastyan’s choice for the night, even though they had permanent partners.
Sex was a powerful weapon if it was used that way— and it could be wielded as a weapon. Sevastyan clearly was adept at using sex for whatever the reason. She was in so much trouble. “It’s not your fault, Flamme,” she whispered aloud, and rubbed the swelling on her head for the hundredth time. “You were trying to protect us.”
The last thing she expected was for his leopard to claim hers. She paced restlessly again. Her leopard was in her first life cycle. Mistakes were made. She knew that. This had to be a mistake because no way in hell was Flambé going to be claimed by a shifter. She’d be trapped by Sevastyan.
“What do you want, Flambé? What are you doing here? You think things through. Plan things carefully. Since the first time you laid eyes on that man, you’ve been out of control. You have to pull back and figure this out, because if you don’t, it will be too late and you’ll never get out of this mess.”
She had always talked aloud when she planned anything. She was an only child and most often alone. She lived in the studio because her father took in so many strangers, so her “room” had been the studio to “give her privacy,” even as a child. Which really meant give her father many rooms in the house for his women.