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)
“And your name?” He prompted again, because the door banging was really loud and twice her gaze had jumped in that direction. “How did you come by it?”
His hand moved on her thigh, fingers running up and down just as hers were doing, pressing deep, soothing the raw nerve endings. He stroked caresses upward, every now and then moving his fingers toward the inside of her thigh. Just one deep brush then another. Close to the heat and then back to the surface, distracting her from the door.
“My hair was thick and red and about an inch long. My father said I looked wild. Eyes too big for my face and hair as red as flames. My mother looked up at him and smiled. She said one word. Flambé. He told me he wasn’t certain if she wanted me named that, but after she passed, he couldn’t think of another name that meant fire or flame that would honor her as well. So Flambé was what it was.”
“I like it,” Sevastyan said. “It suits you.” He touched her hair. It felt like silk. He was going to have to move back away from her. Fortunately for both of them, her leopard was subsiding, giving them a respite. He hoped that once her female retreated, Flambé wasn’t going to try to change her mind.
“Stay here, plamya,” he said, calling her flame. He stood, towering over her, his body very close to her. Too close. The moment he stood he was all too aware of exactly the position of his cock and her mouth. Sometimes he detested that he was such a sexual dominant. It was stamped into his bones, so much a part of him.
Sevastyan stepped away from her and caught up his forgotten water bottle so he could make his way leisurely to the window. He angled himself so he was fully visible to Matherson and his men as he stood watching them as if they were circus animals and he was enjoying a show. He waited until they were fully aware of him and had stopped their furious pounding and battering on the door, which they clearly weren’t going to get through. He opened the intercom.
“Gentlemen, I suggest you leave the property immediately.”
“Before you call the police?” Franco sneered. “You coward.”
Sevastyan smiled and took a long drink of the cool water. “I prefer not to involve the police. I think when grown men act like children throwing tantrums they need to be treated like children.”
He reached down to the long row of buttons hidden just below the windowsill, activating several. Water gushed out in long pulsing streams like firemen’s hoses, coming from the eaves of the house, blasting the men and driving them back and away. Within seconds they were soaked and on their butts, sliding in the puddles on the walkway.
Cursing, Franco tried to rise, only to fall several times. Sevastyan never cracked a smile. He simply watched dispassionately from his vantage point at the window. Behind him, Flambé jumped up and rushed toward him. He didn’t turn around.
“Stop right there. I don’t want him to see you looking afraid or alarmed. Back away from the window.” He kept his voice low but commanding. “Now, Flambé.”
She came to an abrupt halt, one hand going to her throat defensively. “You don’t know him, Sevastyan. You haven’t done any research on him like I have. He’s vindictive. You’ve humiliated him in front of his men. He’ll never stop until he kills you.”
Her voice trembled and Sevastyan, in spite of his resolve to continue looking at Franco as if he were an ant, couldn’t help but turn to look at his woman. She was genuinely upset. She wasn’t a woman easily intimidated and yet Franco Matherson had really shaken her up. It wasn’t the fact that he’d struck her. She knew Sevastyan came from a family of criminals and yet she was that shaken.
“Baby.” He whispered the endearment softly.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s evil. He’s truly evil. I spent a great deal of time finding out as much as I could about him when the cops wouldn’t help me.” Even though she was so distressed, she still backed away from the window, keeping out of Franco’s line of vision. “There’s a subspecies of leopards, of shifters, the Arabians he and his brothers first went after to find wives. They bartered with the elders and tried to get them to give them several females. The elders told them it didn’t work that way, but Matherson became angry the way he does and, in the end, tried to take the females.”
Again, there was a mixture of truth and a lie. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was to call her on it. “I can see him doing that. He doesn’t like being thwarted in the least. If he can’t have his toy, he’d rather break it so no one else can have it.”