"You kissed me back."
Her heart jerked hard in her chest. A thousand butterflies took wing in her stomach. She'd done that. She had. "I didn't mean to." She knew how absurd that sounded, but it was all she had. She truly hadn't thought she would kiss him back. There'd been nothing else to do. Her mind had melted and there'd been only her body responding.
"I know that, Evangeline, but you did. If you hadn't I might have found the strength to walk away, but it's too late and we both know it. My male rose and so did your female. He'd never stand for it, even if she would. There's no going back from that. We'll take it slow. One day at a time. I'm not going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off into a cave. We'll go on as we have been but spend more time together, get to know each other."
That was so reasonable. She didn't want him to be reasonable. She wanted him gone because if he didn't go, she would succumb. She wasn't that strong around him. "You don' know me at all."
"Malyutka." One word. A reprimand. She didn't speak Russian and she had no idea what he was calling her, but she suspected it was an endearment of some kind. "I have been around you nearly a year. You're soft inside. Sweet. Strong and independent. You can handle the worst customer with grace, defusing any situation."
"I could have ignored your friend."
"Patrizio Amodeo is not my friend. That was my first meeting with him. No man puts his hand on you. No man but me. His intentions weren't good and you know it. He all but insinuated you were a whore out for money."
She touched her tongue to her bottom lip. Just that small action made it tingle, remembering the taste of Alonzo, the way his mouth moved over hers. In hers. Branding her. "Elijah left a fat envelope on the counter. I imagine he paid me a great deal of money I didn't earn in the small amount of time you were all here."
His eyebrow shot up. "I hope you're not implying taking his money means you're a whore. You lost business. We rented out your establishment. It is fair to pay you. That is not the same thing as Amodeo attempting to touch you inappropriately."
"True, but I could have handled it. He pretended to be sorry, Alonzo, but he wasn't. He was angry. Not just with all of you, but with me. I made an enemy there. I think all of you did, especially you."
She didn't like that. She could have prevented it if he'd just let the man grab her butt. She would have protested, let him smirk thinking he was all that and walked away. Alonzo would have been safe. He wasn't safe now.
"Amodeo is my problem. Elijah's reputation will most likely keep him contained. He wants an alliance with us all."
"Is he going to get it?" She knew the answer. None of those men would form an alliance with a man with so little control. Alonzo and Elijah were the epitome of control. She suspected Joshua was as well. Emilio was just a nice older gentleman surrounded by sharks, at least he seemed that way. So far, the times she'd been around him, she hadn't seen evidence of his criminal activities, but if he was with them, he had to be dirty as well. She sighed. So much for a nice older gentleman.
He remained silent, and it occurred to her that he'd said more to her in the last few minutes than he had in the nearly entire year he'd been coming to her bakery.
She covered her face with her hands for a moment and then scrubbed them down her cheeks hard as if she could wipe away every evidence of tears from him. "Bondye, Alonzo, do you not see that he's goin' to come after you? Because of me? You stopped him from touchin' me, somethin', I might add, that happens more often than you might care to know about. I could have handled it. Now that odious man is goin' to try to kill you. Because of me."
He shook his head and crouched down, so that his head was level with hers. "Not because of you, Evangeline. I chose to stop him. I had a choice. I know what kind of man he is. Do I look like a man who needs my woman's protection? I protect you. You should never have to put up with a man touching you inappropriately. No woman should. Never think for one moment that I didn't know exactly what I was doing."
"You still shouldn't have. You put yourself in danger unnecessarily."
He reached out, his hand cupping her jaw so gently it took her breath. His thumb traced her lower lip, sending little wicked spirals of desire threading through her veins. "I'm coming home with you, malysh."
He shook his head when she attempted to pull back, a little forbidden thrill making its way down her spine. How perverse of her that she wanted him to come home with her, even when she knew they couldn't have a relationship. If he was willing to just have sex, she was all over that, but a relationship with a man like Fyodor/Alonzo was something else altogether. Throw in the fact that he was leopard--a vicious, killing leopard--that sealed the deal as far as she was concerned. Yet every cell in her body was aware of him. More, she wanted his mouth on hers again. It was all she could do not to stare at it or lean forward and kiss him.
"Just to spend time. I promised we'd take this slow, and we will."
She knew she should protest. She should. She should find her anger again, but she couldn't. He was too close, and for the first time in her life she realized just how powerful a connection between two shifters could be once their leopards were mated. A sudden thought occurred to her.
"Oh. My. God. Tell me you didn't put cameras in my house." Of course he knew where she lived, he had her followed home every night. Twice she was certain a car sat outside all night with a couple of sentries in it. From him. Alonzo had done that to keep her safe. She didn't even know what she was supposed to be kept safe from. His enemies? Patrizio Amodeo had wanted an alliance with him.
There was a small, telling silence.
"You did not."
He didn't say anything, just looked at her with his glacier-cold eyes. She shoved at his chest, angry all over again when it didn't even rock him.
"What would you have done if I'd brought a man home and had wild sex in my livin' room or wherever you put the cameras? For all you knew I paraded around naked the moment I got home. How many people have been watchin' me?"
He straightened slowly, with the fluid grace of a cat, looking menacing and intimidating all at once. His blue eyes went from ice to blue flame, a scary focused blue that seemed to spread out from the iris, slowly turning the white to a frozen flame of blue. The cat was there, easy to see, and it wasn't a happy animal. A chill went down her spine and she tried to shift back in her chair. He was standing right in front of her, blocking her every escape, so she didn't have any option but to sit there, staring up at him.
"You were raised in a lair, Evangeline. You know you don't put the idea of you with another man in front of a shifter after your female has been claimed."
"I wasn't raised in a lair." Contempt crept into her voice. Disgust even. "My father and brothers were in a lair. My uncle and my grandfather. Not that it did any of them any good. I don' know the first thing about lairs, other than they are corrupt and I want no part of them."
She couldn't help the fact that her voice was almost a hiss of anger. She meant it and he needed to know that. To hear it. To understand that she wouldn't be intimidated into living under lair rule. She was independent. Had she dreamt of having her own family? A man she could love? Of course. But she was born a shifter. Whether or not her female would ever emerge remained to be seen, but even if she did, no way in hell was Evangeline going to be part of a lair.
His eyebrow went up, and she realized she'd revealed too much information to him. She shoved again and this time he stepped back enough to allow her up out of her chair. It didn't seem to matter. He had a good thirteen inches at least on her, maybe more. She still had to look up at him and that just fueled her anger.
"Alonzo, I'm askin' you to leave and never come back. I mean it. I want you gone and I'm tryin' to be nice about this. I'll have the cameras removed and you stop comin' here." She tipped her head up further, narrowing her eyes, wanting him to see she meant business and she refused to be intimidated by him or his leopard. "If you don', you'll give me no other recourse than to call the police."
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He didn't blink. His body was completely still. Impossibly still, as if coiled and ready to spring--and leopards could leap great distances. His eyes had gone glacier blue, so cold she shivered. There was no expression on his face, but for the very first time she was afraid of him. Really afraid.
There was nothing to hold on to. No way to protect herself. She'd threatened him with the police. A man like Alonzo Massi wouldn't take something like that lightly. And she'd meant it. Self-preservation had finally kicked in and she'd made her last-ditch effort to save herself. Now she was in so much trouble. She had learned from birth that no one was safe from a vicious, angry leopard, not even family or mates.
"Don't."
He hissed the word at her. Low. Furious. The whites were gone completely from his eyes and she found herself mesmerized by the pure blue flames staring down at her, licking over her skin so that she shuddered, whether from fear or arousal she wasn't sure.
"You are the only person in this world truly safe from me and from my leopard. Never look at me with fear on your face." It was a decree, nothing less. A command. He seemed to do that a lot and expect obedience. She'd been her own person since birth, responsible for her safety and even, most times, food. She lived an isolated life, but one she was used to, one she'd learned to enjoy. The swamp had been her home and she'd learned its secrets through trial and error. It had been a miracle a child could survive the dangers, but she'd done it and she'd become all the stronger for it. She had done it by recognizing when she was in danger. Like precisely this moment.
"You can't say that, Alonzo." She whispered it to him, knowing it was the truth. Knowing he knew it too. "I'm probably the person most in danger."
"Not from harm, Evangeline. Pleasure until you're screaming, but not from harm."
He couldn't say things like that so casually with his eyes so focused on her and his mouth so close. Her nipples hardened and instantly her panties were damp. She felt hot and needy. That wild thing inside of her stretched again. This time, her female gave her a little rake with her claws and then settled.
"And if she never emerges? He won't be content forever. He'll lose his mind and then you will."
"He's at peace, malyutka, but he'll lure her out. He's big and he's powerful and when he gets amorous, he'll bring her out. It will get rough, I won't lie to you about that. Leopard sex is rough, but I'll take care of you. You have to trust me to do that."
She pressed her fingers to her eyes, taking a deep breath. There was no getting out of this. No running away. He'd claimed her in the way of the shifters. She knew what that meant. She knew her female would always crave his male. And she . . . It was Alonzo. She'd only ever responded physically to him. She had no idea what to do. Her brain seemed to have shut down.
"Don't threaten me with the police, Evangeline," he warned softly. "No one will come between us. No one. We can fight things out between us. Talk to me. Yell at me. Be angry with me, but don't involve anyone else. What we have is between us alone."
She shook her head. "Comin' up against you is like comin' up against a brick wall. I don' have any recourse. You leave me none." She knew her tone gave away the desperate despair she was feeling, but it didn't matter. He was adept at reading people and he'd had a year to study her. She knew he could read her emotions.
His hand curved around the nape of her neck, his thumb sliding along her jaw. "Give us a chance, Evangeline. You're scared, and I get that. I understand you being afraid of us. Of me. Of my leopard. But give us a chance."
"You don' know anythin' at all about me. Not one single thin'. What you're askin' of me is nearly impossible. I can't breathe." She couldn't. "Just the thought of it makes me feel as if I can't breathe." It did. It was that bad.
Living in a lair. Living with a leopard that was beyond wild. Her children were never going to live as she had. Never. She wouldn't bring children into the world if the only way to save them was to force them to live alone in a terrifying place, never to know family or friends. Never to be able to go to a school. She'd missed so much in her life. No child of hers would ever live that way. Not. Ever. Not if it meant she had to take a life, even the life of the man she loved.
"You're askin' me, Alonzo, but you aren' really goin' to give me a choice, are you? Your leopard claimed mine."
"And I claimed you. You say you don't have a lair, but I'll go to your cousin and make it official through him."
She stuck her chin out. "I don' answer to him, or to my father or uncle. Not to my brothers and yes, I have them and yet I don'. I came here to start a new life. I sank every single penny I have into my bakery and my home. It isn't right that you can come in and just take it all away from me."
The pad of his thumb rubbed back and forth along her jaw in a caress, one she felt all the way to her toes. She couldn't spend time with him, not close like this, because if she did, she'd lose herself in him. The chemistry was too fiery. He knew it too. He was too experienced for a woman like her. She couldn't escape him. It was stupid to try, a waste of her time. She could see the implacable look on his face. Frozen stone. A mountain of a man who moved with blurring speed and had a vicious, killing weapon inside of him.
Again he didn't answer her. That was her answer. He was taking her choice. There was no turning back as far as he was concerned, so she had to play along for just the rest of the evening and then she could plan her escape. It would suck to leave her bakery and her home, but she wasn't going to be forced into anything, especially a relationship with a dangerous, lethal being.
She took a breath. "All right, Alonzo, I'll show you my home. I need to close up the bakery. And I want you out of my house early. I get up at three to start work."
He nodded but didn't move away from her. His eyes drifted possessively over her. Brooding. A little moody, yet she couldn't see what was behind his gaze.
"Were you aware that Emilio Bassini was planning to marry you?"
Her eyebrows shot up and she smiled before she could stop herself because Emilio had to be sixty if he was a day and very sweet. "No way. Why did you think that?"
"He told us so. Joshua shut that shit down. But he would have asked you."
"He's a dear, sweet man, at least I thought he was. I didn't know he was into whatever it is you're into. I would have said no very gently."
"You do not say no to a man like Bassini, Evangeline. He wouldn't have taken no for an answer."
She threw her arms into the air, pushing at him as if she could shove him and his honesty away from her. "What is wrong with me that I attract criminal types?"
"The cop isn't a criminal." It came out an accusation. "I had to watch that idiot undercover cop flirt with you and then insist on dating you for far too many weeks. Every time he came into the bakery, my leopard went insane, and each time he touched you, which he did every time you handed him his coffee, I wanted to rip his head off. I showed admirable restraint."
That made her want to smile at him again, but she didn't. "He's probably a dirty cop," she groused.
That made him smile for one tiny, brief second and then it was gone. He didn't smile ever. Not ever, and that smile changed his face. It didn't warm the cold of his eyes, but the hard lines carved so deep softened, just for a moment. She liked that more than she wanted to admit. The moment he gave her that ghost of a smile she was lost. She was very grateful he didn't try another kiss right then because she would have been all over him just for that smile.
"Probably not, but he's looking to take me down now." All warmth disappeared, leaving him as cold as ice again. "He follows me all the time. Like I'm not going to notice him or his clown friends."
He was probably right about Brice. He wanted to find a way to get to Alonzo and probably planned to do it through her. Still, it was cheating just a little bit that Alonzo's leopard could scent Brice at a great distance away. He could track him as well. He could track her . . .
She lifted her chin--she couldn't think about that. She was intelligent. If she cou
ld stay alive in the swamp as a little child, she could certainly maneuver her way around the situation. She just had to stay calm.
"Do you know why you waited, Evangeline? Why you didn't date? Why once you laid eyes on me there was never going to be anyone else?"
She shook her head. "That's not true." It was a lie and they both knew it.
"You. Are. Mine."
Her heart pounded in fear, but her panties were suddenly damp and those butterflies in her stomach continued to flutter their wings. She detested that he could do that to her with his voice. With his frozen eyes. With the thumb sliding along her jaw, mesmerizing her with his slow caresses.
"Don't try to run from me. I won't like it."
"Has it occurred to you that I don' much care what you like?" She wanted to snap her teeth at him. Maybe her leopard was closer than she thought because raking him down his arrogant expressionless face and kicking him in the shins seemed a very good idea. "You're turnin' my life upside down and you don' care about that. Why should it matter to me what you like?"
His lips twitched. Not that smile she'd gotten out of him before, but definitely he was on the verge. This time she didn't melt. He was being a superior, amused male, looking down at the little female while she defied him. His expression hadn't changed, other than that twitch, but she knew. She couldn't stop herself. She kicked him in the shins. Hard.
He still didn't change expression. His hand tightened around the nape of her neck. "A man like me likes his woman to put up a fight. This is not discouragement, Evangeline. It shows me you have fire in you. Enough that you can match me when I want to get rough."
Her breath hissed out. She didn't want that to make her hot, but it did. Everything about him made her hot. She was in so far over her head she didn't know what to do. All the while his thumb kept sliding back and forth in that slow, burning caress that was driving her insane. She didn't want to pull away. That would give him far too much satisfaction, and everything seemed to be going his way. She certainly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to her.
"I have to close the shop."