“Where’s my phone?” he called.
Meiling sighed. It seemed she wasn’t to have peaceeven in the bathroom. “On the right-hand nightstand where the charging station is set up.”
“Thanks.”
At least he did have some manners. Would she consider his offer of work if it was a genuine offer and not made because his fever was high and he was feeling vulnerable or grateful to her? She had always moved from city to city. Sometimes she’d find a little place in the country and stay there for a few weeks, but she never settled anywhere. It was a lonely life and she’d grown tired of it. Her only real human contact had been Libby. Now she was gone.
Meiling sat on the little bench made of stone tile and let herself cry for Libby. For all those lost women. For the entire previous day and all the lives lost so pointlessly. She drew her knees up and put her head down, making herself into a small ball of total misery. She was always strict with herself. She could be emotional, but emotions were a bad thing to have. She knew that. It was one of the many rules she’d been taught young, and one didn’t break rules. She broke all the rules often, making her a complete and utter failure. She carried the shame of those reminders on her body.
“Lotus.” The voice was a whisper of velvet over her skin. “Baby, you have to tell me what’s wrong so I can help.”
She raised her head, and that was a huge mistake. Gedeon was crouched in front of her without a stitch on. He might have his eyes bandaged, but she didn’t. He had roped muscles everywhere. His body seemed as if it was made of nothing but muscles. Well, there were his incredible male parts, which matched the rest of him. Just as intimidating. Just as enticing. It was no wonder Gedeon Volkov was lethal. He didn’t need the added advantage of his leopard. He was too rugged and tough looking to be called gorgeous, but he was definitely captivating.
Blinking back the flood of tears, she pushed at the wetstrands of black hair hanging around her face. “Gedeon, what are you doing in here? I’m taking a shower.”
“Technically you’re crying, and you have to stop.” He reached up with one long arm and got the handheld spray. “Turn around and let me get your hair for you.” With his free hand, he found the bench and easily transferred his weight to it. “Sit here.” He pointed between his thighs.
If he could be casual about his nudity, so could she. Meiling tried not to think about what that meant. He certainly didn’t view her as a potential partner. More like a pet he had to groom. In a way, she supposed that was a good thing. She didn’t want him interested in her as a potential bed partner. That would definitely mess up any chance of working together. On the other hand, it was a blow to her ego. She was alwaysthatgirl. The unwanted one. The third wheel. Libby had told her more than once that she needed to be more modern. To loosen up a little and have some fun.
Meiling faced away from him, grateful she didn’t have to stare at his rather intimidating male anatomy. He began to massage shampoo into her hair.
“I know it was a shit day yesterday, Lotus Blossom. I didn’t help much with all the snarling I did. I’m not used to relying on anyone.”
“You did more yesterday for me than anyone’s done in my life. My cousin was thrown in a mass grave near that camp in Venezuela like a piece of garbage by those men,” she said in a low voice. “I found her too late. I’d been tracking her for two months. I knew she was in Colombia. She’d texted me that she was visiting some friends of ours there. She wanted me to join her.”
Meiling pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I should have dropped everything I was doing and just gone right then. I know how she is when she doesn’t get her way. I was in the middle of doing some work I had promised forsomeone. I didn’t want to go clubbing in Colombia. I told her to be cautious, to check her drinks. To watch out for who she picked up, all the standard warnings. I told her I’d fly out in a few days, but she was angry with me for not coming right away. Then she went silent. That wasn’t entirely unusual with her when she was angry with me, but it persisted long past the time she normally would have answered. I have contacts in Colombia, friends who know those scenes, and they tried to help me track her, but it was like she just vanished. There wasn’t even evidence of her at the hotel she’d been staying in. That told me she was in real trouble. Whoever took her had real clout.”
All the while she spilled the details of her last failure with her cousin, Gedeon continued to rinse out her hair and then massaged conditioner into it.
“You do know your cousin chose her own path, Lotus. You can’t take what happened to her on your shoulders. She had choices, many of them, and she went down that road all on her own. Even had you been the catalyst because she was angry with you, that was still a choice. I very much doubt you were the reason she went out that night. She was going whether she had the conversation with you or not.”
Meiling knelt on the floor of the shower, staring down at the gray and blue stone tiles, watching as the water hit like teardrops and ran toward the drain. She didn’t even know how she came to be in this place with this man. These were her choices, her path she’d taken. This was a man who killed easily and often. He might solve problems, but his solutions were more often than not permanent.
“Would you have killed me because I saw you shift, or because I witnessed you killing all those men?”
He rinsed the conditioner from her hair, his hands shielding her face from the water. “I’m not going to kill you. I told you that.”
“I’m aware. That wasn’t the question.”
He began combing out tangles, careful to prevent pulling on her scalp. “Both. I can’t leave witnesses to anything I’ve done. It’s a law in the shifter world, to protect all shifters, that no outsider can know of us. I suspect you’ve known of us long before you witnessed me shifting.”
She nodded. “That’s true.”
His hand came down on her shoulder, his fingers lingering on her skin. One long finger found the deep groove that slid down her back. She stiffened. Before he could tighten his grip on her to keep her in place, she scrambled away from him on all fours. Her heart went into overdrive She didn’t care if he heard.
“Thanks for talking to me and doing my hair. I can take it from here. If you need the shower, it’s all yours. I don’t know how you managed to stay so quiet with your leg in such bad shape.” She was babbling, talking too fast, one word stumbling against the next, but she was out of his reach. Safe.
She caught up a towel and wrapped it around her hair like a turban. All the while she dried herself off, she watched him leerily as he slowly shampooed his hair, staying right where he was.
“I called Rene Guidry. He’ll arrange for groceries. Text him whatever you want to add to the list. I’ll give you his number. He’s calling the eye doc and also arranging for a doctor to come in and X-ray my leg. Not that I think the doctor who gave me the once-over wasn’t competent; he was. I just want to heal as fast as possible and would feel better with a second opinion. Rene takes care of things for me when I need them done quickly.”
She shrugged. “I think that’s a great idea.” She folded her arms across the towel to hold it in place and walked back into the master bathroom. The cupboards yielded a jar of her favorite face cream, and it had never been used. “How many women do you let stay here?”
There was a small silence. She glanced over her shoulderto see him draped casually against the wall just inside the room. It was disconcerting that even blind, he could walk so silently. She heard everything. Everyone. Just not, apparently, him. She made herself laugh softly, acting like it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t. She wasn’t holding on to any girlish fantasies about Gedeon Volkov. He was leopard. Right there that meant he was ruthless and dangerous, and that was without knowing who he was. Then there was the high sex drive. Gedeon’s reputation for one-night stands and casual sex was legendary. She wasn’t about to be one of his many conquests.
“There’s a jar of my favorite moisturizer in the cabinet. It’s never been used, but you certainly don’t wear it.” She laughed again. “Or maybe you do. It’s a really good product.”
“One of the companies here, a renowned perfume company, went into skin care. At the time, they needed me to do some work for them. I was given a supply of their products and they’ve continued to send me various upgrades as they work on them.”
