She sounded smug. He wanted to strangle her because he was very afraid she was telling the truth.
“And then I read all those private messages and learned more things I shouldn’t know. I figured if I was going to die, it should be for a good reason, not for something stupid like I witnessed you doing a good deed killing all thosehorrible traffickers I had planned on killing or because I saw you shifting into a leopard. Whichever one of those two things you thought it was worth murdering me for.”
She had planned on killing all those men herself?That was laughable. She probably couldn’t kill an insect without feeling remorse. Putting his hands around her neck and strangling her was a very personal way to take her out, and right now his fingers were itching to get the job done. Or maybe he just wanted her to be that close to him again.
“Don’t trust you with all that money, Lotus Blossom. Put it back.”
“Too bad, Freaky Man who kills for a living. I didn’t save you so your nasty employers could do you in. The money’s going out tonight.”
She wasn’t that far from him, and he made a lunge to catch her arm. Normally, his leopard gave him a huge advantage, but she somehow managed to elude him.
“He’s here,” Meiling warned. “Remember, you’re Jeff.”
“You’re giving me back the money. In the meantime, what am I calling you when the doc is here?”
“Audrey,” she supplied.
Her footsteps were so light, they should have been impossible to hear, but Gedeon was leopard, and he knew it took her seven steps to get to the door. The knock was decisive. When the door was opened and the man spoke, it was obvious he towered over her. That one glimpse he’d caught of her confirmed she was a small thing. Delicate looking, but she’d moved that branch without any help from him. She was a mystery.
Dr. Smythe took his temperature and wasn’t happy. He examined his leg first even though his specialty was eyes. He didn’t believe the leg was broken even though it was swollen and the lacerations were hot and ugly.
“You were struck by something very heavy, and your skin was cut in multiple places,” the doctor said. He paused,waiting for an explanation, but neither Meiling nor Gedeon provided him with one. Smythe sighed. “I don’t know why you’ve gotten an infection so fast, but it’s alarming.” He gave him a shot of antibiotics and handed Meiling a bottle of pills. “See that he takes all of these. He should have that leg X-rayed. I’m guessing it isn’t broken, but I can’t be certain. It is swollen, but he’s moving everything without a problem.”
“That’s such a relief,” Meiling said. “We were so worried.”
Smythe removed the makeshift bandage Meiling had placed over Gedeon’s eyes. “How did this occur? That will help considerably if I know what I’m dealing with.”
Gedeon didn’t like the questions. “Isn’t part of your enormous fee for figuring all that out?” He couldn’t help sounding a little threatening. That was who he was, whether or not he was blind. His leopard, quiet since the explosion, was beginning to make himself known again. Waking up. The explosion must have knocked the ferocious cat out. He didn’t like the doctor touching Gedeon and was beginning to claw for freedom. Gedeon took a firm grip on him.
“I could figure it out faster with a little more information,” Smythe groused. “Most of that enormous fee is for silence. Not reporting to the government or other interested parties could get me killed. I’m known for my discretion.”
If Gedeon wasn’t blind, he would kill the doctor after the examination. No way would he trust this man. The doctor would sell them out the moment he was offered more money. He might leave the apartment and go immediately to the government if he thought they were insurgents. If he believed they were in any way connected to the explosion that happened in the jungle, he wouldn’t hesitate to turn them over to Miguel—for a price.
“What exactly are you charging? Audrey didn’t tell me,”Gedeon asked as Smythe continued his examination. His heart jumped and then accelerated. He could tell the doctor was shining a light in his eyes. That had to be a good sign.
Smythe named an exorbitant price. His little lotus blossom made a small sound of protest. “That isn’t what we negotiated.”
“This injury was caused in an explosion—the kind of explosion that happens when you might be making bombs. It’s all over the news that rebels seeking to overthrow the government blew up an apartment building when the bombs they were making detonated because they were unstable. There is no doubt in my mind that this injury was caused by that.”
Again, Lotus Blossom made a sound of distress, further cementing in the doctor’s mind that the two of them were part of the many rebels seeking to overthrow the government. That was good for them in that it wouldn’t occur to Smythe that they had anything to do with the explosion that happened so far away in the jungle.
“I’m going to have to go out for a short while to get the rest of the money for you, Doc. How long will you need with Jeff?”
“As long as it takes for you to get back.” Smythe’s voice was clipped.
“Do you think he has a chance of regaining his eyesight?”
“A very good chance. His eyes need to rest. He shouldn’t be exposed to light for a few days, and then a little at a time. Very dark glasses. I’ll give you a prescription for eye drops. He’ll need to put them in his eyes several times a day. That’s a quick diagnosis, but I’ll know a lot more when I really examine them.”
The truth was, Smythe really didn’t know yet. He was giving little Lotus Blossom hope. Gedeon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The glimpse he’d caught of her had beenso brief, but he was certain she was striking. Delicate. Just like the lotus he called her.
Then she was in his space, leaning into him, her breasts up against his chest, her lips pressed against his ear as she smoothed one hand down the back of his head. “Remember, just a foot from your hand. Smash with your fist if needed. Under your pillow is a knife. The hilt is toward you. I’ll be gone less than thirty minutes.”
The way her soft lips brushed against her ear was one of the most intimate things he’d ever experienced. But then, he didn’t experience intimacy. His leopard didn’t allow for it. He fucked all the time, but it was “do the deed and get out fast” before the vicious creature craving blood shredded the human being it detested. What was the beast doing now? It felt as if his leopard was rolling around like a lovesick kitten, making his stomach hurt.
Gedeon’s first reaction was to yank her to him, sit her right on his naked lap, the one covered only by a thin sheet that did little to hide the monster of a hard-on. The second was to shove her as far from him as possible. A vicious shove, one that would send her flying hard into the wall. If he was lucky, she’d break her damn neck. He did neither. He just sat on the bed, his fingers buried in her luxurious hair, wondering why the hell when he’d met a woman like her, she regarded him like a wounded pussycat. She wasamusedby him.
Then she was gone, taking her small, delicate,deceivingframe and all that amazing hair along with her enticing fragrance, leaving him alone. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t have much fear in him. He’d had that stamped out as a young cub. He had those scars all over his body to prove it too.
