But things went downhill after San Antonio. Meiling became moody when she never had been. Slayer became even more vicious and seemed to crave sex every hour of the day. It was a brutal cycle. Nothing satisfied the leopard. Gedeon got no sleep unless he could persuade Meiling to come to him in the middle of the night, and those nights were few and far between.
“It was your leopard,” he said aloud with sudden insight. “In San Antonio, they knew it then. I could only see you, but the shifters could see her.”
How had he not known then? He’d even asked Slayer at one point, but Slayer had simply said he couldn’t detect her leopard. Her leopard had been asleep at that moment, so Slayer hadn’t known she was there. But the shifters had known Meiling was close to the emergence. Gedeon didn’t follow such things. He hadn’t been in the rain forests looking for a mate. He didn’t study shifter ways. He didn’t expect to find a mate. If he came across an unmated female, which was rare, he always consulted Slayer, who instantly turned away from the leopard.
Meiling lifted her head and looked up at him with her dark eyes. “What did you say?”
“In San Antonio. The shifters could see your leopard in you, but I couldn’t. I could only see you. That’s been the trouble all along. I knew something was wrong when we came back. You were different. You, but not like you. Upset. Moody. I couldn’t get close to you. Slayer was wild and I couldn’t get him under control. He was affected by your female, but I was too wrapped up in you to even think that he might be needing sex because he felt your female’s needs.”
“What do you mean, you only saw me?” she asked again, her gaze fixed on his.
“Lotus.” He said his name for her softly. “You know I can’t see anyone else. I never have and I never will. There’s you. There’s only you.”
“There’s ten million women, Gedeon.”
He smoothed back her hair. “There aren’t, Meiling. I used those women to keep my cat from killing anyone. I used them to keep from going insane. I felt as long as they were satisfied, it was okay. I knew the day would come when I would have to suicide because I wouldn’t be able to stomach what I was doing.”
“But you didn’t have sex with me,” Meiling pointed out. “You didn’t want to have sex with me.”
Gedeon stared at her in shock. “Meiling. You’re the only woman in the entire universe I protected. How could you think I wouldn’t want to have sex with you? I had to use every ounce of discipline I possessed to keep my hands off you, but I wasn’t going to fuck up our relationship when you made it clear that was a line you didn’t want crossed.”
“Because sex doesn’t mean anything to you.”
That was his Meiling, the woman he knew. She wasn’t going to pull her punches. Did sex mean something to him? He had to think about that. She was right. It never had. He used sex to drain off energy. It wasn’t used to express his feelings for another human being. Sex could be many things, but the kind of sex Meiling was alluding to he’d never even considered—until recently. And only in the back of his mind. In fantasies.
He couldn’t lie to her. They were starting a life together. The communication between them had always been honest. Because this topic was uncomfortable didn’t mean he should avoid talking about it or lie to her.
“I was never with a woman who meant anything to me before. I never had sex without Slayer threatening to kill the woman. There was never any feeling between us, just raw sex to assuage a burn. It was empty and mindless and rarely good.”
Meiling buried her face against his chest again. “Why do you think you would ever be able to stop that behavior and be with only one woman, Gedeon? The cases you went after were much different from mine. Most of mine were wives coming to me asking me to prove whether or not their husbands were cheating on them. These women went into their marriages happy and so certain that they were loved. They didn’t want to believe that their husbands would lie and cheat. Look them right in the eye and scold them for even thinking such a thing. All of them were different ages and had been married for various years. Some were wealthy, others weren’t. If the woman was suspicious, no matter how much she didn’t want it to be true, it was. I even tried to talk them out of hiring me.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Playboys remain playboys. They don’t suddenly become devoted to one woman. They have a need for countless women to stroke their ego.”
He believed what she said to be true. He had investigated his share of cheating men and women. No matter all the psychological bullshit reasons given, it came down to the cheater wanting someone to make them feel good about themselves. Home had hit a rough patch, and rather than fix it, they went with something shiny and new. If they wanted to get out, they should have simply manned up and said so. That was his belief.
“I agree with you, Meiling, but I don’t believe I fall into the category of a playboy. I didn’t have affairs. I didn’t have relationships. I had sex because it was necessary for the health of my leopard. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have gone near those women. You can choose not to believe me, but I’ve never lied to you.”
“You didn’t have sex with me the other night. You used your mouth and my toy but refused to have sex with me.”
He heard the hurt in her voice even though she tried to cover it. Gedeon wasn’t going to let that stand. He caughther chin and tilted her face back up toward him, forcing her dark eyes to meet his.
“You were drunk. Your female had risen enough to put you in a heated state that left you desperate for sex. If I took advantage of that, I had no idea if you’d hate me forever. As it was, in trying to satisfy you, I felt you’d be angry with me, but I didn’t know any other way to calm your body down enough to let you get to sleep. I did my best to protect you, even from me. Believe me, Slayer rode me hard. I was desperate for you myself. It was a long night needing you, but in the end, we both went to sleep thanks to the fact that I couldn’t quite control the situation.”
Her mouth on him had been a revelation. Women went down on him all the time, but he didn’t remember them. He didn’t even remember the feel of them surrounding his cock. That wasn’t the case with Meiling. His cock craved the feel of her mouth pulling at him. That hot haven closing around him and drawing him deep. She had set up an addiction for her touch, for that dark, erotic cocksucking that set him on fire and gave him the biggest, most satisfying explosion of his life.
“You asked me if sex meant anything to me. The other night, when I was with you, what we did together meant something. It was different and I recognized that it was different. I may not know anything about relationships, Meiling. I’ll freely admit that I don’t, but I do know I’m better with you. I know it’s you I want to be with and only you.”
“You haven’t considered that maybe you’re feeling that way now because it’s convenient for your leopard? If I cooperate, then Whisper will cooperate with Slayer.”
“You’re such an innocent when it comes to shifters, Meiling. You really did keep yourself away from them, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Her affirmation came out tentatively. Once again she looked up at him, this time with too much innocence in her eyes.
“What happened the other night when you were burning up is nothing in comparison with what is going to happen when Whisper really rises. You are going to want the hottest, roughest sex you can imagine, and you won’t give a damn where you are. That will continue to happen for the entire time her heat lasts. When she emerges, she is going to lead Slayer in a dance, enticing him, tempting him, demanding he pay attention to her. She will want to have marathon all-nighters with him for at least a week.”
Meiling stared at him with her dark eyes a little horrified. She gave a little shake of her head. “That can’t possibly be. I don’t think I could survive anything worse than it was the other night. I was afraid I’d go home with a perfect stranger.”
