“I’m not moving into your bedroom.” Meiling tilted her chin stubbornly. “I like my own space. If I’m going back with you and we resume our partnership, I’m not giving up my suite.”
He studied her mutinous expression. “Lotus, I got ridof the bed and all the sheets, blankets, pillows and comforters. The room was completely fumigated. You won’t be able to smell anything in there.”
“I’llseeher.”
“Only if you persist in wanting to see her. You have to forgive mistakes, Meiling. You taught me that.”
She had. She was clinging to anything she could so she could push him away, even though she knew he wasn’t to blame for her being afraid of their future together. She’d convinced herself they wouldn’t work.
Her long lashes fluttered, then lifted again. “I can’t take you breaking my heart again, Gedeon. I can’t. I was good being alone. I made myself strong and created a life for myself. You came along and changed all that. For all I know, Whisper would have stayed hidden if Slayer hadn’t been constantly close by her. I knew how to handle everything by myself, but now there’s you.”
He framed her face with hands. “As vulnerable as you think you are, Meiling, imagine how I feel. I don’t know how to function properly without you. I’ve been on my own and doing very well, if all the reports are true.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb along her full lower lip. “Imagine my shock when along comes this beautiful woman who I cannot do without. Take the chance, Lotus. We’ll set our own rules and live by them.”
To his surprise, she laughed. It was very low, but it was her musical laughter. “You mean you’ll set the rules and expect me to live with them. I won’t, but you’ll be ever the hopeful.”
“Are you going to do this with me, Lotus? Or do we have to keep talking?”
“You make so much sense, Leopard Boy. You act like I have a choice, but in reality, I don’t.”
“You have choices. We can stay here in this little room while I talk your ear off. I’ll be at my best with my persuasive charm while we wait for Whisper to rise. Or we canhead back to New Orleans and try to follow up on the lead I got about Laverne’s disappearance.”
Meiling looked around the small, dark room and then sighed. “Fine. Let’s go back to New Orleans, but if one single shifter tries to mate with Whisper, I’m pushing you into the swamp.”
14
WHISPERhad been very quiet—too quiet. Meiling didn’t trust her, not when it came to work. She didn’t want to chance being in the middle of a business meeting and having her young leopard suddenly decide now was the time to leap to the surface. Whisper smoldered with heat. Was fiery hot. Sultry. Flirtatious. She rose fast, wreaked havoc on anyone close and then retreated just as fast, leaving Meiling in a terrible state of arousal.
The swamp was alive with dark swirls of purple and light lavender creeping through cypress trees. The moon was out, illuminating the veils of moss hanging from branches to dip into the water’s edge, turning the moss a pale, silvery blue. The crimson sunset mixed with blue to make up the rare purple. Splashes of deep red and blue slashed through the trees to pour into the duckweed-carpeted water below.
Gedeon guided their boat through the swamp with theassurance of a man who knew his way, even in the waning light. Movement was all around them, in the water, above them in the air and through the trees. It wasn’t quiet; the swamp had its own music at night. At times the bellow of an alligator signaled the resident male proclaiming his territory.
“Hell of a way to keep from being followed,” Gedeon said, flashing her a grin.
The night was warm and humid with few clouds. Ordinarily Meiling loved coming out in the swamp and did so at every opportunity, but she felt the wild setting would only encourage Whisper to rise more often when she wasn’t ready to fully emerge. It was nerve-racking. She had come to believe she didn’t have a leopard, so she had never given the Han Vol Dan of her kind much thought. She wasn’t prepared for the constant state of arousal. The heat of her skin. The burning between her legs. The relentless drive she found so hard to ignore. Now she was nervous around Gedeon, which was silly.
Gedeon stayed very close to Meiling, more protective than she’d ever imagined he could be, but always the same on the outside—that dangerous, stone-faced man others stepped aside for. He needed to stay close to her. She wanted him to, because she was terrified of Whisper rising without Gedeon right there to help her when she needed him the most. Or when Whisper needed Slayer.
Whisper seemed to sleep now that she’d been officially claimed. That didn’t seem to bother either Gedeon or Slayer the way it did Meiling. They seemed to take it in stride that her leopard would just curl up and take a long nap, making everyone wait for her.
“Are you still upset because Whisper isn’t showing herself?” Gedeon asked.
He was driving the boat slowly through the duckweed, maneuvering around a few floating logs, including two that were alligators, not logs.
“Clearly, she’s a drama queen. A little diva,” Meiling said with a hint of disgust.
Gedeon laughed. Meiling couldn’t help but love the sound since it was so rare. Gedeon just didn’t laugh. Never when around others. He kept that sound mostly for her.
She gave him a look from under her lashes. “It isn’t really that funny, Gedeon,” although with him laughing it was. “Slayer’s going to have a little entitled brat on his hands. I don’t even know how she got that way.” Total exasperation.
“Lotus.”
The way he said his chosen nickname for her always sent a shiver of heat down her spine. “Don’t make excuses for her. She drives me right up the wall. I used to be even-tempered. Now I’m totally unpredictable. I don’t know what I’m going to do or say from one minute to the next.”
“I hate to be the one to let you in on reality, baby, but you’ve always been unpredictable.”
Meiling assessed his demeanor. He didn’t look or sound as if he was joking. She tilted her chin at him, daring him to be serious. “I am always the calm, reasonable one in every situation and you’re the powder keg. Look at how you were at the meeting with Guy Hawkins. If I hadn’t been there, you might have killed him.”
“But then he most likely deserves killing. I have amazing judgment in these circumstances. Ordinarily, you’re all about compassion, other than your atrocious temper, which, don’t worry, Lotus, I’m more than willing to overlook.”
