Leopard's Prey

than you think. We have rules that govern us and you have to abide by them. Saria is leopard, and she can answer any questions you have until I get back. Clearly, it isn’t something known and we don’ ever talk about it to outsiders.”
    “Because you’d all be locked up as insane,” Bijou pointed out pulling back. She reached for the sheet and pulled it up over her breasts in sudden modesty.
    “Because
we’d
be hunted and killed,” Remy corrected, needing her to understand the importance of absolute secrecy. He cupped her breasts through the sheet, making his claim on her and her body. Satisfaction flooded when his thumb found her nipple a hard peak.
    Bijou recoiled subtly, a slight withdrawing, not quite pulling away from him, but he felt her retreat as a stab around his heart. He actually put his palm over his heart to ease the ache. He and Bijou had a long way to go, and he realized she had trusted him before, so easily, but now there was a space between them and he couldn’t quite breach it. She definitely was his physically, but she’d moved away from him emotionally and he wanted her back.
    He sighed as he slid out of bed. “I know you’re confused about us and the leopard . . .”
    She held up her hand and shook her head. “I’m not thinkin’ about that yet. I’m just pretending you bit me and infected me with some rare blood disease and it will all go away.”
    She made him smile. No matter what, her sense of humor crept in at times when she was afraid or even angry. She had every right to be confused.
    “Talk to Saria,
chere
, if you need questions answered before I can get back. This will take some time.”
    “I’m fine with it takin’ time. Take all the time you need.”
    That
wasn’t her sense of humor. She was quite serious. She wanted him gone, just as she hadn’t wanted him in her bed when they’d returned from the swamp. He went into the bathroom and pulled himself together as fast as possible, brushing his teeth and inspecting the rake marks across his side and chest. Robert had gotten in a few licks of his own and Remy hadn’t even noticed. There were a few bad bruises, the consequences of a strong leopard hitting another one. Robert would wake up with far worse.
    He returned to the bedroom fully dressed to find Bijou wrapped in her robe, sitting by the open drapes. “I didn’t infect you with some rare blood thing, Blue. You do know that, don’ you? Your
mere
had to be leopard.”
    Bijou deliberately pointed to the door. “Go.” The word didn’t come out as commanding as she would have liked.
    Her treacherous heart melted every time she looked at him. She had to get over her adolescent hero worship. She’d been so silly, proving just how young and inexperienced she was by thinking he had real feelings for her. It was just sex between them, he’d admitted as much to her. She couldn’t even claim he had his own physical attraction to her—it was his leopard’s fascination with her leopard, which somehow made the entire affair even seedier.
    She looked around her at the cracks and long rake marks down the walls. Now it all made sense. She knew exactly what made those claw marks. She groaned and covered her face with her hands.
    Remy was an amazing man. Pure and simple. He was intelligent, had a good sense of humor, loved and protected family and he made her feel beautiful and safe. He knew what her life had really been like, not the fairy tale everyone else wanted to believe. She’d been so happy when he’d acted interested in her and when he’d kissed her . . . There was no going back.
    There was a hesitant knock on her door, then Saria’s voice. “Are you hungry? I have a brunch made. Come get food.”
    Bijou wanted to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over her head, but she refused to be a coward. She couldn’t blame Remy for her actions, and she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t had mad, crazy sex with him. Saria knew everything. She probably even knew about her wild romp in the swamp.
    “I’ll be down in five minutes,” she called back.
    She took a deep breath and held the sheet against her face for a moment, cooling the color, before tossing it aside in resignation and going to the dresser where her clothes were neatly folded. At least the dresser hadn’t sustained too much damage, but she found herself blushing at the memory of Remy sitting her atop it, his mouth and hands driving her insane.
    “Maybe it’s the room,” she muttered aloud,