Page 14 of Tamed By the Lion Freak

That was news to her. Maybe she should have been following the news about her old carnival. “He works with Brutus?” Brutus hated him.

Leo winced. “Brutus was put down.”

“No,” she wailed. She had wondered, but the confirmation of it was too much to bear. She buried her head into her pillow and cried. Cried for Brutus and for the unfair way he lost his life.

“They should have put the man with the steak down,” she sobbed.

“He’ll get his,” Leo vowed. “And so will Marco.”

She shook her head. “No, he won’t. Men like that always get away with things like this.”

“Not this time,” Leo said.

Kitty shivered. Why did she believe him?

He took her into his arms. She let go of the pillow and rested her face on his powerful chest. He cradled her against him and rocked her as she mourned her cat.

“It’s not fair.”

“It’s not.”

Then a thought hit her. “How powerful is Madame Noir?”

Leo tensed. “Don’t do this. Don’t ask her.”

“Could she bring Brutus back to life?”

“You couldn’t afford the price.”

She could offer whatever Madame Noir wanted. Kitty would give anything to have Brutus back with her. But she would want Nala and Sarabi as well.

They sat in silence for a moment, the air between them charged with unspoken emotions. Kitty attention was drawn to Leo's hands, strong and calloused. She wondered what they would feel like against her skin, then quickly shoved the thought aside as the desire came flooding back.

"I don't want to humiliate you," she said abruptly, needing to change the subject. "In front of the audience. It feels wrong."

Leo's smile was sad. "It's part of the bargain I made," he said. "And part of the act.”

“Do you regret it?”

“As much as I hate changing into a lion and as much as I hate her, I'd make the same deal with Madame Noir again if I had to. There are some things worth any price."

Kitty felt the same way about getting her lions back. She wanted to know what he had felt had been worth the torment of his bargain, but he had already told her he couldn’t speak of it.

“Why does she do this?”

Leo's expression darkened. "It's the nature of the carnival. It feeds on the dark emotions. Fear. Anger. Lust."

The last word hung in the air between them, charged with sudden, electric tension. Kitty swallowed hard, acutely aware of Leo's proximity, of the heat radiating from his body. So that was the reason for what she was feeling.

Kitty's heart raced. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She should pull away, should put some distance between them. But her body refused to obey. Would she feel this way about him if they were away from the carnival?

“I can smell your arousal.”

Yeah, like that wasn’t embarrassing as hell. “I...um..” What did someone say to that?

"The attraction between us is amplified by the carnival. We can act on it, or we can pretend it doesn't exist. But it won't go away." He trailed a finger up her arm.

Her head spun. She was distracted by his closeness, by the way her nipples tightened, and an ache blossomed between her thighs. Kitty had never been so viscerally attracted to a man before, but she needed to know if it was real, or just one of the carnival's twisted illusions.

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