“No thanks. I have a question though. Are there any circus traditions, I mean, peculiarities in the way they deal with the death of performers?”
“You’re looking at it.” He raised his glass. “Remember the fallen and get rip-roaring drunk.”
“I guess what I’m asking is, why isn’t her partner here?”
“Theo? Your little crush?”
His careless jibe hurt, but she tried not to show it. “He’s not my crush. But he should be here, shouldn’t he?”
“Would you want to be here if you were him?”
“I don’t know. Why not? It’s not like it was his fault.”
Jason’s lips turned down in a grimace. “He probably thinks it was. He had her and he dropped her.”
“But it was an accident. He wasn’t responsible for it happening.”
Jason shrugged and took another sip of his drink. “In the end, Kels, it doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what he thinks. He’s done anyway.”
The offhand finality of Jason’s statement hit her full force in the chest. “What do you mean, he’s done?”
Jason leaned closer to her, pinning her with his gaze. “Let me ask you this. Would you go up there with him?”
She bristled at the implication in his tone. “Of course I would. What happened was an accident. Theo didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like he flung her down there.”
“Even so, he dropped her. After that happens, they’re never the same. They have what we in the circus call ‘bad hands.’”
“Bad hands? That’s bullshit.”
“A lot of circus stuff is bullshit. It is what it is. Theo Zamora has bad hands now. The people in Tsilaosa know it, the people in Splendide and Diamonte and Idée know it, and the cast of every other Cirque du Monde show in the world knows it. And guess what, their friends in other circuses know it, and their friends know it, and every fucking trapezist from here to Timbuktu knows that Theo dropped Minya from eight stories up. Circus people are a superstitious bunch. Bad hands are bad hands, and once you have them, you’re through.”
Kelsey turned away, unreasonably angry. A lifetime of work, gone in a moment. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Circus people are stupid,” she said.
“You’re one of them now. Are you calling yourself stupid?”
Oh, she was stupid all right. She left the memorial service-turned-party a few moments later and headed past the theater, past the dorms and through the side streets of Paris until she was staring at the door of the squat gray-teal house on Rue des Jours. She looked at her watch. It was after midnight. Was she crazy? Why are you doing this? Out of concern? Bullshit. Don’t lie to yourself this time.
She lifted a hand to knock, and dropped it again, making a fist. Then she knocked again. Then she pounded. “Theo! Theo--”
The door fell away from the flat of her palm and she stumbled into him with his name still on her lips. He caught her before she fell, and released her just as quickly, like it burned to touch her.
“You again,” he said with disgust.
Kelsey forged ahead before he shoved her out and slammed the door on her. “Where were you?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Why are you here? Do you know what time it is?”
“I’m here about her. Minya. Remember her? The memorial service was today. Why weren’t you there?”
He stood tall, shoulders back, bare-chested, sweatpants riding far too low on his hips. He was as imposing as ever and not a bit ashamed. “I didn’t want to come.”
“Why not?”
“She wasn’t my family. Not even a friend. Just a partner.” He stared somewhere over her shoulder. “A slut for sex, when I wanted it. She was nothing to me.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Believe what you want to believe.”
“So you didn’t care about her at all? And yet you’re holed up here, drunk and miserable, rolling around in your own filth?”
“I showered a few hours ago!”
Kelsey threw a look around his ransacked living room. “So you always live like this?”
He sauntered over to his end table to pick up a cigarette. He slid her a look as he lit it behind a cupped hand, and then turned and blew the smoke in her direction.
“Nice,” she hissed, waving the offending cloud away. “Smoking’s bad for you.”
“So is trapeze,” he said drily. “If all you wanted to do was come over and yell because I didn’t come to Minya’s service tonight, okay. You’ve done this. You can go now. Go.” He made shooing motions at her. When she didn’t move, he dragged in another deep pull on his cigarette and regarded her through half-lowered lids. “Or maybe you’re here for some other reason. You’re horny? You like rough sex? I’m in the market for a new toy to play with.” His gaze traveled over her from head to toe. Kelsey hated that his heartless words and assessing look made desire flare in her chest, and between her legs.
“You’re repulsive,” she said, before her expression could betray the way she really felt.
“You didn’t think so that day. You don’t think so now.” Theo stepped closer and she stepped back. They were still standing in his foyer. Kelsey was a scant second from retreat, from tearing open the door and running as far from Theo Zamora as her legs could take her. He was so close she could smell him, smoke and maleness and cologne. His hair was glossy black in the dim light. She watched his fingers as he turned the cigarette in his hand, then inhaled deeply.
She’d come here to have him. She’d known it all along, but she only just admitted it to herself now. And he knew. That was clear.
Since she’d first seen him, she’d wanted him. The scene she witnessed between him and Minya had only intensified her longing. Now she was here, and a cloud of smoke was the only thing between her and his magnetic sexuality. A cloud of smoke and a thin, quickly waning inkling of self-respect.
“You want?” he asked. He stood an arm’s length from her, virile and motionless, just waiting. She wanted to cry from how much she wanted him, and how scared and conflicted she was. Kelsey Martin didn’t do stuff like this. She wasn’t daring or reckless, or slutty, for that matter.
“I didn’t come here for sex.” Kelsey cast around for something distancing. For excuses. “I was just annoyed that you didn’t come tonight. I wanted to know why.”
Theo shrugged, accepting her feint. “I do what I like.” He turned and snatched up a bottle from beside the sofa. It was less than half full. He raised it in her direction. “Want some?”
She shook her head and clenched her fists. “Will you ever come back to the Cirque?” She sounded angry. She felt angry. She wanted to grab that cigarette from his lips and smash the bottle over his head. “Will you ever come back and try again, or will you just lie around this messy house feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Is that any of your business?”
She hated him this way. Drinking and smoking, his fine muscles slumped and his olive-gold skin obscured in shadows.
“Why are you doing this? It’s so typical, to have a setback and sit around drinking yourself to death.”
“A setback?” That snapped him out of his torpor. “A setback?”
Kelsey stood firm in the face of his sudden fury, pointing a finger in his face. “Why don’t you just mourn her like a normal person? I know you cared about her!”
“A setback?” he yelled.
“A death! Whatever! You said she was nothing to you. If that’s true, why are you getting angry? Why don’t you just come back?”
“What? For you? Because this is what you need to feel better? Fuck you, girl. Whoever you are. Stop coming here. Stop bothering me.”
He drew in deep breaths and blew them out, not looking at her. Not looking at anything. The bottle was still clenched in his fist. She lunged and grabbed it from him, then skittered back, holding it behind her. His only reaction was a short, bitter gust of laughter. But at least she had his attention. At least he was l
ooking at her now.
“Jason says you can’t come back. That you have bad hands, and once you have bad hands no one will work with y--”
He came at her faster than she could move. He pinned her to the wall beside the door with hot fingers pressed against her neck, his palm cutting her words off in her throat. She dropped the bottle with a thunk to the floor and put her fingers over his. She pried at the hand that gripped her, but he only held tighter. Some part of her mind wondered why she didn’t fight, why she didn’t kick him or pull away. But some deeper, more instinctive impulse commanded stillness. Self-preservation through submission. She gritted her teeth and made a faint protesting sound.
Seconds passed, or hours. She stared into his almond-shaped eyes and saw burning fury--gypsy hellfire and some infinitesimal spark of barely lingering restraint. He moved closer, his lids dropping over a hard, jet black stare. The hand tightened further, so he truly impeded her breath. She should have fought before. She was too breathless to fight now. How far would he go? How far would she let him go before some adrenaline-fueled fight-or-flight instinct kicked in? She held her breath and stared at him, once her idol, now her tormentor. She wasn’t suffocating yet; she was an acrobat and her wind power was legendary. He knew it, and she watched the fury commute into something less terrifying. Disdain.
His lips curled in a sneer and he released her as abruptly as he’d attacked her. He muttered something like stupid bitch under his breath as she rubbed her neck and sucked in gusts of air.
“Why did you do that?”
He didn’t answer, only bent down to pick up the whiskey bottle at her feet.
She pushed him then. She didn’t think, she just did it. He teetered and came up growling. They grappled, trapezist and gymnast, both powerful but disparate in size. She was strong, but nowhere near strong enough to take him. She didn’t want to anyway. He pinned her against the wall again, not with his hand this time, but with his entire body pressed against hers. His broad chest rose and fell before her. There were shadowy hollows between the tendons of his neck, and a small mole just at the crest of his clavicle.
“You listen to me.” His breath hissed against her ear. “You go now, or else you stay and you come to my bedroom. Your choice.” He ground his hips against her. The prodding protuberance of hard flesh between them was impossible to ignore. His hands roved, squeezing breasts, hips, buttocks. “Choose wisely, girl.”
“My name is Kelsey,” she retorted, squirming against him.
He twisted one hand in her hair, pinning her head against the wall. “I don’t care what your name is.” He cupped her pussy through her pants and squeezed with his huge hand. She throbbed. She ached. She wanted more of what he was doing to her. The hot breath, the piercing eyes, the effortless dominance. Those grasping hands. “Choose. Now,” he whispered.
He pressed harder, one thumb finding her swollen clit through layers of leggings and panties. Oh God! Hot molten lust overtook her. She had the sexual equivalent of stars-in-her-eyes. Pangs of needy sensation rocked her pelvis and shot down the insides of her legs. She moaned, arching her hips against the maddening pressure of his hand.
It was apparently enough of an answer for him. He untwisted his other hand from her hair and grabbed her arm. She tripped along behind him as he dragged her, her short gymnast legs no match for his long-limbed stride. His fingers bit into her wrist but all she felt was the ache in her pussy. Once more, at the bedroom door, he stopped.
“You want?” He let go of her and stood back. She knew it was her last chance to escape. She knew she wouldn’t take it.
“I want,” she said, scared and shaking with horniness. “Yes.”
His kiss was rough and deep. He put a hand on her neck, clasping her close this time, not choking her. The effect was the same. She was his--his prisoner, his plaything. She was under his spell. He pushed her into the room as he kissed her. It was dark, the only light the faint illumination spilling in from the living room down the hall. It disappeared when he kicked the door shut with a bang.
She was immediately disoriented. She didn’t know this room, didn’t know where the bed was, where closets or tables were. By the time it registered in her lust sodden brain that he was undressing her, he was already finished and she was nude. He was too. There was nothing between them now, and the feel of his hot, thick rod against her stomach shocked her. He was grabbing at her again, kneading her ass and pinching and tugging her nipples. She skittered away, bewildered by sensation and darkness, making frantic, helpless sounds. She finally managed to spit out the issue on her mind. “Condom?”
He cupped her face in the darkness, silencing her panic with a whisper. “Shh. Of course.”
She’d barely processed his sudden gentleness when it became jolting motion again. A pull and a shove, and she was down on a bed, gazing up at the outline of a man in the darkness.
He was on her, over her, his knees prizing hers apart and his heavy cock falling against her pussy. Kelsey wasn’t a virgin. She’d been sexually active with a very kind and caring boyfriend and had good physical satisfying sex with him. She’d thought herself very sexually adept and experienced. Until now.
She felt like she was falling, descending into an underworld where all that mattered was carnal, brutal physicality. She spread her legs, only to have him force them wider. She arched her back and he yanked on her hair until she felt her spine was about to break. The darkness amplified everything, and she never knew where the next grope, the next scratch or kiss would come. His breath smelled of whiskey. His chest crushed her and his mat of wiry hair scratched across her nipples and breasts.
She drew in deep breaths whenever he released her, only to be suffocated by another punishing kiss. He teased her clit with the tip of his cock as he moved his hips in an animalistic rhythm, then pressed himself hard against her belly. She moaned and dug her nails into his shoulders, wanting him inside.
He pulled away and she was left grasping for her senses. What time was it? Where was she? What the hell was she doing? He was back before she could think on it very long, catching her up again in the vortex of his lovemaking. He turned her over roughly, then pulled her to her knees and drew her arm behind her before she could even orient herself. She cried out, more from need than fear or surprise. His other hand snaked around and down to her pussy, and he thrust in a finger and then two, drawing wetness over her pulsing clit.
She leaned back against his solid warmth, needing the contact, needing grounding. She was about to shatter from the tension and arousal shrieking through her like electricity. “Please. Please.” She gasped the words in a whisper, afraid to even communicate with the man who was conquering her so masterfully.
His hand tightened on her wrist and he pulled her arm even tauter across her back. Her breasts jutted forward, leaving her vulnerable and exposed. Theo bowed his head beside hers, the tenderest gesture, and then closed two wicked fingers on her nipple and pinched until she wailed.
She struggled and writhed back against him, and he bent her forward. She hit the bed with a thud and he was over her, holding her down. He let go of her arm but leaned instead on her shoulders, pinning her with no hope of escape. His knees spread her thighs wide and his cock pressed against her wet opening. He slid in to the hilt, stretching and filling her, while his arms pressed her down, down, down. She felt every inch of him like a brand. He whispered in French, words she didn’t understand, words edged with menace and sensuality.
Her breasts ached and her pussy was already clenching with the need to orgasm. Everything converged--his force, his desire, his labored breath and his hands on her shoulders. His cock hurt and thrilled her, thick and battering between her legs. She ground against the bed, needing release. She reached down to touch her clit but he stopped her.
“You come when I say, girl.” He yanked her hands back up and made her spread them to each side, like angel wings, or a crucifixion. “You stay like that. Let me fuck you.”
She recognized
the voice from the storage room. Obdurate demand and assured mastery. She lay beneath him, spread and open to him, her hands in fists as he ravaged her. “Yes,” he crooned between thrusts. “Just feel me. Just feel me take you.”
Oh, she felt him... She’d never felt so elementally sexual. There was only his body and hers, his wants and desires, his cock taking her pussy. He rode her harder, faster, and she sank down under his spell, a willing receptacle for his mysterious power. She arched her hips to take him deeper and he growled in apparent approval. His arms came around her and he squeezed so tightly she could barely breathe. More whispered French in her ear, grunts and groans, and then an English word that was an order. “Come.”
Oh God, finally. She slid a hand to her clit but he pushed it away, already in possession of that most sensitive place. He fucked her harder, faster. Each touch of his finger against her button was torment and bliss. She made noises she’d never made before, begging groans and high pitched wails. They reached the crescendo together. As soon as his body tightened and jerked behind hers, her own orgasm roared to life. She gripped the sheets on the bed, her arms still flung wide as he’d demanded, while her whole body shook and shivered in ecstasy.
Then slowly, slowly, she came back to earth. She became aware of his weight and heat, and was bereft when he sighed and slid away from her. She felt empty, clenching on nothing but the memory of his power. Her muscles unwound and she was exhausted, too exhausted to analyze what would happen now, or what she should do next.
He left and returned and still she laid there. He pulled her arm and she turned, expecting to be ordered to leave. But he dragged her down next to him in the dark instead, right beside him on the bed. He slung a leg over her legs, and threaded one hand into her hair. She breathed in his animal scent and marveled at the softness of his skin against her cheek.
He terrified her.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“No.” His voice was firm and decisive. “You stay.”
Chapter Three: Cirque du Minuit
Cirque Du Minuit Page 3