“Let’s find the circus first. I’d intended to start off at the bank, but it might be a good idea to eyeball the show first to see just what it is we intend to buy, and I may be able to pick up some information.”
“Check. Want a brandy?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. Because of you, I’ve had more than enough … stimulation for one day. If we’re leaving first thing in the morning, I’d better get some sleep. I saw a motel out on the—”
“Robby, you really are a silly goose. Now that we have our traveling plans settled, we have to get the other thing out of the way.”
“Uh … what other thing is that?”
“Sex, of course. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. I certainly think we both have a real itch for each other, and if we don’t scratch it we’re just going to be distracted. In a way, you and I have been lusting after each other for close to twenty years. Don’t you agree that we should do something about it?”
“Uh, I—”
“Don’t you want to sleep with me, Robby?”
“Uh, I—”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” she said as she pushed me ahead of her out of the kitchen, toward other quarters.
Harper shuddered, sighed deeply, then rolled away from me in the warm sea of darkness that was her bed. “My God, Robby, that was good,” she murmured.
Good? It had been … outrageous.
“Mmm.”
“You’ve been practicing.”
“Mmm.”
After a few moments she rolled back toward me, settling her naked body against mine. Her full breasts pressed against my ribs. “Good night, Robby,” she whispered.
“Mmm,” I replied as I put my arms around her and held her tight. I could feel the beating of her heart, almost indistinguishable from my own.
I couldn’t recall a time in my life when I had been happier, more at peace. More satisfied. And yet, in the back of my mind, always, there was a dark place where an inextinguishable fear flickered like an eternal black flame. I was a dwarf; I was different. All my life I had expended a great amount of energy competing, trying to make up in daring, wit, and sheer skill, not to mention stubbornness, for what I lacked in physical size. It was something I could do myself, and did not require anyone else’s cooperation. I had been in love with April Marlowe, but the gentle witch from upstate New York had been quite different from Harper Rhys-Whitney, snake charmer extraordinaire and legendary crusher of strong men’s egos. Loving, desperately wanting a woman, was not an adventure I was certain I had sufficient courage to try again.
And it might already be too late to turn away.
I’d come to hunt and bag a circus, but, lying in the darkness still redolent with the odors of our lovemaking, I couldn’t help but wonder if I hadn’t been the one hunted, already trapped, by an exotic creature from the circus in my past.
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In the House of Secret Enemies Page 32