Cirque Du Minuit Read online

  Theo chuckled in her ear. “Everyone says that. Every hungover person in the history of the world. You’ll feel better in a while.”

  “Why aren’t you hung over?”

  “Because I didn’t drink half my weight in alcohol last night, and because I have a higher tolerance than you. A hummingbird has a higher tolerance than you,” he added as a final dig.

  Kelsey moaned softly, setting off a series of fireworks behind her eyelids. “Why did you let me drink so much?”

  Theo didn’t answer, just muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “shriek-mouthed witch.”

  Kelsey tried to sit up, ignoring the sudden lurch in her stomach. “What time is it? Don’t we have practice today? We’ll get in trouble.”

  Theo pulled her back down. “There’s no way you’re climbing any silks today. We’ll go in later and do a workout if you’re feeling guilty. But I doubt Lemaitre will expect to find you training today.”

  Kelsey got a sinking feeling from the tone in his voice. “Oh, God. Lemaitre was there last night?”

  “Don’t you remember anything? Anything at all?”

  Kelsey rubbed her forehead as Theo offered her more water. She took a tentative sip. The throb in her head was downshifting, but her anxiety was on the rise. “I-- I remember loud music. And dancing. And I think...Wayne was there. Oh, God, did I say something to Wayne?”

  Theo frowned. “I can’t really speak to that, but I can tell you that you definitely said something to Lemaitre. In addition to molesting his pets.”

  Kelsey squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “I’m afraid you did. Fortunately, your antics seemed to amuse rather than anger him. I can’t really say the same for the pets.”

  Kelsey covered her eyes. “I’m so embarrassed. Who all saw this?”

  “The entire cast and crew of Cirque du Minuit.”

  “Fuck,” Kelsey said, then clutched her head. “Damn. Oh, crap, and I’m supposed to call my mother to tell her I’m feeling better. And I have to take my birth control pill before it gets too late. Can you get me my purse?” She burst into sudden, irrational tears. “Oh God, I’m hung over. And I’m in bed with a guy like you, and I have to take a birth control pill and--and--” She sobbed, holding her aching brain. “And I have to call my mooommm!”

  “What do you mean, a guy like me?” Theo pouted, handing over her bag. Kelsey tried to work the zipper and gave up with a groan.

  “If she knew, she would be so ashamed of me. Drinking, casual sex. I’m being so bad.”

  “Bad? Kelsey, you’re a grown woman, not a girl.” He located her pills and handed her daily dose over along with the water. “Birth control pill. Good hangover medicine.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Tsk tsk. Mom wouldn’t like your language either. You are a bad girl. Dirty.” He was leering at her now. How the hell could he look at her hung over in bed, crying and whining, and bust out with that suggestive grin?

  “Go away. Leave me alone,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving. You’re in my room. But you are welcome to leave if you’re feeling better. If you can get up and get dressed first.”

  Kelsey regarded her balled-up, suspiciously stained black clothes lying in a pile on the floor, and shut her eyes, collapsing back on Theo’s soft pillows. “I can’t. I don’t ever want to move.”

  “Then sleep.” He settled against her and pulled her close. “Tomorrow you’ll feel better.”

  “I hope so.” She lay back against his shoulder, against his solid warmth. “I’m never going back to the Citadel. I’m done with that place.”

  Theo made a noncommittal sound. “Do you think so?”

  I don’t know what I think. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s happening to my life.

  “Just sleep, little one,” he said.

  Chapter Nine: Power

  By the following day, Kelsey felt somewhat human again. Human enough to suffer through a low impact warm up and do some work on the silks.

  Little by little they were developing a narrative for their act, a storyline to inhabit their movements. They’d created the fantasy of a man trying to catch a butterfly at dusk. As the butterfly, Kelsey had to be both graceful and alluring. Her beauty was supposed to provoke the man so much he wanted to possess her. But when he finally had success, when he finally grabbed her and slid down the silks to tuck her away with his other belongings, her delicate wings were damaged. In capturing her, he harmed her so she could no longer fly.

  Or maybe he just got her really, really drunk.

  It was a simple, sweet story, and tragic enough to work perfectly as the grand finale of the Cirque du Minuit. Soon after, the director provided them with music, the final component of their act. It was a breathy, pulsing euro-sex composition that gave her a strong urge to giggle. Only Theo’s scowl kept her in check.

  They showed Guy Benoit what they had so far, while Theo muttered the whole time about how awful the music was. Guy loved the flying stuff and wanted more of it. He loved the tragic beauty of the butterfly story and encouraged them to flesh it out. Then Guy mentioned the teeth trick and Kelsey lost it, snorting in laughter behind her hands. She had to run off and collect herself, grabbing her bag and pretending to look for a tissue. After a few minutes, Guy left and Theo stalked over, eyes blazing.

  “That was very disrespectful.”

  “The teeth trick!” Kelsey wailed, still laughing. “Oh, my God. It’s just...he so clearly knows nothing about aerial silks.”

  “Neither did you, a month ago.”

  Kelsey sobered and stared up at him. “What are you so pissed off about?”

  “Because he’s the director of the show. His opinion means something. You can’t laugh at him and run away and expect to maintain his support. This act could be cut. Any act in the circus can be cut, any time, any reason. Even the night before the show.”

  She dug in her bag, found what she wanted. Sugar straws. “Fine. Next time I see him I’ll apologize.” She needed a red. Badly. She sorted through the various colors, only to have the entire package plucked from her grasp. “Hey!”

  “I just decided. You're giving up candy.”

  “What?” She stood and lunged for her Licky Stix, but he raised them out of her reach.

  “I gave up cigarettes, you give up candy. It’s only fair.”

  “Fair, my ass. Candy doesn’t kill you. Candy doesn’t cause cancer and emphysema.”

  “Cavities.”

  “Oh, seriously?”

  “Cavities, diabetes. Hyperactivity,” he added as she jumped repeatedly to reach the sugar straws he held over his head. “You’re like a junkie.” He swatted her arm away. “Stop. If I don’t get cigarettes, you don’t get candy. No more candy.” He shook his finger at her. “And no sneaking. I’ll know.”

  “I hate you.”

  He regarded her thoughtfully. “You’re a bad girl, speaking to me that way. You ought to be punished.” His hand closed around her wrist. He pulled her toward the door of the practice space, tossing the package of Licky Stix in the trash as they went. Kelsey let herself be dragged along, more out of curiosity than willingness. They came to a utility closet and Theo pulled her inside. She saw shelves of cleanser and liquid soap, and neatly stacked paper towels for only a moment before Theo shut and locked the door, plunging them in darkness. He bent her forward with pressure on the back of her neck.

  “Reach out and put your hands on the wall.”

  Just like that, Kelsey was hot. Melting. She couldn’t believe he was doing this, but she was all in. She reached out and felt smooth, painted concrete. She waited, taking deep breaths.

  Theo braced her with his hip, wrapping an arm around her waist. He started spanking her, hard, stinging blows that fell like a volley of hot fire. She didn’t dare cry out, for fear someone would come running to check out the racket behind the door. The punishment was loud and freaking painful.
r />   Okay, so this was a little beyond what she’d expected. These were no playful slaps on the ass. Her hands slid on the wall and she bit her lip to keep from yelling at him to stop. Random little grunts and whines still escaped, along with whispered begging. Ow. Oww! His hand was amazingly powerful, each slap a torment that elevated her onto her toes.

  He finally stopped, and Kelsey gasped for breath. Thank God. “Theo...” she whimpered. But he’d only stopped to peel down her leggings. She stood up to stop him but he forced her back down again with a firm hand and a hiss.

  She put her hands back on the wall, ashamed and yet alarmingly turned on. She wanted him to stop spanking her and touch her in another place. Her pussy was wet, her clit aching for his fingers. But no...more spanking. Fast and brutal, then slow. He started squeezing her ass between each stroke so she burned under his fingertips. Her knees were trembling with the effort to be still, but there was no way to get away. She couldn’t see. She could only feel him holding her trapped and punishing her ass cheeks. When she tried to dodge or cower, his arm braced harder around her waist.

  Ohh... She moaned from the overload of pain and sensation. Her whole body was shaking with the need for release. She lost track of time. It might have been three minutes or thirty that he belabored her ass. His hand never stopped with its wicked, biting slaps. How could his hand alone hurt her so badly? But then she’d felt its strength while she was hanging twenty feet above the mat. If he had the strength to hold her whole body weight, he had the strength to punish her ass cheeks too.

  You ought to be punished. As soon as he’d said it, she’d wanted it with a guilty, horny hopefulness, and he hadn’t made her wait. But now she was reaching her breaking point. She felt tears welling over in her eyes, and started trying harder to pull away. “Please, please,” she begged softly. “Please stop.”

  She didn’t even know if he could hear her over the battery of smacks, but the rain of fire ceased, at least momentarily. “What will you do to make me stop, bad girl? How will you redeem yourself?”

  She sucked in air, trying to think. Another scene, another dark space. Minya falling to her knees. Kelsey dropped, or maybe Theo pushed her down. She braced in the dark, her mouth opened, remembering Theo driving deep between Minya’s lips. She didn’t know how to do this thing. She’d made a few lackluster attempts at it with her first lover, sure, but...

  Theo put his hand on her neck and drew close. She tensed, but no cock invaded her throat. He pressed it to her lips instead, tracing slick fluid from the tip across her tongue. She found it partly disgusting but also vaguely erotic. “Open up,” he said in a brusque tone. “Lick it like a lollipop. Like that candy you eat.”

  Something in the tenor of his voice drove her on when she thought she might lose her courage. She crouched there in the dark with his fingers in her hair and fumbled to please him. She licked his hard, upstanding cock, following its contours with her tongue though she couldn’t see them. She licked up to the tip and back down, swirling around the ridged crown. He made a sound that convinced her to repeat it. “Suck me now,” he grunted. “Pleasure me.”

  She closed her mouth around his shaft, trying to take him deeper. “Pas de dents,” he said sharply. Kelsey tried to use her lips and tongue only, but his cock was so big. She started licking it again. Like a lollipop... But this lollipop was growing larger in her mouth instead of smaller. She tried again to take him deep. Pas de dents! No teeth! He was going to choke her.

  Why did she have to suck at this so bad? Why hadn’t she practiced on cucumbers or bananas or something? She kept trying, steeling herself not to gag. Her pussy was throbbing, her ass still bare and exposed, still red hot from Theo’s avid spanking. If anyone opened the door, she would die of embarrassment, but for the moment the darkness emboldened her.

  She explored the length of him with her fingers, caressing the parts she couldn’t reach with her mouth. She gingerly touched his balls, marveling at their size and texture. She breathed in his male scent--not unpleasant, just unfamiliar. His groans drove her on, his whispered encouragements, some in English and some in French. She whined his name against his shaft. She wanted him so badly, wanted his cock inside her.

  He drew away from her abruptly. In the dark, she wasn’t sure where he’d come at her next. She could only wait for the contact. She was pushed forward to her hands and knees, and then he was behind her, entering her hot, slick sheath. She bowed her head to the cold floor and arched her back. Her hips twitched, her pussy grasping on the intrusion that drove her simmering ache to a dangerous height. She was begging now, pleading for his touch. “Theo. Theo!”

  He reached down and covered her mouth with a firm hand, the same hand perhaps that had just spanked her. She moaned against the pressure of his fingers. Beneath her, he slid his palm against her pussy, exploring and parting her, brushing fingertips over her clit.

  She reached back and grasped at his legs, feeling crisp hair and his muscles moving across her palms as he thrust in her faster, faster. She could feel his breath against her neck, quick pants coinciding with her body’s own unraveling. Her leggings still rested at the top of her thighs, binding her legs together. Her ass ached as he buffeted it with his hips.

  She wailed so loud when she came that Lemaitre would have heard it up in the office complex if not for Theo’s fingers over her lips. Kelsey lost herself there in the darkness. She was truly lost.

  He slid to rest beside her, running a hand down to cup her bare ass. He pinched the sore flesh, then grasped it possessively. He didn’t say anything, just breathed, and breathed, and breathed against her skin, in her ear. Blowing life into her. He turned her face and kissed her, and she felt alive with an intensity she couldn’t explain.

  *** *** ***

  Theo broke the kiss, gasping for breath. For control. There were voices outside the door. Kelsey sat up beside him. From her movements he guessed she was hurriedly pulling her leggings back up.

  He lurched to his feet, banging his shoulder into a shelf. The people talking outside seemed to have gone away. He fumbled in the dark for a light switch and found it beside the door. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

  When he flicked the light on, she was hunched up on the floor, her knees to her chest. She hid her face from him, or maybe she was just covering her eyes from the glare.

  He scanned the shelves of paper goods and cleaning products before he leaned over her. “Are you okay?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I really don’t.”

  Theo sighed. “We should get back. People will notice. Wonder where we are.”

  For some reason, that struck his partner as funny. She looked up at him, laughing, her mussed blonde hair falling over her eyes. “You scare me sometimes. You know that? You really do.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  She shook her head and stood. He wanted to kiss her again, so he did, taking her elbow and pulling her close so he could feel the rise and fall of her chest. She broke away first this time, adjusting her clothes and hiding her face. He gazed down at her. “You’re ashamed in the light, but not in the dark? I wonder what that means.”

  She returned his stare measure for measure. “If I knew what any of this meant, I’d be a lot less scared overall. You said we have to get back, right? Let’s get back.”

  He stepped away from the door. “You go first. I’ll come in a minute.” He pulled her back. “Wait.”

  He ran his fingers over her hair, smoothing it down, setting all the gently waving locks back to rights. It was so soft, so shiny. How had he never noticed it before, the beauty of her hair? And her eyes, such a deep, striking blue, like lilacs. There were so many things to love about her. She was the world’s worst fellatrice, perhaps, but they could work on that.

  Ugh, lovestruck idiot. If he didn’t get a grip, they wouldn’t be leaving the closet until they’d finished another round. “Go,” he said, giving her a nudge. “Go quick. Act like nothing happened.”
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br />   Kelsey left, taking her sweet smell and silken hair with her. Theo waited, his forehead pressed against the door. What was he doing? Falling in love? Now? With her? Thirty-four years he’d kept a step ahead of love, dodging and ducking it. Dancing around it when it came too close. Now, with Kelsey, it was like he’d charged right into its grip.

  If I knew what any of this meant, I’d be a lot less scared overall. Truer words were never spoken. But Theo might rephrase it to If I knew where any of this was going, I’d be a lot less scared overall. How far was he going to take this? How much was he going to risk? Power exchange had always granted him a measure of control. He’d always been in charge, and found comfort in that. Now, for the first time, he didn’t feel like he was in control at all.

  With a growl of frustration, he turned out the light and pushed open the door. He ambled down the hall toward the practice space, turned the corner, and stopped short. Golden Boy was chatting with Kelsey outside the restrooms. Every time he saw him he wanted to punch him in the groin. He was standing far too close to her, giving her that false, absorbed look, pretending she was so interesting. Theo knew the thoughts in Wayne’s head. He could read them in his body language, in the tension of his shoulders. Asshole.

  “Kelsey, come on,” Theo said.

  “Just a minute. I’m talking to Wayne.”

  Yeah, Theo could see that. He leaned on the wall near the golden couple, skewering Wayne with his eyes.

  “We should go out sometime,” he was saying. Kelsey nodded. Theo fumed.

  “I would love that. You’ve been here longer than me. You probably know all the best restaurants.”

  Theo pictured perfect Kelsey and perfect Wayne sitting across the table from one another at some cozy bistro. Candlelight. Wine. Asshole.

  “Kelsey,” Theo barked.

  Kelsey rolled her eyes and gave Wayne an apologetic look. “I’ll talk to you later. Gotta go practice. You know where to find me.”