Cirque Du Minuit Read online

  “I want to see if you are strong. And if you are scared. Afraid, girl?” he asked with a tilt of his head, and a pout she wanted to slap right off his face.

  She grabbed the pair of silk tails from his hands. “My name is not ‘girl’ and I’m not afraid. And you damn well know I’m strong enough--Fuck!” A sudden gust of wind sent a hailstorm of round, pointed seedpods down from the tree to pelt Kelsey’s head and shoulders. She brushed off the offending nuggets and glared at Theo when he chuckled. She didn’t think even one had hit him. God, this irritating man. Had she ever found him attractive? Had she really writhed under him in ecstasy?

  She turned away in self-loathing and self-protection. Yes, she had, and yes, she wanted to again. She wrapped the dingy, tacky silk around her fists, testing the strength of it, even though she’d already seen it hold his weight.

  “Are you sure this is perfectly safe? That branch isn’t going to break?”

  He gave her an unctuous look. “If you fall, I’ll catch you.”

  Kelsey tsked and started to climb. The material was surprisingly easy to grip, either from the rosin she’d used or the rosin he’d put on there before. She climbed hand over hand, letting go of one of the tails to hike herself up the other one. Words of an old lullaby came to mind. Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock... Wind blew hair in her eyes, but it wasn’t strong enough to blow her around. But the branch above her... She looked up, pausing. She was about ten feet from the branch. Her arms were growing tired. If the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby--

  “Wrap your leg around,” Theo called from below. “If you get tired, make a lock for your foot.”

  More on instinct than any real know-how, Kelsey slipped her foot around the silk a few times and then pushed down. The “lock” held. She could stand, in a way, and take a little pressure off her arms. She wrapped a hand around the gray-white fabric too and felt more secure. She was enjoying her feeling of victory when the silk she was hanging on began to sway.

  “Theo!”

  He was below her, dragging it to one side, then the other.

  “Are you trying to make me fall?” she shrieked.

  Theo grinned. “Fall? No, girl. I’m trying to make you fly.”

  “I’m not ready to fly just yet,” she said, hating the panicked sound of her voice. The branch above her creaked. She looked up, then down to see Theo climbing the other silk, almost abreast with her.

  “How much do you weigh?” Kelsey asked shakily. “I know that’s a thick branch, but--”

  He reached out a finger and put it to her lips. “This tree is stronger than you can imagine. The silk is strong. I am strong.” He paused to wrap his leg in the silk as he hung beside her. “What about you? Strong enough, Kelsey? Brave enough?”

  She resisted the urge to look down, instead keeping her gaze locked on Theo’s darkly animated eyes. “I just need a little time to get used to this, okay? Before you start scaring me again.”

  Theo blinked in innocence. “Scaring you? Moi? I don’t know what you speak of.” He reached out to her, pulling her close, both of them swaying thirty feet up, limbs wrapped in diaphanous silk. “You be a good, brave girl, and I’ll let you come back my place after, eh?”

  She always imagined him as dark, threatening. But up close he had light, tiny freckles on the bridge of his nose. His arm tightened around her. His lips were so close she could feel their warmth. “You want, Kel-zee?”

  He always said her name like it was something sleazy. His closeness was crippling her defenses, overwhelming her pride, her wishes to snub him. She sniffed in a poor--and fake--attempt at disdain. “We’re working together on this act now. We shouldn’t sleep together.” Like you and Minya. She didn’t say the words out loud but she knew he heard them.

  He blinked a few times, pursed his lips. “Ah, okay. We must act serious.”

  “We’re thirty feet in the air!”

  “Come, we fly,” he said, checking her grip and the wrap around her leg. Then he transferred to her silk and before she could think of anything to say that didn’t sound cowardly or idiotic, he made them move. He did it so easily, like a child pumping a swing. They flew back and forth and then in an arc, around and around. It felt slow and yet fast, relaxing and yet terrifying. She stared at the hand above her, the tight, gripping fist. It took her a while to realize his other arm was around her waist, one more attachment point to this flimsy fabric holding her above the earth.

  “You like this?” he asked, his voice a low rumble against her ear. Did she like it? It was fun, swinging back and forth. She felt secure, for the moment.

  “Sure, I like it, Theo. I just don’t understand why in holy fuck you couldn’t let me get used to all this back at headquarters, where there are soft, cushy mats.”

  “Because we build trust,” he said matter-of-factly, disengaging from her and spinning her silk as he swung on his own. “Do you trust me?”

  It was such a loaded question, but in her nervousness she spit out a careless answer. “I would trust you more if I had a safety line.”

  She saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but then it was gone. “No safety lines in aerial silk,” he said. “Aerial silk is your safety line. You twist in it”--he indicated her locked hand and foot--“and it holds you. Simple.”

  She held his fathomless gaze. “I’m sorry, Theo. I didn’t mean anything-- I didn’t mean to say--”

  “In aerial silk, I am not responsible for your safety. You understand this?”

  Theo’s mouth had gone tight, his manner cold and pedantic. He started to teach her the basics of the craft, showing her the various ways to grip and wrap the silk. Kelsey soaked it all in, feeling chastised. She’d liked him better as the playful acrobat scaling the tree and swinging her around. Now he was a strict teacher, his eyes scrutinizing every movement, every line of her form.

  He explained about climbs, wraps, and drops, about flying and balancing, about friction and contortion, about elegance and the pose. They were up and down off the silks. He demonstrated some tricks by himself way up high, fearlessly, and did other things near the ground with his hands on her, pushing and pulling at her body to show how it was done. His fingers traced her muscles, arranging her arms, pressing on her shoulder. He smelled like sweat and cologne, and fresh air. Kelsey started to resent the silk fabric between them, wishing to touch, unimpeded, the startling hardness of his body. The unexpected softness of his skin.

  You want?

  Oh, God, yes. I want.

  “You paying attention?”

  His sharp voice brought her fantasies into focus. She met his gaze, caught fixating on the pulse at the base of his neck. “Yes,” she lied. “I’m paying attention.” I want. I want.

  His gaze dissected her. He would have to be blind to not perceive how badly she craved him. His rough kiss, his body bearing down on hers. He stared at her, and she could see the animal wildness he usually kept in check, written right in the taut planes of his face. He guided her down off the silks, hurrying her with impatient hands. She leaned away from him as they stood, a self-protective movement.

  He drew her back, his fingers spread against her waist, then pushing at her waistband. He plunged one hand down the front of her leggings. She put a hand on his wrist but he didn’t stop, and she didn’t really want him to.

  “You said we can’t do this, no? Because we work together?” He mocked her, his fingers slipping through the evidence of her attraction, her need.

  “I didn’t say we c--can’t,” she stammered. “I said we shouldn’t.” She drew in a soft breath as he found her clit. He manipulated it expertly, lightly, giving her bursts of pleasure that teased but didn’t satisfy. She panted under his desultory gaze. The silks billowed free behind him. She watched them in a kind of trance as his fingers left her. He stripped off her shirt and bra, peeled down her fitted pants. He wasn’t gentle, or rough...just intent.

  Theo lifted one of her hands. �
��Take it. Hold the silk above your head.” She didn’t understand at first what he wanted. Impatiently, he wrapped her hand, locking one wrist in the white length. He took the other silk and this time Kelsey bound herself, gritting her teeth against chattering even though she was warm. Hot. She was burning up for him.

  “Hold on to the silk,” he ordered. Then, in one liquid motion, he went to his knees and lifted her legs over his shoulders.

  Oh Jesus fucking God! She almost started to cry. The relief, the gratification. He held her ass in his hands and parted her pussy lips with his thumbs, licking, teasing in persistent strokes. She threw her head back, suspended by the silks. Her arms strained to hold tight while the rest of her body twisted and jerked, seeking to assuage the ache he was building inside her. I want, I want...

  “Oh God, Theo,” she gasped. She tried to pull away from the torment of his hot mouth. She wanted more than teasing. She wanted him inside her, possessing her. His lips were driving her crazy. “Fuck me, Theo. Please!”

  He shook his head. “I have nothing. No condoms.”

  She gripped the silks, frustrated and unsatisfied. No condoms. Damn him. “Are you clean? I mean...”

  Theo shrugged. “I was with Minya only. Five years. We did tests.”

  “Then just...” Kelsey squirmed. “Can you pull out? I’m not on the pill.” God, it was so reckless. He made her feel so out of control.

  He let her knees down, considering. “How do I know you’re clean?”

  “I’ve only been with one guy. Besides you. And he was a virgin too, when we...”

  Theo smirked at that. Asshole. He took his pants down, kicked them off. “We’ll say you’re clean then, yes? I’ll make you dirtier. That’s what you want.”

  Kelsey felt caught somewhere between laughing and screaming. Her wrists were still trapped over her head in silken bonds of his making. “Just pull out. Please don’t come inside me. Can you do that?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve done it. Many times.” He came to her, unleashed and wild again now, to take her. He began with a kiss, mashing his mouth against hers. Their tongues dueled, and he won, of course. She could taste her scent on his lips, sharp and salty. One hand locked on the back of her neck, while the other splayed on her ass and pressed her against him so she could feel all his broad, hard length.

  He lifted her again, and she watched as he pressed his cock to her center. He looked up at her then, watching her. She couldn’t hold his gaze. She couldn’t look away from the sight of him sliding into her. His abs rippled and his chest tensed as he drove in to the hilt. He started to fuck her and she struggled against him instinctively, locked in the silks like an insect in a spider’s web, waiting to be devoured. He grasped her breasts, pinching her nipples, squeezing them until they hurt almost as sharply as her pussy ached.

  She rode him, swinging from the silks, reveling in every pounding thrust. He’d sparked a flame in her with his lips and tongue; now he was stoking it into a fire that was burning out of control. Each long, firm stroke of his cock pushed her closer to ecstasy. Her pelvis grew heavy, tingling and building to the apex she sought, but her arms ached and she was growing weak with the need to come.

  “Theo...” She tried to reach for him, but couldn’t, flailing in the silk. He helped her unwind her hands, clasping her close when she hung from his neck. She was falling apart. “Theo!”

  He took her down to the ground, covering over her, driving into her while she held on to him for dear life. They rocked together while the silks sailed free above them. The tails brushed across her arm, across his back. His breath was heavy against her shoulder, and his cock was touching her more deeply than she ever thought possible.

  She clenched against his length, so warm, so hard, arching her hips to take every inch. The tingling in her pelvis grew and then seemed to collapse in a pinpoint motion to one center--the place where he and she were joined. Soft silk slid over her face and she cried out.

  It was like a veil lifting. She stared up at sun and blue sky and clouds and felt Theo over her, and the earth under her, and her body contracted around that part of him she hungered for. The pleasure wrung her out, left her to die. But she wasn’t dead. She was more alive than she’d ever felt before. Her heart raced, her pulse pounding in unison with her orgasm.

  Kelsey fell away from him, spent. Theo grunted and jerked back, and she felt hot wet spurts of cum land on her stomach and breasts. One last low moan, and he collapsed beside her, his head propped on his arm.

  Kelsey stared at him, fascinated. He never looked tired or weak. Never. Except for now, after sex. He seemed fixated on the fluid decorating her body.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For pulling out.”

  He looked at her then, and she could see the war in his face. He wanted to mock, and he wanted to be cold. But he had enjoyed their encounter as much as she had. He had gripped her and ridden her so hard she could still feel the ghost of his girth between her legs. He finally settled on a lurid smile.

  “You’re dirty now.”

  Kelsey laughed, and reached to stroke a hand through some of the semen, but he stopped her. “Let me.”

  He reached out for one of the silk tails that still fluttered about them, and dragged it across Kelsey’s stomach and chest. He smeared his ejaculate over her, over the fabric, up to her nipples and down to her pussy. He nudged her legs open and wiped the silk over her lust-glazed slit.

  Kelsey cringed inwardly. The fabric was yards and yards long, and undoubtedly required specialized cleaning. “Stop,” she said. “Your silks will be dirty.”

  He ignored her, drawing it right against her clit. “This is not dirty. This is you and me, partners now. These silks are not mine anymore.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Ours.”

  He let the fabric go, to billow back out in the breeze. He brought her clothes, and donned his while she stumbled around trying to dress, think, and walk correctly again.

  Ours.

  They were going to Marseille to do an act together. To collaborate, to trust. He already accepted her, and she...she feared and worshipped him at once. More than that, she was smeared all over his practice silks. It was a commitment. In that moment, Kelsey knew she would do anything he asked her. She would go to be in a circus with him in Antarctica. Anywhere. She would make him glad he’d trusted her, and committed to her. She would work hard and be a damn good aerial partner.

  But she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to climb trees like him. He was already up there again, undoing the knot. He looked down at her. “Catch it, Kelsey.”

  Kelsey. Finally, he was using her name instead of “girl.” And not saying it in such a sleazy way. She reached up and gathered the silk as it fell over and around her. All together in one bundle, it was heavier than it looked. Theo scooted down the tree and showed her how to lay it out and fold it carefully to minimize wrinkling, which could weaken the fabric. It took almost fifteen minutes to do it properly, working side by side.

  “Theo,” Kelsey asked when they’d finally finished folding it into a surprisingly compact bundle. “Does this silk ‘belong’ to anyone else besides, you know...you and me?”

  She didn’t know why she had to know. She just did.

  Theo smiled at her and winked. “For now, just you and me. But we will see...in Marseille...”

  In Marseille... Hmm.

  Chapter Five: Warnings

  Theo drove home with her in a silent funk. He knew he shouldn’t have said it. If he could have stopped the words coming out of his mouth, he would have. Ours. He was such a fucking idiot.

  Theo had sworn to himself, after Minya, that he would not get close to a partner again. In the haze of grief and alcoholic mourning he had doubled over with the pain of losing her and berated himself. Never again. Never again.

  He was so weak, so pathetic. Minya was barely gone. He could still remember the smell of her skin, the wispy lilt of her broken French in his ear, and now he was starting up with this new girl. Kel
sey. Silly and impulsive and American. The horror. There were so many things about her he disliked in theory, but when he took her all together, she was irresistible to him. It was frightening, the attraction he felt when she was near.

  He could push her from his thoughts, even talk himself into despising her, but then he’d see her--her cute little mouth, her shiny hair swinging in a ponytail, her compact and very American curves--and he’d want to touch her again. He even liked to talk to her, to tease her and make her mad. He wanted to know everything about her when they were together.

  And then he wanted to push her away.

  Theo dropped her off at the dorms, watching her walk to the stairwell, watching the sway of her tight, sculpted ass. He wanted to fuck that ass, fuck every hole in her body. Today she hadn’t even made him use a condom. So trusting. He could have come deep inside her and made a baby in her. He would have forced her to keep it, found a way, somehow. He didn’t even want children. He just wanted her, wanted to have power over her. Ownership of her. He wanted her.

  Disgust settled over him as soon as she was out of his line of sight. He spun his car toward home, realizing with a start that he hadn’t had a cigarette in hours. He fished one out and lit it, then forgot to take a drag. He finally tamped it out and tossed it from the window, imagining Kelsey’s tsk. She probably hadn’t littered in her life. Never crossed anywhere but a crosswalk, never mixed her whites and darks in the wash. Shit, he needed to do laundry.

  Shit. Jason Beck was standing in front of his house.

  Theo parked, glad he’d ditched his cigarette. He didn’t need any more disapproval from squeaky clean Beck than he already got on a daily basis. Since Kelsey had taken an interest in him, Beck gave him dire looks every chance he got. The coach probably wanted her for himself. It was bad form for the coaches to fuck the performers, but it happened all the time.

  Not Beck though. Jason Beck was far too proper for that. With his propriety and Kelsey’s perfectionism, they actually would have made a great couple, raising the next generation of cutters and anorexics. Theo tried to smile at the coach, but it came out a sneer.