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She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. It took all her willpower not to arch her pussy against his palm. “You’ve turned me into a bad girl, Theo,” she whispered.
He looked down at her lips and kissed her softly once. Twice. He drew back and looked at her while one slow finger slid up her cleft, over her clothes, to come to rest on one throbbing spot. “No, I just let the bad girl who was always inside you come out into the light. Little black ladybug,” he murmured, breathing soft against her lips.
Oh, Theo. She was so enamored of him. It was true. She felt him everywhere. Felt his teasing, probing finger, felt the pulse of his heartbeat in his shoulder where her head still rested. Felt his hard stomach and strong thigh sliding against hers. He pulled away and looked down at her.
“Michel asked for permission to play with you.”
Kelsey’s mind reeled, jolted from sensual relaxation to alarm. “What-- Really? Uh. Why would he ask you and not me?”
Theo shrugged. “Because you are mine. In this, you are. Until you leave me for another, or leave the life.”
“The life?”
“All this. The dominance and submission. The power exchange.”
“Until I leave the circus?”
“The Citadel. And the circus, yes.”
“Or until you let me go.”
“I’ll never let go of you, Kelsey.”
He said it so easily, so matter of factly, that her breath caught. She stared at him. He stared back, as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary.
“Um. Okay. Well, what did you tell him?”
“That you weren’t ready yet. You aren’t. But I think you would find it an interesting experience.”
“What would he do to me?” Kelsey asked.
“Ah, that’s the joy of playing with Le Maître. You never know. Nothing dangerous. He would do what I do. Take power from you. Stoke desires you never knew you had. It’s what he lives for. This circus, these shows, they are his never-ending fantasy. His compulsion to confront people and make people feel. Yes, he is dangerous...but not dangerous.”
Kelsey digested that information. “So when will you-- What will you tell him-- When will you tell him my answer?”
“I’ve already told him your answer is yes, because I knew it would be. As for when you’ll be ready, well... We’ll see. You have a few more things to learn.”
With those words, he rolled over to look back up at the sky. Kelsey felt alarm, yes, but more curiosity.
“Did you take Minya to play with him?”
“You are not Minya,” Theo said sharply.
“I know. But did you?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “A few times.” Then he clamped his mouth shut, and Kelsey sensed that was the end of the conversation. She lay back too, beside her dominant, and studied the constellations. Snake. Ladybug. No. She saw a wolf instead, a dragon, and a falcon that could be Theo, swooping down and carrying her away in his grasp. Sailing around the sky in circles with her, as they did on the silks. It was maybe ten minutes or more before he spoke to her again.
“Stay away from Wayne. Your gymnast friend.”
Kelsey didn’t understand Theo’s animosity for Wayne, not for a moment. She’d never known a nicer guy in her life. “Why are you going to put me in the path of a ‘dangerous’ person like Lemaitre, and warn me away from someone harmless like Wayne?”
“He’s not harmless. He’s dishonest.”
“Oh, and you’ve never lied to me?”
“No. Not once. I don’t lie.” His lip curled in derision. “I’d rather not say anything than lie and deceive.”
“Wayne doesn’t lie either. He’s never lied to me.”
Theo looked over at her, a hard gaze. Her gypsy king, eyes blazing dark. “Every time he looks at you, he lies. His voice when he speaks to you. Lies. Deception. You think he is a better man than me, I know. In some ways, maybe he is. But with me, you know--”
“Know what?” Kelsey prompted when he fell silent.
“With me, you know--” He stopped again, his face screwed up in frustration. “Just watch out for the red ladybugs,” he said, and then flopped on his other side, giving her his back.
Chapter Ten: Control
“So, what’s going on with you and Theo Zamora?”
Kelsey looked at Wayne over the top of her menu.
“What do you mean?”
She and Wayne were having dinner at a local corner bistro, the best they could seem to do between rehearsals, workouts, and their other social obligations. Like her ongoing obligations to the topic of the conversation.
Wayne gave her a piercing look. “I don’t know, Kelsey. He acts like he’s in charge of you. Is he?”
Kelsey closed the menu and put it down, choosing her words carefully. “Well, he’s my coach now. He’s in charge of my act. So he’s kind of in charge of me, yeah.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Thankfully, the waitress came at that moment to take their orders. They bumbled through the process with their terrible, hatchet-job French and Kelsey missed Theo’s smooth fluency when he took her out. But Theo was Theo, and this was Wayne from Cali, and they were just friends. Or was it her and Theo who were just friends? Wayne was staring at her again.
“What was your question?”
“I’m just wondering if Theo is your official dominant. To speak plainly.”
“Well, then, yes. To speak plainly. He is.”
Wayne seemed perturbed to hear it. “Is he anything more? I mean, do you just play at the club together? Or are you two in an actual relationship?”
Great question. Who the fuck knows? “We’re very close, but not in a formal relationship. That’s the best answer I can give you.”
Wayne made a face. “I’m surprised you trust him. I mean, far enough to do power exchange with him, much less the rest.”
“We do an act together sixty feet off the ground. Of course I trust him.” Wayne made another face and Kelsey wondered what the hell was going on. “What’s so wrong with him? Why shouldn’t I trust him?”
Wayne took a drink and leaned closer. “To begin with, he dropped his partner. She died, Kelsey.”
“Duh. That was an accident. Not his fault.”
“But was it an accident? You haven’t been in Paris, so you don’t know this, but they’ve opened an investigation. Minya’s parents wanted to know why the safety line didn’t catch. But when the police came to confiscate the equipment, it had been destroyed. Lemaitre wouldn’t produce it. He said they destroyed it because of--get this--superstition. He told the police the safety cables were
tainted and he couldn’t risk them being used again.”
“And the police accepted that?”
“What else could they do?” Wayne’s eyes scanned the restaurant before returning to her. “Although, if we’re going to talk about tainted...your partner...”
“He’s not tainted.”
“Are you sure of that? Those safety cables don’t break, so you connect the dots.”
“You think someone cut them? But who would do that? Not Theo.”
Wayne shrugged. “We’ll never know now. But the Chinese government is involved and everything. Minya and her family are national treasures. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese authorities showed up in Marseille to talk to Theo.”
Kelsey felt unsettled. She hadn’t heard about any of this. “So they thought--they suspect--”
“I don’t know if you realize how tight your partner and Lemaitre are. Funny, for those cables to go missing.”
Kelsey knew there was no way Theo had cut the safety line. It was inconceivable. But one tiny niggling doubt weasled its way into her chest and made it just a little bit harder to breathe for a moment. She remembered the cool way he’d treated Minya the night of that show, his apparently troubled mood. In hindsight...
“No,” Kelsey said. “I don’t believe it. He’s a really cautious partner. He’s really a stickler for safety,” she added, remembering the time he’d slapped her for letting go too early.
“Maybe so,” said Wayne. “But I heard he and Minya were on the outs for a few weeks before it happened. That Theo was looking into finding a new partner, a new act.” He arched a brow at her. “Maybe he’d already found the one he wanted. Maybe he ‘dropped’ Minya so he could create an act with you.”
Kelsey threw up her hands. “Ridiculous. If he wanted a new act, he could have just said so. He didn’t have to kill off his partner. And I guarantee he wasn’t angling to do an act with me. Not by a long shot.”
Wayne shrugged. “Okay, sure. Maybe you’re right.”
“Anyway, you seem to be ‘hearing’ a lot of things a lot of places. What are you, the Cirque du Monde hearsay pipeline?”
Wayne looked annoyed for a moment before his face relaxed into more jovial lines. “Whatever. Don’t let me freak you out. If he’s a good partner to you--in both arenas--I’m happy for you.”
