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“It’s just dinner at his place. You never come out and do anything with us, or with Theo and Kelsey. Why don’t you be social for once?”
He gave a huge sigh. “When are we going home?”
“As soon as dinner’s over, I guess.”
“No, not home here. Home to Mongolia. How long are you going to keep this up? Do you realize how unhappy I am here? Do you even care? Do you care about anything but your handsome American? I want to go home. I’ll do this for a year, no more.”
Sara stared at him. “You signed a three-year contract, Baat.”
He kicked the table leg. “I can leave any time, so can you. The contract is a joke. This is circus.”
“It’s not just circus. It’s Cirque du Monde. Why are you doing this? Whining and acting stupid, when we found a place with the best circus in the world?”
“The best circus in this part of the world,” he snapped back at her. “What about our circus back home? You left, turned your back on everyone for this fancy, convoluted nonsense. Because of your blue eyes and your hunger for European men. The circus in Ulaanbaatar will fail by winter. Chuluun told me.”
Sara wondered if that was true. “If it does, it’s not my fault.”
“How will they pay their bills? Pay for food for their families? Do you enjoy being the cause of starving children?”
“Shut up.” Her voice rang out in the echoing room. When she made him angry, he got really mean. It seemed like she made him angry all the time now.
Or maybe he was just really mean.
“I’m tired of performing here,” he said. “I’m tired of performing with you.”
“Then go somewhere else.” Her temper snapped, unleashed in a tirade. “Go back to Mongolia and drink away your life. Here, we’re at the top of the heap. Cirque du Monde is professional, artistic. The circus in Mongolia was a joke.”
“Perhaps, but here, you’re a cog in the wheel,” he yelled back. “You dream of grandeur. You’re just a little dark-skinned, slanty-eyed trapezist. An exotic monkey for the owner to show off.”
She gritted her teeth. She wanted to scream at him to shut up, to stop drinking and pull his shit together. She needed Baat with the same intensity that she hated him. She wished she could shout at him to fuck off, but without him she didn’t have an act.
“They won’t want you without me, you know,” he said, reading her thoughts. “You can’t do any of those tricks without me.”
“And you can’t do any tricks without me,” she shot back. “So go back to Mongolia. The reason you’re here is because you’re nothing without me. Just like I’m nothing without you. It goes both ways.”
“I’d be fine without you.”
She stuck out her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. “Who would you perform with back in Ulaanbaatar?”
“Anyone. You think you’re so special? There are gymnasts everywhere, trapezists lighter and stronger than you. You aren’t indispensable. You’re not even pretty. So I wouldn’t count on a career at Cirque du Monde without me.”
His words fell on her, piling up and piling up, until she felt like she was suffocating. It had gotten to the point where she didn’t even like the sound of his voice. “Please go,” she cried. “I’m taking a break. I need quiet. I want you to stay away from me while we’re not working.”
“I won’t, if I don’t want to.” He scoffed, spitting on the carpeted floor.
“This isn’t a yurt, Baat. It’s a conference room. Don’t be disgusting.”
He turned on his heel and left, muttering derogatory things about her under his breath. It would probably be better for her sanity if he went back to Mongolia, taking his dark glares, his harsh words, and his emotional blackmail with him. But if he left, where did that leave her? There was a lot of competition at Cirque. Without an act, what would she be worth?
“I hate you,” she whispered in the silence of the room. “I wish you’d stop being an asshole. I wish you’d be the Baat you used to be.” She loved the old Baat, who’d been a mentor and a brother to her. She didn’t know if he’d ever be back.
* * * * *
Jason stared across the table at his naked slave, posed gracefully in her chair. Did she realize how enticing she looked? He’d made her cook naked and eat naked, and now she sipped her after-dinner tea naked.
Ah, that mouth of hers.
They’d been together a month now, but she was so open, so giving that it seemed like longer. She revealed her heart to him at the most intimate moments, and he…he was falling hard for her. He tried to guard against it because her future was unsettled, but then she’d give him a look or reveal some secret longing, and he’d fall a little more.
Then there was the sex, the hours-long BDSM scenes. The horny, capricious rules, like requiring her to be naked while he stayed fully dressed. They maintained this clothing differential whenever they were alone together because it turned both of them on, and because it emphasized her status as his slave. They pulled the drapes closed and went about their business, doing all the things normal couples did, except that she wasn’t allowed clothing. He’d memorized every detail of her luscious body by now, from her curves to her exotic features, to the dusky olive tone of her skin. Her nakedness seduced him more than any fetish wear or negligee ever could.
Now that they’d been tested and she was on birth control, he could take advantage of her nakedness anytime, anywhere, and he did. He took her on the couch, on the floor, in the shower. On the dining room table in the middle of a meal.
But not today. She’d put so much effort into cooking him Mongolian-style lamb and dumplings, and roasting vegetables, and brewing aromatic milk tea.
“I feel like I’m back in Ulaanbaatar. All that’s missing is the alcohol,” he said, winking at her. “And my drunken haze.”
“You were cute in that drunken haze, but I like you better sober.”
“I was ‘cute,’ was I?”
She blushed, ducking her head. “Cute in a very dominant way.”
They shared a laugh, both of them lingering in the candlelight. He tried to make time every day to talk and learn more about her. She had a tendency to shyness around him, and he wanted to bring her out of her shell. The urge was always for bed, for slave games and kneeling, but there was a certain titillation in making her sit and converse with him too.
“What do you miss most about Mongolia?” he asked.
She looked around the items on the table. He hoped she wouldn’t name a food. He wasn’t talking about those kinds of things. She hugged herself and glanced over his shoulder. “I suppose I miss the cool air. It’s hot in Paris.”
“In the summer, yes. Cooler days will come in a few months.”
She looked at him and they both remembered—she might be on some other continent come winter. They hadn’t talked about their future together. It seemed too soon to make plans, but time was flowing so fast.
“Baat hates the weather here,” she said, a neat avoidance of the topic. “He can’t get used to it.”
“I don’t think he wants to get used to it.”
She frowned, picking at a corner of her napkin. “I invited him to come to dinner.”
“Let me guess. He scowled and said no.” Thank God, he added silently. Jason couldn’t stand Baat, and Baat couldn’t stand him. He knew Sara and Jason were in a relati
onship and he didn’t approve. It got to the point where Baat refused to practice when Jason was around, asking, rightfully, what business Jason had in the aerial facility. Then there was Baat’s insistence that they be placed in Las Vegas, in Cirque Brillante, probably to separate Sara from Jason. But nothing would be decided until after the Exhibition, and the big boss had the final word.
Lemaitre had suggested Brillante from the start, but that was before he’d developed his little tendre for her. Jason wondered if he’d change his mind to keep Sara close at hand. Lemaitre hadn’t made any overt passes toward her, perhaps out of respect for her and Jason’s relationship, but he showed up to her practices far more than was normal. It was because of Lemaitre that Jason hadn’t given in to Sara’s pleas to visit the Citadel—yet. The Cirque boss held court there, in a bacchanalian, BDSM-equipped back room, and one didn’t turn down an invitation to participate.
“What’s wrong?”
Sara’s quiet question drew him from his thoughts. “Nothing’s wrong. Just thinking about work stuff. And how many dumplings I ate. Too many.” He shook a finger at her. “They were too delicious. Your fault.”
She smiled her sweet, flirty smile. “I’m glad you liked them. And thanks for trying the suutei tsai, even though you didn’t like it.”
He shuddered. Mongolian milk tea didn’t taste anything like the name suggested. It mostly tasted like salt. “Sit and drink the rest of yours while I clean up.”
She only sat because he ordered her to. Otherwise she’d be fluttering around him trying to do everything like a good slave girl. Honestly, there wasn’t much to do. She cooked as neatly as she did trapeze combinations.
“So, what kind of work stuff are you thinking about?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Are you worrying about me again? Why don’t we both agree that your Master can take care of his own career? Just as you take care of yours,” he added, collecting the plates.
