“Good day?” he asked, offering resistance to help her stretch her legs. “Is it what you’d hoped?”
“It’s beyond anything I dreamed of. The lights, the big windows, the beautiful equipment.”
Sad, to find standard equipment “beautiful,” but Jason supposed it was, if you weren’t used to having it. To her, it was luxurious, a miracle. He realized how spoiled all of them had become.
“Wait until you’re performing in a show,” he said, pushing back her other leg. “With the costumes and makeup, and the special effects, and the cool props.” He studied her as she relaxed into her stretch. Her muscles were strong, slender. Perfect. He wanted to rip off her clothes and thrust inside her, gripping her neck, whispering in her ear. He tried to refocus his thoughts to the conversation. “You’re with Cirque du Monde now. We’re state-of-the-art. And Lemaitre’s taken a shine to you.” At her confused look, he clarified. “That means he likes you. He thinks you’re good. Sara...just...be careful.”
She gazed at him, guileless as a baby deer. “Careful of what?”
Careful of Lemaitre. Careful of your beautiful spirit. Don’t be too brave. “Just...be careful of everything,” he said. “Until you’re settled in.”
“Mr. Lemaitre said he would get Baat to come.”
He could see the tension beneath the hopeful expression on her face. “Mr. Lemaitre has a talent for persuasion, so your partner should arrive shortly. In the meantime, Theo will keep you on your toes.”
“On my toes?” Her brow wrinkled in confusion again.
“It’s an expression, to keep someone sharp, on their toes. Your English sounds so natural, I forget it’s not your first language.”
“My mother used to help me before she died. She spoke English and a little French. Before me, she traveled with her family’s act all over the world.” She hugged her knees to her chest. “Of course, in those days, there was no Cirque du Monde.”
“She would have been proud of you.”
Sara didn’t answer. She looked a little peaked. He wanted to take her in his arms, comfort her, but he didn’t dare do it in front of everyone. “Do you like your new place? Your new apartment?”
“It’s wonderful. But I miss you,” she said softly.
He slid a look at Theo, who was eavesdropping on their conversation with a bemused grin. “Do you want to see a show tonight?” he asked, angling away from him. “A Cirque du Monde show? There’s one here in Paris.”
All her sadness fled, chased away by an excited smile. “Of course I want to see it.” She turned to Theo. “Will you come too? So I can meet your wife?”
“Not tonight, ma brillante.” With those words, he nodded to both of them and walked off.
Sara turned to Jason with a questioning gaze. “What did he call me? Mob-bree-yawn?”
“Ma brillante. Do you know the English word, ‘brilliant’?” Jason shrugged. “Take it as a compliment.”
“He looked upset.”
“He doesn’t care for Cirque Tsilaosa.” Jason couldn’t tell her why. He couldn’t tell Sara that Theo had dropped his trapeze partner in that show a couple years ago and that she’d died, because Theo was Sara’s coach now and she needed to have faith in him. Theo hadn’t really dropped Minya anyway, only lost her. It happened. What had Lemaitre said? Timing is everything in trapeze.
“Don’t worry about Theo,” he said, standing and taking her hand. “He doesn’t like Tsilaosa, but I’m sure you will.”
Chapter Five: Dream
Sara sat across the table from Jason, in a beautiful bar on a beautiful Parisian street, in a beautiful dress she’d borrowed from her neighbor at the dorm. She barely sipped the Kir Royale he’d ordered her. It was bubbly and sweet, but she was too excited to drink.
She’d just watched her first ever Cirque du Monde show, and she had no words to describe the magic. This was what she’d ached for all those years in her dreary circus tent, even though she never realized until now that it existed.
“Don’t you like it?” Jason asked, pointing to her drink. “I can get you something else.”
“It’s good. I’m just...still...” She shook her head, at a loss for words.
“It’s okay to be overwhelmed,” he said in his deep, soothing voice. Then he fell silent, studying her. She felt hot all over when he looked at her that way. She was falling so hard for him, but then, that was only natural, wasn’t it? If not for Jason, she wouldn’t be sitting here. She’d be back in Mongolia serving drinks at a sex club and waiting to do another pathetically amateur show. She didn’t realize back then how awful their show was. Her face burned, remembering Jason’s praise backstage, his excitement, when in his head he must have been comparing their circus to the splendor of a production like Tsilaosa.
“I owe you so much.” It was all she could think to say.
“You don’t owe me anything.” He took a sip of his drink and pushed back his hair. Sometimes he wore it in a ponytail but mostly it was loose. It made him look wild and a little dangerous.
“We need to talk,” he said abruptly. “About us. About our thing together, about what happens now.”
“I want to be your slave.” The words came out before she even thought them.
“I know.” She felt his hand under the table, tracing her knee and then closing on her thigh in a tight grip. “I want that too. I’ve had lovers, little one. A fair amount. I’m thirty-four, twelve years older than you. I’ve been around, played in vanilla relationships and Dom/sub relationships and Master/slave relationships. None of them have ever made me feel the way you do.”
He meant what he said, she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tightening of his fingers on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.
“But...”
There was a but. Sara didn’t want a but.
“But you and I have known each other less than a week. And in that week, everything in your life has turned upside down. You should take some time to get your bearings, to be sure. Because once you’re mine...”
“I’m already yours.”
His eyes bored into her, hard ocean blue. She put her hand over his and traced the tops of his fingers. “When I’m near you, I want to be yours,” she said. “When I see you, I’m overcome with...with this feeling of need, of desire. I’ve never felt that with anyone else.”
His fingers slid up, farther along her thigh. She tensed and drew in a shuddering breath.
“Don’t react to what I’m doing,” he said. “People will notice.”
She tried to maintain a neutral expression as his fingertips inched to the gusset of her panties. The café tablecloth hid his actions but she had much more trouble hiding her reactions, especially when his fingers slipped under the material and caressed her smooth pussy lips.
“Open your legs.”
She did, and then he said, “Wider,” so she had to shift on the seat to comply. Her whole body trembled from the effort of keeping still. She wanted to moan and whisper to him, I’m yours, I’m yours. Take me. But she didn’t have to say anything. She was wet for him, so wet that his fingers slid inside without the least resistance. She brought her hand to her mouth and bit down on a nail so she wouldn’t cry out.
“You see?” she said. “How I feel for you?”
“Yes, I see.”
“Please...Master,” she whispered.
His fingers moved in her, forward and back, a pulse of possession. “Here’s the thing. I’ve played before, done this for fun, but you don’t inspire playfulness in me. This could be risky for both of us. You know what I mean?”
“I do trapeze for a living. I’m not afraid of anything.”