Master's Flame (Cirque Masters)

by Joseph, Annabel

  Because she’s sexy. Because she signed an agreement.

  Because he led a bleak and colorless life, and he had wanted her to paint it rainbow-colored for a while.

  She could get back to her artistic endeavors soon enough, and her other endeavors too, like sleeping with lots of men and throwing temper tantrums whenever life didn’t suit her. They only had one week left, seven days for him to wallow in his mastery and control. Had he changed her at all? He didn’t think so.

  At last they made their way to their seats. More than a few heads turned. The Paris art community was large, but so was the Cirque, and people knew who he was. Their eyes passed from him to the pretty young thing beside him, and he knew their thoughts, not that he cared. Age was irrelevant when it came to attraction. He glanced over at Valentina, at her slim knees pressed together beneath the crepe skirt of her dress. Two hours ago he’d spread those knees and fucked her until he came, leaving her unsatisfied. He enjoyed, sometimes, making her smolder rather than bringing her to full flame. Without thought, he reached and slid a hand down between those knees. She let out a slow, small breath.

  He could touch her wherever, whenever he wanted. He owned her, an intoxicating thought every time it presented itself. For now, he let her be; there were people all around them. When the lights went down, perhaps he’d caress her again, run a hand farther up her thigh, up to her hot, wet—

  Orchestra, Michel. Not sex.

  The musicians began to stream in from offstage, settling with their instruments into their carefully laid-out seats. They fussed with music binders and readjusted their stands, leaning to speak to one another in the casual, short check-ins of collaborative artists. Orchestra concerts weren’t so different from Cirque shows. In both cases, everyone had to work together and do their part. Michel was slated to review a few of the acts from Cirque Élémental in the morning, including Valentina’s revamped one. He believed he was perfectly capable of judging her without being influenced by their current relationship. He always put professionalism first...perhaps too much of the time.

  Why did he feel like reaching over to hold her hand?

  She leaned forward in her chair as the cacophony of tuning and warm-ups began. His spirits rose in anticipation, and she seemed affected too. You’re so similar to me, he thought. Too similar sometimes. The lights dimmed and she sat back again, her lips slightly parted. From the first chords of Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C Major, Valentina was gripped.

  He had known she would be. Mozart’s music wasn’t only for the ears, but for the soul. As the music soared and complex melodies played against each other, Valentina’s eyes grew wider and wider. Her hand gripped the armrest, then she looked over at him with an expression of wonder that made every frustration worthwhile. Forty-five minutes later, as the symphony concluded with booming brass and a sweeping crescendo of notes, she still stared in wonder.

  The audience broke into applause and so did she, effusive, noisy clapping that was so very Valentina-like. He stifled a smile. “There’s more, you know,” he said when she finally piped down. “It’s only intermission.” He took her hand and propelled her out of her chair, and dragged her down the row, over knees and shoes, not caring.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Wherever I want, yes?” he said, turning back to her with a raised brow.

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered. Perhaps she worried he would make her leave. He could be ornery and cruel but he wasn’t that cruel.

  “Come this way,” he said when they reached the lobby. He knew the Paris Opera House like he knew his own headquarters. He led her down a corridor and past an usher he silenced with a quelling stare. Another turn, and then he ducked with her into an unused dressing room. He took her over by the far wall. On the other side, one could hear the faint sounds of instrument tuning and casual chatting. She looked up at him, awed.

  “It’s them.”

  Them. The musicians she saw as amazing, superhuman, when she herself could do things none of them could ever hope to do. “You ought to have gone to a concert before now,” he said, taking her face between his palms. “They have them everywhere.”

  “I don’t know why—” she began, but he cut off her words when he pressed his lips to hers. He tasted her, shoving a hand into the mass of her hair, then curling his fingers into her nape. She wasn’t the only one affected by fine music and talent. Her little gasps were new notes, her moans a lovely melody, if a simple one. She arched into him and her hands crept up his front, flattening against the lapels of his suit.

  He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer, and kissed her harder because he couldn’t fuck her, because he couldn’t do all the things he wanted to do to her before the end of intermission. But later...

  He thrust a rough hand between her legs, pushing aside her panties to stroke her pussy. She moaned louder, shuddering in his arms. On the other side of the wall, one of the musicians murmured something and another replied. From farther away, a shout of laughter, then the voice of the stage manager giving the five-minute warning.

  “Arrête,” he muttered, and he was talking to himself, because if anyone was out of control at the moment, it was him. He pulled her skirt back down and tore his lips from hers, and shoved his finger in her mouth instead. “You’re all over me now, damn you. Lick it off.”

  She sucked his finger with abandon. Dieu, not helping. He pulled it away with an audible “pop” and took her by the elbow. “It’s time to return to our seats. You want to see the rest of the concert, don’t you?”

  For a moment, she hesitated, her eyes hazy with lust. But then a long, sweet note sounded from the adjacent room and she remembered where she was.

  “Yes, please, Master. I want to see the rest of the concert.”

  He could drag her home right now. He could use her to his heart’s content. He was the Master, after all, and she was his slave, existing only to serve his needs. Instead he led her back out to the main floor and to their seats in the third row, feeling hot and confused, and inordinately proud of his self-control.

  Chapter Twelve: No

  By the end of the concert, he had gone from feeling casually amorous to feeling crazed with desire. He steered her out to the pavement for the twenty minute stroll to his house. They walked along Rue Cambon and through the gardens of the Champs-Élysées, Valentina prattling the entire time about music and notes and how she was definitely going to learn the violin, or perhaps the drums, or perhaps the trumpet, or perhaps... She left off and leaned down to catch a stray leaf blowing by.

  “No,” he said.

  She straightened, dropping it back again. It was a lovely scarlet red, so out of place in the winter landscape. He relented. One more week.

  “Go on,” he said. “You can use it on some self-portrait or other.”

  She picked it up with a sheepish expression that made him feel ashamed he’d stopped her in the first place. “Do you have a pocket?” he asked when she looked down, holding the thing between her fingertips.

  “No, Master.”

  He held out a hand and she placed it in his palm. He slid it inside his coat pocket, then came up with something else...a makeup-smeared handkerchief. Sara’s. He couldn’t remember putting it in this coat but he supposed he had. He jammed it back down again, not before Valentina had seen it with her hyper-observant gaze.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Nothing that concerns you. A keepsake. Something I carry around to remind myself I’m human.”

  “I need one of those.”

  He looked over at her. “Do you?”

  “Doesn’t everyone? It’s a good thing, to remember you’re human.”

  She hadn’t the slightest idea what he’d meant, and anyway, she already had a keepsake, a thousand of them probably, one of which rested in his pocket, red and crisp and criss-crossed with tiny veins.

  They turned onto Avenue Montaigne and down the side street to his house. “What have you drawn in
your sketchbook this week, ma mignonne?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” she said, looking uncomfortable.

  “Are there many pages left?”

  “Some.”

  He let the subject drop. It surprised him when she was reluctant to talk about something, since she tended to go on and on. He wanted her to talk about music again, about her vaunted hopes and dreams which might or might not amount to anything. The Cirque offered college programs. She could study music if she liked, for the future, when her body didn’t allow her to walk on air anymore. She could study art if she wanted, and still work for Cirque in some design capacity long past the time her athletic skill gave way. He thought of her old and incapable, and shook it out of his mind. When she was old, he would be older, eighteen years older to be precise.

  It suddenly seemed to him that time was his enemy. Every minute it took to get to his house, wasted. Seven days. That was all he had left. He fell on his slave just inside the door, ripping off her delicate dress, making quick work of her lacy bra and panties. She responded to him as if she’d expected this, taking his groping, grasping assault in stride. He unzipped and fisted his cock, then shoved it inside her pussy, shuddering at the tight hotness of her. Electric arousal swarmed his pelvis and his balls, and he thought he could never be deep enough inside her, no matter how much he hurt her or pleasured her.

  Merci, she whispered, clutching at him, and he thought, quoi? Merci? Why was she thanking him? For ripping her dress? For taking her to the concert? For holding her leaf in the pocket of his coat, now discarded on the foyer floor?

  She gazed at him, stroking his shoulders, running her fingers up into his hair. He captured her hands because he didn’t want her affectionate caresses, but he couldn’t take away the starry adulation in her gaze.

  “Stop,” he said, gripping her hands hard. “Control yourself.”

  “It’s only...I hear music even now. I hear music in the way you make love to me.”

  He pulled away with superhuman effort, a chill chasing the heat of his passion. “Making love? Is that what we’re doing?”

  Her lip trembled. He would always remember it, that little tremble in her lower lip.

  “You’re my slave,” he said. “Not my lover. I think you’d better remember that.”

  She stared up at him, the night’s magic fading from her gold-hazel eyes. Michel watched it happen, feeling actual, physical pain that he’d caused it.

  “I just want to fuck you,” he said in a rough voice. “Just lie there and let me fuck you. And don’t come. I don’t want you to come tonight.”

  A beat, and then her soft, accented voice. “Yes, Master. I serve you.”

  She blinked and blinked, turning her face away from him. He let her, because to take her chin and force her to look at him...that would cause him more pain, and he didn’t like feeling pain. He focused on the pleasure instead, the pleasure of holding her down and having his way. At least, he thought it was pleasure he felt. She messed him up so badly sometimes, he wasn’t totally sure.

  *** *** ***

  Valentina lay in bed later, in her cage, clutching her pillow to her face. She wasn’t going to cry. She absolutely wasn’t. She knew he could see her and she’d embarrassed herself enough for one night. It wasn’t only the aching horniness that upset her...the fact that he’d left her purposely unsatisfied. It was his coldness and anger, his insistence on keeping her cut off from the mystery and wonder of his inner self, his emotions and feelings. There was a line around her Master’s heart and she wasn’t allowed to cross it.

  Why? Why was he like that? And how could she love him so much when he held her at arms’ length? Sometimes it seemed he had no interest in her beyond controlling her and fucking her, and while the controlling and fucking turned her on, some gaping hole was opening inside her soul that she wasn’t sure would ever be healed.

  His touch still excited her every bit as much as it had the first time he took her hand. She still got that butterfly feeling in her stomach when he talked to her, or looked at her, or even just sat beside her at their oddly formal dinners. But to reach out and touch him...to even suggest they made love...that infuriated him, when in her heart she knew they sometimes made love.

  And the concert, what was up with that? He’d done it for her, and kissed her during the intermission like a lover, and then brought her home and fucked her like a whore, and sent her off to bed in her cold iron cage.

  Ugh. Tears came against all her intentions. She turned away from the camera and pressed her palms against her eyes, and tried to think about something else. Her leaf. She had to remember to get it back from him at some point, or maybe she wouldn’t, because it would remind her of this night when he’d both thrilled her and broken her heart. But he does not define you, Valentina. When he lets you go, you’ll still be you.

  Or would she? Tomorrow she had to perform for her Master, expose not just her body, but her very being as an artist for his critique. If his opinion was negative, it would kill her. She played one of the main characters in his show, so even after her time as his slave was up, she would still be part of his life. As long as she stayed with Cirque, she would be part of his life, and he part of hers. She screwed her eyes shut, wiping away tears. Maybe she should go through the steps of her act in her head. That would distract her.

  She welcomed Adei, Andrew, Roman, and Danil into her thoughts, picturing their formations, the skills when they lifted her or tossed her in the air, the way they caught her, the moment when she did the arabesque on Adei’s hand, where she would have done a few flips if Jason wasn’t such a stick in the mud. She scrunched up her face, angry that the tears wouldn’t stop. Even now, all she could think of was her Master watching from the sidelines, frowning. Scowling at her.

  “Valentina.”

  She turned. He stood beside the bed, unlocking her cage. He still wore the clothes from the concert, his tailored shirt and suit pants. She swiped at her cheeks, embarrassed to be caught crying, but he snapped at her, “Leave them.”

  She obeyed, blinking out more tears as he took her hands and buckled cuffs around her wrists. He hooked the cuffs to bars on either side of the bed so she was trapped on her back. Only then did he sit beside her and brush fingers through her hair, and smooth his thumbs over the trails of tears on her cheeks. A tender gesture, but his eyes weren’t tender. He stretched out on the mattress beside her and took an mp3 player and earbuds from his pocket. He put one of the earbuds in her ear, and the other in his, and laid his head next to hers.

  “Listen to this,” he said.

  She was his slave. Her job at moments like these was to accept what he asked of her. The strains of a classical music concerto swelled in her ear, complex and beautiful, but she couldn’t enjoy it, not when he was in one of these moods. Why was she restrained by the cuffs? Why was he lying beside her, fully clothed, so detached, not touching her? His gaze swept over her body, then he reached down and used one hand to shove her legs open.

  Just like that, she was aching. Wet.

  But he wasn’t going to fuck her, not while he was fully dressed. Not this again. Not more arousal when he wasn’t going to let her come. Or maybe he’d let her come. She stared into his eyes but there were no clues there, nothing but a slow blink and his glacial blue gaze. He squeezed both her thighs, then delved his fingers between her pussy lips, to the wetness there.

  “Handel,” he said with his French lilt. “The greatest composer of all time.”

  The music had turned mournful, or perhaps wistful. He stroked her clit, smoothing her pussy juices over the swollen, unsatisfied flesh. If she could have grabbed his hand and made him stop she would have. Instead, she started crying again, noisy, hot tears in time to the flutes and violins in her ear. She wanted to hate him but she still loved him. She wanted to be unaffected by his sensual caresses but her hips started to move. She drew her legs together, trying to force his fingers away.

  “No.” He pushed them apart again and slapped t
he inside of each thigh, once, twice, three times, the blows harsh and discordant compared to the pretty music in her ear. “Keep them open, damn you.”

  She whimpered, tears running down the sides of her face. The stinging heat of his slaps only increased her arousal. His lips were set in a grim line as he masturbated her for his own thrills. There was a point to this, and it had nothing to do with her.

  She knew for sure he wasn’t going to let her come.

  She steeled herself not to play along this time. She tried to shut off her nerve centers where he teased her so mercilessly, light, stroking touches over her swollen button. Instead he moved to her nipples, her super-sensitive nipples that betrayed her every time. Each pinch, each tap of the taut buds created a deeper pulse in her pussy and clit. She squeezed on nothingness, her whole consciousness centered on her arousal and his deft, teasing touch. Don’t feel. Don’t feel anything. But that was impossible for her and he knew it. She met his gaze with her most pleading expression. “Please, please let me—”

  “No.”

  Her eyes felt itchy and achy. She wished she could stop crying, or at least wipe the current tears away. She tossed her head from side to side, fighting in the only way she could. She wanted to come so badly. She was so close. If only he’d touch her a little harder, stroke her more steadily. If only he’d touch her nipples again. If he’d only...ohhh...

  His hand left her just at the peak of her apex, before she could ease into climactic release. He took the earbud from his ear and sat up, and placed it in hers, so the music sounded twice as beautiful and twice as clear.

  “I hate Handel,” she cried over the scales in her ear. “I hate Handel and I hate you.”

  His hand went to his waist, to the buckle of his belt. “I hope so, mignonne. It’s good for you to hate me sometimes.”

  She whimpered as he doubled over the belt and grabbed her legs. He wrenched them up into the air, holding them against his side. With his other hand he punished her, delivering sharp, brisk strokes to the backs of her thighs and the sensitive underside of her ass. It hurt too badly to scream. All she could do was make frantic, gasping cries until he stopped. It wasn’t a long beating, only eight or nine licks. A long beating would have diffused all the needful pressure in her pussy and given her some respite. Instead, he left her with a raging horniness she couldn’t control.