by Hazel Hunter
With a slight grin, Sebastian stepped up to the booth, checked the air rifle carefully, and then fired three times in quick succession. Nicolette thought that he had missed, but then both she and Mathilda stared as they realized that the target had been neatly knocked over.
“Well ain't that something,” Mathilda beamed, and she went to fetch the locket for them.
“It was,” Nicolette said, raising an eyebrow at Sebastian.
He smiled at her, a slight roguish gleam in his eye. In the light of the setting summer sun, she could now see that they were blue, but pale and icy where hers were dark.
“No past, remember?” he said gamely, and she could only nod.
When Mathilda came back with the locket, Sebastian offered it to her with a flourish, but she found herself shaking her head.
“No, put it on me,” she murmured.
She turned to give him access to the back of her neck.
Sebastian paused, and she was wondering if it was too intimate, when he stepped close. He set the necklace around her neck, and with a deft touch, he fastened it behind her head. His fingers lingered at her nape, and then he brushed his lips against the downy area at the base of her neck.
“Too much?” he whispered in her ear, and the low rumble of his voice sent shivers along her spine.
“Not at all,” she murmured, and she took his hand again.
The circus had been her home for more than a year now, and she knew it like she knew her Tarot cards. It wasn't in her to get too friendly with the people around her, but she knew them well enough and she liked them as people. She knew where the best food was, and where the best games were.
When evening shaded towards indigo, she took Sebastian into the main tent and sat next to him. They watched as the aerialists spun over the ring, and they both laughed when the clowns toppled and rolled through the sawdust.
“No lions and tigers?” asked Sebastian, and she shook her head.
“Nope, Mr. Carson got rid of them ages ago. He decided it was cruel, and that things like lions and tigers should be free. You'll see the horses soon, though, and they're just amazing.”
It was one of the things that had given her a good feeling about the circus when she joined up. Roy Carson was a short man with a ferocious temper, and even when things were going well, he was inclined to shout. It had startled her at first, but then she realized it was just his way and felt much more at home. He didn't want to see free things in cages, and that was fine by her.
The idea of cages sent a trickle of chilling memory down her spine, and she shivered, shaking it off. Go away, she thought to her memories. You don't get me tonight. There are things I want to do tonight.
As if he read her mood, Sebastian threw his arm around her shoulders. Against his lean bulk, she felt calmer. If she was a different person, she would have said that she felt safe, but she knew what an illusion that was. Underneath his clothes, she could feel how muscular he was, and inquisitively, she ran her fingers along his ribs.
Sebastian made a sound that reminded her of Karas's irritated chuff, and he glanced down at her.
“Are you trying to tickle me?” he asked, amused.
She smiled up at him with innocence.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “What would you do if I said I was?”
“Tickle you right back,” he murmured. “Maybe hold you still and try to find all the places that were the most…sensitive.”
His words warmed her like good brandy, and at that moment, she was tired of being afraid of old ghosts and fears. She pressed against him, and when she saw that he was looking down at her, paying no attention at all to the trick riders, she knew that he felt the same way.
“Sebastian, do you want to kiss me?”
She said it so quietly that at first she wasn't sure that he had heard her. Then his mouth dropped to hers, and she forgot all about the people around them.
She had been kissed before, and she even guessed that she had been kissed by men who knew how, but this was something else. There was something so gentle about the way he touched his mouth to hers. But there was an undercurrent of sensuality to it as well. It was a tender kiss, but she could feel the restraint under which he held his body. She could tell how easily it could erupt into passion, and fury, and want.
Be very sure you want this, the voice of reason said in her head. Be oh so sure you can let this genie out of the bottle.
There's no past and no future tonight, Nicolette reminded herself. There's only us, only what we want, only what we are right now.
As the applause for the trick riders rose to a crescendo, she took his hand in hers and tugged.
“Come on, I want to show you something.”
CHAPTER NINE
As Nicolette led Sebastian away from the big top, he wondered for a moment what he thought he was doing. He knew what his duty was, and it was not this. He wanted to stop her, to tell her who he was and why he had come to see her, but his mind was fogged by her loveliness, by the way she moved and the way she looked at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her what he was and why he was there, but then she glanced back at him, and that soft, sweet smile wiped it from his head.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow would be enough time to tell her what he was. They had both decided that there was no past and no future, and right now, all he knew was that he wanted her.
“This is the boneyard,” she said, indicating the trailers that were parked in a tidy row.
These were the actual living quarters of the people who worked in the circus, and there was something special about seeing the way they lived, not the thing that they presented. She paused at a small trailer that looked indistinguishable from the rest, and unlocked the door.
“Is this yours?” he asked, looking around.
It would have been small enough for her, but the cot looked like it might collapse if he tried to rest any weight on it.
She grinned at him.
“Don't worry so much about it. I'm not going to try to get you to cram yourself in here. I just wanted to drop by for a few things.”
She disappeared into the trailer, and when she came out, she was carrying an armful of blankets.
“Come on, there's a place I want to show you.”
Bemused, he took the blankets from her, and followed her into the night. There was a faint orange glow on the horizon from the city, but otherwise, there was a velvet indigo darkness over the fields they passed through. Fireflies were sending signals back and forth through the night, and Sebastian realized he couldn't remember the last time he had been outside without the threat of violence.
The Magus Corps kept him busy, and that was the way he preferred it, but there was something beautiful and peaceful about what he was doing. At the moment, he was a man with nothing in front of him or behind him, and the possibilities made him ache.
When they reached a secluded spot sheltered by what was left of a stone wall, Nicolette stopped and took one of the blankets from him. Spreading them out on the ground, they made a comfortable bed. She stretched her length across them.
When he looked at her, he could see that there was something soft and waiting about her, and when he lay down beside her, she tucked her head under his chin as if they had done this a thousand times before.
“Are you happy tonight?” she whispered.
He thought for a moment. He couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him that. He found that he wanted to give her the truth. He never wanted to lie to her.
“I…I am. What about you?”
Her laugh was soft and perhaps just a touch rueful.
“I'm happy for tonight. Tomorrow, well, tomorrow can look after itself for once.”
“Nicolette…”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her what he was and what he needed her for, but when he opened his mouth to do so, she pressed her mouth to his, and he was lost.
CHAPTER TEN
Nicolette stretched the kiss out as lo
ng as she could. She never wanted to stop kissing this man. She never wanted to lift her mouth from his or to pull away from him. It had been such a long time since she had kissed someone, but she thought that this man, this night and this summer sky were all worth waiting for.
In the distance, she could hear the sounds of the thoroughfare, and on the wind, she could smell the fresh scent of summer hay. Her hand resting lightly on Sebastian's chest could feel his heartbeat, and when she finally pulled away, there was a wild look in his eyes.
“Nicolette, I have to tell you–”
“Tomorrow. It can wait until tomorrow, can't it?”
She wasn't sure that she trusted the answer in his eyes, and so she pressed him down to the blanket and rose up to straddle his thighs. She relished the feel of his body underneath hers, and the roughness of his jeans against her bare legs excited her.
“You're trouble,” he said, his voice soft and rough.
She laughed a little. “That I am,” she said. “What you need to figure out is whether I'm trouble that's worth having. I'm not making any promises or offering anything beyond tonight, but before dawn…well, I want everything with you. Do you understand?”
His hands came up to land on her bare thighs, and she shivered to feel his sure touch against her flesh. He slid them slowly up to her waist, and she could feel the strength in him, coiled and waiting. It should have made her afraid, but like so much about this strange man, she only felt safe and warm.
“I do understand, and I think you're always worth the trouble that you bring, if it's trouble at all. I think it might be something else.”
She started to ask what he meant, but then he leaned up to cup one hand around the nape of her neck and to bring her down for another kiss. This one was long and drugging, and when his tongue probed between her lips, she opened her mouth. He tasted of the caramel apple they had shared before, and of something that was indefinably unique to him. It was a taste that she could get drunk on, and she twisted slowly on top of him, writhing against him as he kissed her.
She could feel him get hard against her belly, and it made her catch her breath. His engorged manhood pressed against her, made her body ache with desire, and when she squirmed on top of him, she drew a long sigh from his lips.
“Sweetheart, the show's not going to last very long if you keep doing that.”
“Maybe I like it hard and fast,” she murmured, and his response was only a ragged laugh.
“I don't know if I want that, though,” he said.
That was all the warning she got before he tumbled her onto her back on the blankets. He rose over her, and he kissed her again. This time, he let his mouth drift from her lips to her ear, and when she tilted her head to give him more room, he nipped at her tender lobe.
“I think that if tonight is what we have, I want to stretch it out. I want to have as much of you as I can, and I want to taste you, lick you, bite you. Make you feel everything that you can. Enjoy you, and let you enjoy me.”
Nicolette tried to assemble a reply to that, but she couldn't. All that came out was a long low moan. Some part of her, the part that had been on the run for so long, that had toughed it out by being smarter, stronger and simply faster than the people who were after her, wanted to resist. It seemed too risky, too terrifying and simply too much. There was something amazing about this man, something that made her want what he was offering, and at the end, it was too much to resist.
Tomorrow she could go back to hiding. Tomorrow she could go back to being one more face in the crowd that had the handy trick of being able to read auras and to detect threat and deceit. Tonight, she was going to be exactly who she had once been before.
“Have me,” she whispered. “Take me.”
That was all he needed to hear, and his mouth dipped down to hers. The kiss blocked out the world. It consumed them both, and it sent fire running through her veins. He kissed her as if that was all they would ever do, and perhaps on another night, that would have been enough.
Nicolette tugged at the hem of Sebastian's shirt, tugging it over his head. When he was bare, she purred appreciatively as she ran her hands over his muscled flanks. She could feel scars on his body, many of them, and though the thought tugged at her, she pushed it all away.
“Beautiful man,” she crooned, and he smiled in response.
When her hand drifted lower to squeeze the growing bulge in his jeans, the laugh turned to a groan.
“Let me see you,” he whispered.
With a small smile, she pulled her own shirt over her head. In the moonlight, her skin was as pale as milk. His hungry eyes devoured her lean form, took in the faint curve of her breasts and the spareness of her frame. Like a worshiper come to a goddess, he bent his head and for one shocked moment, she thought he intended to bite her. Instead, his mouth was as soft as thistledown, and his lips brushed across her taut nipples, first one then the other. She sighed, and then when he lapped at one pink tip with the edge of his tongue, she whimpered.
Her hands on his shoulders tightened, and she tried to pull him closer.
“You want me, I can tell,” she whispered.
“And this is exactly what I want with you,” he murmured, nuzzling the tender curve of her breast. “I want you sighing and whimpering, and in a little bit, I want to feel you moan.”
This man was going to undo her with nothing but his words, and Nicolette realized that she wanted nothing more. As if sensing her urgency, Sebastian's mouth grew firmer and hungrier. He lapped a path down her ticklish flat belly, and then his strong sure hands were unbuttoning her shorts. He slid them down her legs, pausing to pull off her sandals as well, and then she was bare to him and the evening sky.
Sebastian brushed the palm of his hand over the springy dark hair between her legs, and purred with a wholly male satisfaction. She rocked her hips against his light touch. Then the very tips of his fingers were rubbing over her slit, making her hotter and wetter with every pass. She thought he would open her then, but instead his touch remained maddeningly light. She didn't realize that she was whimpering until her throat was dry. She didn't realize that her hips were moving with a beckoning motion until he stilled.
“Do you want me?” Sebastian murmured, and there was more to that question than simple need and desire.
“I do,” Nicolette murmured.
Tomorrow can take care of itself.
He pressed one finger inside her warmth, testing her wetness, and he hissed with pleasure at what he found there. He drew the wetness up to her clit, circling it with thorough care, and shivers of pleasure ran through her body.
“You…you…”
She couldn't finish the thought. There was something relentless about him now, and his touch grew firmer and more demanding. Her hands tightened on his shoulders. She knew she was leaving marks, but she simply did not care. He was drawing the pleasure from her like water from a dry land, and she wanted to give him everything.
Her climax, when it hit, struck her with the force of a revelation. Her body had never opened like this for another person. No one else had ever made it sing or strain in quite this same way. She arched under his sure touch, and when she came, she threw her head back, shouting out for the pleasure he was giving her.
When she drifted back down to her body, he was cradling her against him. She was aware of his smile, and she was aware of his engorged length nestled against her hip.
“You haven't yet,” she murmured, and he shook his head.
“I wanted to watch you first,” he said, dropping a gentle kiss on her forehead.
Her body felt warm and soft, and though there was a certain drowsiness to her movements, there was also something needy about it still.
“Take me,” she whispered, and this time, there was no hesitation.
He stripped down in a matter of seconds, and then he rose over her like a storm. She reached between his legs to measure his length in her hand, and his size and girth made her squirm. Sebastian shuddered at h
er touch, and then he pressed one knee between her thighs, spreading her open and wanting.
He sat up for a moment, and she watched with gratitude as he rolled a condom over his length. But he never took his eyes from her, and when he knelt over her again, she knew that she wanted nothing more than this man inside her.
For a heartbeat, she was afraid that she was going to be too sensitive to continue, but then the tip of his manhood brushed against her slit, teasing and questioning, and she groaned, spreading her legs even wider.
“Are you ready?” he whispered, and when she nodded, that was all the permission he needed.
He surged into her, making her moan and cling to him. He stretched her, opened her, and she wanted and needed it. She craved his proud, hot flesh inside her, and after he seated his full length inside her, he paused.
“I…want you,” he whispered, a bare edge of desperation in his voice. “I want you hard.”
Instead of frightening her, it only made her arch up against him.
“Show me,” she whispered commandingly, and with a deep groan, he withdrew almost all the way and pressed back into her.
Nicolette had never felt more raw than when he held her pinned to the ground like a prey animal he had brought to bay, and she reveled in it. She was completely under his power, and he moved over her like something that was going to devour her entirely. There was passion and beauty here, and she gave herself up to it entirely.
She dug her heels into the blanket underneath her, and she pushed back against him, matching him stroke for stroke. She felt the tremors pulse through him, and she knew it was close. Acting on instinct, she seized a handful of his thick dark hair and yanked his head down to her lips.
“I want you,” she growled. “I want you inside me, and I want this, show me what you are.”
The noise he made was barely human, and he thrust into her even harder. She wrapped her legs around his waist, drawing him deeper into her, and when he reached his crisis, he froze stock still, shaking over her.
