by Jordan Bell
He offered her the flower and she took it with wide, appreciative eyes. She inhaled its subtle scent and, fascinated, ran her fingers across the velvet petals.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted one of these.” And then, just to be on the safe side, she added. “Showoff.”
“I am a magician, Serafine. If you can’t make it seem impossible, it’s not worth doing.”
“Oh. Really.” She got that look in her eye, the challenge accepted gaze that made him a little nervous, and sidestepped his arms when he tried to capture her again. “Let’s test that theory, oh great and powerful illusionist.”
“Sera,” he warned but she’d already crossed half the stage and on her way she’d pulled up her long hair, twisted it into a messy bun and slid the stem of the orchid into it to hold it in place.
And then the damnable woman picked up the hem of her shirt, pulled it over her head, and pooled it on the floor at her feet.
“Let’s see, what was that you said about illusions? Ah, yes. Illusion is only a very romantic form of desire.” As casually as she brushed her hair, she shimmied the cotton yoga pants down her hips to leave them, and her shoes, on the floor by her shirt.
She kept walking away as he stalked her, predatory and confounding, teasing prey. She sidestepped the blue couch in nothing but her lacy black bra and high cut red panties. He could see the shape of her against the black back wall, all her softness and voluptuousness, sweet and innocent with a wicked smile.
“It teases with infinite possibilities.” She mimicked his first performance for her down to the words, filling him with an odd sense of pride that, even then, she’d listened to every word he’d said.
Sera drew her fingers down the line of her bra, leaving a red flush against her sensitive skin. Her body blushed easily to his hungry gaze, everything she did he analyzed, followed. It made his mouth water to taste her, but it stole his voice.
And then the tease pulled her bra straps down, worked her arms through them until her breasts fairly spilled from their confines. She turned her back on him them to unclasp the fabric restraining them and dropped it onto the floor.
Coyly, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “It creates pleasure without touch, isn’t that what you said?”
“Brat, get back here.”
“No.” She pressed her lips defiantly. “Come get me.”
He growled at the taunt, overwhelmed by the desire to tame his wild little lion. She begged for such control.
As her smug little smile replaced the sweet one, he disappeared and reappeared in front of her in the split second it took her to realize he’d gone, before she even turned around to find him there beside her. He scooped her nearly naked body into his arms and kissed her into submission.
She melted bodily into his rigid arms, becoming the pliant little lion she’d been the night before, moaning against his hungry mouth and darting, seeking, tasting tongue. She obediently turned her chin up so that he could plunge his tongue into her open, waiting mouth, pressing and licking and kissing her senseless.
She released her modest hold on her breasts and they pressed into his shirt and he could feel her hardening nipples through the fabric, peaked buds he wanted to taste. She whimpered when he broke the kiss and bent her back into his arms to capture one in his mouth, tiny candies in her vanilla sugar flavor.
While he lapped at them, he took her hands in his and pulled them up around his neck to hold him and she complied, folding her arms across his shoulders, burying her fingers into his hair. He loved the way she touched his neck, scraped her fingernails across the sensitive skin beneath his collar.
He rumbled, snaked his arms across her back to support her and very slowly lowered her into the soft velvet of the back of the couch. Her head rolled until she was nearly upside down, her spine arched, presenting her big round breasts to him in their pale, lovely glory. He played with them, touched them, fondled them. He couldn’t get enough of them or of her. Her eyes stayed closed but her mouth smiled, pressing and opening mouthing her wants and soft noises of pleasure. She was extraordinary.
Eli broke away suddenly, leaving her panting and grasping to drag him back. He lifted her out of the awkward shape, but released her as soon as she’d righted herself.
“Kneel, Sera.”
She gave him a curious look but slid down the back of the couch to kneel. He expected her to fall into a proper kneeling position, straight back, knees together, but instead they turned out, spread, and sank so she almost touched the floor. She settled her hands, fingers splayed wide, between her thighs on the floor. The pose, so fluid and self-possessed and so her took his breath away. Without knowing why at first, he plucked the orchid from her hair and let her long mane fall across her shoulders.
He stepped back and lost all sense of control.
His little lion, wild and untamed and completely lacking in discipline had never looked more beautiful gazing up at him expectantly beneath her red eyelashes. He imagined her collared in diamonds and blue velvet even though the mischief in her eyes promised not to follow directions or do as she was told. No, Serafine did not have a submissive bone in her body, but she still looked damn beautiful on her knees.
The Magician petted her, ran his fingers into her mane of curls and stroked her temple with the pad of his thumb. She made a noise of pleasure that almost sounded like a purr.
“I could stare at you all day.”
“Is that all you want to do to me? Stare?”
He scoffed. “Absolutely not.”
She stretched her chin up to him, elongating her neck and bringing all of his attention to her eyes, then, down to her breasts framed and plunging between her elbows. She licked the bow of her mouth. “I want to see magic.”
He barked a laugh as he pulled his shirt up over his head and left it somewhere behind him. Her eyes followed his body hungrily and in her eyes he felt powerful. There was nothing he couldn’t do, no trick he couldn’t conjure, nothing out of his reach.
“Extraordinary. On your knees and still so demanding.” He circled his palms and conjured a long, wide ribbon spooled in the palm of his hand. “For you, my little lion.”
She canted her head curiously and he unfurled the ribbon so she could see at hits center dangled a small silver charm in the shape of a crescent moon with a raven set inside. He crouched and wrapped it around her neck and tied it into a small bow at the back of her neck, letting the leads of ribbons trail down her naked back. Then he lifted her chin up to gaze at him.
“Because you belong with Imaginaire, and because you belong with me.”
She smiled, touched the charm, cool against her skin, and then returned her hands to the floor.
“Flowers and jewelry. I could learn to like this.”
He took her chin in his hand, firm but gentle, and tilted her head back so he could look down at her. “So, very, demanding. We’ll have to do something about that.”
She bit her bottom lip to keep from smile. “Oh yes please.”
The Magician growled and stood, swiftly unfastened his pants and dropped them so that only her underwear stood between him and what he wanted immediately. He crouched and in one fluid movement he lifted her by her knees and swept her back onto her back. She gasped and caught his shoulders, but he was already on top of her. He captured her hand, threaded his fingers through hers, and held it to the floor while he kissed her.
He had no intention twenty minutes before of taking her so informally on the floor of his stage, the cold, hard floor, but if she noticed she didn’t let it stop her. She held him, whispered her sweetest nothings against his skin. He stripped off her underwear slowly, lazily drawing it down her thighs and over her knees, brushing his fingers through her soft, tidy curls as he kissed her soundly. He captured her sighs, each of her breaths. Against her temple, the curve of her ear, he told her how beautiful she was, how she bewitched him. How she held all the power, everything he wanted.
Do you want me, she whispered.
Do you need me?
He could not slake his want of her, even as he took her on his stage, even as he impaled himself upon her, grinding against her soft body because he did not want to pull out or away. He kissed her lush mouth each time she said his name, asking him questions he couldn’t find the right words to answer. Yes, I want you, all of you. Yes I need you, now, today, forever. Sera. Serafine…my gorgeous girl…
They caught in his throat, so afraid of what they might do, or change, what tomorrow held.
With a growl, his little lion pushed him and he was so surprised by it he rolled with her until she was on top of him, straddling his waist, her fingers digging into the dragon on his chest.
“Do you want me, Eli?”
With the word want she rolled her curvaceous hips into him and dragged a gasping moan out of him. He caught her hips, prepared to still them, but couldn’t bring himself to do anything but let her have what she wanted. Who was he kidding? He’d relinquished control to her the night he met her.
“Want you? All of you.”
“And you need me?” Another roll of her hips. She lifted and slid back down upon him until he was fully seated inside her, so tight it took his breath away. He squeezed his eyes and his hands and urged her to do that again.
“Yes, my gorgeous lion, I need you. I want you. If you want magic, I will give you all the magic in the world. If you want it to snow, I will make it snow. If you want rain, I’ll bring you a thunderstorm. Ask, ask for anything and you’ll have it.”
He gasped as she curved herself back so that he had a perfect view of where he entered her, where he disappeared inside her. He ran his hands up her stretched thighs to her belly and all the way up to cup her presented breasts. This, having her here on his stage, was exactly what he’d been thinking when he’d captured her on stage that first night. He’d thought the vision was an inappropriate response to the intensity of her eyes, but he knew better. Sometimes wants were all-consuming, propriety be damned.
Eli arced up into her to meet her downward thrust and brought her moaning and bouncing back upon him. She was deliciously wet, everything fitting together as if they were made for one another. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him.
Sera caught his wrists to steady herself, her big eyes drowning in pleasure, lush and luxuriant. “I want snow. Big soft flakes. Lots of them. Give me snow, magician.”
“Anything, my God, Sera yes, ride me like that.” He rolled his head back as she sped up, taking her pleasure, giving him his, panting and glistening with sweat.
So he brought her snow. Big crystalline flakes that slowly drifted around her steaming body. She caught them on her tongue, let them kiss her eyelids and bare breasts.
“I want flower petals, all the colors, orchids and roses and daisies. I want stars. I want the sky and fireworks and blue diamonds.”
He gasped and spun her in his arms so that she was back on the ground, beneath him, writhing in ecstasy as he took her, harder now, building up with each want, each word that spilled from her mouth. He watched her lick her lips until they shined and with her eyes closed he ravished her mouth for wet kisses he couldn’t get enough of. They threaded their fingers together and he held her down and she held him to her and he thrust maddeningly to the brink of total destruction. She broke herself against him, slick with sweat and emboldened by his want. Around them fell petals and jewels of light and star dust that glittered as it powdered her skin.
She lifted her hips and gasped for breath when he let her mouth loose. The whole of her thrust away from the floor into him to meet his pounding hardness, growing in aggression, taking her with near crazed need to slake his hunger on her skin.
She panted as she begged. “Give me rain and thunder and dancing lights. I want paper cranes and feathered hats and satin dresses.” The pulse in her throat beat erratically until she was screaming his name between wants, gripping his hands fiercely as she crested to the brink of her pleasure, teetered, and fell crashing over the edge.
Give me the moon, Eli, she begged.
Give me your heart…
Frenzied with the urgency of her orgasm she screamed and clutched at him and lost her final words to her emotions. He could barely contain the power of her pleasure and released her hands and held her body to him as she shook and whimpered and begged with each cresting release.
Moments into hers he bit her shoulder impulsively to strangle his bursts of uncontrolled gratification.
The lights on the stage exploded in a shower of fireworks and sparks, dropping them into darkness and eradicating the rest of the world.
25
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Before.
The morning my mother was killed we woke up late. I’d gone out the day before against her wishes and didn’t come home until well after midnight. Somehow I’d become an adult without any idea what that meant because my mother kept me in a snow globe of her own making, winding me like a clockwork doll to do her chores and her bidding, squandering my life as nothing more than the fortune teller’s daughter.
We hadn’t got along in so long that our fights had grown tiresome to the point that we went through the motions most days, biting and snarling the same insults, the same demands.
I want out.
You can’t, not yet.
Let me go. I am not your pet.
No, you’re my daughter. It’s for your own good. Please believe me.
I hate you. I do not want to stay with you anymore. I want my own life. I’m not staying.
You don’t mean that.
Why won’t you just disappear?
She insisted I had to work with her a little longer, but I was done. The day before she died I went to apply for a secretary job, ready to get out from under her, but found that I couldn’t answer most of the questions on the application. I had no work experience, no permanent residence. I barely had a high school diploma. Being smart wasn’t enough, I had to prove it with history and we had no history. I didn’t have a social security number. I didn’t have a phone number.
I realized that day that she’d kept the whole world from me.
The morning we woke up on her last day she made coffee. She sat at the breakfast table and I sat on the couch with my feet on the coffee table and a book between my knees. She said, get your feet off the table and I said, you can’t control everything. She said, Serafine, just listen for once. And I said, make me.
And then, without looking up from my book, I said, I’ll go with you today, but tomorrow I’m leaving.
She looked out the window beneath the mobile of origami cranes. It never sold and the colors had faded. One of the birds was missing.
You always say that, but you never go. I need a little more time.
And I said, there is no more time.
That’s when she noticed my bags by the door. I plucked my bookmark from my book and tossed it onto the table between my feet. It was a bus ticket. Greyhound.
And I said, I’m not yours anymore. We’re done.
Two hours later a man in a grey suit approached the tent, handed me his money and ducked inside. I didn’t see his face, just his suit, because I was busy looking at a map of the places I would go. The things I would see. The people I would meet.
She didn’t scream. He wrapped a length of rope around her neck twice and squeezed until she was still.
And I got my way. There was no more time. I wasn’t hers anymore. I wasn’t anyone’s.
After.
I stopped sleeping because the nightmares replaying that day woke me in tears. I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t know her. I wanted her gone from my life and when I got my wish I realized she’d taken all of me with her and left this nothing girl behind.
On the floor of the Magician’s stage, wrapped in a blanket magicked from thin air, in the darkness but for the fairy lines he summoned to dance against the roof of the tent, I told him everything. I told him about what I’d done to her, about that day. I told
him I knew about the accident and that we couldn’t have secrets. If we were going to do this, if we were going to fall in love for real and not only when drowned in each other’s pleasure, then we’d have to share our demons.
I thought he’d let go. Take this last chance at freedom. No strings attached.
He didn’t.
26
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“I should have told you myself.”
Eli sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, twisting the Soul coin across his knuckles in a distracted, nervous way. I sat on the floor a few feet from him, cross legged, watching him take the news badly.
“It doesn’t matter. Did he leave anything out?”
“No, actually, he told it exactly as it happened.” He squeezed his hand around the coin until his knuckles went white, and when he opened his hand again the coin was still there. If he meant to make it disappear or not, I wasn’t sure. “Alistair had no choice but to close down and scatter everyone. Most of us went into hiding so that Castel couldn’t track us. I did a better job than others because your mother helped me stay one step ahead of him. He wasn’t able to find me until I came out of hiding and returned to the carnival. Some weren’t so lucky.”
“My mother helped you?”
He nodded and began to manipulate the coin between his fingers again. “Yes. She’d get me a message when he was close and I’d move again.”
“Castel eventually tracked some of you though, right?”
Eli nodded, his face grave. “Three of us. He killed them, or the men who worked for him did. That’s what brought us back together. Alistair thought we could protect each other better from inside.”
