She opened another button. “What do I have to do to get the ignition key?”
“Have you got a bra on?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to take it off.”
She should call a halt to this game right now, but instead she opened another button. “You are responsible for the truck, so I suppose it’s only fair that you dictate the terms.”
He looked amused.
She took her time with the last buttons. When they were open, she lightly clasped the front edges of the blouse in her palms and toyed with them, deliberately teasing him even as she recognized that this was a dangerous sort of mischief. “Maybe I should think about this some more.”
“Don’t make me get rough.” His smoky whisper didn’t bear the slightest trace of menace, but it still made her shiver.
“Since you put it that way . . .” She parted the blouse, revealing the floral print bra that stuck to her skin.
“Open that clasp.”
She toyed with it but didn’t unfasten it.
“Do as I say and nobody’ll get hurt.”
She couldn’t hold back a smile as she opened the clasp. Slowly, she peeled the moist lacy cups away from her breasts and stood before him like a wanton, fully dressed, but with her blouse open and her breasts exposed.
“Beautiful.” His whispered compliment made her feel like the most treasured woman on earth.
“Good enough for an ignition key?”
“Good enough for the whole damn truck.”
In two long strides, he had her in his arms. His mouth swooped down to cover hers, and the world spun like a crazy carousel. He shoved her blouse down over her shoulders, then clasped her hips and lifted her just enough so he could grind against her. She felt him hard and demanding and knew the time for teasing had come to an end.
Blood rushed hot and needy through her veins. She opened her mouth to his tongue as he swept her from her feet and carried her toward the bed where he dropped her none too gently on the mattress.
“I’m dirty and sweaty.”
“I am, too, so we don’t have a problem.” With one powerful motion he stripped his grimy T-shirt over his head. “You’re also overdressed.”
She kicked off her grubby shoes and tugged at her jeans, but she wasn’t working fast enough to please him.
“You’re taking too long.” Within moments, he’d stripped her so that she was as naked as he.
Her eyes took in his nude body with its whipcord strength and workingman’s tan. Strands of hair on his chest feathered around the icon he wore. She needed to ask him about that. She needed to ask him about so many things.
As he lay down beside her, she smelled the earthy scent of sweat and hard work on both their bodies and wondered why she wasn’t repulsed. There was something primitive about coming together like this that aroused her in a way she would never have been able to imagine. Her abandon embarrassed her. “I’m—I need to shower.”
“Not till we’re done.” He pulled a condom from a small drawer in the chest beside the bed, tore it open, and put it on.
“But I’m so dirty.”
He wedged her knees apart. “I want you like this, Daisy.”
She moaned and sank her teeth into his shoulder as he thrust into her. She tasted salt and sweat and knew he was tasting the same on her breasts. Her voice caught in her throat. “I really need to wash.”
“Later.”
“Oh, God, what are you doing?”
“What does it feel like?”
“It feels like you’re—”
“I am. Do you want more?”
“Yes. Oh, yes . . .”
The smells and tastes. The touches. The sweat and grit beneath her palms. The thrust and parry.
Her hair stuck to her cheeks, and a piece of straw poked her neck. He pushed his fingers into the cleft of her bottom and turned her on top of him, smearing grease from his arm down her side. He squeezed the backs of her thighs hard in his hands.
“Ride me.”
She did as he said. She arched and plunged, moving instinctively, and then wincing as she hurt herself on him.
“Slow down, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I can’t.” She gazed at him through the haze of her pain and passion and saw his sweat-slicked face, lips drawn thin and pale. Flecks of dirt stuck to those harsh Russian cheekbones and a bit of straw clung to his dark crisp hair. Sweat trickled over her breasts. She plunged again and gasped with pain.
“Don’t, sweet. Shh . . . take your time.”
He slipped his hands up along her back and pulled her down to stretch out over him, breasts to chest where he helped her find a new rhythm.
The insides of her thighs clasped the outsides of his, the icon abraded her skin, and she moved on his body, slowly at first, then writhing, loving the sensation of being in control, of dictating the rhythm and thrust. There was no pain, only sensation.
He gripped her bottom and let her have her way. She knew by the coiled tension she felt in those hard muscles beneath her what it cost him to relinquish control. He sank his teeth into the flesh over her collarbone, not hurting her, merely using another part of her body to fill another part of his.
She gave herself up to skin and sweat and musk. He made incoherent sounds and she answered in the same language. Both were lost to all that was civilized, thrown back to the jungle, the cave, the place of wildness until, for one suspended moment, they gripped creation’s source.
She left him as soon as she could and sealed herself in the bathroom. As the shower water rushed over her, she was shaken by this new barbaric part of herself. Was it sacred or profane? How could she have abandoned herself like that with a man she didn’t love? The question tormented her.
When she came out, wrapped in a towel with her skin scrubbed cleaner than her troubled soul, he was standing at the sink. Wearing only his dirty jeans, he held a beer bottle in his hand.
When he saw the expression on her face, he scowled. “You’re going to make this complicated, aren’t you?”
She pulled her clean clothes from the drawer and turned her back on him to dress. “I’m not sure exactly what you mean.”
“I can see it in your face. You’re having all kinds of second thoughts about what just happened.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Why would I be? Sex is simple, Daisy. It’s fun and it feels good. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”
She nodded toward the bed. “Did that seem simple to you?”
“It was good. That’s all that matters.”
She zipped up her shorts and pushed her feet into her sandals. “You’ve had sex with a lot of women, haven’t you?”
“I haven’t been indiscriminate, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is it always like that?”
He hesitated. “No.”
For a moment, some of her tension eased. “I’m glad. I want it to mean something.”
“All it means is that, while our minds may have trouble communicating, our bodies don’t have any problem at all.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Sure it is.”
“The earth moved,” she said softly. “That has to be more than bodies communicating.”
“Sometimes it works between two people, sometimes it doesn’t. It works between us, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Daisy, listen to me. You’ll only get hurt if you start imagining things that aren’t going to happen.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He stared straight into her eyes, and she felt as if he were gazing into her soul. “I’m not going to fall in love with you, sweetheart. It’s just not going to happen. I care about you, but don’t love you.”
How his words hurt. Was love what she wanted from him? She lusted after him. She respected him. But how could she fall in love with someone who had so little regard for her? She knew to the v
ery depth of her being that she wasn’t tough enough to love a man like Alex Markov. He needed someone as stubborn and arrogant as himself, someone just as hardheaded and impossible to intimidate, a woman who could hold her own beneath the force of those dark scowls and give as good as she got. A woman who felt at home in the circus, who wasn’t afraid of animals or backbreaking work. He needed—
Sheba Quest.
Jealousy snapped at her. While her mind recognized the logic of Alex and Sheba together, her heart rejected the idea.
Living with him had taught her something about pride, and she lifted her head. “Believe it or not, I haven’t been spending all my time worrying about how I’m going to make you fall in love with me.” She picked up the brimming laundry basket. “As a matter of fact, I don’t want your love. What I do want are the keys to your darned truck!”
She snatched them off the counter and stomped toward the door. He moved swiftly to block her way. Taking the laundry basket from her, he said, “I’m not trying to hurt you, Daisy. I care about you. I didn’t want to, but I can’t seem to help it. You’re sweet and funny, and I like looking at you.”
“You do?”
“Uh-huh.”
She reached up to rub a speck of dirt from his cheekbone with her thumb. “Well, you’re bad-tempered and humorless, but I like looking at you, too.”
“I’m glad.”
She smiled and began to take the laundry basket back, only to have him hold on to it. “Before you go . . . Sheba and I have been talking, and you’re getting a new assignment.”
She regarded him warily. “I’m already helping with the elephants and working with the menagerie. I don’t think there’s time for anything more.”
“As of now, you’re off elephant duty, and Trey can take over the menagerie.”
“The menagerie’s my responsibility.”
“Fine. You can supervise him. The fact is, Daisy, the crowd likes you and Sheba wants to take advantage of that. I’m putting you in my act.”
She stared at him.
“I’ll start rehearsing you tomorrow morning.”
She realized he wasn’t quite meeting her eyes. “Rehearse me doing what?”
“Mainly, you’ll just stand around and look pretty.”
“What else?”
“You’ll need to do some holding for me. No big deal.”
“Holding? What does that mean—holding?”
“Just what I said. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Tell me now.”
“You hold some things, that’s all.”
“I hold them?” She gulped. “And you whip them out of my hand, don’t you?”
“Out of your hand.” He paused. “Your mouth.”
She felt the blood drain from her head. “My mouth?”
“It’s a standard trick. I’ve done it hundreds of times, and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.” He opened the door for her and set the laundry basket in her arms. “Now if you’re going to stop at the library, you’d better get to it. I’ll see you later.”
With a light push, he propelled her outside. She turned around to tell him there was no way she’d ever go into the ring, but the door shut before she could say a word.
13
“This time could you maybe try it with your eyes open?”
Daisy could tell that Alex was losing patience with her. The two of them stood behind the trailers in a Maryland baseball field, a field very much like the one they’d stood in the day before and the day before that for almost two weeks. Her nerves were strung so tight she felt as if they would snap.
Tater stood off to the side where he alternated between sighing over his lady love and grubbing in the dirt. After her confrontation with the baby elephant a few weeks ago, Tater had started breaking away from the others to try to find her, and eventually Digger had punished him with the bull hook. Daisy hadn’t been able to tolerate that, so she’d taken over responsibility for the small elephant during the daytime when he was most likely to roam. Everyone in the circus except Daisy seemed to have grown accustomed to the sight of her walking around with Tater trotting behind like an overgrown lap dog.
“If I open my eyes, I’ll flinch,” Daisy pointed out to her whip-wielding husband, “and you told me the only way I can get hurt is if I flinch.”
“You’re holding that target so far from your body that you could dance Swan Lake and I wouldn’t hit you.”
There was a certain truth to what he was saying. The paper tube in her hand was a foot long, and she held it with her arm extended, but every time he cracked the whip, slicing off the end of the tub, she winced. She couldn’t help it.
“Maybe I’ll open my eyes tomorrow.”
“You’re going into the ring in three days. You’d better do it before then.”
Daisy’s eyes snapped open at the sound of Sheba’s voice, caustic and accusatory. The circus owner stood off to the side near the place where one of Alex’s whips lay coiled on the ground. Her arms were crossed and her unbound hair gleamed hellfire in the sunlight.
“You should be used to this by now.” She bent-over and snatched up one of the six-inch tubes lying on the ground. Those were the real targets Daisy was supposed to hold in the performance, but so far Alex hadn’t been able to bully her into practicing with anything shorter than a foot.
Sheba rolled the small, cigar-shaped tube between her fingers, then walked over to stand next to Daisy. “Move out of the way.”
Daisy backed off.
Sheba regarded Alex with the glint of challenge in her eyes. “Let’s see what you’ve got.” Turning in profile to him, she brushed her hair behind her shoulders and placed the tube between her lips.
For a moment Alex did nothing, and Daisy felt as if an entire history passed between him and the circus owner, a history of which Daisy knew nothing. Sheba almost seemed to be daring him, but daring him to do what? So suddenly that she barely saw the motion, Alex drew back his arm and flicked his wrist.
Crack! The whip popped just inches from Sheba’s face, and the end of the tube flew off.
Sheba didn’t move. She stood there as serenely as a guest at a garden party while Alex cracked the whip again and again, each time sending another piece of the tube flying. Inch by inch, he destroyed it until only a stub was left between Sheba’s lips.
She removed it, bent down to pick up a fresh one, and held it out to Daisy. “Now let’s see you do it.”
Daisy knew a challenge when she heard one, but these people had been raised to court danger. Whatever amount of courage she’d been born with, she’d used up when she’d faced down Tater. “Maybe later.”
Alex sighed and tossed down his whip. “Sheba, this isn’t going to work. I’ll keep doing the act by myself.”
“Is this what it’s come down to, Alex? Five generations of circus in your blood, and you’ve given the Markov name to someone who doesn’t have the guts to go into the ring with you.”
Her green eyes darkened with scorn as she regarded Daisy. “No one’s asking you to walk the high wire or ride bareback. All you have to do is stand there. But you can’t even manage that, can you?”
“It’s—I’m sorry, but I’m just not good at this kind of thing.”
“What are you good at?”
Alex stepped forward. “That’s not fair. Daisy’s been taking care of the menagerie, even though she doesn’t have to work there anymore, and the animals are in the best condition they’ve been in in years.”
“Bully for her.” Daisy felt the impact of Sheba’s eyes as sharply as the crack of the whip. “Do you know anything about the Markov family?”
“Alex doesn’t say too much about his past.” He didn’t say much about his present, either. Whenever she tried to ask him about his life away from the circus, he changed the subject. She gathered that he’d been to college and that the icon he wore was a family piece, but little else.
“Leave it alone, Sheba,” he warned.
Sheba walked
past him, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on Daisy. “The Markovs are one of the most famous circus families in history. Alex’s mother was the greatest bareback rider of her time. Alex might have been a champion equestrian, too, if he hadn’t grown so tall as a youngster.”
“Daisy doesn’t care about this,” he said.
“Yes, I do. Tell me, Sheba.”
“His mother’s family goes back five generations to Russia where the Markovs performed for the czars. The interesting thing about the Markovs is that the family traces most of its history through its women. No matter who they’ve married, they’ve kept the Markov name and passed it on to their children. But the Markov men have been great performers, too, masters of the bullwhip and some of the finest horsemen the circus has ever known.”
Alex began stuffing the paper tubes in an old canvas bag. “Come on, Daisy. I’ve had enough for the day.”
Sheba’s expression grew bitter. “The Markov men have always honored tradition and chosen their wives carefully. At least until Alex came along.” She paused, her eyes icy with contempt. “You’re not fit to stand in his shadow, Daisy, let alone carry the Markov name.”
With that, she turned and walked away, her bearing so dignified she made her shabby surroundings seem regal.
Daisy felt vaguely nauseated. “She’s right, Alex. I’m not good at any of this.”
“Nonsense.” He coiled the whips and looped them over his shoulder. “Sheba regards circus tradition the way some people regard religion. Don’t pay any attention.”
Daisy stared at the bag of small paper tubes. Numbly, she reached down and picked one of them up.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to be a Markov woman.”
“For God’s sake, put that down. I told you to ignore her. She has a distorted view of Markov history, anyway. There were a lot of scoundrels in the family, too. My uncle Sergey was the meanest bastard I’ve ever known.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better, but I can’t ignore what she said.” She walked over to the place she’d been standing earlier and turned in profile to him. “I’m tired of coming up short all the time.”