Bound in Blue by Annabel Joseph Read Free Book Online Page A

understood the message. Pretend we’ve never met.
    It was difficult but he managed as best he
could. The translator was still prattling on in Mongolian to the
man, gesturing, her voice rising and falling. Jason didn’t have the
first idea what the woman said about him. “ Cirque du Monde ,”
he heard in the midst of it. “ Paris. ”
    “Tell them the offer is immediate,” he said,
cutting in. “They could come right away, train at headquarters, and
be placed in a show after the Exhibition in a couple months.”
    The translator only spoke to the man, and he
didn’t seem impressed with what he was hearing. Sara stood behind
him, off to the side. She looked shell-shocked. Traumatized. Jason
stared at her, trying to express without words that everything
would be okay. He assumed from her behavior that this partner must
be her lover, maybe even her husband. He wouldn’t judge and he
wouldn’t get her in any more trouble than he already had. He wished
he could touch her again, though, fuck her, give her pain, give her
joy. They’d had such a wonderful scene together, such a connection.
At least now he understood why she’d been so insistent about
leaving. One time. One night.
    The translator prodded him. He’d been so lost
in memories that he’d missed her comment. Sara’s partner glowered
at him.
    “They do not wish to come to Paris,” the
translator repeated in her clipped voice. “They prefer to perform
here.”
    What? They didn’t wish to come to
Paris? The man hadn’t even asked Sara, and anyway, no wasn’t an
option. They had to come. “Did you explain about the
state-of-the-art facilities?” he asked. “About the excellent
benefits and salaries? About the beautiful theaters?” He cast a
pointed look around the sagging tent.
    With a terse smile, the translator addressed
the man again. He shook his head and went off on a long spiel that
didn’t need translating. He wasn’t feeling the whole Cirque du
Monde thing.
    Jason met Sara’s eyes. He couldn’t understand
why she wouldn’t speak up. Was she afraid of her partner? Or afraid
that Jason would expose what they’d done together?
    With one last scowl at Jason, the man took
Sara’s arm and led her away into the night. Halfway across the
dirty, graveled lot, she tried to turn around, but he nudged her
forward with a sharp word. Jason almost lost his shit. If they were
in Paris he would have said something, or done something, but this
rough-edged town probably wasn’t the place to start an
international incident.
    He wanted to, though. He wanted to beat
Baat-de-baklava or whatever into the ground and kidnap Sara and put
her on a plane. He wanted to rescue her from her lug of a partner
and take her to the Cirque, and make her the star she was born to
be. They could find her a new act, a new partner. Michel Lemaitre
would take care of everything.
    Jason wanted to do that, but he could only
stand, powerless, as Sara and the other man walked away.
    Back at his hotel room, Jason paced and
fumed, and sulked over the previously-arousing leather cuffs.
Stupid. He was so stupid. Of course a gorgeous woman like
Sara would already be in a relationship. He didn’t know why it
bothered him so much, that she could be so open and submissive to
him when she was already with someone else.
    Well, he knew why it bothered him. Because he
was strung too tight. Because he liked the people in his life to be
well-behaved and perfect. He wanted Sara to be well-behaved and
perfect because some part of him still thought she was his
slave.
    But she wasn’t his slave—she never had
been—and he didn’t even know if he could get her to Paris now. What
a clusterfuck. It was nearly eleven, with a long, cold Mongolian
night staring him in the face. He spent a half hour trying to get
onto the hotel Wi-Fi so he could bring Michel Lemaitre up to
date.
     
    Michel,
    The trapeze act was spectacular.
Unfortunately, they didn’t want to come. Or rather, he didn’t want
to come.