Perilous Pleasures (7 page)

"And your cats were more important than your wife." She pursed her lips.

"Training cats is all I know. My wife knew that before we married." Stefan brushed his thumb along her compressed lips. "We've only just met, but I feel something strong for you, Joanna, and I think you feel something for me too, and I don't want to go through this again. When my animals get out of line I can handle them." He pulled her into his arms.

Joanna's hands tightened around him. "You're right, I do feel something for you," she said. "And yes, I am worried." She looked up at him.

"Don't be," Stefan said, then captured her lips in a kiss so potent, it filled her with wanting. As she returned his kiss, his hands began moving over her, and she didn't try to stop what he was doing. She couldn't. She could barely stand, so overcome by his nearness. He kissed her jaw, and the side of her neck, and returned to cover her mouth. A low moan emanated from somewhere deep in her throat as his hand came up to cup her breast, inciting forbidden pleasures. Then he slowly broke the kiss, looked at her soberly, and said, "Can I come to your stateroom tonight?"

Only then did Joanna realize how easily she'd yielded to him. Perhaps what they felt for each other was more physical than emotional, and what she perceived as the early stages of love was simply an overpowering attraction for an uncommonly handsome and compelling man. Tipping her head back, and said, "No, Stefan. I'm not the kind of woman Karl Porter portrays me to be. Surely you don’t believe the rumors that—"

"You're as agile in bed as you are on the trapeze?"

She looked at him, dumbfounded. "Karl said that?"

"Not to me, but to my assistant trainer."

"And you believe it!"

"It makes no difference to me what you and Karl Porter did before we met."

"
But you believe it
!" Joanna said, mortified with her behavior moments before, realizing she'd given Stefan every reason to believe Karl's lies. Of course he'd want to sample a woman who was as agile in bed as she was on the trapeze. And she'd been fool enough to throw herself at a man who's job it was to toy with felines who could snap his neck in an instant, or rip him to shreds with the swipe of a paw. "To set the record straight," she said, "Karl is the first man I have ever been involved with and everything he's saying about me is a lie. Now if you'll excuse me..." She turned abruptly and left. Stefan started after her, but she heard Walter calling his name and knew Stefan wouldn't follow.

She headed up the passageway leading to her quarters, shaken by their encounter. When Stefan held her, she felt like she belonged in his arms, like she never wanted to be anywhere but in the circle of his embrace. And his kisses were unlike anything she'd ever experienced. But his words afterwards put everything into perspective. It was as she'd thought. A physical attraction. Nothing more. At least with Stefan it was physical. He was a man. But she could not shake the feeling that it went much deeper with her.

Weary from a stressful day, and anxious to go to bed, she swept open the door to her stateroom and was almost overcome by the hot, stuffy air inside. She opened the transom, but it did little to alleviate the heat. Pulling the pins from her hair, she released the coil and shook it loose, sending tresses cascading over her shoulders. Then she stripped and stood naked at the wash basin. As she sponged herself off, thoughts of Stefan's hands where the cloth was passing made her restless for the reality of what he'd asked. To come to her bed and hold her flesh to flesh. She'd never been with a man like that. Never had a man caress her breast as Stefan had. Yet, with Stefan, it seemed right. As if her body had been designed by God for Stefan's pleasure, and Stefan's body for hers. And when he held her in his arms, they fit perfectly together. Although she'd never given much thought to the marital act, she was certain she and Stefan would fit together in that way as well.

Disturbed with the direction of her thoughts, she shoved the dangerous notion aside, slipped on a sheer nightgown and crawled into bed, knowing she'd have to be up at dawn to do her exercises, coach her acrobatics students and practice with Otto and Gene, all before the afternoon and evening performances. She sighed. She wondered if it was healthy to devote so much to one thing. With that thought, she turned off the light and closed her eyes...

She had not been asleep long when she awakened, damp with perspiration, and feeling uncomfortably hot. She propped open the door to the passageway, noting as she did that Stefan's door was also propped open. Thankful for the breeze that drifted in from the opened porthole at the end of the passageway, she crawled back into bed...

Several hours later she awakened, disturbed by low gurgling sounds. She opened her eyes and stared at the dark ceiling. The noise stopped. She closed her eyes once more and turned over. The noise started again. Low gurgling rumbles. Throaty noises. PURRS!

She sat up and turned on the light. And stared into the wide tawny eyes of the tiger cub, who sat beside her bed, staring back at her. Shoving the hair from her face, she edged away slowly, pressing her back against the pillow. When she lowered her hand, the cub bounded onto the bed and pounced on top of her, his velvety body pressing against her chest, his paws on her shoulders, his rough tongue licking her chin.

"
Simba
," Stefan's voice came from across the passageway.
Simba
!" His voice was closer. And then he was there, standing in the doorway, stripped to the waist, wearing only his drawers. "
Simba
, down
!" he commanded. The cub jumped off the bed and crouched at Stefan's feet. Stefan looked at Joanna. "It seems you made a friend in the menagerie."

 
"So it does," Joanna replied, struggling to collect her thoughts as she stared at Stefan's heavily-muscled body. Her gaze zigzagged between three parallel scars on one shoulder and a ragged scar crossing his ribs, and down to a scar that started low on his belly and disappeared beneath the waistband of his drawers. For some reason, that scar bothered her most. She knew he'd be as virile below the waist as he was above, and the thought that he could be stripped of his masculinity in an instant made her question why he'd subject himself to that possibility.

Noting the focus of her attention, Stefan said, "Rafat had a mind to insure his position as dominate male, but he missed by a hair. I'm still very much intact."

Joanna looked up and found him smiling. "I'm sorry, but I find no humor in that," she said, irritated that he was dismissing it as little more than a bad day on the job. The sight of the ugly scars on his near perfect body alarmed her. Until now, she knew he faced danger in the big cage, but seeing the scars emphasized how powerless he could be against his animals. One swipe could eviscerate him or emasculate him or rip out his heart.

"They're old scars," he said.

"Except for the holes in your arm and the one in your leg with sixteen stitches," she clipped.

Ignoring her comment, he said, "
Simba
. Come." The cub followed him out the stateroom.

Watching Stefan go, Joanna felt helpless to stop what was happening. She didn't want to love him, yet it was as if an intangible force was drawing her to him. Even after seeing the scars, and mulling over Helen Janacek's description of Stefan's father being mauled, and listening to her warnings against falling in love, Joanna knew she wasn't ready to walk out of Stefan's life.

She turned off the light and stared at the shadows on the ceiling, contemplating the changes in her life—Stefan's act replacing hers, their staterooms isolated in a passageway only they shared, and ironically, instead of hating him for his intrusion in her life, finding herself wanting him in a way she'd never wanted Karl, even when they were betrothed. As she pondered the incongruity of it, Tekla Janacek's words invaded her mind.

...beware of new acquaintance... .falling from great height...
 
brown clouds...

Joanna willed herself to focus on her acrobatics students, on aerial ballet, on Vicksburg where she'd see her twin brother, Matthew, and his wife Libby, and meet little Robbie. But a stronger will eclipsed those images. Her last thought before drifting off was of Stefan standing in the doorway and the scars crossing his magnificent body...

At dawn, Joanna awakened in startled confusion, aware that she was calling out. In her bizarre dream she'd slipped from Otto's grip and was tumbling in slow motion toward the cage below, where in a cloud of brown dust, lions and tigers were viciously attacking Stefan. Over and over she tumbled, knowing that if she could reach Stefan, the animals would stop. But she never got there. And as she screamed a silent scream, no one came to help Stefan...

"Are you alright?" Stefan's voice came from the direction of the doorway.

Heart pounding as the image of Stefan being mauled replayed in her mind, Joanna sat up abruptly. Her eyes focused on Stefan's bare torso and the patchwork of claw marks. He walked over and sat on the bed, and she made no move to stop him. She reached out and dragged three fingers down the scars on his shoulder. "Why do you do it?" she asked.

Stefan shrugged. "I don't know anything else." He covered her hand with his, trapping it against his chest. "You're trembling."

She moistened her dry lips and raised her eyes to meet his. "I just had a... disturbing dream," she said, then felt at once absurd and embarrassed. It was, after all, just a dream.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, his lips moving toward hers.

"No," Joanna said, her voice shaky. "I'm fine, other than I feel like... a fool."

Stefan's eyes on her lips, he said, "Why? For being human?"

"No," she replied. "For being... vulnerable."

"We're all vulnerable at some point," he said, his breath wafting against her lips as he moved yet closer. "What makes you feel vulnerable now?"

Joanna's mouth moved toward his. "You," she replied, uncertain why she'd made such a bold admission. At once his arms were around her, his hands tangling in her hair as he pulled her head back, lifting her chin. His mouth covered hers, his tongue teasing until her lips parted, allowing his tongue to entwine with hers. At first his lips were hauntingly gentle, but as the kiss deepened, he became more demanding, his lips seeking hers with an urgency that seemed to intensify every nerve fiber in her body. In his arms she felt as if she were tumbling into a great abyss, and she clung to him, trying to maintain her equilibrium. He drew her tighter to him, and she felt her breasts pressing against the hard wall of his chest, the contact igniting a fire she wasn't sure she could control. His lips became demanding, and she returned the kiss with a passion she'd never known, until the tight, breathless feeling in her throat threatened to choke her.

Grappling for some sense of normality, she braced her hands on his chest, and said between anxious breaths, "I'm not ready for this." She passed her tongue over her bottom lip and caught the metallic taste of blood.

Stefan touched his fingertip to the blood on her lip and placed his blood-laden finger on his tongue, and as he looked into her eyes, she felt something almost mystical passing between them, that precious moment for a man and a woman when the physical and spiritual come together. She knew he felt it too when he said, "Some force is drawing us together. Something beyond our ability to stop. I know you feel it too."

Joanna nodded. "I felt it the first time I looked into your eyes."

Stefan brushed her lip where another drop of blood was emerging. "I'm sorry for doing that," he said, brushing the blood away, "and for what I said on deck last night. I believe you when you say nothing happened between you and Karl Porter, and although it wouldn't change my feelings for you, I'm glad what I heard was a lie. But if I don't leave now, you won't remain chaste." He kissed her and left, closing the door behind.

Joanna clutched her arms across her chest and rocked back and forth. She'd never felt such a strong reaction. She ached for his caresses, longed to have his mouth on hers, even as her lip throbbed from their heated kiss. Heart racing, the area between her thighs burning with need, she curled on her side, unable to dismiss thoughts of Stefan's naked body entwined with hers as she gave up her virginity to him during a long, passion-filled night. She imagined his magnificent male body in all its glory hovering over her...

Her thoughts went to the scar that disappeared beneath the waistband of his drawers. Did it reach that part of him that would be hers as man and wife? She felt a bizarre sense of possessiveness. And anger. She'd seen Rafat's claws extended, curved, deadly barbs that could strip Stefan of his masculinity in one swipe...

...when he's with the cats, the terrible fear is always there. It starts in your belly and moves up to your chest and grips you like a vise...

Tears welled as Helen's words, surfaced.

And the terrible dream. Had Tekla Janacek foretold the dream, or had the dream been triggered by worry over the old woman's words? Maybe the old gypsy had foretold a prophetic dream, but the warning was for Stefan, a premonition of him falling in the ring, his cats attacking him, clouds of dust billowing.
 
She stared at the shadows dancing on the wall, unable to sleep...

..
.do you have any idea how often you will lay awake at night, wondering if tomorrow's performance will be his last...?

She wrapped her hands around herself and imagined Stefan secure within the circle of her arms, his body pressed to hers... until at last, sleep overtook her...

She awakened two hours later, peered through the latticed shutters and was greeted by a dismal overcast sky. Tentacles of dampness clung to the window, and the muggy air held the promise of rain. Weary from lack of sleep, she climbed out of bed, wondering if she had the energy to struggle through another day of strenuous physical activity. To add to her discomfort, her lip throbbed, and when she passed her tongue over it, she felt the swelling, a bittersweet reminder of the depth of her passion with Stefan.