Delilah Dawson - The Damsel and the Daggerman

Carefully transferring both smoke bombs to the same hand, he turned his back to her and made adjustments to his costume with a long, shaky sigh. She smirked to herself. If the key to finding out Marco’s past was to keep him slightly confused by constant sexual tension, then she was going to enjoy this story quite a bit.

“What a way to go,” he said under his breath as he stepped around the backdrop.

Jacinda sat on the edge of a crate, the clockwork dog a still and solid presence at her side. She absentmindedly ran a hand over its boxy head and down its metal spine. She was a woman who appreciated a dangerous creature that could be harnessed but never tamed.

And when Marco was done with his show, she decided, she would have a little surprise for him, too.

As soon as the show was over, Jacinda slipped out with the crowd, darting among the shadows with the dog in her wake. She’d said, “I’ll be right here,” but she’d failed to mention how long she would stay there. Although she wasn’t sure exactly how Marco appeared and disappeared with his smoke bombs, she wanted to keep him guessing, out of power. Thus far, he had admitted to never having drawn blood, and the offhand delivery suggested that he had been telling the truth. What, then, had happened to his assistant? Why had there been so much gore?

Walking the caravan against the flow of the crowd, Jacinda had never felt more alone. She’d traveled with Liam for so long and had grown so accustomed to his nearness that even a year later, she would find herself turning with a smile to whisper something or reaching for a hand that was no longer there. At least she’d traded in their larger conveyance for her small one, a private space unhaunted by her late husband’s presence.

She knew that returning to Marco’s act would be a mistake, would make her seem desperate. And she had promised Criminy she wouldn’t interfere with his caravan during showtime. But the charms of the circus seemed tawdry to her at night, when she had a goal to accomplish. The people behind the glitter and paint were far more interesting to her than their magic-spiced acts. If she would move among them, she wanted to know them by light of day and not, as everyone else did, after dark had fallen and the lights had gone up. She wanted the stories of the people behind the show. The truth was more interesting than the artifice.

Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about Marco’s lips, the rasp of his cheek, the cut of his shoulders, the chasm of his eyes. He reminded her of a vein of ore she’d seen in a mine in Africa. Just a few glimmers aboveground hinted at the glittering depths and crystal caverns below. She didn’t usually favor the strong and silent type, much less the darkly dangerous type. But she suspected that he hid the best parts of himself and let the world see only the surface. If he was as razor-fine inside as he was on the outside, it would be worth her while to dig. At the very least, she would enjoy trading kisses and winning his story from him bit by bit, if that was what it took. The book was still her goal, but a scoop that would rock London and the chance to exonerate an innocent man—well, she wouldn’t have turned that down, even if she hadn’t been personally drawn to the subject.

Walking around the perimeter of the caravan, she felt rather the flâneuse , the only person outside of the joy and wonder. She wasn’t surprised when her feet brought her right back to Marco’s trailer. The crowd had thinned as the night grew colder, and the only people left were a trio of troublesome boys conferring about whether or not to nick one of Marco’s knives from the backdrop.

“Shoo, you little creeps.”

They straightened and turned on her, wearing snarls. “Bugger off, lady.”

Jacinda smirked. “Brutus, exsanguinate.”

As soon as the metal dog turned in their direction, the boys scrambled away, and with a roll of her eyes at the foolishness of lads, Jacinda began the work of collecting Marco’s knives. It was always better to have work than to sit around, empty-handed and empty-headed, so far as she knew. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the very highest blades, but she had two handfuls of bristling steel as she rounded the corner of the backdrop.

Strong hands found her waist, swinging her around until her back was against the wood. Brutus lunged forward with a metallic growl.

“Brutus, disengage.”

The dog froze in place, but Marco hadn’t shifted his grip for even a moment. She was on full alert, the wood cold against her back, his hands warm on the narrow waist of her corset. With fingers carefully curled around the blades, she felt helpless. But there was something strangely lovely about it.

“Doing my dirty work for me, sweetness?”

“I like to be useful.”

“I know a good way to use you.”

She lifted her face, her mouth slightly open and waiting. But he held her there, looking down with a teasing sort of smile. “Now’s the part where you kiss me,” she whispered, and he chuckled and bent, ever so slowly, to taste her lips.

Jacinda savored his patience, the warmth of his mouth moving against hers with complete mastery and control. One of his hands left her waist to cup her jaw, just so, and she was surprised to find bare skin where suede should have been. His palm was warm and broad, his thumb stroking her cheekbone possessively as the other hand pressed the corset’s stays into her hip. He opened her mouth with his lips, his tongue darting in, gentle and hot, making shivers run up and down her spine to pool in her belly.

She’d kissed plenty of men since she’d lost Liam, in part to help her forget. Because each man tasted and moved so differently, she’d never had any trouble letting lust overtake her behind closed eyes. She’d never felt anything for any of them, mostly younger men who could appreciate a woman’s body without delving deeper into her heart and mind. But their first kisses had always been fast and sloppy, passionate and rushed, as if she might suddenly change her mind and leave them wanting. Not that she minded—she liked the frantic hunger, liked the distraction of the intoxicating frenzy. Marco, on the other hand, refused to let her set the pace, defied her haste with hands that wouldn’t budge from their places and a tongue determined to enjoy a deep taste before moving on.

With a little whimper, she arched away from the wall, aching for the pressure of his body against hers. His hand tightened on her waist, holding her back, and she murmured, “Come on, Marco,” into his mouth.

He pulled away, leaving her panting. “Hungry little thing, aren’t you?”

“I am. And if I want more?”

He rubbed a thumb over her still-wet lips before releasing her and taking the knives from her clenched hands. As he stepped away, she nearly collapsed, her legs boneless and her hands suddenly empty and aching from making fists around the steel.

“Then you’ll have to beg for it.”

She was off balance for a moment, but she quickly regained her footing, sensing that she needed to keep him interested, that he was the sort of man who got bored easily and would toy with her only as long as he enjoyed the chase. “Do I have to get on my knees?”

That got his attention. He turned back from the crate, where he was slipping his knives one by one into a long leather roll. Their eyes caught, and with her chin held high, she gracefully dropped to her knees and sat back on her haunches as she’d been taught when interviewing geishas in the East. Hands folded just so, she lowered her eyelids to gaze up through her lashes.

“Please?”

He swallowed hard and looked away, turning his head and listening to the sounds beyond the backdrop. She could hear it, too—the caravan was closing for the night. The noise of the crowd had grown faint, wagon doors were slamming closed, and Criminy’s voice shouted unnaturally loudly, thanking everyone and welcoming them back tomorrow if they weren’t eaten by bludbunnies on the way home. She had almost forgotten they weren’t the only people in the dark, that hundreds of people had been lingering and laughing just around the corner. But now they were alone. Almost.