House of Mirrors (14 page)

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Over the next week, bad luck seemed to haunt the carnival like a black cloud—not storming yet, but spitting rain. Lancelot’s death was a brief shower followed by numerous annoying mishaps: meat that went bad and had to be thrown out, acrobatic props that mysteriously disappeared, another vehicle breakdown, and a canceled permit at their next stop. It was as if Treanor had run up against a brick wall—or so he’d reported. Rafe’s wheedling charm coupled with a bribe wasn’t enough to convince the local constabulary to let them set up. They were forced back on the road with barely two pennies to scrape together, a depleted larder, and wagons that seemed to be falling apart.

A general pall of gloom hung over the company. Even a relative newcomer like Jonah could tell things were off. Bellies were empty, moods foul, tempers short, and Mindy in particular had turned from green apple sour to chili pepper fiery. The slightest wrong word set her off, so no words seemed safest. Everyone except Sam left her alone.

Perversely, Jonah had never felt sunnier. He knew he should be worried about their financial straits and run of bad luck, since the carnival existed on a shoestring, but he couldn’t fake unhappiness. Inside he whistled and sang his way through every day, knowing he’d have time alone with Rafe at the end of it. Stolen moments had evolved into nightly meetings since that night in the House of Mirrors. No matter how hectic or distressing the day had been, they managed to find their way to each other after the sun went down.

And when they were together, it was good. Very, very good.

One night, Jonah went to retrieve his bedroll, took one look at the mud puddle beneath the wagon where he usually slept, and decided enough was enough. The other rousties had all managed to find places in the wagons to bunk for the night, but Jonah was not going to wedge himself in between props or supplies on a hard wooden floor—not when the warmth of Rafe’s bed beckoned him.

He trudged through the rain, so soaked there was no point in avoiding more raindrops, and knocked on Rafe’s door. When it swung open, he looked up at the dark figure silhouetted against the light. Jonah felt like a bedraggled refugee. But why shouldn’t he demand what he wanted from his lover instead of begging for scraps?

“I want to spend the night,” he said. “No one will question it. Fisher stays here sometimes, and nobody thinks anything of it.”

Rafe hesitated a moment then stepped aside, ushering Jonah inside. He closed the door behind him and turned. “You must be freezing. I’ll pour you a—”

Jonah flung himself at the man and stopped his words with a deep kiss—lips mashed together, teeth clicking from the urgency of it. Heedless of his soaked clothing or the wet hair plastered to his head, he pulled Rafe hard against him, ran his hands down the long back, and gripped taut buttocks through tight breeches. He felt Rafe’s excitement in his tense muscles and the erection rubbing against his own.

Rafe groaned deep in his chest, reminding Jonah of the rumbles Lancelot used to make. The sound was longing and needy.

Jonah pulled away to draw breath, and Rafe began to speak again. “This is a bad idea. Someone might need something and come knocking. I—”

Jonah seized the back of his neck and pulled him into another kiss. He didn’t stop ravaging Rafe’s mouth until the other man groaned again. Then he drew back.

“Why do you make excuses? No one will come in until you unlock the door. We’d have plenty of time to put on clothes. This is less dangerous than meeting behind one of the wagons, with less chance of being seen.” He paused. “If that’s really what worries you.”

“Of course it is,” Rafe answered. “What else would it be?”

“Or is the idea of taking me into your bed too personal, too intimate for you?” Maybe it was the wild rain and distant thunder that drove Jonah’s reckless feeling, this need to push. He stared deep into Rafe’s eyes, challenging him. “Will you send me back out into the rain?”

Rafe’s throat flexed as he swallowed, and his luminous eyes gazed back at Jonah with hungry intensity. “No,” he mumbled, then grabbed Jonah and dragged him back into his arms.

A flurry of moving hands and shedding clothes followed, and seconds later they were both naked—completely naked together for the first time. A thrill of excitement and a sense of winning some important point swept through Jonah. Something had shifted here tonight. He’d changed the unspoken rules of the game.

Limbs wrapped together, naked torsos pressed close, and the two men staggered across the floor to Rafe’s bed, a cot too narrow for two, but it would do. Rafe pushed Jonah down upon it and crawled over him.

With his weight supported on arms corded with ropy muscle, he hovered over Jonah and gazed down into his face. “You’re getting alarmingly good at patter. You’ve talked yourself right into my bed.”

“Right where you want me to be, and you know it.” Jonah smiled and reached to touch Rafe’s face, the gaunt cheek and the softness of the goatee and mustache that framed his mouth. Then he traced the full lips until they opened, and pressed the tip of his thumb inside. Rafe sucked it in, and Jonah’s cock throbbed in response.

Rafe released Jonah’s thumb with a wet pop. “It’s clear who’s in charge here tonight, so tell me what we should do next.”

“Kiss me,” Jonah whispered. “Just kiss me.”

And for some time that was what Rafe did. He lowered his body until his full weight lay on top of Jonah, heavy and warm, and he kissed him softly, then harder, until Jonah’s lips felt tender and bruised. Rafe moved to his jaw, skating his mouth along the hard bone and down Jonah’s neck.

Rafe’s goatee and mustache tickled, and Jonah chuckled and squirmed away. Then he gasped as Rafe reached his chest and focused on one of his nipples. He licked around it, sucked the areola into his mouth, and then nibbled on the hard bud.

Jonah moaned and shifted. He thrust his hips, driving his erection into Rafe’s softly furred groin. The glide of skin against skin was as sensuous as the gauze scarves in Fatima’s exotic dance, and the steady patter of raindrops on the roof was as soothing as a lover’s whispers.

Jonah closed his eyes and stretched beneath Rafe’s caressing hands and gliding mouth, now moving to his other nipple, now down his stomach. His balls drew tight, and his cock felt as if it was reaching out for the mouth that would cover it any second now.

Any second.

And then Rafe’s lips were kissing the length of Jonah’s shaft, wrapping around the tip, drawing him into warmth and wetness while Rafe’s hard grip encircled him. Jonah moaned in quiet appreciation.

During their grapples together in meadow grass or haystacks, Rafe had improved his sucking technique. Now he astonished Jonah with his abilities, as delicate yet strong as any tightrope walker, as he licked, sucked, stroked, and drove him to the edge.

Jonah curled his fingers in that silken, black hair and gripped hard when his orgasm shuddered through him. His body arched off the bed. He bit back a groan that would’ve swelled as loud as a lion’s roar from his chest, and longed for a time and place in which he dared shout at the moment of orgasm.

As waves of pleasure washed through him, Jonah collapsed back onto the bed and opened his eyes. He gazed down at Rafe’s profile, the ridge of his dark eyebrows, his charcoal eyelashes against his cheeks, his mouth still stretched around Jonah’s cock but releasing its glistening length now. Rafe looked up at him and smiled, and for a second Jonah thought he was having a heart attack, his chest ached so badly.

“Now my turn?” Rafe asked as if requiring permission.

Jonah nodded, loving that submissive tone. He might not be in charge, but the power was all his—at least for tonight. “This way,” he said and drew his legs up toward his chest, exposing his rear for Rafe.

“From the front? Really?”

It was Jonah’s turn to smile. “It works. Trust me. And this way I can see your face as you come. I love to watch you spend.”

He swore Rafe blushed as he turned and reached for a jar of ointment on a shelf near his bed.

Jonah lifted a brow. “Now who’s prepared? Did you believe I’d come here some night?”

“I hoped.” Rafe parroted Jonah’s words from that night in the mirrored wagon, the last opportunity they’d had to enjoy full penetration.

He gently bent and pushed Jonah’s legs up, which lifted his ass higher. Rafe caressed the quivering backs of his thighs, the depleted length of his cock, and his heavy sac, and then he traced a finger over Jonah’s hole.

Jonah shivered at the sensation of Rafe’s fingers smoothing ointment around and into his entrance. The stretch in his legs felt good, and the way the position opened him up to Rafe’s inspection aroused him deeply. His hole clenched tight then opened loose, aching to be entered. In fact, the need to be filled spread through him from groin through belly and to every part of him. More than physical desire, he felt a soul-deep need to be taken and possessed and used.

“Now. Do it,” he begged.

Rafe chuckled, and the power shifted again. He was absolutely the one in charge, the one with the power to fuck or not fuck Jonah, who lay exposed and quivering beneath him. “Where are your manners, lad? Do I not even get a ‘please’?”

“Please do it. Fuck me. Fill me now. Hard and deep. Please.” Jonah’s voice was so hoarse, he could hardly recognize it as his own.

Rafe growled. His eyelids dropped nearly closed, and he guided the tip of his cock to Jonah’s backside. Then—
push
—he was inside in one smooth glide, driving hard past the outer ring and deeply entering Jonah’s channel.

“Like that?” Rafe said.

“Yesss. More.”

The other man stopped teasing then, lost in his own growing desire. He plunged in, pulled out, and plunged again. Filling Jonah so hard and deep, it felt as if Rafe’s cock had become his whole world, and he couldn’t survive without it.

Their bodies thrust together, slap-slapping and building sweat between them. Jonah grabbed his ankles, keeping his legs high and tipping his hips to offer the most of himself to Rafe that he could. Lost in pleasure, his eyes were closed, but then he remembered he wanted to see Rafe’s face when he came, so he opened them.

Rafe appeared more like a dark angel than a devil tonight, his face transported in ecstasy, eyes closed and mouth gasping. He was so beautiful like this, Jonah knew the image would be burned in his mind forever. Whatever happened after this in the unknown future that awaited him, he would have this moment locked in his heart: Rafe Grimstone—unguarded, open, and vulnerable at last.

Several thrusts and deep grunts later, Rafe’s release swept through him, and he froze. Jonah felt his lover’s cock swell, and he clenched hard around him.

When it was finished, Rafe opened his eyes and looked at Jonah. For a long moment their gazes met, no words spoken, and Jonah imagined he heard all kinds of things that Rafe wouldn’t or couldn’t say aloud. There was more than sex here. There was emotion. Call it love, affection, or deep friendship, the feeling could not be denied.

But Rafe did his best to do just that. He shifted his gaze and rolled off Jonah to lie beside him, then stared up at the ceiling.

Jonah dropped his legs back down to the bed and felt the trickle of Rafe’s spendings slide from his backside. They lay side by side for a short while, arms barely touching, and then Rafe sat up.

“You should probably sleep on your bedroll on the floor. Just in case.”

In case of what? Jonah wanted to ask.
In case you wake up holding me as if you loved me
? He didn’t believe it was fear of discovery that spurred Rafe to cast him from his bed, but a fear of caring too deeply.

It was too late for Jonah, who already cared too deeply despite the promise he’d made himself. But he wasn’t going to argue the point. Not now, at any rate. He obediently climbed from the warm bed, donned his underwear, and rolled out his bedding.

As though feeling guilty about shutting him out, Rafe struck up a casual conversation. “How’s your show coming? Everyone seems pretty excited about it.”

“Good,” Jonah answered just as lightly. “Sam’s fixed some spotlights, and I think people will enjoy the tableaux. Poe’s lurid tales should pack ’em in.”

“Now you sound like a true showman,” Rafe said.

“An actor,” Jonah corrected. “I’ve found I have a talent for drama.”
And for deception, pretending I’m fine when you’ve hurt me
. “You might stop by our practice tomorrow and see what you think.”

“That I will. I’m looking forward to it. I’m glad you’re enjoying putting the show together. I want you to be happy.”

Then let me stay in your bed
. No, this was useless. He decided to interpret that last comment as loving words, and it was a balm to Jonah’s injured feelings.

They both fell silent then. Rafe extinguished the light, and the two men lay in separate beds, waiting for sleep to come.

Chapter Thirteen

Jonah was going to be the death of him. The man had his head in such a whirl, it rivaled a carousel. Every day Rafe promised himself to stiffen his spine and push Jonah away from him. The relationship was dangerous. Exposure would ruin both of them and possibly destroy the show, which already teetered on its last financial legs.

But it was his growing feelings that were even more dangerous. Rafe constantly reminded himself he was leaving, that he had a past to return to and no future with Jonah. Yet he couldn’t stop the emotions that crashed over him every time he glimpsed Jonah across the carnival grounds.

He desired him physically, his body tensing and his cock swelling from one of those glimpses, but he also wanted him on a level he didn’t want to think about. Hearing Jonah’s laughter or his enthusiasm as he talked about his beloved Shakespeare was the highlight of Rafe’s day.

During daylight hours, when he was busy, it was quite easy to keep his vow not to drag Jonah off to some secluded spot and steal a kiss or touch, but at night…the show put to bed, the midway gone dark…all Rafe could think of was making his way to Jonah, wherever he found him.

Jonah showing up soaking wet on his doorstep, hair slicked to his head, raindrops beading on his eyelashes, had sent such a powerful jolt of desire though Rafe that he’d honestly felt as if someone had punched him in the chest.