Chapter 38
ZINAIDA
I know Luke is watching me.
I saw him briefly with Mak. Saw the grim tension in his face as they talked, the way his eyes never stopped scanning the room. I almost laughed aloud when his masked figure walked back up to the fishbowl office.
There isn’t a mask in existence that could disguise Luke’s massive form.
Then I saw Mak lead Agatha from the booth with Simon, and got Luke’s comms that it was done.
And for a terrible moment, I thought perhaps Luke might simply leave before I even got up on stage.
It scares me how crushing that thought was.
Not to mention how alone it made me feel. I don’t want to be up on stage without him in the room. Whether I want to admit it or not, I feel safe when Luke is close.
But as the curtain rises, there’s no mistaking his silent bulk, dimly lit by the screens in my office, immovable as ever, his arms folded and eyes locked on me. He might be no more than an indistinct shadow, but I can feel his eyes like they’re hands on my skin.
Tonight was meant to be the kind of crazy that would make Luke realize he is in over his head.
A performance so dark and disturbing he would see exactly what I truly am.
But somewhere between deciding to dance tonight and the moment when the curtain rises, I’ve gone from weaving a trap to being caught in it.
First it was the secret pleasure I took in having Lily design the most exquisite costume I’ve ever worn.
Then it was the late nights in my apartment, mentally choreographing every step of my dance.
Planning the perfect music and designing a dream set.
All of it felt increasingly like casting an elaborate enchantment.
It’s only as the curtain comes up and I see Luke’s huge figure silently watching me that I realize the spell has backfired.
I’m not trying to drive Luke away.
I’m trying to seduce him.
Knowing it’s an impossible dream only adds a bittersweet thrill to the already potent magic I’ve woven.
My limbs feel suddenly liquid, guided by some force outside myself.
Tonight isn’t about payback. It’s not about revenge or showing anyone in this room what my world is.
Tonight I’m just a woman who wants a man.
A man I know I should let go.
It’s a painful yearning that makes me dance like I never have in my life.
Tetya Ana believed all young ladies should be trained in ballet.
I took classes from a Russian instructor from early childhood.
Those lessons were the only thing my father continued.
Not because he had ambitions about me going into the Bolshoi, but because he wanted his caged pet to be the most exotic of them all.
Dancing became my escape, the only place that was truly mine. I’ve never lost my love for the art of burlesque—nor the skills I honed over years of nightly performances.
I swing my legs over the moon and fall dramatically backward, relishing the gasp of the audience as they think I will tumble to the floor.
I don’t, of course.
I twine about the crescent moon as if I’m a serpent on a branch, my body an illusion designed to bewilder and beguile.
The art of burlesque is not stripping. It’s not pole dancing.
It’s a flirtation, a temptation.
That’s why my dress has intricate layers over exquisitely crafted lingerie. It’s why the Quartier is decorated tonight to recreate the atmosphere of Venetian Carnivale, and why my ornate hairstyle and mask are simultaneously alluring and slightly dangerous.
Burlesque is about sinful seduction. The suggestion rather than the explicit. It’s about making every person in the room want to tear away the illusion and get to the woman beneath. When I’m dancing, I’m no longer Zinaida Melikov, daughter of the Whip and calculated criminal psychopath.
When I dance burlesque, I’m the woman none of those labels could ever touch.
The midnight dance at the Winter Ball is about showing the audience just enough of that woman to have them panting for more.
About whipping every person in the room into such a frenzy that by the time the Winter Queen takes her throne, the entire room is desperate to be let off the leash—and loose on each other.
It’s what made the Quartier dark and exclusive from the start.
A delicate, calculated balance, a deliberately dangerous atmosphere, that I train all my staff, male and female, to cultivate and control.
But in all the times I’ve controlled a room, never once have I lost control of myself.
Until tonight.
I know it the moment I drop upside down, then twine my way back onto the crescent moon.
I feel it in the sensual brush of my fans against my skin and the growing heat between my legs.
I sense it in the hushed silence of the audience and five hundred eyes glued to the slightest inch of bared skin I allow them to see.
But most of all, I know it because none of those eyes matter to me at all. The only gaze I can feel, the only eyes turning my body to sinuous potency and desire, to molten heat, are Luke’s.
Tonight I’m not allowing the audience forbidden, tantalizing glimpses behind my mask.
Luke is stripping that mask away, layer by layer, with nothing more than his silent, unmoving presence and unseen eyes.
And the fact that I can’t see his reaction clearly only makes the thrill even greater.
I slide from the crescent to the platform atop the stairs, where several support dancers, male and female, await.
My whip is built into my costume, and unraveling it also removes one of the filmy layers.
I ply the whip with exquisite devastation, plucking the dress from one dancer to leave her covered by only fans, removing the shirt of another to reveal his torso.
I allow the leather to trail my own body, flicking off a patch of cloth here, a bow there.
Each sudden removal is underpinned by slow, sensual movement, so the audience is kept on constant edge, never entirely certain when the next reveal or tease will come.
By the time I’m standing on the bottom step, the support dancers are close to naked, but still tantalizingly concealed.
Only strategically placed fans cover my lingerie. The room is holding its collective breath—and I’m trying to keep it together.
I’ve never been so aware of the sexual tension in a crowd. I’ve certainly never been turned on by it before.
But Luke is standing exactly as he was at the start of my dance. As ever, he hasn’t moved at all. The comms in my ear are completely silent.
For all I know, he is completely unaffected by the entire thing.
Is he made from fucking stone?
I crack my whip, and the fan covering my breasts splits apart and falls away, revealing a backless black corset with a halter neck that pushes my breasts high, the nipples half exposed.
I spin around and crack the whip again, and the fan covering my ass falls away.
I draw the fronds of the whip up over the exposed globes, only marginally covered by the low-cut thong, then bring the whip down on my own flesh just hard enough to leave stripes across it—and to start a heavy pulse between my legs.
I peek coyly over my shoulder, slowly dragging the fronds of the whip up my naked spine, drawing out the moment of reveal. In one of the private booths close to the stage, I see one woman inch up her skirt and push the hand of the man next to her between them.
It’s time.
I crack the whip in front of me, and the fronds snake back to cut through the thin satin holding up the corset.
Another crack, and the entire piece is removed, treating the crowd to a brief glimpse of my naked ass before I spin around to face them.
They gasp, then sigh when they realize my entire torso is shielded by one last fan.
Slowly I begin to walk into the fake water in front of the steps, the stage piece underneath me sinking with each step to give the illusion I’m entering the lake.
The moon rises behind me, casting a high, golden light all around.
My legs slowly inch beneath the imaginary surface, and the crowd strains for a better view as the fan inches higher and higher, toward the crease of my thighs.
The pulse between my legs is thudding heavily. My nipples behind the fan are hard and full, aching to be touched.
Tonight isn’t an illusion for the crowd.
Tonight, the arousal is all too real.
I look up at the office, and my heart stops.
Luke isn’t standing still anymore.
He’s leaning forward, gripping the railing that runs the length of the office, his face inches from the window.
Even from this distance, I can feel the savage restraint in his body, the tension of desire warring with conscience.
I feel an almost crippling stab of desire.
The theater might be full, but right now, I’m dancing for one man, and one man only.
I reach up with one hand and release the ribbon of my mask. It drops into the lake. I raise my eyes to the control room, and for a split second, stare straight at Luke.
The stage beneath me sinks, and I disappear to the sounds of ecstatic screaming from the audience.
I’m high and wired, and I don’t want to go back up onto that stage.
I will expose too much.
I don’t mean too much skin. That doesn’t bother me in the least.
I know how to play the role of Queen, how to conduct an orgy like I might an orchestra. I wanted to play that part tonight. Wanted Luke to see me commanding the pleasure of an entire theater of people. That was the whole reason I took this role, to goad and intimidate him beyond reason.
Only it’s me who’s lost myself tonight.
It’s me who is so swollen and hot between the legs that I’m ready to scream at the first touch.
I’m so close to being entirely undone that I don’t want anyone, even my staff, to see me.
But it’s too late to back out now.
“Holy shit.” Rocco helps me into the silk robe I’ll wear for the next stage of proceedings, staring at me admiringly as he helps seat me on the throne. I keep my eyes down. “That dance will be the talk of London for the next fucking decade.”
“Next century, more like.” Even Shelby, looking utterly stunning in shimmering silver and aqua, gives me a begrudging nod. “That was something else.”
I don’t answer either of them.
All I can hear is the deafening silence from my earpiece, and all I can feel is the devastating absence of Luke’s reassuring voice.
He’s gone, I think dully. I’ve lost him. And now I have to see this through.
I asked for this. I wanted it. My reputation was built on nights like these.
But despite knowing that going back out onstage will cement my legend, every nerve in my body is screaming at me not to do it.
“Ready?” Shelby tucks my robe artfully around me, casting a covetous glance at the throne.
I know how much she loves being Queen. If getting turned on by the performance is something new to me, for Shelby, that stage is her greatest aphrodisiac.
I’ve seen her orgasm from nothing more than the touch of eyes in the crowd once she’s on that throne.
I close my eyes briefly, trying not to betray the tension racing through my body.
You can do this, Zin.
Then a large hand closes over my shoulder, and a familiar voice speaks with the low, calm command that makes my stomach curl with wanting.
“I need to get Zin out of here. Shelby, you’re going to have to take over.”
I wonder if I’m the only one who can hear the faint growl behind Luke’s words, sense the hard tension in his body.
Because I can feel his barely restrained savagery.
In the lightning swiftness with which he plucks the comms from my ear.
In the bear paw holding me in place.
In the spicy, fresh heat so close I can fucking taste him.
“What’s happened?” Rocco looks around as if someone could come at us any minute. “Is there an active threat?”
I keep my eyes down. I don’t want anyone to see into them, especially my staff.
“It’s neutralized,” Luke says. “It’s just Zin who needs to get out of here.” He looks at Shelby again. “Can you take her place?”
“Of course.” Shelby doesn’t attempt to hide her delight. Her eyes cut to me. “But are you sure—is this okay—?”
“It’s not up to her.” Luke thrusts my bag into my arms and lifts me out of the throne as if I’m a paperweight.
He sets me on my feet, then tightens the belt of my robe so I’m covered.
“It’s a security issue.” He gives Shelby a small, reassuring smile.
“Make this work, Shelby. I know you can.” He wraps an arm around me, edging me toward the door.
“Oh, and Rocco,” he throws over his shoulder, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“I have a special assignment for you. Mak’s VIP booth, woman in the silver mask. ”
“Si?” Rocco’s face brightens. “I go now.”
“Christ,” says Paddy dryly from behind Luke. “You’re sending him to the home secretary?”
“It will be the best night of her life.” Luke cups my head against his chest, the rumble of his laughter vibrating sweetly through me. “And you’ve got point on security, Paddy, but I want you to defer to Charlie’s judgment when it comes to our guests. She knows the crowd better than you.”
As he virtually carries me out of the room, I hear Charlie’s Cockney accent: “Hear that, you sweet piece of Irish clover? Shelby might be running the cocks on the floor tonight, but your ass is all mine, bitch.”