Gideon’s warmth pools in my chest as he helps me into the enormous basket, which creaks and groans with every movement. Sarah and her male companions rush around, fiddling with sandbags, lighting things, and muttering about wind speeds and compass directions. There is a picnic basket in the corner, brimming with foods that smell amazing – cheese, oranges,tartines de foie gras– which I can’t eat.
With a huff and a jerk, the balloon is away. Gideon unloops the tethers. At first, I don’t even realise we’re moving. But then I look over the edge and see the tops of the buildings and the flickering streetlamps of Rue de l’Abreuvoir.
We’re really flying.
My head spins from the wonder of it.
“Champagne?” Gideon holds out a glass. I accept it, taking a sip, knowing that I’ll regret it later. The drink itself tastes like nothing, but the bubbles dance on my tongue, light and free, like me.
Up here, the city changes. Everything is so insignificant. The Seine is a periwinkle ribbon. Pieces of Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty are laid out at the workshops, the gargantuan limbs like shards of a broken doll.
Sarah leaves her two male friends to manage the envelope and sashays over to me. She wears a fashionable silk dress and a stuffed bat perched on her hat. “Giddy tells me you are the finest dancer in all of Paris.”
“In all the world,” Gideon adds.
“I am not in the same league as you.” I feel like a little girl again, awed by the majesty of the grand houses where my mother worked and the ancient tombs she allowed me to wander. “I don’t grace the stage for rapturous crowds. I dance for the pleasure of men. I say nothing except what they want to hear. What I do cannot be compared to your art.”
“You should not shrink yourself so. Art is not about something. Artissomething.” Sarah runs her hands over her body. “Energy creates energy, Arabella. It is by spending myself that I become rich. If I recognise the collar you wear, you understand this better than most, I think.”
Heat creeps across my cheeks at her words.
“I do as I wish,” Sarah continues. “I sleep in a coffin because it amuses me. I keep cheetahs, a tiger, lion cubs and a monkey. I hada pet alligator called Ali-Gaga, who died of a milk and champagne overdose. But I only do these things because people wish to watch me. The actress or the dancer cannot exist without the audience. Pleasing others is the ultimate way to please ourselves. Do you agree?”
I raise my glass of champagne. “I agree thoroughly.”
“Look!” Gideon points over the edge. “There’s La Petite Mort.”
I grip the edge of the basket and lean out, squinting where he points. From this angle, I can make out only the sharply steepled roof of the old church that now houses my theatre. Gideon’s chest brushes my back as he leans in close behind me, pointing to other features of the city.
He turns, and his lips brush my earlobe, soft at first, so soft that I might believe it was an accident.
But then, he lingers.
The heat of him, thescentof him, sparks inside me like a lit fuse burning down, and I don’t know what is going to happen when it gets to the end.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I mean it to be a reprimand, but it comes out breathy.
He presses his lips against the edge of my jaw. I feel them curl back into a grin. “I think I’m trying to kiss an enchanting woman under the moonlight.”
“Your friends can see us.”
“Oh, darlings, please don’t be shy.” And then Sarah grabs me, tearing me from Gideon’s grasp, and plants a kiss on my lips.
I’ve had several female clients over the years, so I’m familiar with all the different ways a woman’s kiss can feel. But I’ve never kissed a woman I admire, nor a woman whose freedom to be herself makes my throat close in envy. Sarah’s lips are soft, her scent floral and uplifting – the opposite of Gideon’s bewitching darkness. Her hands cup my cheek, holding me in place, knocking me off-centre with her command of this interaction. Her tongue explores every corner of my mouth, brushing softly against mine before circling the tips of my fangs, which have already begun to drop, drawn down by Gideon’s red cherry and poppy scent.
I expect her to pull away in disgust, but she continues to take her fill of me, while I wonder at the heady need she stirs in me, not to kiss her again, which is enjoyable, but for someone to take control away from me, to trust another enough to allow them to see who I am behind my mask.
When she does pull away, her breath is ragged and her eyes shimmer with lust.
“The night belongs to us, Arabella. We are too young and beautiful to hold ourselves back!” And before I can say a word, Sarah leaps onto the edge of the basket, making it sway. I grip the rim as we tilt downward, the world beneath us swaying across my vision.
“Sarah, get down!” Gideon growls, his arm going around my waist, holding me against him as the basket tips even further. Can vampires die from a great fall? I don’t want to find out.
“Make me,ma chérie!”
Gideon grips the rope and looks down at me, his grey eyes sparkling. His arm tightens around my waist. I should be terrified of falling, but instead, I amflying. Laughter bubbles up in my chest. Up in the clouds, everything down there is so small and unimportant.
Sarah’s other companions coax her down from the edge. She refills the champagne glasses. Gideon’s hand never leaves my waist and I enjoy it too much to move it away. His breath on the back of my neck is a delicious torture.
