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Heart thumping wildly in my chest, I nod. “I promise.”

The touch drifts down to capture my chin. To tip it back like he had earlier and I can no longer catch my breath.

“I love you.”

I shiver at the gentle sincerity. “I love you, too.”

The hand breaks away to slide behind my head, to tuck beneath my hair and cradle my skull. His breath caresses my cheeks, warms my offered lips. He’s so close the sliver of air between us flutters.

“You mean everything to me. I don’t want to live without you.”

I tremble at his guttural vow. At the pressure of his fingers fisting in my hair. I’m shaking when I have to swallow and lick my lips to speak.

“You’re my everything.”

I’m dragged tighter into him. My front aligns with his. My arms find their own way around his neck and I lift myself up onto my toes to close the distance between us.

“I need to get ready,” he says with his lips against the corner of mine, so close we’re practically kissing. “But I’ll see you in the morning.”

In the morning, when I wake to him curled possessively around me.

“I miss you,” I tell him.

His kiss travels to my chin. I plant one on his nose.

“If it were up to me, I would never leave your side.”

My arms tighten around him. His nose bumps mine. That’s all the time we have before he has to break away.

But rather than part ways and return to the shop, I take his fingers when he starts to leave.

“Can I come with you?”

His answer is to drag my hand to his lips before tugging me along.

It’s chaos in the Big Top, a whirlwind of activity as performers rush around grabbing their props, stretching for their acts and zipping on and off the stage.

Selene — the fire-eater — storms past yelling about her sticks and if anyone has seen them. From the other side of the space, someone yells back a response, but Aiden turns me to face him and I miss it.

“Find a spot in the audience. It’s too crowded back here. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I touch his chest lightly. Not too long. A graze of my fingertips as I peer up into his warm gaze. Already the brown has a hint of red in them and his lips are a little too wide at the corners. Like this, the two are as close to being one without full transformation.

“Good luck.”

A coil of hair is caught off my shoulder and wound around his finger. He gives a gentle tug.

“Love you.”

I smile. “Love you.”

With a final tug, he releases my hair, and I step away. I hurry out through the side entrance and loop around to where the last of the crowd floods in.

I make eye contact with Nakusha taking people’s tickets and she waves me through.

The corner I pick is at the bottom bench, straight in front of center stage. All the overhead lights are off, but there is faint movement in the shadows as Warrick’s mirror is wheeled out and put into place.

I’ve watched Aiden’s act a million times. Ever since he and Warrick could shift, I’ve held front row attendance most nights. It never fails to amaze me how beautiful they are. How feral and dangerous. Watching them turns me on in a way that only makes my time with Warrick all the harder because I have wanted him to take advantage of me for years. If I had known all it would take was being late, I would have done so ages ago. Granted, I was worried he would hurt Aiden as punishment, not finally give me what I wanted.