Page 93 of Heart of Thieves

I cannot help it. As we move from pose to pose, our bodies synchronizing like we’ve done this a thousand times, a smile creeps onto my mouth. And though this isn’t the Nic I knew—it is, in some ways. The quirk of his brow. The grip of his hand on my waist when we hang by our knees side by side. The gentleness of his laugh.

He’s in there. The longer we dance, the faster we spin, the heavier our breathing becomes, the stronger his presence. Soon, his fingers trace along the curve of my lower back, and mirth glimmers in his smile when I tease him about his unnatural flexibility.

Though I’m still a novice on the hoop, our bodies sync as they did on the dance floor during his tournament. The world falls away, and the apparatus twirls. His eyes lock on mine like a specter surfacing from a frozen lake.

But there’s a struggle. Like he’s clawing for purchase as something else—fear? caution?—holds him at bay. So when he swings into a seated position at the center of the hoop, I grit my teeth and climb into his lap, legs straddling his hips so my feet hang off behind him. I place my hands next to his, gripping the hoop over our heads.

“You haven’t been back to your casino,” I say. “Why?”

“How would you know that?” he asks, a vein pulsing in his temple a sure sign of the battle raging within him. I just wish I knew what it was. “Are you guilty of breaking and entering? That’s a crime, you know.”

“Almost every day,” I reply, keeping my jaw steady as my stomach ties itself in knots.

“Why?”

A flush rises in my neck, heat speckling my cheeks in what I’m sure is a very obvious blush, but I do not drop his gaze, do not even blink. If I want to break through whatever is keeping him trapped, I need to be vulnerable, even if it might hurt.

I take a deep breath. “To remember.”

It isn’t a lie. I may have told myself I kept returning to hide from Enzo, to practice my magic, to get uninterrupted time to learn aerial hoop, but all along, that has never been the real reason.

No, I kept returning to his casino because out in the city, in the Brig, or on the beach, what happened during the tournament always felt like it might have been a dream. An illusion. Another lie.

But at the Liar’s Den, the world hushed away, and Nic was everywhere. Echoes of his showman’s voice lived in the walls, the whiskey and cinnamon scent of him slumbered in the air, his breath brushed feather-soft against my neck in the faint breezes whistling through the balcony doors.

“Ah.” He regards me knowingly. That expression might have angered me yesterday before I caught that glimpse of him at the telescope, but not now.

Instead, sadness softens the bite of my pain. Not for myself, missing him, wishing he would return, but for him. The young man who has spent his whole life trapped.

So I lick my lips and forge on, speaking not to the magic icing from those eyes, but to the imprisoned young man inside.

“You know you were the first person in my life to be completely honest with me?” I say. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Was I, though?” he murmurs. “Or did I just tell you what you wanted to hear?”

“Whoever your magic is forcing you to be might lie to me, but it isn’t you. Not wholly.”

His lips purse, and it takes all my willpower to not look at those lips, all my focus to not remember what they felt like against the hollow of my throat.

“Perhaps it is, little thief.”

“Don’t call me that,” I blurt before I can stop myself.

He cocks his head, raising an eyebrow. “You seemed to like it before.”

“Yes, well . . . You were different before.” I shiver, though it’s not cold. I’m so close, my words striking something in him, but they still aren’t enough.

I have to do more. Break through whatever is keeping the real him captive.

I release the hoop, shifting to wrap my arms around his neck. “I have a question. A request.”

“Ask away.”

“You said what happened between us during the tournament was a lie, but . . . it wasn’t for me,” I admit on a whisper. “It was real. And I . . . I miss it.”

Warmth floods his eyes for an instant, but then the icy light reclaims it. “Say it, darling.”

“Would you pretend for a moment that you’re still the Nic I thought I knew?” My voice comes out barely a breath, my heart gargling in my throat, my cheeks burning.