In the Company of Vampires (19 page)

“I will not apologize to the Dark One,” Eirik said when he could talk without wheezing. “The goddess Freya sent us to protect you, and we will do so until we are called back to Valhalla.”

“Yes, well, the goddess Freya probably doesn’t understand that we have a very complicated relationship, and Ben is my . . .” I paused and turned to him. “Is there some Dark One word for what you are to me?
Boyfriend
seems so lame.”

He took the tissue Imogen handed him and wiped the blood off his forehead. The cut was already closing. “Yes. Dark One.”

“No, I meant . . . oh, never mind.” I faced the Vikings again. “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t need protection from Ben, so there will be no more attacking him, all right?”

The looks the three of them gave me were not at all commensurate with a peaceful relationship.

I sighed, suddenly too tired to fight them anymore. “Oh, just go back to Brustwarze and have fun with your huge hordes of women. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Eirik’s gaze slid suspiciously from me to Ben. “You wish to get rid of us. You wish to rut with the Dark One.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes to both. Shoo.”

“Come, my angel of the night,” Finnvid said, scooping up Imogen and marching out of the trailer with her. “I will reacquaint you with my many manly charms.”

Ben looked for a moment like he was going to go after them, but stopped himself in time.

I turned to the two remaining Vikings.

“We wish to make plans with you,” Eirik said stubbornly, his arms across his chest. “We do not wish to be sent off because you want to bed-sport with the Dark One. We are not trivial. We are Vikings, sons of Odin, the fiercest of all his warriors!”

“You are very fierce, and I’m truly grateful you want to help. But we will continue to work out what to do tomorrow. All right? Good. Off you go.”

“I will leave you in the care of this one,” Eirik said, breathing somewhat noisily as I shoved both him and Isleif to the door. “But I warn you, Dark One, if any harm comes to the virgin goddess, I will cut out your heart and make you eat it.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, chill! If anyone cuts out Ben’s heart and feeds it to him, it’ll be me.” Ben looked at me in surprise. I blinked. “And I would never do that, of course, because he would never do anything that would hurt me. Except maybe what he’s thinking now, and I am not at all turned on by the thought of spankings, so you can just drop that idea.”

Eirik considered me for a moment. “I’m told they can be very pleasurable for a woman. I, myself, like to position my hand so that when the blow lands on the arse cheeks, my fingers dip down between the woman’s—”

“Okay, I’m adding spanking to the list of things we don’t talk about,” I interrupted quickly, making shooing motions. “Sheesh! Vikings!”

He left, but not without giving Ben one last look.

“Thank the god and goddess and all the little sprites,” I said, heaving a sigh of relief. “I really do like them, but sometimes they’re a bit much.”

The second the words hit my brain, I felt Ben eye me warily. I slid him a glance out of the corner of my eye.
You did not just say that.

He sighed. “Unfortunately, I did. Are you now going to lecture me again about how you can take care of yourself?”

I laughed. “No. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I haven’t changed into a wimpy woman who can’t deal with her own problems, but even if I had the Vikingahärta, I am going to need help with Loki. And since you already said you would help me take care of him, there’s nothing for me to be upset about, now, is there?”

“No, nothing at all,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “You have changed, though. Not into a feeble woman, but the Fran of five years ago would have fought me for weeks before she allowed me to help. I prefer you this way.”

Oh, how I remembered the arguments we had in the past about Ben’s insistence that he take care of my troubles for me. “Something Imogen told me right before I left stuck with me. She asked me if I had really wanted you to change into something you weren’t. It took me a while to understand what she meant. You are who you are, and nothing I can do will change that. Not that I want you to be different. I never did,” I added with a little quickening of my breath and pinkening of my cheeks. “I like you the way you are. And despite the fact that I’m far from helpless, I’m aware that you feel the need to protect me, and I appreciate that, so long as you don’t go overboard.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Who are you, and what have you done with my Beloved?”

I laughed. “I abused you terribly, didn’t I?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say abused, but you didn’t seem to understand how I felt.”

“No, I don’t suppose I did,” I said thoughtfully, remembering how overpowering Ben’s protective instincts used to feel.

He grimaced and took my hand, stroking his fingers over mine. “That was my fault. You seemed so adult, I lost sight of the fact that emotionally you weren’t ready for what I wanted from you.”

“Ben . . .” I bit my lip, wanting badly to ask him something, but not sure how to phrase it without sounding like a total idiot.

“You can ask me anything you want.” He leaned forward to kiss me, just a little kiss, but one that held such heat, I felt a blush of arousal start at my chest and wash upward.

“What have you been doing for the past five years?” The words blurted out of my mouth just as if I was still a gauche seventeen-year-old, leaving me flinching at both the bluntness and the fact that Ben knew exactly what it was I was asking.

He was silent for as long as it took me to count to twenty. “I have existed.”

I put my hand on his chest, feeling again the blackness that dwelled within, a dense, unfathomable midnight that would have sent me screaming into madness had I borne it. But despite that, I knew there were tiny little pinpricks of light. I had felt one of them, the hope that I would return to him, that light now shining steadily in a corner of his soul. I smiled at it, smiled at him, and nipped his lower lip as I fed the hope until it shimmered like a star against the velvety black sky.

With a groan that started deep in his chest, his hands swept down my back, pulling my hips closer to him. “Fran, I will not be able to think if you do that again.”

“Thinking is overrated. I’ve done enough of that for the last five years. Let’s move past it, shall we?” I sucked in my breath when he pressed kisses to that sensitive spot behind my ear. With a moan, I slid my hands up his back, my fingers tracing out the swell of his muscles, my entire body tingling with anticipation.

“When I saw you again, it was as if the last five years had never been. I want you, Francesca. I want you in my life. I want you in my bed. I want to wake up knowing that no other man will touch you.”

“That is seriously possessive. I don’t know why it doesn’t irritate me. Maybe it’s because I know what you mean. It’s like time just kind of stopped, although things between us have changed. It’s as if now it’s something . . . bigger.”

He chuckled and pulled my hips against his.
I assure you
it
has not changed
.

“That is how life is. I think you are worrying unduly,” he murmured in between kisses pressed to my neck. “We have both changed during the last few years. Can you not accept that? I have.”

“I don’t want you to simply accept me,” I protested, pushing back from his chest. “I want us both to be more than just comfortable.”

His mouth was hot on my flesh as he bit gently on my earlobe before moving over to my breastbone, trailing what felt like fire. “I am extremely
un
comfortable at this moment.”

I clutched his shoulders, my breath already ragged and uneven, those parts of me that had anticipated his touch for so long becoming very aware of him. My breasts almost hurt they were suddenly so sensitive, and when he whisked off my shirt, burying his face in my cleavage, I thought I might pass out with the sheer pleasure of it all.

A loud clang outside the trailer had us both recalling where we were. Without speaking, I peeked out of the blinds, relieved to see that it was just Karl, Kurt’s brother, moving past with a prop. “False alarm. Are you tired? How much sleep did you get in Naomi’s bed?”

His gaze was steady on me. “You’re never going to forget that, are you?”

“Not for a
very
. . .
long
. . .
time
,” I answered pleasantly.

He looked like he was going to sigh again, but instead he smiled ruefully, his smile making everything inside me wobble like gelatin. “Naomi tiraded about you most of the day, so I did not get much sleep.”

“Poor little sleepy vampire.” I moved over to the door, locking it before turning to look at him. He watched me with hope in his eyes. I smiled and held out my arms. I didn’t even see him move. One second he was standing a good twelve feet away, the next I was plastered against his chest, feeling every inch of him. I couldn’t help myself. I melted into a giant puddle of Fran, my legs going just as wobbly as the rest of me.

Ben slid an arm behind my knees and stood holding me, indecision gripping him as he turned to face the door at the end of the trailer.

“Would you mind your mother’s bed?”

“Under any other circumstances, yes. But I think she’d understand. And if she doesn’t . . . well, we’ll just deal with that.”

Before I could blink, I was on my back on the bed, Ben’s body pushing me into the mattress. His mouth and hands seemed to be everywhere at the same time, touching me, teasing me, stroking and tormenting my suddenly bared flesh in a way that was so overwhelming, I could do nothing more than writhe against him, trying to touch, tease, and torment him as well.

He reared back when I got both hands on his rear end. “How did you do that?” I managed to ask, noting with interest that his eyes were mahogany, shimmering with passion that left the little gold bits sparking as if they were made of flames.

He flexed his cheeks. “It’s always been that way.”

“No, not how did your butt get to be this way—although, I have to say, Ben, if I had known all those years ago that you had a butt this fabulous—well, that’s beside the point. What was I asking?”

He leaned forward, and a shiver went down my body at the sensation of his chest hair on my breasts. His mouth took possession of mine long enough to leave me almost completely witless. “I don’t know. You asked how I did something.”

“How come you can think and I can’t?” I demanded, sliding my hands up his spine, dragging my nails along his backbone. He groaned, his eyes closed for a few seconds. “I object to you being able to do that.”

His head dipped and he sucked on the spot behind my ear that he knew full well turned me into mush. “Do what?”

“That thing. With your brain.”

“Think?”

“Yes, that! I want to think, too, Ben. I want to be able to analyze what it is you’re doing to me, and what I’m feeling, and what you’re feeling, and what’s going to happen next, and whether or not you’re going to do the behind-the-ear thing on the other side of my head, because that ear is feeling a little left out.”

He laughed in my head as he duly attended to the other shivery spot, making me quiver with arousal.
You are the most delightful woman I have ever met, Francesca. Am I overwhelming you?

I’m sorry,
he said, moving off me.
I’m trying very hard not to rush this for you. I know this is your first time, and I don’t want you frightened by anything we do.

I blinked at him, pulling at his arms until his top part was over me again. “Who says I’m frightened? And, Ben, I’m not a virgin.”

He froze for a moment, his face impassive. “You have not been with another man. I would know if you had.”

“No, of course I haven’t. I explained that. But a girl can have toys, you know.”

His frozen expression relaxed, a wicked glint coming into his beautiful, expressive eyes. “What sort of toys gave you pleasure? Were they ones that touched you here?”

Oooh, Mr. Naughty!
I squealed as his head dipped and his teeth scraped gently across the nipple nearer him. I swear my eyes crossed when he followed that with a long, wet lick of his tongue.
No, no boob toys.