Kiss of Pride (9 page)

Work me? Is that like “do me”?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” She stepped out from behind Vikar’s big body. “I am not engaging in any ménage à trois, not with normal men, and definitely not with bleepin’ vampire angels, even if they do look like stud muffins.”

The jaws of all three men dropped, further exposing fangs. Even Vikar now.

“And it’s not because I’m chicken, either. I’m not afraid of you perverts.”

“Ménage à trois?” Vikar sputtered. “For the love of mud!”

“Actually, that would be ménage à quatre,” the geek corrected.

“A foursome,” Cnut interpreted, his dour face breaking into a reluctant grin. “Now there’s a thought.”

“Perverts? We are not perverts,” Vikar sputtered some more.

But then Harek, the brainiac, homed in on something else she’d said, “Who is she calling a stud muffin?” He, too, was grinning.

“We will see you at dinner,” Vikar said to his brothers, attempting to shove her out the door.

“Tacos, not lemon chicken, will be on the table, gentlemen,” Alex said, getting the last word in as she allowed Vikar to steer her away. Oddly, she wasn’t frightened. Vikar would protect her. She hoped.

Once in the hall, he yanked her into his office and closed the door. “I have given you space these past three days, but as you may have noticed in the midst of your blathering with my brothers, your situation is dire. Beginning tonight, we will exchange blood twice a day until you are pure.”

“You can’t make that decision for me.”

“I can and I will.”

“What about all that free will nonsense you keep spouting?”

He fisted his hands as if to keep from throttling her. “Once the cleansing ritual is complete, you can do whatever you want.”

“Including leaving this castle?”
Why does that prospect suddenly hold no appeal for me? Is it the Stockholm syndrome, or something?

“You can take a freight train to Hell for all I care!” He threw his hands up in frustration.

His words hurt her, for some reason. The Stockholm syndrome must work only one way. No reciprocation of sentiment. Thus, it was in a small voice that she said, “That’s not true, Vikar. You do care. You care too much.”

“Now you are going to psychoanalyze me?” He sighed deeply. “Why are you always fighting me? Why can’t you be biddable for once?”

“Because if I stop fighting with you, I’ll probably hop in the sack with you,” she admitted, before she had a chance to catch herself.

The sound of the ensuing silence was deafening. At first she didn’t want to look at Vikar, to see his reaction, but he took that choice out of her hands by suddenly shoving her against the closed door, his erection prodding her middle. With one hand on either side of her head, he leaned in, “M’lady, you play with fire when you make statements like that. I have not had sex for a hundred years, and I am hungry.”

“I haven’t had sex for a long time, either,” she said, leaning up for a kiss.

He turned his face aside.

“You don’t want to kiss me?”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Do not tempt me, wench. If I kiss you, I will not stop there. I will be swiving you continuously ’til your eyeballs roll back in your head and we mark every room in this castle like randy dogs.”

Swiving? What a charmer?
She tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle. Putting a hand to his cheek, she said, “Vikar, we both got aroused the other time you did that cleansing thing. You can’t deny the chemistry is there. How are we ever going to exchange blood, over and over, and not have sex?”

“God help me, I do not know.” He turned slightly so that he could at least kiss her palm.

Alex felt the erotic tickle all the way to her toes and some important places along the way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the phone rang then. Stunned by the instant arousal that whipped between them, they let it go to the answering machine, and the message that came from Alex’s boss was an erotic damper if there ever was one.

“Lord Vikar. This is Ben Claussen, Alex’s editor. Do whatever you can to keep her there for a while. I’ve already told her that it’s not safe for her to come back to the city at this time.”

Vikar arched his brows at her for failing to deliver that news to him.

“The feds are looking for her to deliver a subpoena to testify at the cartel trial. The cartel will be watching closely to see where that delivery is made. I fear she’ll become their target.”

Now Vikar was shaking his head at her, as if she were a small child needing a scolding.

“I’ll talk to Alex about this later, but she’s one stubborn lady. And she speaks highly of you.”

That comment prompted more eyebrow raising. Alex didn’t recall saying anything particularly complimentary about Vikar. Had she?

After the answering machine clicked off, Vikar folded his arms and scowled at her. “You will stay,” he declared firmly, “until I deem it safe for you to depart.”

That’s all she needed. Not only did Lucipires have her in their cross-hairs, drug dealers might be gunning for her, too, and now her boss would be in cahoots with her vampire angel host.

Could her life get any better than this?

A devil’ s work is never done . . .

“One of The Seven is in Transylvania? Impossible! Too much visibility there.” Jasper glared at the brain-dead idiot of a mung Lucipire—
brain dead, ha, ha, ha!
—who’d come to him with that improbable announcement.

He was down in Horror reclining in his La-Z- Boy, sipping at a Bloody Mary (the real kind) and watching
Buffy
reruns on his satellite TV.

“Real vampires of any kind do not go near Count Dracula’s hunting grounds,” Jasper declared impatiently to his assistant Sabeam, who’d brought the battered mung into his private quarters.

“Not that Transylvania. The other Transylvania. In Pennsylvania,” Sabeam explained.

“And one of The Seven was there, I tell you,” the mung insisted.

He and Sabeam turned to the young male wearing leather with bullet holes in the knees, who’d not yet learned to speak only when spoken to. The mung shivered with fright. As well he should! He would be punished good and well for having lost his companion, never to return to Horror, and for failing to capture a most favored vangel, if what he claimed was true.

Sabeam was a mung, too, but he had years and much experience on this new fellow. Maybe Jasper would let Sabeam be the one to instruct him on proper discipline.

Jasper shoved Mary, an imp demon, and watched with distaste as she scuttled off like a scared crab. And he hadn’t even drained her yet! “There’s a Transylvania in Pennsylvania?” he inquired testily of Sabeam. “Why did no one tell me this?”

“It is a joke. I mean, the town is a joke, master.” Their attention was drawn back to the young mung who was shivering so hard his teeth chattered, causing his fangs to bite repeatedly into his bottom lip. He kept swiping with the back of his hand to prevent blood from dripping onto the carpet. “The residents pretend to be vampires to draw in tourists.”

“Ah!
Twilight
again! I wish that book had never been written. And
True
Blood
! I swear, those Sookie Stackhouse books give vampires a bad name! I ask you, Sabeam, did you ever see a wussier vampire than Vampire Bill?”

The young mung thought he’d been addressing him and said, “Huh?”

Brain dead, brain dead, brain dead!
Mulling the situation, he knew that he should send one of his haakai Lucipires or a few mungs there to investigate, but they were busy setting up the Sin Cruise on the Internet. The Sin Cruise was Jasper’s ingenious plan for harvesting vast numbers of new Lucipires.

“Send Gregori and Virgana to me,” he told Sabeam. “Gregori is in the training arena with new Lucipires, and Virgana is in Bermuda hiring a cruise ship. Tell Brutus and Lucretia to take over for them. If there are vangels in this Transylvania, Pennsylvania, those two will scent them out.” Gregori was a haakai, once an executioner for Ivan the Terrible, and Virgana was his hordling consort. “And take this disgusting mung with you,” he added.

After that, Jasper settled back and watched Angel seducing Buffy. Holy fires of Hell! He would love to have a Lucipire like Angel.
There
was a vampire with a brain! Though Jasper hated his name.

Lucifer had taken most of Jasper’s collection from him by now, and the captive vangel had died without renouncing God, thus ensuring his place in Heaven, or wherever good vangels went, but all was not lost. The Sin Cruise was on the horizon, and Jasper felt certain he and his hordes would harvest hundreds, if not thousands, of lost souls in the act of sin. And there was a possibility that one of The Seven would be captured in Transylvania.

Life . . . or Unlife . . . was good!

Note to self: Order cruise wear.

Sin City on the High Seas? . . .

“Holy crap! Would you look at this?” Harek said as they finished their impromptu meeting. He pointed to the screen on his computer.

“What the hell!” he and Cnut said at the same time. While vangels avoided bad language, profanity did not seem quite as bad as sacrilegious expletives. Those they shunned like gammelost, the stinky fish hated by most Norsemen. They slipped betimes.

“Sin Cruise Planned on Internet Website,” the headline read.

The AOL news article went on to say that the first ever ocean liner orgy was being planned for August off the coast of Florida, in international waters, where presumably laws against such activities would not be in effect. No children or child pornographers would be allowed, but just about everything else would be permitted.

“This is friggin’ unbelievable!” Vikar said, sliding his chair closer to read. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Cnut, who sat on Harek’s other side, remarked, “It was inevitable, with the way the world today is going. To Hell in a handbasket, as the saying goes.”

“Sodom and Gomorrah,” they all said as one.

“Look at this.” Harek read the itinerary: Nude Swimming. Extreme Matchmaking. Adultery and Perversions. Nighttime Orgies. How to Engage in a Ménage à Trois. Bestiality for the Faint of Heart. Advanced S&M. Fetishes Galore. Voyeurism. Punishment as Pleasure.

“Could this possibly be something Jasper cooked up?” Vikar shook his head with wonder. Given all the evil he had seen over the centuries, he was surprised that he could still be shocked.

“Absolutely!” Harek clicked another link, then pointed the cursor at “How to Have Sex with a Vampire.”

“Hah! What I want to know is how a vampire angel gets permission to have sex,” Vikar said.

Harek had already moved the cursor to another topic and said aloud, “Satan Worship at Midnight.”

All three of them made signs of the cross on their chests.

“Many of the things planned are illegal in this country. How can they get away with it?” Vikar wondered. “You’d think the police would be shutting them down before they start.”

Harek shook his head. “Maritime laws are convoluted and hard to enforce. Territorial law, meaning the law of the adjoining land, only applies twelve miles out. From twelve to twenty-four miles, it’s considered contiguous waters, where some laws apply. But beyond twenty-four miles, that’s international.”

“Still . . .” Vikar was finding it hard to fathom how such an event could be planned, openly, with no repercussions.

“Think about it. If a crime occurs aboard ship, what country has jurisdiction? The place where the ship is registered? The place where it started its journey? Where it docks?” Harek was still clicking away at the computer as he spoke. “Oh shit! Look where it’s registered. Libya. Try to file a lawsuit there today.”

They all laughed. That country had enough problems of its own.

“I can see now why all those missing persons and rape cases we hear about on cruise lines almost never get prosecuted successfully,” Cnut mused.

“And most of them are never reported by the cruise lines,” Harek added. “Bad publicity.”

“Michael should be informed of this right away,” Vikar said. “At least this activity should divert Jasper’s attention away from me. That mung must not have recognized me.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Cnut warned, but then Cnut was ever cautious. As he should be as one of their best soldiers.

“Where’s your pretty guest?” Harek asked then.

Hiding from me, no doubt.
Vikar shrugged, as if he had no idea. “I’ll see you both in the morning.” He rose to his feet, stretched, and yawned loudly. “I’m really tired.”

Even after he closed the door and began to climb the stairs, he could hear their laughter following him. He was fooling no one. They knew exactly where he was headed.

Seven

He was bloody sex on the hoof . . . uh, fang . . .

Transylvania feature, Kelly      Page 1

Draft Four

What if there were angels sent to earth to save humans who are on a fast road to Hell? Not guardian angels, but fierce warrior angels who fight demons hell-bent on catching weak mortal sinners before they have a chance to repent.

What if all these angel saviors were former Vikings? No, not the football kind. The sword-wielding, plundering kind who are so good-looking, women stop in their tracks just to gape at them.

In the hills of Pennsylvania . . .

Alex had taken a bubble bath, shaved her legs and armpits, washed and blow-dried her hair, and applied Jessica McClintock body lotion from neck to toes to cover up her lemon scent. Coral Ice adorned her newly enameled finger- and toenails. She was damn well going to have sex, or someone was going to pay.

It might seem like a contradiction for her to have been resisting Vikar right and left, and now to have surrendered without any convincing on his part. Maybe that’s exactly why. Her decision.

For years now, even before Brian and Linda’s deaths, even before she and Brian had separated, Alex’s life had been controlled by outside forces. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d done something totally for herself.

She smiled to herself.
This is definitely going to be for me.

They’d eaten dinner hours ago. Since she’d done most of the work preparing the tacos and dessert, she’d left the men to clean up. Dagmar rarely ate with them, for some reason, but Vikar claimed it was her choice.

Alex sat on her bed, legs extended and crossed at the ankles, wearing her favorite sleeping attire: jade nylon running shorts and a white tank top edged in matching green. She would have been nude if she had more nerve, or self-confidence. After all, she was thirty years old and no longer in prime physical shape, mainly because she’d been sedentary for so long. In fact, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d jogged or done a sit-up.
Can anyone say sagging butt?

Vikar knocked lightly on the door. “Are you decent?”

I hope not.
“C’mon in.”

He opened the door, took one look at her, and pretended like he was going to turn and go away. But he didn’t. Instead, he closed and locked the door behind him.

The only light came from the full moon, but it was enough, what with the eight windows arranged in a semicircle around the turret room.

She noticed that Vikar had taken care with his appearance, too.

Be still, my libido.

He’d obviously showered, and his wet hair was tied at his nape with a leather thong. A pure white T-shirt and black sweatpants were his only attire. He was barefoot. He hadn’t shaved, but being blond, even dark blond, he had only a faint designer stubble on his face.

If eyes could speak, his would be saying,
I want you
. The fangs that were slowly emerging said it for him.

A sex goddess she’d never been before, but now . . .
I am goddess, hear me roar!
Confidence restored, Alex said, “I hope you brought condoms.”

“I don’t need condoms,” he said, crossing his arms and yanking his shirt over his head. With his gaze holding hers, he unlaced the tie of his sweatpants and let them drop to the floor.

She could swear she heard a drumroll in her head.

After stepping out of his sweatpants, he wore only a pair of black boxer briefs that delineated a high, curved butt, narrow hips, a flat, muscle-striated belly, and a very impressive package. Plus a tourniquet around his upper arm, whose purpose she didn’t want to contemplate.

“You’re prettier than I am,” she observed with mock chagrin.

His eyes scanned her body, slowly. “That is debatable.”

“Why don’t you need a condom?” She scooted her bottom over on the single-size bed to make room for him so that she was on her side with her back to the wall.

“Vangels cannot beget children.”

That was so sad. Alex couldn’t imagine a world without children in it, though she never intended to have any more herself.

“Besides, we are not going to have sex per se.” He lay down on his side facing her and ran an appreciative fingertip from her shoulder to her wrist.

“Per se?” she choked out.
Good Lord, does he have some kind of sexual energy coming out of his fingertips, like a laser pointer?

“Have I mentioned how much I like your freckles?”

Forget freckles, I’m still stuck back on magic fingers.
She shook her head to clear it. “Per se?” she reminded him.

“We are going to have near-sex. Everything except penetration.”

Sex games? Jeesh, I get turned on just hearing him say the word
penetration
. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic!
“Why? I mean, why no intercourse?”

“I am hoping that my punishment for near-sex will not be nearly as great as full-blown swiving.”

He doesn’t mince words, that’s for sure.
“You’ll be punished for being with me?”

“For a certainty. Sex outside of marriage is a no-no, as compared to near-sex, which I am hoping is a venial sin.” At her frown, he quickly added, “Not to worry, sweetling. I get punished for many things. Methinks Mike is fonder of me than he pretends, and he wants to keep me around as a vangel until the Apocalypse. My original penance should have ended in 1550, but I keep having years added on, as do my brothers. Sore hard it is for a Viking to be good all the time.”

“Isn’t that sort of like St. Augustine, who supposedly prayed, ‘Dear God, help me to be good. But not yet’?”

“Auggie gets a bad rap,” he contended, then smiled at her, and, oh, his smile was a lethal weapon.

“I like the sore hard part.”

“You are naughty,” he said, tapping her on the chin playfully. “I like it.”

I aim to please, sweetheart.
“Near-sex has a certain appeal, actually. We’ll be like teenagers again. Making out like crazy. Kissing. Petting. Everything but going all the way. At least that’s how it was when I was a teenager. Men tend to go more wham-bam, whereas boys have to work to make it as far as third base. Of course, today teens are more advanced. Friends with benefits. Rainbow parties and all that. Oh, for the good old days!” She paused. “I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“I’m as nervous as you are.”

She doubted that sincerely.

“When I was a teenager—they didn’t use the term
teenager
, by the by—boys of twelve were expected to act as men. In truth, I started with ‘going all the way.’ Definitely wham-bam, thrust-and-peak, as an untried youthling.”

She felt oddly pleased that she could stand out in some way from all the women he must have had over the centuries. Assuming she believed the time-travel-Viking-vampire-angel-demon story. “So this will be a new experience for you?”

“Yes, it will. Can we start with me counting your freckles? Harek says I need to practice my math skills.”

“I hate my freckles,” she said, even as she arched her back to aid in his removing her top.

Leaning on one elbow, he studied her body, and not just her breasts. He surveyed her arms and legs, as well. “I prefer to think of them as sex dust. There for my personal pleasure.”

Okay, she knew that was a load of crap, but she would never look at her body again and fail to remember his words. And, really, all the experts said that a woman’s biggest impediment in enjoying sex was her insecurity about her body. This guy was halfway around the bases, just by making her feel good about herself.

Was it a learned art, or was he sincere?

Right now, it didn’t matter.

“Ah, I see my two favorite freckles,” he said, gently flicking one nipple, then the other.

She gasped, not at his silly words, but at the sheer, exquisite pleasure of that slight touch.

His fangs were recessed now, so he appeared normal when he leaned forward and licked each of the distended “freckles.” If she weren’t already lying down, she might have fainted from the pleasure. But there was more to come. Way more!

Arranging himself atop her, braced on his elbows, he spread her legs with his knees, his erection prodding her inner thigh. Only then did he begin to kiss her. Long, slow, drugging kisses. Feathery and exploring. Deep and tongue-thrusting. Every time she got used to one pattern or pace, he changed. At the same time, he stroked her breasts with his coarse chest hairs by swaying from side to side.

She kissed him back and was pleased when she could draw a deep groan from low in his throat, or when he would nip her in pretend punishment. Her hands and legs could not remain still. She caressed his back and waist and buns as far as she could reach. And she used her feet to rub against the backs of his calves, occasionally wrapping her legs around him.

And he talked, too. Low, husky murmurs of appreciation and encouragement:

“Oh yes, like that.”

“Open wider. Let me in.”

“I have ne’er been this aroused.”

“Your touch turns my blood afire.”

She was already wet down below, so it was no surprise that, when he moved up slightly so that his erection touched her clitoris, she began to climax, keening her pleasure.

“Shh, not yet.” He drew back and through glazed eyes she saw that his fangs were fully extended now. She should have known what was coming next, but her sex-muddled brain was on hiatus. As he began to thrust and withdraw his lower body against her, his head lunged forward and he buried his fangs in her neck.

Every nerve in her body was titillated and she began a fast climb to the most excruciatingly long climax of her life. On and on and on her inner muscles spasmed, yearned for him to be inside her. Every time the head of his penis hit the bundle of nerves in that one spot, ripples of electric shocks ran across her body. There wasn’t a speck of skin or a sinew of inner muscle that wasn’t affected. This was a full-body orgasm, if there ever was one. She screamed when it became too overpowering and arched her neck back and her shoulders off the bed.

She had no idea how long he sucked on her blood, or how long her orgasm lasted, but when she was finally able to lift her head, she whispered, “That was incredible.”

He raised his head and kissed her lightly. She could taste her blood on his lips. She should have been repulsed, but she was oddly satisfied.

“Are we done?”

He chuckled. “We have just begun, dearling.” With that, he rolled over onto his back so that she straddled him. That’s when she saw that he had cut his wrist. Blood was seeping out.

“No! Oh no, I can’t do that again. Let’s just—”

He clasped the back of her head with one hand and forced her mouth to the cut wrist of his other hand that he held near his neck. She tried to turn aside, but he wouldn’t allow that. “Drink, Alex. You must drink to become clean.”

To distract her, or because he hadn’t yet climaxed himself, Vikar began to undulate against her. Soon she gave herself up to sipping him, especially when he distracted her by sliding a big palm inside her shorts and cupping both buttocks, setting a pace for her moving hips. And then his long fingers reached forward between her legs, stroking her.

When she realized that he, too, was extremely aroused by her mouth at his wrist and her movements against his penis, she gave herself up to the ritual; that’s how Vikar had referred to the cleansing at one point . . . a ritual. She rode him, stem to stern, sliding her now damp shorts over his briefs until he arched his hips up against her and let out a roar. She could swear she felt his semen spurting against her folds, despite the separation of two fabrics.

She hurtled into another mind-blowing orgasm.

For a long time afterward, he held her cradled against his neck, running his palms in a comforting fashion over her bare back. His heart hammered against hers, a pleasing counterpoint to hers. She could tell that he was equally stunned by what had happened.

“Is it always like this?” she asked finally.

“It is never like this,” he said, kissing the top of her head, then rolling over to sit up and take off the tourniquet. Glancing down at his wet briefs and her equally wet shorts, not to mention the damp sheets, he shrugged sheepishly. “We are a mess. Should we go shower and change the linens?”

“We could,” she said hesitantly, “or . . .”

“Or?”

Alex was usually not so uninhibited, but when would she ever get this kind of chance again? So she said saucily, “Or we could do it again.”

Vikar laughed so hard she had to kiss him. Then she kissed him . . . just because she could.

Do angels have halos
there
? . . .

Vikar didn’t need to be asked twice.

He stood and turned, lifting a surprised Alex by the waist, and set her in the middle of the room. Her small squeal of protest did not deter him in the least.

“Don’t move,” he ordered.

He would like to take a minute or an hour to appreciate Alex, bare from the waist up and the thighs down; he’d give special attention to her breasts . . . uptilted half globes of pure temptation. And freckles! There were freckles everywhere! But first he needed to set the stage for the next step in their near-sex lovemaking. As any warrior would tell you, it was all in the planning.

He yanked the top sheet and blanket off the bed and laid a clean towel over the center of the bed.

“I like your butt.”

Whaaat?
Leaning over the bed, one foot on the floor and a knee on the edge of the bed, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. Alex was indeed staring at his arse. He had to smile at the directness of modern women. “My front side is even better.”

“Show me.”

Yes, directness.
“In a moment,” he said, standing to lean back against the wall. “First, release your hair.”

Her green eyes snapped saucily at him. Would she balk at being given orders?
No
, she would attempt to turn his order on its face, he soon realized. Holding his gaze, she reached up and unclipped a claw-like ornament that held her hair atop her head. With arms still raised, she combed her fingers through the shoulder-length strands that were wavy from her recent bath. Her posture caused her breasts to lift more. Noticing his no-doubt gaping mouth, she arched her back slightly.