Kiss of Pride (10 page)

The minx!

“Happy now?”

A part of my body certainly is.
“Not quite.”

“Really?” The wench’s right eyebrow arched as she noted the longboat straining against the cloth between his legs.

“Lose the short breeches.”

“How about you?”

“ ’Twould be best if I kept mine on.”
Who knows what I might do when in the midst of a peaking?
“You could say these Hanes are my version of cloistered virtue, just like the short hair I told you about before that Mike forbade.”

“Pfff! I don’t think boxer briefs are what John Milton had in mind.”

He flicked his hand toward her lower half. “Continue.”

She put her hands inside the stretchy waist and lowered it to just above her nether hair, exposing all of her hips, the curve of her stomach, and a pretty indented navel. Then she tugged the waistband back up with a snap. “Oops,” she said.

“Tease,” he countered.
I have not had so much fun with sex in centuries. How can something that feels so right be wrong?
He shrugged. That was the problem with sin, he supposed. There was no clear-cut dividing line.

She did it again, this time shimmying so that the material, once past her hips, fell into a puddle at her feet.

He inhaled sharply. Her woman’s fleece was indeed like reddish-blonde dandelion fluff. Would it be as soft to the touch? Would it smell of summer grass and sunshine? “Do it again,” he choked out. “Slower this time.”

At first she didn’t understand. Then she did, if her soft gloating smile was any indication. She would pay for that later. Bending over so that her breasts spilled forward, she pulled the garment back up. Then, very slowly, she inched the sides down, wiggling her arse a little, before dropping the garment to the floor.

“Again. But this time face away from me.”

“You’re very domineering, aren’t you?”

“Next time you can be domineering.”

“You want me to be a dominatrix!”

“Bloody damn hell, no! Do you deliberately missay me?” Vikar had seen a porno film or two, which incidentally earned him a goodly penance, and he knew what being with a dominatrix entailed.

She grinned, having known all along what he meant.

“Keep it up, wench, and you may find out exactly what a ‘master’ can do in those kinds of games.”

“Promises, promises,” she challenged. But she turned and began the slow de-briefing again. This time he got a good look at what had to be the world’s loveliest female arse. It was lush, and soft, and—
oh, my sorry self!
—covered with freckles. This would be the first time in his long history that he would willingly kiss someone’s arse.

“What are you chuckling about?” She turned to face him again. “Are you laughing at my body?”

He could see the insecurity on her face. Before she attempted to cover herself, he said, “Never! I was laughing at myself and how much I want you. I am happy.”

She smiled then, a glorious expression of joy that had his heart nigh melting. And was that not a flowery sentiment for a hardened Viking? His brothers would make mock of him for days if they knew.

Truly, he got such pleasure just looking at her. Why had he never taken the time to appreciate this part of lovemaking before?

“Your turn,” she said.

He pushed away from the wall and without any particular finesse dropped his shorts. Well, drop was a stretch, since his rampant enthusiasm stuck out and fought the fabric on the way down. An
enthusiasm
was the Viking male word for an erection. His erection was
very
enthusiastic.

“Oh. My!”

He glanced downward and was almost embarrassed at his vein-bulging size. Had he ever been so big? Especially after having spilled his seed once already.

“Come,” he said, extending a hand to her. “Let us explore more of this near-sex. Methinks it would have been fun to be a teenager in your time. ‘Making out.’ Is that not what you called it?”

She let him lead her to the bed. “Believe me, sweetie, making out was never like this. Forget about getting to third base. You’ve gone three and a half bases and are about to slide home.”

“No, no, no! No sliding home.”

For what seemed like hours then, they explored each other’s bodies, and, yes, he did kiss and lick and touch every one of those freckles, some in rather interesting places that she claimed to have been unaware of. In return, she oohed and aahed over every battle scar that marred his body, and she kissed, and licked, and touched them, as if to heal them more.

“What are these two long scars on each of your shoulder blades?” she asked.

“Wings.”

“You have wings?”

“Not yet.”
Mayhap never.
“That is where they would emerge.”

“Holy cow! You really are an angel.”

“Not yet,” he repeated.

“There is so much I don’t understand. We really do need to talk more about this . . . this ‘fantasy’ I’ve landed in.”

“Yes, we will talk, but not now. In truth, no matter how much I explain, you still will not understand fully. I don’t, and I have been living this ‘fantasy’ for nigh on one thousand, one hundred and sixty-two years.”
Has it really been that long? Time flies when you’re having fun
, he supposed.
Or not.
He raised a halting hand when she was about to question him more. “Later.”

She nodded, but insisted on one last comment, “I never thought of angels as being . . . well, sexual.”

We’re not supposed to be.
“I must be the exception.”

But enough of that. He rolled over onto his back. “Forget about my scars. I have other body parts that need your attention.”

“Oh my God! It has a halo.”

He jerked to a sitting position and glanced down to his cockstand, which resembled a fat standing candle sitting in a circle of light. Breathing a sigh of relief—
you never knew what Mike was going to do to them
—he said, “That’s not a halo. It’s just the moon hitting off that round mirror over there and reflecting back here.”

“If you say so.” She was clearly unconvinced. “I think it’s kind of cute, that you would have a halo around your penis.”

Cute? A man does not want his cock to be cute.
“It is
not
a halo.”

She leaned forward to study it closer. “Let’s see if you taste holy.” Before he had a chance to realize what she meant, she took him into her mouth, and he about exploded. “Naaaaay!” With the sheer agony of fighting what had to be the biggest temptation of his sorry life, he lifted her off him.

“What? You don’t like that?”

Are you demented? I like it too much.
“Um, uh, that type of activity is too much like real sex.”

“Really? Bill Clinton said oral sex isn’t sex.”

He snorted his opinion of that lackwit former chieftain of this country. “Our archangel mentor would beg to differ, I am sure.” But there were other things he could do. And he did. Bringing her to peak three times and hurtling himself over the cliff of seemingly endless rapture. They both fell into an immediate sleep of the . . . not innocent, but deeply satisfied.

Even as he drifted off to sleep, he reminded himself that he would have to do another cleansing afore morning. So it was while the moon was still high, about three a.m., that he awakened her for more lovemaking, accompanied by his drawing on her sweet blood, and her taking his as well, this time with no protests. No doubt because she was only half conscious.

Sleep evaded him for the rest of the night as he held her cuddled up on his chest, one leg thrown over his thighs. Something strange was happening to him. It was like a soft cloud surrounded them, a nest of sorts. He watched her sleep and felt protective of her, and protected in return by her warmth. Puzzled, he was, by the myriad of feelings assailing him like pellets. Vangels worked best without emotion.

It was only when dawn began to rise on the horizon and he slipped out of bed and prepared to go downstairs for Lauds, or morning prayers, that a most outlandish idea occurred to him. It stuck with him as he showered and brushed his teeth. It stuck with him as he donned clean garments. It stuck with him as he joined his brothers and the others in the chapel to sing in the new day.

Had God sent this woman here not for him to save, but for her to save him?

Eight

A new day brought new questions . . .

Transylvania feature, Kelly      Page 1

Draft Five

Vampires are a celebrated feature in a small Pennsylvania town appropriately named Transylvania, but, unlike the common perception of vampires as fanged, undead creatures to be feared, these bloodsuckers are the good guys.

Historically, as far back as ancient Persia, there was a belief in huge creatures that could suck the blood of men. And in Babylonia, the myth deity Lilitu, or Lilith, reportedly the first wife of Adam, became the queen of demons and evil spirits.

It wasn’t until Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
, however, and the current
Twilight
/
True Blood
craze, that vampires took on a popularity that defies explanation.

According to a study by Penn State professor Lori Diamond . . .

Alex awakened to the sounds of hammers pounding, saws whirring, men’s loud voices and laughter coming from all directions, outside, front and back, and inside, on various floors. She must have overslept, or at least slept past her usual early waking hour, if the workmen were already here.

Glancing at her travel alarm, she saw that it was seven-thirty. Stretching, she was reminded by aching muscles, as if she could ever forget, what she’d been doing all night long.

Which was a jarring jolt back to reality for her. What had she been thinking? Oh, she didn’t regret having sex with Vikar, or near-sex. She had to smile at that distinction Vikar made so adamantly.

What bothered her was that she was an intelligent woman, and, while not a prude, casual sex repelled her. At least it had in the past. What the hell was she doing, having sex with a stranger? She giggled, she actually giggled at that. Near-sex with a near-stranger! Sounded like the title for an erotic novel.

The journalist in her reared its logical head. There were so many questions.

• Who was Vikar . . . and the rest of the people here?

• What were they planning to do with this run-down castle? No way were they planning to open a hotel!

• What was that bloodsucking business all about?

• Had she been drugged, or something, to allow that bloodsucking business to take place? And—
who was she kidding
—to enjoy it?

• What did Transylvania, the town of wannabe vampires, have to do with the loony birds up here at the castle?

• Was she being punked? Was Ashton Kutcher hiding in the bushes somewhere?

• Or scammed? Could these be criminals, setting up this heap-o’-rocks as a hideaway, or money laundering center, or something? A Viking mafia, maybe?

• Better yet, was this a promo campaign for a movie, or something? A new
Twilight
-type vampire series, or
Angels in America
, or something?

• What’s with all these “or somethings”?

• And, hey, was there really such a thing as vampires? She didn’t think so, despite everything she’d seen, including those weird biker demon vampires at the restaurant parking lot.
Note to self: Check local newspapers on the Net for story on death at the Blood Bath.

• And what about angels?

For some reason, this last question bothered Alex most of all. If angels existed, then that would mean God existed, and after the cruel manner in which Brian and Linda had been taken from her, she wanted to believe there was no God. She wanted to be justified in the actions she planned to take against the Mercado brothers, if the justice system failed to punish them.

Although she’d been a lapsed Catholic, she hadn’t become an atheist until the murders. What higher being would allow an innocent child to be blown into a pink mist?

She shook her head to clear it of that unwelcome image.

Alex was a woman, first and foremost, and she refused to regret last night when she’d been able to celebrate that femininity in the best way possible. That did not mean she stopped being a journalist as well. This was a new day, and she had work to do.

Vampire angels, beware. Here comes Lois Lane.

Brotherly love betimes comes with baggage . . .

Vikar was tempted to go back upstairs after Lauds and spend the day in bed with Alex, exploring all the different ways of having sex without having sex; he’d come up with several interesting ideas during morning hymns. But he was already skating on thin ice, and decided he’d best find something else to occupy his time.

After discussing the day’s schedule with the contractor, he was walking past the dining room when he noticed Armod bringing in chairs to set up around the table. This was one room that had been finished.

“Master, could I speak with you for a moment?” Armod asked. He’d been helping Armod with his lisp, but he didn’t think that was what the boy wanted.

The pink tint to his white cheeks should have been a clue.

Vikar walked in and sat down on one of the chairs. “What troubles you, Armod?”

Armod perched on a chair near him, and Vikar could swear his knees were knocking. “Uh, do vangels havth sex?”

Whoa!
That question came at Vikar out of nowhere. Did it show on his face that he’d been engaged all night in not sex, but near-sex? “Yes, I imagine they do, although sex outside of marriage is not approved of, as you know.”

Armod nodded. “But vangels do it anyhow?”

“Uh, some do.”
I certainly have.
“With repercussions.”

“More penance,” Armod said. Inhaling sharply, as if to gain courage, he told Vikar, “I am a virgin.”

Uh, I don’t think so. You were a prostitute, weren’t you, boy?
“You’ll have to explain that one, Armod.”

“I have never been with a female. I am a virgin heterosexual.”

Oh.
Vikar wasn’t sure there was such a distinction, but he wasn’t about to tell Armod that.

“What’s it like to have sex with a woman?”

Mike, are you listening? A little help here, please?
“One of life’s greatest pleasures.”

“Do you think I’ll ever get a chance to experience it? I asked Cnut about it, but he said the best person to ask would be Ivak, but since he is not here, I should ask you. That you know lots, too.”

Lots? Thanks a bunch, brother. Remind me to thank you with a fist in your fool face.
“Armod, vangels are permitted to marry other angels. Mayhap you will find a life mate.”
Oh bloody hell! What a wuss answer!

“But then we would have to stay together for the length of the longer penance that either one has.”

Vikar nodded.

“How about humans? Can we marry human women?”

“Do you have someone in mind?” he teased. Armod had been with them only a few months, and the only human women he could have come in contact with were the clerks at the supermarket.

Armod shook his head, sadly.

Vikar ruffled his hair. “It wouldn’t be a desirable arrangement since the human would age and die while the vangel would live for many, many years beyond that. There have been some marriages amongst vangels with short penances, but that’s all.”

“Couldn’t the mate be made into a vangel so they would both stay the same age until passing over?”

Vikar shrugged. “It has ne’er happened afore.”

“Is that why you have never married since you became a vangel?”

Vikar really, really hated the direction of this conversation. “Exactly,” he answered, though he couldn’t recall any woman he’d wanted to marry, not since Vendela.

Armod’s shoulder slumped with dejection.

“Armod, we serve a God of love. Did he not give us woeful sinners a second chance? You must have hope. And faith. If we do good, we will be rewarded.” And that was the truth, even though Vikar had to remind himself of that on occasion.

Armod brightened.

Vikar felt like such a hypocrite, though, giving advice on a subject on which he was not clear himself.

Armod further discomfited him by standing and hugging him in thanks before rushing off to get more chairs.

Shaking his head at his sorry self, Vikar found Harek and Cnut out by the front gates, Cnut with a sketch pad in hand and Harek with a mini computer.

They glanced up at his approach, homed in on his face and neck, then grinned like shit-eating squirrels, before saying as one, “You are in suuuch trouble!”

“What?”

“You look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet, cowboy,” Cnut explained.

“Tell us everything,” Harek said. “I haven’t been laid in so long I forget what it feels like.”

“We will share your bliss, vicariously,” Cnut added. “Tell us everything. Every little detail. Was it good? How many times did you peak? How many times did she peak? Did you show her the Viking S-spot?”

Vikar loved his brothers, and he loved being the oldest of The Seven, but betimes, as now, he would like to knock their blockheads together. “I did not have sex. Exactly.”

“Exactly? Oh, this ought to be good,” Harek said to Cnut.

“It was just near-sex.” Even to his own ears that sounded lame.

“I beg your pardon, brother. What did you say?” Cnut was holding a hand up to his ear.

Harek’s eyes were wide with incredulity . . . and interest.

“Near-sex does not include penetration. Everything but,” he admitted in a rush of words.
I can’t believe I am having this discussion.

“Are orgasms involved?” Harek wanted to know.

Vikar could feel his face heat. “Yes.”

“How many?”

Harek was a persistent fellow, always had been, ever since he was a boyling, four years younger than Vikar, and wanted to know why, why, why about every blessed thing around their stead. Why do cows moo and sheep baa? What makes a longboat stay afloat? Why do women’s bosoms cause men’s sap to rise?

“Many,” was all he would say.
Eight, to be precise. Three for me. Five for her.

“Then it was sex,” Cnut concluded.

“No, no, no,” he insisted.
I want to do it again. Do not tell me it is forbidden.
“Trond told me about it.”

“And you believed him?” Harek asked with disbelief. “Did you forget the time Trond told us we could fly if we jumped off the keep roof?”

“That was different.”
I hope.

“This definitely requires more investigation,” Cnut told Harek. “Mayhap you could ask Mike about it?”

“Why me?” Harek stiffened his shoulders with indignation.

“You are on good terms with the archangel, ever since you introduced him to the Internet. Me”—he shrugged—“not so much since I failed to save Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“No one could save Jeffrey Dahmer,” Vikar said. “What are you two doing out here, anyway?”

Cnut showed him his sketches, a rough drawing of the property showing where high fences would be built all around, eventually, and where underground electrical wires needed to be laid, for now, to set up security devices. “We can do a lot of this work later, over the months even, or years, but we should have the electrical experts do their thing while they’re here.”

“Let’s go inside and talk to J.D.,” Vikar suggested.

As they started to walk toward the back door, Harek asked, “What’s for breakfast?”

“Fake-O or Froot Loops, unless you’re cooking,” Vikar told him.

“Isn’t your new girlfriend the cook?” Cnut asked.

“I do not want to be around when you ask her that question,” he replied.

“She did the dinner last night,” Cnut said defensively. He might or might not be jesting. They were, after all, from another era when women knew their place.

As they entered the kitchen, they saw the woman in question, sitting on a stool before the counter. Spread before her were an open laptop, legal pads filled with notes, and a Bible, of all things. Off to her right was Armod, who was indeed slurping up Froot Loops.

“Good morning, m’lady,” Vikar said. He could not help the sex-huskiness of his voice.

Harek and Cnut glanced at him with amusement.

“Good morning, Vikar,” she replied, and her voice was sex-husky, too. Plus she licked her kiss-swollen lips.

Harek and Cnut glanced at her, then back at him, and grinned.

“Definitely in big trouble,” Harek murmured.

“What are you doing?” he asked Alex.
Are you regretting last night? Please do not be regretting. Can we do it again?

“Taking notes for my article.”

Uh-oh! Do I tell her now that there probably will be no article? Or later? Definitely later.

Cnut pinched his arm, and he snapped at him, “What?”

“The wench is talking to you,” Cnut whispered behind a hand that was seemingly wiping his smirking mouth.

He turned his attention back to Alex. “You were saying?”

“I want to start interviewing for my article. You, of course, Vikar. But Harek . . . and Cnut . . . I hope you’ll answer my questions, too. And Armod, of course.” She gave a little smile and a wave at the boy.

Harek and Cnut said, “Uh.”

Armod froze, his spoonful of Froot Loops midway to his gaping mouth.

“Did you know that there are 4.5 million links on the Internet when you Google ‘fallen angels’?” Alex assumed they were all willing and was already off on another subject.

Or mayhap it was not another subject to her.

Why was she searching for information on fallen angels? “We’re not fallen angels,” he told her.

“Yet,” Harek and Cnut added. Both of them winked at him, the friggin’ Two Stooges.

“I think you should interview Harek and Cnut first,” Vikar told Alex.
That will teach them to make mock of me.
“Didst know that Harek is trying to talk Mike into his own website on the Internet?”

Harek tried to elbow him, but Vikar moved quickly to the other side of the counter.

“Mike?” Alex asked tentatively, although he’d already told her who Mike was. “The archangel?”

“The very one,” Vikar replied. “ ’Twill be an inspirational site, will it not, Harek? An angelic Ann Landers. Life advice from the winged wonder.”
Mike would smack me upside the head with a harp if he heard me talking like this.