Vampire in Paradise (8 page)

The closer they got, a strange scent permeated the area, swirling around Marisa like a fog.

What did it mean?

Does lust have an odor? If so, the lust seems to be coming off Sigurd, but he’s not looking lustful to me. In fact, just the opposite. The only place he wants to lay me down is in the deep end of that pool over there.
“Can you smell that?” she whispered to Inga.

“Smell what?”

“That odor. Woodsy. Maybe evergreen mixed with oranges. But mostly evergreen.”

“How can you smell anything over the pool chlorine and the saltwater sea scent?

“It’s subtle.”

“Maybe it’s Harry’s cologne, but that’s not subtle. More like overpowering.” Harry was still engaged in conversation with his employee.

“No. Harry’s wearing Aramis. Can’t you tell?” Just as she’d become an expert on designer clothing and accessories, Marisa could recognize designer fragrances at twenty paces. A necessary talent when dealing with a larcenous brother who would knock off the pope’s shoes if there was a market for them.

“I guess so.”

“Then what is that scent? Where’s it coming from? It’s like a wispy cocoon of pines surrounding us.”

“I don’t smell it, honey, and I doubt there are evergreen trees on a tropical island. Besides, who can think about smells when faced with five luscious men? And I didn’t think I could be attracted to any men in the porno industry.”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t think they’re porno actors or anything. At least one of them is a doctor. I met him earlier. Remember, I told you about him.”

Inga turned slowly to look at her. “You mentioned meeting a doctor, but you failed to mention that he looks like Eric Be-Still-My-Heart Northman.”

“Who?”

“That actor Alexander Skarsgård from
True Blood
. Girl, you must be missing a few hormones.”

Actually, Marisa had made the same observation to Sigurd when she first met him. Her brain was just a bit fuzzy now with all that pine scent filling her nostrils.

“Oh shit!” she heard Harry say after his employee left and he noticed Sigurd and his “posse” for the first time. “Ladies, I’ll see you this evening. I have a business meeting to attend.” He practically scurried away on his short legs.

Sigurd glared after Harry as he stepped closer to the table, and the other four men moved to stand in line behind him. Pointing a forefinger at Marisa, he said, “Did I not warn you about that man? Did I not tell you he could be dangerous? Are you so lackwitted that you be must be at cross wills with me just for the sake of stubbornness?”

“Why don’t you say what you really mean, See-gar?” she said. “And keep on pointing that finger at me and I’m going to take a bite out of it.”

The pine scent was stronger now, and the orange undertones more pronounced, but it wasn’t overpowering like some men’s colognes, like Harry’s. More tempting than nauseating.
How odd!
She felt a strange compulsion to learn closer and sniff, maybe even lick his skin.
Even odder.

Sigurd straightened, taken aback at her retort, and withdrew his offending finger. Several of his men chuckled, though they maintained straight faces. Inga gave her a you-go-girl grin.

But then Inga suggested to Sigurd, “Let’s start over again, Mr. Pointy Finger. Hi, I’m Inga Johanssen. It would appear we’re the same nationality. And you are . . . ?”

Inhaling and exhaling several times for patience, Sigurd said, “I am Dr. Sigurd Sigurdsson, and—”

“But you can call him Sig,” Marisa interrupted.

“I thought you called him cigar.”

“She thinks she is being cute,” Sigurd pointed out.

“I am cute,” Marisa said.

Sigurd ignored her flip remark and continued speaking to Inga, “And, for my sins, this irksome, half-witted, mulish, pain-in-the-arse woman”—he waved a hand toward Marisa with disgust—“is my betrothed . . . rather, my fiancée.”

Inga was momentarily speechless.

“You sweet talker, you,” Marisa said flippantly to Sigurd, but a strange voice said in her head,
He could be the answer to your prayers.

Not unless he’s rich, or a doctor who specializes in Izzie’s type of brain tumors who just happens to own a clinic where he could do the operation, for free.
She realized with dismay that she was not only hearing voices in her head, but she was arguing with them.
It must be the heat, or the evergreen aura, or testosterone overload flooding the area.

Tiffany hobbled up then, wearing her itty-bitty thong bikini, high-heeled wedgie sandals, and a sheer cover-up that did little covering. “Hey, roomies,” she drawled to Marisa and Inga. Meanwhile, all the men appeared to be ogling her behind their shades. “Ah heah we’re all gonna party t’night on Harry’s yacht.”

“Over my dead body,” Sigurd muttered.

“Isn’t Harry just the sweetest man?” Tiffany continued.

Sigurd didn’t even try to hide his snort.

Tiffany suddenly seemed to notice Sigurd and his men. That’s how clueless the bimbo was. “Oh. Hi! Y’all mus’ be the actors in that new movie,
Thor and His Really Big Sword
. Mah name is Tiffany. Ah’m gonna audition for the part of Princess Solveig. Isn’t that cool?”

Sigurd looked liked he just swallowed . . . a really big sword.

S
igurd turned to Marisa, then did a double take. That is what modern folks called a physical reaction of great surprise to something one saw. For a long moment, he just stared at her, speechless.

She wore a long white shirt with a silly cat on the front. Her black hair hung in a wet swath off her face. Her lashes were thick and uptilted slightly. As far as he could tell, there were no store-bought enhancements on her face. Or other even more important places, from a male point of view. And yet, he could say in all honesty, she was the most beautiful woman he’d encountered in centuries.

Why was she having this effect on him now when he’d been in her presence on three other occasions with no great rise in his male appreciation, other than the usual “She’s comely. Ho-hum”?

Mayhap it was the subtle odor that seemed to emanate from her. Magnolias or hibiscus. With something tart. Green apples? No, the island was abounding with flowers and fruit. That had to be it.

To his embarrassment, he blurted out like an untried youthling, “You are so beautiful.”

“Pfff! If you tell me I look like Sophia Loren, I’m going to double dunk you in that pool over there.”

He glanced from her to the nearby pool and back again, giving her a “just-try!” look. He’d changed into dry clothing and was not inclined to get wet again. “Sophie who?”

For some reason, his answer pleased her.

Taking that as his cue, Sigurd sank down into the chair next to her.

She arched her brows at him and said, “Why don’t you join us, Sigurd?” with her usual sarcasm, considering he’d already sat down. She shuffled her chair slightly away from him with obvious distaste.

He didn’t usually have that effect on women.

“I already have,” he pointed out, and moved his chair closer so they were practically rubbing shoulders, just to annoy her. Immature. He was behaving immaturely. She had that effect on him.

Tiffany, the lackwit Norse princess hopeful, shimmied her bare butt cheeks with exaggerated wiggles onto the chair next to Inga, who was a real Norsewoman if he ever saw one. Inga resembled Princess Solveig, whom he had met, more than the simpering maid. On the other hand, Solveig would fuck a goat if it gained her the ends she so ambitiously sought. Four husbands she had gone through at last count. Inga was seated on Marisa’s other side.

Sigurd removed his sunglasses, not to get a better look, but just because it seemed the polite thing to do. To his chagrin, his fellow vangels followed suit and took chairs from the surrounding tables, pulling them up to complete a circle at Marisa’s table. He’d whispered to Karl a few moments ago, right after announcing that Marisa was his fiancée, “You and the men, sit over there.” He’d pointed to several nearby benches.

“Not a chance, master!” Karl had replied in a whisper back at him. Karl knew how much he hated that name. Even though Sigurd was a member of the VIK, he in no way considered himself above others, except perhaps his medical colleagues. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“I knew it!” Marisa said. “You all have blue eyes.”

Uh-oh!
“And that is remarkable . . . why?”

“No reason. Just an observation,” the sly woman told him. “Are you all related?”

“You could say that.”

“Brothers?”

He shook his head. “I have six brothers, but they are not here.”

She narrowed her eyes, studying them all. Thank the heavens, their fangs were all retracted or she would surely have something to say about that, too. He would have to be very careful around her. She was too observant by half.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friends?” Marisa prodded, looking toward the other men.

“If I have to,” he muttered under his breath.

“This short-haired young man is Karl Mortensen.” Karl hated when he called him a young man. Tit for tat in Sigurd’s increasingly immature personality. “Karl was a soldier in Vietnam. He will be my medical assistant at this conference.”

“Hi, Karl.” Tiffany gave Karl a little wave, which caused him to blush right up to his scalp exposed by the short haircut.

Inga and Marisa nodded at Karl, as well.

“You don’t look old enough to have been in Vietnam,” Marisa remarked.

Oops. My mistake! Another one! It’s what happens when we try to walk in two worlds. Careful, Sigurd, careful!
“Must have been some other war,” Sigurd immediately corrected.

“Iraq,” Karl said. “I was a Navy SEAL.”

That impressed the spit out of all three women, and was only half a lie. Karl had started Navy SEAL training with Sigurd’s brother Trond, but while Trond continued to completion, Karl had dropped out. Karl’s human wife had been dying at the time, as Sigurd recalled. A very trying experience for the vangel who had never aged beyond age twenty-two to watch his sixty-year-old wife pass to the Other Side. Karl had recently been permitted to wed a human who’d lived in a trailer in a small town near Transylvania, Pennsylvania, where their vangel castle was located. And wasn’t that a whole other story!

But Sigurd had no time for distraction. He had to continue with the introductions. “These two men are Svein and Jogeir. They will be part of the island’s security force.” The two men with light blond hair and fair skin that was already fading from their blood-tans in this bright sunlight, nodded but said nothing.

“And the young man over there”—he waved toward the other side of the table—“is Armod. He is a great admirer of the late Michael Jackson, as you can probably tell.” The lackwit not only had his hair styled like the singer, but was wearing one sparkly white glove. With a swimsuit! In this heat! “Armod will be dancing in the nightclub program.”

“Really?” Inga asked. “Marisa and I are salsa dancers back in Miami.”

Sigurd turned to Marisa. “I thought you were a waitress and a massager.”

Her dark eyes nigh sparked at him with irritation. “Massage therapist,” she gritted out.

“Same thing.” He waved a hand airily.

“Not even close. In any case, Inga and I dance
and
waitress some nights in a Miami nightclub, La Cucaracha.”

He arched a brow at her. “Cockroach?”

“Yeah. You have a problem with that?”

He put both hands up in surrender. “Not a bit.”

“So you understand Spanish?”

“I understand and speak many languages.”

“Braggart!”

“I am what I am.”

“I am what I am,” she mimicked.

“Are you always so rude?”

“I am what I am,” she repeated, and smiled at him in the most irksome manner.

“So you like Michael Jackson’s music?” Inga asked Armod, no doubt to end his and Marisa’s bickering.

“Definitely,” Armod replied. “He was the king . . . of music.”

“Y’all are so cute,” Tiffany said. “And ya do look jist lak him, darlin’. Bet yer dancin’ is good, too.”

Spare me, Lord
, Sigurd prayed. If there was anything that could get Armod talking, it was the subject of music . . . and dancing. Give him the slightest encouragement and he would be moonwalking around the pool. He got the crowd at a Philadelphia airport mob dancing spontaneously one time just by breaking into the song “Thriller,” which hadn’t thrilled his brother Vikar at all.

Immediately, an active conversation started between Tiffany, Inga, and Armod. A waiter stopped by their table, and the men ordered beers, except for Armod, who had been warned to avoid alcohol. He might be pretending to be twenty-one, but he was only sixteen (plus fifty vangel years, give or take), and not yet accustomed to the effects of hard brews. Marisa and Inga ordered bottled waters, and Tiffany got some tall, pink concoction with an umbrella on top. Armod looked longingly at the drink, but Sigurd gave him a warning look. Instead, Armod opted for a cola.

In the midst of the drinks delivery and the music conversation, Sigurd heard Tiffany ask Armod, “Can ya twerk, honey?”

Oh. My. Sorry. Soul!
Sigurd felt as if he were in a minefield, never knowing where the next bomb was planted.

“Sure,” Armod said.

Four sets of men’s eyes turned as one to gawk at Armod. They’d all seen that Miley Cyrus singer twerking on the television set. Many times, truth to tell. Twerking involved some convoluted arse vibrating nonsense. Vangels watched a lot of television, and movies. Between missions, there wasn’t much else to do when one was supposed to be leading a sinless lifestyle. Bor-ing! To a Viking, leastwise.

But he’d never seen Armod do
that
. Sigurd must have scowled his way.

“What? Anyone can twerk if they practice,” Armod said defensively.

“Can ya teach me how?” Tiffany begged. “Ah have gotta learn how before mah first audition.”

Sigurd wasn’t about to ask why a Norse princess would have been twerking. Unless she got a bug up her arse.

“Me too,” Inga said. When the men looked at her in question, she added, “Not for an audition. I just want to know how.”

When Marisa didn’t join in, Sigurd arched his eyebrows at her. She blushed, raised her stubborn chin, and said, “Me too.”

Then she turned the tables on him, “How about you? Don’t you want to learn to twerk?”

Karl, Svein, and Jogeir snickered.

“Not even a little,” he responded.

“Sigurd does not like to dance, at all,” Armod offered, then ducked his head when Sigurd scowled, again. The boy talked too much.

Time for a change of subject.

“So tell me about this party Harry is holding tonight,” Sigurd said to Marisa.

But it was Tiffany who answered. “It’s being held on Mr. Goldman’s yacht. A really big yacht named
Brass Balls
.” Giggle, giggle. “Everyone who’s anyone at this conference will be there.” Giggle, giggle. “Y’all hafta come. Do ya want me ta talk ta Harry, and see if he’ll invite y’all?”

“No thank you. I don’t need a special invitation.”

“Party crashing?” Marisa snarked.

He shrugged. “If necessary. Why are you going to this event, Marisa? Have I not told you to avoid the man like a foul fjord flatfish.”

“You are not my protector, Sigurd. You aren’t even—”

“Yes, I am. I am your fiancé. Remember. We should get a ring.”

She said a nasty word rarely uttered by women in his acquaintance. At least she didn’t tell him what he could do with a ring. He could tell that she wanted to. “Why don’t you go do some doctoring stuff?” she suggested.

“I’ve been working since I got here. I have done enough STD tests for a lifetime. Did you know some people put tattoos down . . . Never mind. STDs are sexually transmitted diseases.”

“I know what STDs are,” she groused.

He tilted his head in question.

“Not from personal experience.” More blushes.

“I’ve treated two sunstrokes and three second-degree sunburns. Gave a pain pill to a woman with an abscessed tooth. Refused pain pills for five others who figured I would be their drug supplier while they buzzed through the conference. I also splinted a broken ankle for some lackwit trying to impress the ladies on a high diving board. And removed a fishhook from a woman’s breast. Don’t ask.”

“Ah got a crawfish bite on my butt one time,” Tiffany offered. When everyone looked at her in question, she explained. “Mah ex-boyfriend Bubba and me was catchin’ mudbugs on the bayou. In the nude. Ah slipped, and one them critters just took a big ol’ bite. Bubba laughed and tol’ all his friends. Dumb as a bayou stump, Bubba was, bless his ol’ redneck heart, but Ah dumped his sorry behind faster’n he could say Dixie, and that was the las’ time Ah went crawfishin’, nude, anyways.”

She smiled at them all as if this happened to everyone once in a while.

Not so much!
Marisa turned back to Sigurd. “Why don’t you just go back to Johns Hopkins?”

“I can’t.”

“Fired, huh?”

“I go where I am sent,” he said. Another slip on his part.

Suddenly suspicious, she leaned closer, and Sigurd gasped with dismay. No longer was she perspiring the scent of honey and tart ginger. There was another scent altogether. Lemons!

“Marisa! What have you done?”

She frowned in confusion.

“Either you have committed some great sin, or are about to,” he declared.

A rosy color seeped into her cheeks once again, and she raised her chin defiantly. He liked that he could make her blush.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She knew, all right. “Liar,” he whispered.

And more alarming, it meant there was a Lucie presence somewhere on the island. He tilted her chin to the side. Yes, there was a small bite mark there. She had to have already been contemplating some mortal sin, or a Lucie wouldn’t have bothered biting her. Demon vampires were not interested in pure humans, not worth the effort. But the Lucie must have been interrupted. He would be back, though, probably at the moment of her surrender to the great sin.

“You’ve been fa—, uh, bitten,” he said. “Come back to my office in the hotel, and I will . . . uh, treat it.”

“It’s only a mosquito bite. Jeesh!”

“Even mosquito bites can get infected.”

“I am not going to your office.” She laughed. “Next you’ll be suggesting that you do an STD test on me.”

A slow grin crept over his lips. He couldn’t help himself.

“You aren’t getting within touching distance of . . .” The rose in her cheeks got rosier. “. . . my girl parts.”

We shall see
, he thought, then immediately gazed upward.
Just jesting.

But that settled it. He would have to stick to her like glue—celestial glue—until he either redeemed her, or she went to the other side. He shuttered to think what a prize she would be for Jasper and his minions.

But then, she asked the oddest things.

“I don’t suppose you own a yacht?”

He shook his head slowly.

“An airplane?”

He shook his head more, frowning at her question.

“Have your own medical clinic?”

If he did, he would hardly be on this wacky island at this wacky conference.

She had both hands folded, prayer-like, under her chin. “Are you a billionaire? Or even a millionaire?”