Kiss of Pride (16 page)

“No different than physicians serving in the military today.”

“I guess so.”

“Over the centuries, Sigurd has studied in medical schools. Of all of us, he has spent more time in this century. Currently, he is assigned to Johns Hopkins University Hospital where he does medical research. In truth, he is the one who invented Fake-O for us . . . he and his underlings who work with him.”

Alex appeared stunned.

“What? You thought Vikings were witless men who knew naught but fighting skills or how to ride the waves on a longship?”

She blushed.

“For your information, my brothers and I, and those vangels under us . . . all of us are skilled in professions that might impress you. There is a biologist, a lawyer, an accountant, shipbuilders. Always our primary goal is to do God’s work, but whenever we come upon a problem that requires a certain skill, someone is assigned to learn it.”

She was staring at him as if he spoke some alien language. Then she shook her head to clear it and laughed. “I assume that until now you’ve had no need of architects, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters.”

He laughed, too. “You have the right of it, except for carpenters. Vikings have always been skilled carpenters. We’ve had to be in order to construct our fine boats. And truth to tell, we were engineers and mathematicians, though we did not have those words. Even astronomers who studied the skies for direction. Building and sailing longships took expertise in all those fields.”

“Well, there’s a lot more work to be done on your castle. So someone better learn how to paint and plaster.”

He nodded. “Actually, one of our vangels is a fine artist. Tofa will no doubt be putting murals on all the walls, if given a chance. Impish angels are her specialty. She was an assistant to Michelangelo at one time. Ah, the stories she can tell about the doings in the Sistine Chapel!

“Then there is Moddam, who was a stoneworker whom we found building the Colosseum. No doubt he can rebuild some of the outside walls whilst here. And I cannot forget Bodil, who had been a slave in Byzantium. She worked on the emperor’s imperial gardens. Mayhap she will help with some of the landscaping so the castle is not so gloomy.” He stopped for a moment to see Alex’s reaction.

Her jaw had dropped with astonishment, but then she punched him in the arm. “You lout! You’re teasing me!”

He shrugged. She would see if she stayed long enough. “You know everything about me. Tell me about you. Where do you come from? What have you been doing with your thirty years?”

“I’ve led a rather ordinary life. My parents were killed in a train wreck when I was a child, and I was raised by my grandparents on a small horse farm in Virginia. They died two years apart when I was in college. I inherited the farm that I later sold, giving me a comfortable cushion for living since then. I’m not rich, but I have enough to live on if I quit working.”

“Ah, a wealthy heiress. If this were back in Viking times, my parents would be arranging a marriage betwixt us.” He winked at her.

“Would you protest that arrangement?” she asked.

“Not at all. Of course, at our ages . . . you being thirty and me thirty-three . . . you would no doubt be my wife number three or four. ’Twas a common practice, the
more danico
, or multiple wives.”

“In your dreams, buster. I would be like one of those independent Norsewomen you mentioned. I’d wallop you over the head with your own sword before I’d share your bed.”

They both paused to think about that image.

“I suspect that, for you, I would have given up any other woman, wife or concubine,” he said in a voice thick with emotion.

“Damn right you would!”

His heart melted with tenderness at her vehemence, and he squeezed her close to him. “When did you wed? Tell me about this man who won your heart?”

“I met Brian in college, and we got married right after graduation. We were legally separated at the time of his death.”

“Whaaat? You never mentioned that.”

She shrugged. “I thought I was in love with Brian, but I think in retrospect it was just me being vulnerable after losing my grandparents. Oh, he was a good man, and I did love him. I just wasn’t in love with him toward the end, especially after he’d had an affair with one of the Drug Enforcement Agency field operatives. He was a lawyer for the DEA.”

He did not know what to say at that news. “So, how is it that your child was with him at the end?”

“Visitation. He had her for a week during a school break.”

“Do you blame him, as well as the men who murdered your child?”

“No. If he’d taken her somewhere dangerous, I might have, but they were in a parking lot of the Annapolis Mall. A seemingly safe place.”

“Enough of this sad talk,” he declared, hating the misting of tears in her eyes. “The band is going to start playing music.” He pointed to the small bandstand.

“Do you dance?”

He scoffed, “Never! Real men do not flail about to seduce women. Especially not Vikings.”

The tables had filled in around the tavern while they’d been eating, and the band tuned their instruments. Two men and a woman, playing piano, bass, and guitar, respectively. “Hey, folks, how ’bout we start with a little Alan Jackson?” There was much applause and whistling. Jackson . . . that sounded like a nice Viking name. Vikar sat back prepared to be entertained. The band’s first song was one with a heavy rhythm called “Don’t Rock the Jukebox.”

“Oh, so Vikings don’t dance, huh? Look at Armod. Appears as if he’s about to flex his wings, so to speak. Or is that flex his fangs?” She laughed, a delightful tinkling sound, like bells to Vikar’s ears.

“I should have known! I would wager this is Ivak’s doing.”

Several couples got up and began to dance, if you could call it that. It was more like a shaking of the buttocks and flexing of the elbows like chicken wings. Ridiculous!

But Armod was standing at the edge of the dance floor with Ivak, both of them having removed their weapons, placing them surreptitiously, wrapped in their cloaks, in the care of his brothers. Armod was eyeing a young girl sitting with her parents on the far side. The purple-haired girl, who had more rings than an Arab princess—in her ears, eyebrows, nose, lower lip, and tongue—was eyeing him back. And Ivak, the instigator, was whispering in Armod’s ear. Several times Armod stepped forward, then backed up when shyness overcame him. Finally, Ivak gave Armod a look of disgust, turned to a nearby table, held out a hand in invitation to one of three women sitting there, then walked out on the dance floor with her and began to dance. Women found Ivak’s neatly clipped beard and mustache a “turn-on,” or so Ivak told his brothers. Repeatedly.

Vikar’s eyes about popped out at what he saw next, and it wasn’t the tightness of the wench’s braies that must be cutting off her blood circulation from her crack forward or the size of her bosom with radish-size nipples nigh exploding from her low-cut top.

“Oh my God!” Alex exclaimed. “That boy can move.” And she wasn’t talking about Armod.

Ivak was indeed moving his body, and his partner’s, in the most amazing ways. To the beat of the music, he bumped, he undulated, and he thrust, all of his movements conveying sex. If Vikar was worried about near-sex, Ivak had a thing or two to consider regarding his dance-sex, if you asked him, which nobody did. Ivak’s partner didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, she laughed and mimicked all his actions and added some of her own. When she strutted away from him a short distance, then shimmied her upper body on the return dance step, every male eye in the place was glued to her jiggling breasts.

“See. Vikings do dance,” Alex pointed out.

Huh?
He had to think a moment to jar his mind back to the woman at his side. “I had no idea Ivak danced.”
No wonder he is so successful with women. I wonder if Alex can do that shimmy thing. I wonder what she would do if I asked. I wonder if I am losing my wits.

When Ivak glared at Armod, as if to say,
See. This is how it’s done
, the boy lifted his chin with determination and walked over to the girl’s table, his demeanor that of a convicted felon off to the guillotine. Surprisingly, the girl looked to her parents for permission, then got up to dance with him. Well, why not? Armod might dress weird, but he was a Viking. And everyone knew Vikings had woman-luck . . . rather, girl-luck, in his case.

And Armod was good, too. Vikar had half expected him to moon dance across the floor, but instead he took the girl’s hands in his and then moved to the beat in a more subdued fashion. The whole time they talked. Thank the heavens, Armod seemed to have control of his fangs tonight. And his lisp.

“I am so happy that the girl accepted,” Alex said. “He would have been devastated if she’d declined.”

“Yes, ’tis the way of women to break men’s hearts.”

“But not a Viking’s?” she teased.

“Not a Viking’s,” he agreed.
Not mine, leastways. Not yet.

They watched as Ivak and Armod danced one song after another with their partners, including one where the female singer wailed out, “I’m Here for the Party,” and the crowd sang along. Vikar was not a big fan of music. Oh, he had liked a rowdy good time with his comrades on occasion that included ribald singing along with tuns of mead, but more often these days, he savored silence, or soft classical music in the background. His soul seemed to yearn for serenity.

But then the loud band music softened in volume and slowed down, and the bandleader announced the next song would be last year’s granny winner, Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now.”

“What’s a granny winner?” he asked Alex.

“Not granny. Grammy. It’s a music award. This is a really pretty song. Very poignant. C’mon.” She nudged him with her hip to move over in the booth.

He glanced down between them and saw that her short garment had ridden up to expose more of her exquisite legs covered by the sheer silk hose. In fact, the lace tops of the hose peeked out at him now.

Without thinking, he reached down to touch her knee. He’d been right. It was like silk. Warm silk.

She slapped his hand away and nudged him again with her hip. “C’mon. Let’s dance.”

“Oh no. Not me,” he said, even as he stood and took her hand to pull her to her feet beside him. “I do not dance.”

She laughed and led him to the dance floor. “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. All you have to do is stand still. And sway.”

“I do not like dancing,” he insisted.

“You will.”

She was right.

“Put your hands on my waist,” she instructed, then immediately added, “Not on my butt. Behind my waist.” She showed him how, as if he hadn’t known what she’d meant to begin with.

He saw Mordr and Cnut, back in their booth, shaking their heads at his idiocy, no doubt. But Sigurd, still at the bar, raised a fist in the air with encouragement. There was a good-looking woman sitting next to him on the stool Ivak had vacated.

Then Alex put her arms up, idly touching the wing epaulettes on his shoulders. Alex was tall for a woman, and with her high-heeled shoes, her chin came to his neck. A nice fit. She placed her face on his chest, and showed him how to shift from side to side. Luckily, he’d secured his sword and scabbard with leather ties to his thigh so it did not clank against them as they moved.

While the female singer in the band crooned the poignant lyrics about it being a quarter after one with her being all alone and “I need you now,” Vikar came to a realization that he needed something, too. Or someone. Desperately.

Ever since Alex had entered his life—
was it only two weeks ago?
—his emotions had been in turmoil. And he wasn’t sure why. She was not the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Nor the most sensual. Mayhap it was the loneliness he sensed in her that matched his own bone-deep solitary life. And, yes, he felt lonely, despite always having vangels about him.

Alex leaned back and looked up at him. She needed him, too. He could tell these things. Loneliness had a scent of its own. “See. I told you that you would like dancing.”

He put his hands on her butt, despite her earlier admonition, yanked her closer, and whispered against her ear, “You ne’er told me that your kind of dancing was but a form of foresport.”

“See, old man that you are, there is something you can learn from me.”

“I ne’er doubted that, sweetling.”

“What else have I taught you?” she asked, leaning her head back to look at him.

“How to love,” he replied, before he had a chance to bridle his tongue.

But she did not even blink at his words. Instead she said, “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant.

Was it?

“Uh,” he said. How dull-witted was that? Pathetic, really. He was a hardened warrior, a man seasoned by a thousand years of hard work and fighting. Always fighting. Ne’er had he avoided battle or foe, and yet he shivered like a boyling in his first bout of swordplay.

And he said nothing.

Thirteen

The path to love is often a broken road . . .

Transylvania feature, Kelly      Page 1

Draft Nine

Love is in the air in Transylvania.

Perhaps it is the popularity of vampires in books, TV, and movies, but there’s something about a dark, tortured hero with incredible staying power, and not of the long life kind. The only thing sexier than a vampire today is an angel. Yes, angels are the new hot hero . . . especially fallen angels.

But what if the two were combined? Vampires and angels. Be still, beating hearts of American women, but that’s just what you’ll find in the sleepy town of Transylvania, Pennsylvania.

The only question is: How to catch a vampire angel? Or more important, what kind of future is there with a man who lives forever?

Maybe the answer is to . . .

Alex saw the expression of fear on Vikar’s face and had to laugh. A sad laugh.

“Silly! I didn’t tell you that because I expected a response.”
Although it would have been nice.
“Good Lord, you look as if you swallowed a bushel of sour apples.” She put a hand to his clean-shaven face and went up on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on his stunned lips.

“Silly? You call me silly,” he growled and kissed her back, harder and longer. “Because I hesitate does not mean I do not share your feelings. On the contrary, my heartling.”

Heartling.
Hopes that Alex had thought long dead began to ignite, like embers from the ashes of her grief. She had been cold for so long.

“I am not an impulsive man, and this is all new to me.”

Oh, sweetheart! Me too.

“I have never felt this way before.”

Sad to say, neither have I.

“In truth, I do not understand how I am feeling, and why you have been sent to me at this time in my life, a life which truly feels godforsaken on occasion. I have nothing to offer a woman like you. A human, no less.”

Hah! You think you have the patent on confusion? Bad enough that I’m falling for a vampire, but an angel, as well.
She shook her head. “Not godforsaken at all, I suspect.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe all this bloodsucking business has altered my brain in some way, but I feel good. For the first time in years I’m not obsessing over my dead daughter and vengeance and how dismal my future looks.”
Could it be that cleansing stuff really works?
“If there is a God, and if He did in fact send me here, then there must be a purpose to it all. What, I’m not sure. But it doesn’t feel like any forsaking going on. I’m not making sense, am I?”

“More than you know.”

They stood in place, just swaying in each other’s arms, listening to the band morph into another slow song, this time Sheryl Crow’s “The First Cut Is the Deepest.”

After a while, she broke their silence, without raising her head from his shoulder. “I think we need to take what’s been handed to us as a gift. Maybe a temporary gift. But let’s relish it while we can.”
I can’t think about leaving here. Not yet. One day at a time.

She could feel him smile against her hair. “Does that mean I get to unwrap my gift later?” he asked.

“Better than that,” she said, raising her head to see his twinkling eyes. He had the most beautiful blue eyes, all the vangels did, but when he was excited, they turned silvery. “I have a really good idea for near-sex.”
It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet!
“You won’t believe—”

“Shh,” he said, putting a forefinger on her lips. “Don’t tell me. Surprise me.” Tucking her face back into the crook of his neck, he added, “Besides, you’ll make me peak here in the middle of the dance floor. Bad enough you make my cock dance with this music foresport.”

She could feel how aroused he already was and opted for teasing. “I thought that was your sword.”

“It is. My mansword.” They swayed from side to side for several moments, now to the music of “The Broken Road,” the words of which seemed particularly meaningful to both of them. But then Vikar stiffened. “Uh-oh!”

“What?”

“Time to go home,” he said, and made some kind of signal to Sigurd, who nodded.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.

He motioned toward Armod, who was slow dancing with the girl, his chin resting on the top of her head. Even though his eyes were closed, his fangs were out. “He can’t help himself,” Vikar said.

Soon they were on their way back to the castle with Armod chattering away excitedly, telling them everything she said, he said, what they did, how she felt, how he felt. Alex gave the big Viking brothers kudos for listening and not making fun of the boy, although she saw Mordr and Ivak exchange amused glances.

“I will tell you one thing,” Mordr said. “You will ne’er see me dancing. No matter how much I might want a woman, you would not catch me making such a fool of myself.”

“It can be fun,” Ivak contended.

“You looked like an idiot,” Mordr said.

“I could have had the woman in the parking lot, if I wanted, after a few dance steps. How many women were lining up for your favors?” Ivak countered.

“You did not need to dance for that, Ivak,” Sigurd remarked. “At least two women approached you at the bar.”

“I liked the dancing,” Vikar interjected. “ ’Twas like foresport.”

Did he have to divulge that?
Alex felt her face heat.

“We all noticed,” Cnut hooted gleefully.

Her face heated even more.

“What you were doing was not dancing, Vikar. That was just mutual rubbing,” Mordr declared.

I must have steam rising off my cheeks.

“I was referring to the jiggling and jumping that Ivak and Armod engaged in,” Mordr explained.

“Whaaat?” Armod exclaimed. “I do not jiggle when I dance.”

“Only my best parts jiggle,” Ivak added.

They all laughed then.

Vikar took her hand in his, linking their fingers. Silence settled over the interior of the van as they drove up the lane to the castle. “I do, you know,” he whispered against her ear. “I love you.”

Imaginary sex was never so imaginative . . .

Two hours later, after making sure the castle was secure for the night, Vikar knelt down in his bedchamber and said a short prayer for strength. “I love her. God help me, but I love her. What should I do?”

It had to be the first time in history a man sought celestial blessing for illicit sexual activity. Oh, he wasn’t asking for permission to go all the way. Even he, in his brain-fuzzy, lustsome state, was not that lackwitted. But he feared that he was on shaky ground even with near-sex.

He stood and prepared to go up to Alex’s tower room.

Now would be the time for Michael to smite him down for daring to bother them with such trivial matters. Trivial for them, not him. But nothing happened.

Any other thoughts he had dissolved quicker than a Lucipire on the way to Hell when he saw what Alex had prepared for him. The tower room was alight with a dozen different candles. She wore naught but a one-piece, thigh-length, silk garment with thin straps. On her legs were the wonderful silk hose and the high-heeled shoes. And, most ominous, she had arranged two straight-backed, armless chairs, facing each other, at least eight feet apart.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I have something special planned for you,” she said huskily.

He loved the huskiness of her voice. It portended good things. For him. For them both. “I can see that.”
Oh, my racing heart! I can see . . . and imagine.

She shook her head. “No, you can’t see what I have planned. We are going to have imaginary sex.”

Like minds?
“I do not like the sound of that,” he said. “I have enough imaginary sex with myself.”

“Trust me.” At his hesitation, she added, “C’mon. You’re a Viking. Be adventuresome. Put yourself in my hands.”

Oh, sweetling, you are pure temptation.
“I better not.”

“Are you afraid?”

Afraid of how much I would like being in your hands.
“Well, if you insist. What do you want me to do?”

“Take off your clothing. All of it. And sit on that chair over there.”

Some men preferred virgins for bed partners, but not him. Was there anything more alluring than a woman who asserts herself in the bedsport? “You do not waste time with preliminaries, do you?”

“There is a time for that. This isn’t it.”

He removed his garments down to the bare skin, head to toe, and sat down, spreading his legs a bit to accommodate his already impressive thickening. “Are you going to come sit down on my lap?”

She laughed, giving his cock a sardonic study. “No.”

That was blunt. “Not at all?”

She shook her head with a saucy glint in her green eyes. “No touching at all. Not on my dime.”

Is she demented?
“That is interesting.”
I have news for you, wench. There is going to be touching. On my dime.
He waved a hand toward her. “Proceed.”

She arched her brows at his peremptory gesture, then perched her pert butt on the edge of the opposite chair.

“You are not going to disrobe? Oh, I do not like that disparity. Not at all.”

“In a minute. We’re going to play a game.”

Games, games, games! Why can women not just get on with it, like men do?
“I am a great game player.” He folded his arms over his chest, splayed his legs out in a relaxed pose, and inquired lazily, “What are the rules of this game?”

“We are going to make love without touching each other.”

And I am to be happy about that?
“Oh, that is just wonderful! My favorite kind of lovemaking!”
If you believe that, wench . . .
He sighed deeply. “Let the games begin.”

“Okay, I’ll start. Close your eyes. Now picture that I am touching your face. Gently. Just with my fingertips. Along your jaw, over your nose, your eyebrows, your ears, your lips.”

Ho-hum.

“Now I’m going to kiss you, but first I’ll use the tip of my tongue to outline their shape.”

A little better.

“You have beautiful lips, did you know that?”

Do you jest? I am guilty of the sin of pride. Of course I am aware of my physical attributes.

“Your lips are full and well-defined. Perfect lips for a man.”

Can we get on with the good stuff?

“Now I’m threading my fingers through your hair to hold you at the right angle, and I’m placing my lips over yours, moving gently from side to side until I get just the right fit.”

Enough with the gentleness! Hard. Kiss me hard.

“I love the way you kiss me back without grabbing for me.”

Ah, but I’d like to grab.

“Just your lips. You are loving me with your lips only. Part for me, darling. That’s the way. Can you feel me sticking just the pointy end of my tongue inside your mouth?”

Hah! I feel it all the way to my loins.

“Oh, you rascal! You sucked me in and are drawing on me, not letting me escape. Now I’m out and in again. Over and over. You taste like minty mouthwash and your own unique flavor. Did you know you have a unique flavor, Vikar?”

Mayhap games are not so bad after all.

“Ah, you are breathing hard. Did you like my kiss?”

It’s over?
His eyes shot open.

She stared at him through misty green, sex-hazed eyes. Her lips were parted and moist. Was she aroused just from watching him get aroused? She was!

“Your turn,” she said.

Ah, he began to understand the plan of her game . . . and its allure. He smiled and said, “Let us see what skill I have in game playing, shall we? Close your eyes, witch.”

She did. Biddable, for once.
Thank you . . . Someone
.

“I have had enough of lip kisses, though I enjoyed yours overmuch. Arch your head back so I can access your sweet neck. Now, feel my whispery kissing along your stubborn jaw with a little nip at that dent in the center. Now, the arch of your neck, right there on the curve. Ummm. Delicious. Can I suck on it a little?” His fangs were out and aching. “You like my kiss there, I can tell. Your pulse is racing.” In truth, his pulse was racing, too.”

Her eyelids fluttered at his words.

“No, do not open your eyes. Remember the rules.”

“Tyrant,” she muttered.

“I’m looking lower now.”
Whoa! I am definitely looking.
“I like your garment.”
If Norsewomen in the ninth century had garments like that, their men would not have gone a-Viking so much.
“I like that it leaves all that creamy skin exposed and all those delicious freckles.”

“What is it with you and freckles?”

“Shh! My turn to talk. You listen.”

“Tyrant,” she muttered again, but she had a slight smile on her lips.

“I am touching your skin with my fingertips. From your neck on one side, over the shoulder, down your arm to your wrist. I turn your arm over and trace your skin from your palm, over the inside of the wrist, the inside of the elbow, even your shaved armpits. Then I do the same on the other side. Does your skin tingle?”
I know mine does. A tingling Viking. What is happening to me?

“Yes, I tingle. You
are
good at this game. You must have played before.”

“Never.”
I probably would have, though, if I’d known it could be so fun.

“Are you done?”

“You jest.”
I have just begun, sweetling. I have just begun.
“Lower both of the straps. Slowly. And let the garment pool at your waist.”

He gasped. He could not help himself. That was the effect her exposed breasts had on him. Another part of his body was equally affected. If cocks could speak, his would be singing Hallelujahs.

Her breasts were creamy globes the size of grapefruit halves, sprinkled with freckles. In their center were dark rose areolae and even darker nipples. A perfect size, not so big but giving the appearance of being deliciously overendowed because of her slim frame.