She nodded when JAM asked if she wanted him to fill a glass for her from the pitcher of beer on the table. “A proper good-bye, huh?” she asked after taking her first sip of beer and licking the foam off her upper lip.
He didn’t care at all about her licking the foam off her upper lip. He wasn’t even looking there.
“Would that be as a friend?” She was circling the rim of her glass with a forefinger as she asked the question.
He wasn’t watching the movement of that finger. He wasn’t imagining it circling something else.
“Because friends are all we are, right?” she added.
“Not a chance,” he muttered.
“What did you say?”
“Not a thing.” He took a sip of his own beer and asked, “What’s with all this friend crap? Ever since we returned from New Orleans you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder.”
“Have I? I didn’t mean to.”
Liar!
“Don’t you want to be my friend?” She batted her reddish-brown lashes at him.
He wondered irrelevantly if she’d dyed them, as well as her hair. She must have. Which, of course, made him wonder if she’d dyed her nether hair, too? Of course she had. And freckles . . . oh damn! She’d probably painted freckles on other parts of her body, besides her face. Would she have some on her chest, near her breasts? On her belly? And how about her butt?
“Am I boring you?” she asked, interrupting his fantasy.
Not even a little.
“You didn’t answer me. Don’t you want to be my friend? I figured after spending a weekend in my home, and all you did for my parents, and everything we know about each other now, well, you know. We should be friends, at least.”
He could tell that she realized her mistake with those last two words, and he immediately pounced, before she had a chance to retract them. “At least, sweetling. At the very least.”
“Let’s cut the crap here, Harek. What do you want from me?”
“Do you have to ask?” He put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
“And that’s all?”
Jeesh! Women! Did they have to make a big deal out of everything? “For now,” he said, which was a load of bullshit. All he had was now. Already, he could sense Mike moving in. Any second he would be pulling the plug, and Harek didn’t mean that plug. He meant the end to any contact with Camille. Like, “Siberia, here I come!”
Any further conversation was postponed by F.U. and Geek getting into an argument over bombs versus intelligence in combating terrorism. F.U. claimed that the military needed to give the tangos more “shock and awe,” as in blowing their asses to smithereens, and he was just the explosives expert to do it, while Geek said intelligence gathering and covert operations were the way to go. No need for a big-bang show of force. JAM, who had been a Jesuit in training at one time, said that a little prayer helped, too.
“That’s the problem,” Marie interjected. “Everyone thinks that God is on their side.”
Harek knew whose side God was on, but he wasn’t about to call attention to himself with that kind of religious discussion.
“Are you ready to deploy on Monday?” Camille asked him, while around them people were giving food orders to the waitress. Hot wings, nachos, pretzels, that kind of thing.
He nodded. “How about you? You leave in the morning, don’t you?” He knew that because Nicole would be traveling with her, and Trond had started saying good-bye to his wife at three this afternoon. Can anyone say “horny Viking”?
“Yep. At five a.m.,” she said, and licked the salt off a pretzel stick that she took from a basket placed in front of them.
That lick was appreciated by his chocolate stick.
Between the beer foam and the salt, he felt like he was being assaulted. By licking. He groaned.
She smiled.
The witch!
“I’m worried for you,” he blurted out . . . without thinking, obviously.
“Why?” She cocked her head to the side and crunched on her pretzel. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Who knew crunching could be sexy? “The danger.”
“I won’t be out in the field, like you and the others.”
“Just as dangerous. More so, in some ways.”
“Harek, this is what I do.”
“I know.” Didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Besides, I’m not your concern.”
“I beg to differ. Unfortunately. I suspect Mike sent me here to protect you, as well as kill some Boko Haram Lucipires and save those who can still repent.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying that Boko Haram are demon vampires?”
“Some of them are.”
She rolled her eyes. “And you’ll try to save them?”
“Those that are not entirely black of soul have to be offered the opportunity. Most, if not all, will be too far gone, though.”
“Un-be-freakin’-lievable!”
“It is what is.”
“And you think the archangel had me in his crosshairs, too, when he sent you here?”
“It would seem so.”
“What? You gonna save me, like you did my father?”
Between the sarcasm and now the scoffing, he should have been put off. He wasn’t. “You don’t need that kind of saving.”
“What kind of saving, then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’ll come to me eventually.”
“Pfff! Let me know when you figure it out.”
“You’ll be the first to know.” He grinned. Best to show her my sunny side when she continues to jab at me with her snide remarks. Olaf Hairy Arms had the right idea. Cut off his wife’s nagging tongue. No, that wouldn’t be a good idea. No licking then.
“Just out of curiosity, is your brother Trond a vangel, too?”
Blather, blather, blather. “He is.”
“And Nicole.”
“No. She is just his mate for life . . . his life. No, I don’t want to explain now. Let’s dance.”
The band, which had been playing rowdy country songs, like “I Love This Bar,” and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” segued into a poignant, slow ballad, something about, “I Need You Now.”
For sure.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” she said, even as she stood and dusted pretzel salt off her shirt.
Add salt dusting to licking as carnal triggers.
As to her question, dancing was the best idea he had, barring sex in the backseat of Trond’s Jeep, which he’d driven over here and which was outside in the parking lot. “Do you have any better ideas?” he asked, following her to the tiny dance floor and opening his arms to her.
Camille put her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled her face into his neck. He put his palms on her buttocks and yanked her tight into the cradle of his hips, then looped his hands loosely around her waist. With her high heels, she fit perfectly against him.
Harek wasn’t crazy about dancing. Seemed a wasted form of foresport to him. Why not just do the real thing? But he liked dancing with Camille. Especially when she snuggled closer and made a little kittenish mewl against his ear. Especially when his denim-clad crotch brushed her denim-clad crotch with every sway of the dance. Especially when the aura of roses surrounded them, as if they were all alone, swaddled in an erotic cocoon, not in the middle of a crowded dance floor with a bunch of horny sailors.
They danced and danced, saying nothing, to one “crazy”-themed song after another. Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings’s version of “I Wish I Was Crazy Again,” the more recent “Redneck Crazy” by Tyler Farr, and then the far-from-country Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” He knew because the singer made an announcement before each song. Maybe he was going a little crazy himself. He knew he was when he realized he was slow dancing with Camille to that fast, very fast song, “The Devil Came Down to Georgia.” The band must have moved on from crazy to frenzied. Folks around them were laughing.
?
??Let’s get out of here,” he said, and began to lead Camille off the dance floor. Thankfully, she didn’t protest. In fact, she muttered, “You better buy me a chocolate bar real soon, or I’m going to start nibbling on your skin.”
“Damn, I hope so!”
Between the front door and the Jeep, about fifty feet, he must have kissed Camille twenty times, sometimes not even stopping as they kissed. It was a wonder they didn’t trip over the gravel or bump into a vehicle. When they were in the car, he asked, “Where to? Can’t go to Trond’s house. He and Nicole started saying their good-byes this afternoon, and they’ll probably still be going at it by the time you leave in the morning.”
Camille laughed. He’d already told her, back in New Orleans, what living with Trond and Nicole was like.
“How about that Motel 6 down the road? It doesn’t look too bad,” he said.
“No, let’s go back to my place. Marie and Bobby Jo probably won’t be back until two, and you’ll be gone by then. I have to get up by four. We go boots off the ground at five.”
He glanced at his watch . . . a Rolex his brothers had given him for Christmas, sort of a joke related to his sin of greed. He loved the watch, which Mike would no doubt confiscate once he got a gander at it. Harek enjoyed the luxury while he could.
It was only ten p.m. Hah! Camille had another think coming if she thought they’d be nearly satisfied in less than four hours. He was no dummy, though. He kept his mouth shut, and just nodded.
When they got to the cottage on a Coronado side street, he grabbed his backpack from the rear seat. It contained his laptop that he didn’t like to risk, even in a locked car; his secure cell phone; and some other items.
Once inside the small house, whose ceilings seemed almost too low for his six-foot-four frame, Camille asked, “Would you like something to eat, or drink?”
He shook his head and just stared at her. She knew what he wanted.
“C’mon,” she said, taking his hand and leading him upstairs.
He wanted to ask her why she’d changed her mind about having sex with him. He didn’t, though, fearing she would give him that friends-with-benefits crap. He didn’t know why, but he resisted the idea of mere friendship with Camille.
At the end of the hall, they entered a small bedroom that held a double bed, a bedside table with a low-wattage lamp, a dresser with a mirror on top, and a desk. There was an adjoining bathroom that appeared to be small, too. A packed suitcase stood on the floor at the foot of the bed. She closed and locked the door, then leaned back against it.
He liked the sound of that lock. It gave a sort of mental high five to what was to come.
“I wondered where you slept,” he said.
“I pictured you here,” she said.
“What was I doing?”
“Just what you’re doing now, staring at me with smoldering blue eyes and a hard-on that could drill cement.”
Smoldering eyes and a hard cock, what more could a guy ask for? He laughed and shook his head at her. “Have I told you that you have a way with words?”
“A time or two. This is just about friends, right?”
Damn, damn, damn. “I’m feeling very friendly.”
“You never give me a straight answer.”
“Here’s straight for you. I want you so much my heart is racing and my hands are shaking. I’m afraid to step closer to you because my knees might buckle. I’m one thousand, one hundred, and ninety-five years old, and I have never felt this way about a woman before.”
“Is that the truth?”
“The God’s honest truth.”
“I feel the same way,” she confessed, “although I don’t have that many years under my belt. What do you suppose it means?”
Did Eve talk so much in the Garden of Eden? No wonder Adam ate the friggin’ apple! “I’m afraid to guess.”
“Not the life mate nonsense?”
He shrugged. What else could it be?
“What should we do?”
Now, that he had an answer to. “Carpe diem. Seize the day. Live for the moment and let the chips fall where they fall.”
“You’re full of clichés today, aren’t you?”
Either that or I’m full of shit. I’m a grown man, experienced, intelligent even beyond my years, but I feel like an untried youthling with his first maid. And if she doesn’t stop chattering, I’m going to pull out my hair, one gelled strand at a time. Aaarrgh! He sat on the edge of the bed and toed off his athletic shoes. Then he leaned back on the stacked pillows and folded his hands behind his neck, extending his long legs and crossing them at the ankles, tapping the footboard. “Take off your clothes, sweetling. Slowly. But don’t put those shoes away. I have plans for them, later.”
Camille studied him for a long moment. He could tell she was contemplating whether to take orders from him or not. But then she tugged her tank top up and over her head, exposing a black lace bra. She leaned back against the door and let him just take her in.
He did.
Finally, she kicked off her shoes, unzipped her pants, and shimmied out of the tight fabric, leaving just brief, black lace bikini underpants. Sliding her shoes back on, she placed her arms over her head and posed for him against the door.
He was stunned speechless for a moment. Had he really thought she was plain at one time? Amazing the things women could hide from clueless men! Even with the brash red hair, she was beautiful. Sultry, even. And, yes, she’d dyed her hair down below, too, he saw through the filmy, almost transparent silk. He couldn’t wait to taste it. Was there such a thing as flavored hair dye, like flavored lip gloss? Probably not. But there should be.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“Because I’m happy.” And that was the truth. He wasn’t a morbidly unhappy person, like his brother Mordr, but living in bumfuck Siberia on the darkest, coldest nights, yeah, he knew what depression felt like. The opposite of happiness, for sure. But more than that, he now sensed what he’d been missing for all these centuries, even when he’d had all the material possessions a man could want. So, this was happiness? This warm, glowing sensation that emanated from the heart and filled the senses. Amazing! “Keep going,” he said, his voice raspy with emotion.
“Turn on the stereo. I need a little music if I’m going to do a striptease. Too bad I don’t have a pole.”
I have one, he thought, and thankfully didn’t say it aloud. He stood and went over to a stand beside the dresser. Sitting there was an old-fashioned stereo that played vinyl records. “Isn’t this kind of dated?” he asked as he stacked the records that were already there on the turntable.
“Yes, but the sound is remarkably better than all that downloaded crap today.”
“You have a thing for the blues, huh?” he noted. All the records seemed to be classics by old, long-dead soul singers.
“You can’t be from Nawleans and not be a fan of the blues. You don’t like the blues?”
“I like all kinds of music. Even vampires get the blues,” he told her. Was it synchronicity that he’d just been thinking about depression and she liked the soulfully sad music?
“How about angels?”
“Oh yeah. Being good all the time definitely causes the blues.”
“You’re funny,” she commented.
“Not the trait I’m going for!” He finally got the records lined up and hit the play button.
Immediately, Etta James began to belt out “At Last.” It was a slow, sultry soul song.
He turned and leaned against the dresser.
She was singing under her breath, eyes closed. As she got into the groove, writhing from side to side, she lowered her hands and slowly undid the front clasp on the bra. For a moment she held the sides together, then she opened her eyes, dropped her hands, and let the black scrap of silk and lace fall to the floor.
“Like?” she asked.
He nodded. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he was keeping his lips shut tight so she wouldn’t see
how his incisors were already elongated with arousal. Not his most attractive feature! In fact, fangs were an affront to any Viking’s vanity, but not much vangels could do about them. Vikar had tried to file his down at one point, but only succeeded in breaking the drill. Ivak had gone to a cosmetic dentist, who only laughed when asked to design a cap that would fit over the fangs and hide them. “I’m a dentist, not a magician,” the dentist had said. Harek had considered having his gold plated, but that would only call attention to the orthodontic imperfections. Plus, Michael would consider it an outward sign of his greed and punish him in some way. Siberia, for a certainty.
Back to Striptease-ville. All those “crazy” songs back at the Wet and Wild must have turned him a little bit crazy. Why else would he be thinking about teeth when a near-naked woman was about to become totally naked in front of him?
Camille’s breasts, which he’d seen before, of course, were pretty, that’s all he could think. With her now red hair, the pinkness of her areolas and nipples seemed even brighter. The little nipples were already erect, or as erect as they would be without his further attentions, which were coming up, for damn sure.
But wait, she had her thumbs inside the elastic on each of her hips. Undulating slowly, in imitation of the sex act, she inched the garment slowly down until her red curly hairs were exposed. Then they were down her legs and off.
She stood there, wearing nothing but the red high heels, arching her brows at him.
“What?”
“Your turn.”
A record dropped down and now it was Bessie Smith wailing, “Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out.”
He started to rip off his shirt.
But Camille cautioned him, “No, no! Slowly.”
He smiled. This wasn’t his kind of game. Or at least it hadn’t been before. But, hey, he was a Viking. He could improvise. “Lie on the bed so I can entertain you.”
“Think you can?”
“I can hot damn try.”
And he did. Even though the Bessie Smith song was a slow one, it had a beat. He swayed from side to side. Then, slowly, he turned his back on her, bent over, and took off one sock, then the other, tossing them over his shoulder. One of them landed in the waste can. A slam dunk.