“Jax told me you deliberately planned to attack Splendor Headquarters so you could take control of the portal to the Netherworld.”
“Yes, that is so,” Bram answered. His candid response hung in the air for a few seconds because I was suddenly so angry to hear it, I couldn’t even comment.
But I had to ignore my anger and outrage for the time being, I needed to learn what forces I was now competing against. “Tell me if you attacked Splendor; and if you did, then tell me if everyone who works there is all right?” I insisted.
“You must calm down, my pet,” Bram announced, eyeing me with concern. “I believe you are near hyperventilating.”
“I’m fine,” I ground out and then taking a deep breath, I thought about Sam and wondered if she might be injured. “If you did attack Headquarters, you had better hope to God, or whoever the hell you worship, that everyone is okay. If not, you’ll have me to deal with.” I tried to exhale all the anxiety inside me before adding, “And it won’t be pretty.”
ELEVEN
“Do you recall that evening when I first revealed to you your portrait?” Bram asked as he faced me with his left brow arched in unmasked curiosity. “When you and I came the closest we have ever come to acquiring intimate knowledge of each other?”
I gulped down the huge lump that was forming in my throat as I faced him glumly. “Of course I do. I have nightmares about it every other night.”
Bram threw his head back and chuckled heartily before focusing on me again. I watched him drumming his long, slender fingers against the armrest of his chair as he studied me. “I have enjoyed the carnal pleasures of many women, Sweet.”
“Here we go again,” I said before sighing in unconcealed displeasure. I noticed my knee was bobbing up and down, seemingly of its own accord. Usually, that meant I was feeling antsy. “Please spare me the details of your past sexual escapades, Bram, because I can honestly say I don’t care!” I took a deep breath in advance of my next point. “And what’s more, I can’t even think about this conversation, or any others for that matter, when I don’t know if my friends in Splendor were taken captive, or hurt, or if they’re even still alive.”
“Your friends are perfectly fine,” Bram was quick to respond.
“Then you haven’t attacked Splendor?” I asked, eagerly perching on the edge of my seat.
“I do not care to delve into those particulars just yet,” Bram answered with a shake of his head. “Suffice to say they are all safe and unharmed. Their well-being should not concern you any longer.”
“Okay, well, my next cause for concern is Knight.”
Bram immediately glowered at the mention of the Loki and speared me with an unimpressed frown. “And what concern would that be?”
“I need to get in touch with him and tell him I’m okay,” I insisted. “He needs to know that I’m safe and that I’m with you.”
“I do apologize, Sweet, but that phone call will have to wait,” he announced. “I must speak with you before you speak with him.”
“That sounds cryptic,” I said, eyeing him with suspicion.
“Call it what you will,” Bram finished, his expression one that said he wouldn’t change his mind on this point.
“But you will let me reach out to him at some point?” I asked, wanting to make sure he wasn’t just bluffing me.
“You have my word,” he finished before I witnessed a change in his thought pattern that immediately caused his eyes to dazzle. “And now I would like to discuss a subject of my own choosing.”
“Okay,” I answered with a quick nod. I assumed that was as much information as he was willing to give me about calling Knight and about the well-being of my friends at Headquarters, so I accepted it. I sort of had to.
Honestly, though, Bram had reassured me enough that I could stop worrying about Sam, Elsie and everyone else at Headquarters—at least, for the time being. And, strangely enough, I did trust him. I’d known him long enough to realize he was a man, er, a vampire of his word. So the good news was I could finally calm my fears, and that was enough for me at the moment. The not so great news was I’d now have to endure whatever Bram decided to discuss before I could get back to the truly important conversations. Again, I’d have to play by his rules.
So be it.
“Living for three hundred years has endowed me with all the arts and skills required to seduce the opposite sex, pet,” he enunciated slowly, obviously intent on returning to this conversation.
Bram never had, and I imagined never would, give up on trying to have sex with me. Sometimes, I even wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier if I had succumbed to his orchestrations. (Well, if Knight hadn’t been in the picture, that is). If I had, maybe Bram would now view me as nothing more than a past conquest and finally overcome this bizarre crush he harbored for me.
He cocked his head to the side and appeared to delight in his own thoughts. “Or, perhaps, it is more fitting to say that my exquisite face and physique are truly the sources that procure me such a perfect record of success with the fair sex.”
“Or maybe it’s your incessantly long and boring stories?”
“Regardless of the reason,” he started, but I shook my head vigorously and interrupted him.
“Come on, Bram, that was a good one! At least give me credit where credit is due!”
He chuckled briefly. “Yes, Sweet, you are quite humorous.” Then he cleared his throat dramatically, and I winced to think he was again trying to theorize why his luck with the opposite sex was invariably successful.
Freaking Bram …
“As I was in the midst of explaining, I have savored the willingness of many beautiful maidens,” he orated, as if it were the beginning of another soliloquy. Still eyeing me rakishly, he continued, “And, yet, I can say without any doubt, in that exact moment when I held you in my arms and ordered you to resist me, even as you so willingly begged to succumb to me, that was the most erotic moment I have ever experienced in my three hundred years of existence.”
I yawned on purpose.
“You allowed me a first glimpse of your most private sanctuary. You encouraged me, and begged me to thrust my flesh into your eagerly willing flesh, to penetrate you, to know you as I have known so many maidens before you.”
“You’re leaving out one of the most pertinent details,” I grumbled while recalling the same incident, albeit very differently. My cheeks were burning with embarrassment, and I couldn’t stop blushing. Sometimes Bram was just so direct, so blunt. Not to mention his bizarre choice of words …
“Which detail would that be, pet?”
I felt my eyebrows climbing to the ceiling. Of course, he had to know exactly what detail I was referencing. “You were doing your damnedest to subjugate me with your vampire powers of persuasion. So whatever you think you saw or felt from me, it was entirely of your own fabrication.” I suddenly remembered some of the particulars, and added, “And I’m still pissed off about it, by the way.”
Shaking his head emphatically, he began drumming his fingers again on the velvet of the armrest even faster. Then, as if he couldn’t resist any longer, he suddenly shot onto his feet and approached the fireplace mantel and the hideous painting of me. The tension was visible in his shoulders and the way he fisted his hands at his sides. He looked at the painting for a good five seconds before he turned back to me. When he did, he seemed to have gotten himself under control again. Well, his fists relaxed, anyway.
“I do not possess the necessary power to create feelings within someone that do not exist. They must already be there,” he announced in a flattened voice. Maybe this wasn’t the direction he intended or hoped our conversation would go. Not that I felt any sort of sorry for him …
“Well, that can’t be true,” I argued with a frown.
“My powers merely allow me to unmask any feelings that already exist, and encourage them to emerge.” He was quiet for a second or two as he glared at me. “But you already know that, Sweet, don’t yo
u? You just enjoy giving me a hard time.”
“Although I have to admit that I do enjoy giving you a hard time,” I started, since there was no point in denying it, “as to me having any sort of … sexual feelings for you, I’m afraid that I don’t now and I never have.” Then I thought better of what I’d just said. “And I never will.”
“We both know that is a blatant lie.”
“What?” I ground out. My knee was now bouncing ridiculously fast, and I put my hand on my thigh in an effort to get it to stop. My fidgeting was making me nervous. Or maybe that was all Bram’s doing.
“What do you fail to comprehend, Sweet?” Bram asked. He obviously mistook my outburst as confusion when it was actually mild shock over what had just come out of his mouth. “I am very aware that you harbor some level of sexual magnetism toward me. If not, you would never have allowed me the few liberties you did allow. May I remind you that I can only evoke emotions that already exist inside you. I am only able to stimulate that which you already desire; albeit deep down within your essence.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Perhaps you are not even aware of your feelings for me!” he railed back at me. “I daresay you have repressed them efficiently over the years, brainwashing yourself to believe you never ached for or wanted me.” Nodding, he seemed to further contemplate the idea. “That must be so,” he emphasized when turning toward me again. “Your pride forbade you to express your true needs, and you were forced to deny your cravings for me because you were and are too proud.”
“What?” I started but he interrupted me.
“However, I released your inner voice, Sweet. I heard it even before you did, and I simply became your voice. I became the vehicle by which you could freely pursue your own deep longings.”
It was my turn to laugh because Bram’s ego knew no bounds. “So you think I wanted you to jump me? That’s what you’re trying to say in a nutshell?” I asked, my lips tightening. I noticed with some chagrin that my other knee decided to start bouncing incessantly too. I stood up, just to get my legs to stop shaking.
“I fear I do not know what you mean by me wanting to ‘jump’ you, but I am convinced that you yearn for me,” he stated, in a very matter-of-fact and offhand sort of way. “I imagine you often lie awake at night, picturing the two of us naked and entangled. You imagine me on top of you or perhaps behind you and we are engaged in unspeakable acts. You imagine all of this until you can no longer resist your primal urges to impale yourself upon me and you must touch yourself in order to release your body from its prison. You have gone so far as to pleasure yourself while thinking of me, have you not, my dear? You …”
I interrupted him before he could elaborate any further. “Let me guess; I’ve pleasured myself thinking about impaling myself on your ginormous staff?” I finished for him with an acidic laugh. His entire hypothesis was so ridiculous, it bordered on being offensive.
“I believe you often struggle while trying to restrain your orgiastic fantasies where I am concerned,” Bram finished. The expression on his face suggested his victory. Well, only in his own mind, that is.
“Orgiastic?” I asked with a smile. “Wow, one dollar for your word jar!”
“The time is ripe for you to finally admit your true feelings for me, Sweet,” he continued, with no amount of reserve. “Just say the words.”
“What words?”
“Reveal to me how you crave me and have always craved me. Let us join together in matrimony of our willing bodies,” he said, his voice raising an octave as it also grew louder. “It is high time we enjoyed the dance of our fused flesh.”
I was speechless. For five seconds, I just stared at him in absolute amazement that he had so many ludicrous delusions. When I finally found my tongue, my voice sounded a little bit scratchy. “Wow, um no.”
Bram’s hopeful expression immediately gave way to a scowl as he glared at me for a few seconds. When he spoke, his voice was back to its normal pitch. “I am quite convinced that were it not for that barbarian to whom you so erroneously swear your undying loyalty …” he started.
“You mean Knight?” I asked, just to be sure he was referring to that barbarian.
“Yes, that oxymoron by which the creature calls himself,” Bram answered, his expression now of supreme disgust.
“This is great; I’m glad I have a front row seat,” I mumbled, smiling in spite of myself. Sometimes, Bram could be so damn funny.
“As I was saying,” he grumbled, “I am quite convinced that had he not entered your life, you would have surrendered yourself to my ministrations a long time ago.” He paused for a moment and frowned at me. “And for that, I must admit I am quite resentful.”
“Oh? You’re convinced of that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. Now this conversation was straddling the territory of starting to piss me off. “So you think if it weren’t for Knight, I’d be riding the vampire train?”
“Indubitably so,” he answered, although I doubted he grasped my reference. He glanced up at the painting again before clearing his throat and facing me with a pedantic expression. “At any rate, upon witnessing your unruly behavior on the evening when I first revealed your portrait to you, it only further convinced me of your desire for me. Perhaps, you desire me nearly as much as I desire you.”
“Uh-huh. Let me play the devil’s advocate for a second,” I started, as I took a seat on the couch again and then leaned forward. I uncrossed my legs and then crossed them again at the ankles because I was tired of watching my knees bounce incessantly.
“Yes, do,” he said with unexpected childish glee that seemed so out of place on the elegant Englishman.
“Let’s pretend that Knight never came into the picture, or my life.”
“That charade is not new to me, but one I indulge in nightly,” Bram interjected.
“Stop interrupting me!” I railed at him. “And let me get my thought out before I forget it!”
“My heartfelt apologies, my sweet, please carry on.”
Frowning again, I tried to remember where I’d left off. Bram always managed to do or say something that invariably frazzled me. “Okay, so let’s say Knight is no longer in the picture and I did—” I started, but the words were suddenly difficult to say. I took a deep breath and pushed the rest of them out of my mouth. “Let’s say I did harbor some sort of … feelings for you,” I nearly choked out, trying to keep the bad taste from forming in the back of my throat. I also didn’t miss the smug smile that Bram pasted on his handsome face. He was such a pain in my ass. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that any future between us was already doomed? I’m an ANC Regulator and you’re the head of the most notorious potions organization.” He just looked at me blankly so I continued. “Don’t you get the ‘duh’ moment here?”
The smug smile he’d formerly worn began to vanish until it was a mere hint on his full lips. He stared at me, without saying anything for a few seconds, just appearing to be very amused. He glanced up at the painting again before sighing audibly. It was a silly thing to do, really, because he couldn’t sigh, or breathe, or burp, or anything else that required a respiratory system; well, one that worked anyway.
“I fear our fate would be as star-crossed lovers, Sweet,” he replied before turning to face me again. “Our romance would be thus immortalized, like Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde …”
“Shrek and Princess Fiona?”
“We would rewrite the annals of forbidden love,” he continued, obviously ignoring me. “And there would be countless books written about us, and songs composed in our honor.” As a dreamy expression glazed his eyes, he insisted on staring at me, unblinking. “Dulcie and Bram: a love so tragic and pure, doomed for all eternity.”
“Sounds catchy,” I said with a grimace. “Maybe you can sell it to Dreamworks.”
“I agree, Sweet; but fear not, our day will come, or our night, as the case may be,” he finished. I figured there was reall
y no point in me even being present for this conversation considering he was ignoring everything that came out of my mouth. But, like it or not, I still had to sit and tolerate it. That is, if I ever expected to begin the conversation I really wanted to have.
“We are an impossibility,” I corrected him.
“Will you deign to explain to me why?” he inquired, his lips constricting.
“It’s obvious, Bram,” I answered, shaking my head because we’d just had a conversation, albeit a very dramatic one, but a conversation on this topic all the same. My patience was quickly thinning.
“Perhaps it is obvious to you, but not to me. It never has been obvious to me,” he responded coldly before crossing his arms over his broad chest. He looked at me with visible displeasure.
“Didn’t you just try to pitch me a movie about it?” I asked. Maybe Bram had lost a few of his marbles during those three hundred years. When he didn’t respond, I sighed and figured I’d have to spell it out for him. “Didn’t we both just agree that our job descriptions automatically preclude us from having any relationship other than a professional one?”
“Pah!” he responded before waving his hand at me and hastily dismissing my point.
“Um, wasn’t that what you were just waxing poetic about?” I asked, now feeling completely lost.
“No!” he said before glaring at me. “You and I would be star-crossed lovers because I am vampire and you are fae,” he explained, shrugging like I should have known all along. “Such an arrangement should never work as I want to devour you as much as I want to … devour you,” he said, and his eyes traveled down to my bust before dropping lower to the junction of my thighs.
“Devour me?” I asked with a hiccup of a laugh. “Hey, I’m up here!” I waved at him when his attention stayed on my happy place too long.
Eventually his eyes returned to my face. “I long to lose myself inside you, and become one with you.”
“Okay, Prince Charming, I get it,” I grumbled.
“Our careers in this life, with you as a Regulator and I as the Head of Crossbones, although on opposite ends of the morality spectrum, could never keep us apart,” he replied. “They are trivial obstacles when compared to what could be our unending bliss.”