Kiss of Wrath

  “And this is the route you take to work every day?”

  “Mostly. If there’s heavy traffic, I take the longer but less time-consuming way. Actually, we could turn off here, but the scenic route is more fun.”

  “Amazing!” Mordr exclaimed as the full tacky, neon-blinking extravaganza of the Strip began to emerge.

  She nodded. “I’ve been living here since I graduated from college, and I’m still floored every time I see the Strip at night. There’s round-the-clock action, of course, but its over-the-top glitz is best seen at night.”

  “Why would you choose to live in such a place?”

  “I had a lot of college loans to pay off, and the offer here was better than any others. And, actually, I like this area. That’s why I stay. It’s not all casinos and gambling. There are neighborhoods. Everyday people who go to work and coach Little League or take their daughters to ballet. Teachers, secretaries, lawyers, accountants, chefs. True, much of the population is dependent in some way on the casinos or big hotels for employment.” She noticed him glance her way with raised brows. “Sorry. I guess I sounded defensive.”

  “Is it the best place to raise children?”

  “Now I am defensive. How dare you—”

  “My words were ill-chosen. I did not mean to give offense. It is just that I picture this country’s children being raised best in small towns where they do not lock doors. Where there is a smiling sheriff who knows everybody. And an aunt who bakes and cooks.”

  She stared at him, perplexed. Then she laughed. “Mayberry! I can’t believe you.” She laughed some more, dabbing at her eyes. “You watch a lot of TV, huh?”

  She could swear he blushed, but she couldn’t tell for sure in the fading light.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Between missions, vangels have a great amount of down time, as you say in this country. Since we are not allowed, or leastways not supposed, to fornicate, or drink to excess, or engage in other worldly activities that almost certainly involve sin, television makes the days and months and years go faster. We entertain ourselves in other ways, too, depending on our interests or talents, but mostly we must remain in seclusion to avoid detection.”

  Back to that vampire angel business! “No raping or plundering, either, I suppose,” she teased, reminding him of his Viking heritage.

  “That, m’lady, is a myth perpetuated by the biased monk historians of that time. Truth to tell, some Norsemen did such when they went a-Viking, but not all, and not all the time. Besides, men of other countries did the same, or worse. I know of some Saxon soldiers who skinned a man alive and pinned the skin to a church door.”

  She shivered with distaste. “Did you?”

  “Skin my enemies?”

  “No! Rape and pillage?”

  At her nod, he replied, “No raping. There were willing women enough at home and abroad, but I do admit to the plundering. Especially churches and monasteries where the priests had no business hoarding gold chalices and silver crosses, not to mention fat sheep and very good cheeses.”

  “Cheese? You went a-Viking for cheese?”

  She could swear a smile twitched at his lips. Could the man actually have a sense of humor?

  After that, they were mostly silent as he drove slowly through the town, passing the big luxurious hotels. The Luxor, Tropicana, MGM Grand, Bellagio, Bally’s, Flamingo, Mirage, Harrah’s, Casino Royale, Wynn, Fontainebleau. Also, the themed hotels, that replicated medieval castles, volcanoes and tropical gardens, or those reminiscent of cities around the world, like the Excalibur, Planet Hollywood, Caesar’s Palace, the Venetian, Treasure Island, the Riviera, and Circus Circus. Then there were the dozens of wedding chapels, many of them Elvis-related.

  “Hey, we could drive through the Hunka Hunka Burning Love Chapel and be married in less than an hour.” She pointed to a sign for the neon pink chapel whose sign proclaimed. “In-Car Weddings Quick and Cheap. Elvis Minister Extra.”

  “Married!” Mordr exclaimed, and almost rammed into the car in front of them, which was in fact slowing to turn into the Hunka Hunka. “I will never wed again, even if I were permitted to do so, which I am not.”

  “Hey, it was a joke, all right? Don’t get your Dracula cloak in a twist.” Even though she wasn’t serious, Miranda was somewhat miffed that he’d reacted so strongly to the idea of marriage with her.

  “I do not joke about marriage,” he said.

  “No kidding! You don’t joke about anything, as far as I can tell.” Before he had a chance to respond, she added, “Of course, I understand why you would feel the way you do, considering your circumstance.”

  In a clear attempt to deflect her away from that forbidden subject, he asked, “Have you never wed?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “No time, no right man.”

  “But there have been men?”

  “Are you trying to find out if I’m a virgin? A thirty-four-year-old virgin?” She should have been insulted, but instead was just amused.

  “No.” He paused. “But I would not be averse to hearing your answer.”

  She said nothing.

  “Well?” he prodded.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Neither is my ‘circumstance,’ but that does not stop you from barging in.”

  Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about the tragedy in his life. She could respect that, even if she was curious. Maybe later he would open up to her. In the end, most of her clients admitted that talking about their problems really did help. “We’re almost to the end of the Strip,” she pointed out. “Turn right at the next light and go over one block, then right again. My office will be about a half mile after that.” When he pulled up to the curb outside her building, she asked, “Do you want to go in? We’re on the fifth floor.”

  “No. I’ve already seen it.” He put the car in park but did not turn the ignition off.

  Now, that was alarming! She was still suspicious of the man, somewhat. Had he been stalking her? “When?” she asked in a voice she couldn’t stop from being icy.

  “Earlier today, when the children were in school.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “You were at the courthouse.”

  She pondered whether he could be telling the truth or not. “It’s impossible for you to have done everything you did today and drive into the city, park your car, take the elevator to my office floor, then walk around and survey my work space.”

  “I did not drive.”

  This story was getting more and more bizarre. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did you get here? Fly?”

  He should have smiled, but then, he never smiled. “I probably would not mind a bite from you.” Again, no smile. “No, I did not fly. I teletransported. By the by, I do not like your sarcasm.”

  “What? First you are a Viking. Then a vampire. Then an angel. Now you teletransport, like a bleepin’ ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ or whatever the hell teletransporting is. And don’t forget, a nanny-slash-house manager. I’ll tell you what I don't like. The way you—”

  She had no chance to continue because he leaned over and placed both hands on either side of her face, turning her for a kiss. Just before his lips met hers, he murmured against her mouth, “You talk too much.” They were both constrained by their seat belts, but that didn’t stop the kiss from being a powerful expression of the sexual chemistry that sparked between them at first touch.

  He groaned his pleasure, which acted like an aphrodisiac to her, proof that he found her desirable, that he wanted her. Because, God help her, she wanted him, too.

  She felt the muscles of his arms bunching as he held a tight rein on his passion. He was attempting to resist her. She, overcome with passion herself, would not let him and licked the seam of his lips.

  “You, my lady witch, are as tempting as Eve ever was in the Garden of Eden,” he said.

  Whether it was a complaint or a compliment, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. “That would make you Adam,
” she responded with another teasing lick.

  “Or the snake.” He reclaimed her lips then, molding her mouth to his this way and that in changing patterns ’til he got the exact position he wanted. Then he proved that he was the master in this game of sex play, kissing her so expertly and thoroughly that her toes literally curled in her high-heeled sandals. Ribbons of molten heat unfurled throughout her body causing her to feel his lips in places he wasn’t even touching. Like her breasts, the arches of her feet, the backs of her knees, the tips of her fingers, her inner elbow, and definitely at the juncture of her thighs, where the sweet burn of desire was a throbbing beat. She had never become so instantly aroused by a man in all her life. For that matter, she’d never been so aroused, period.

  Who knew what would have happened next, how far they would have gone, if there hadn’t been a sharp rapping on the window. Mordr jolted back to the driver’s seat and she straightened from the puddle of hormones she’d melted to in her seat. With mortification, she realized it was a policeman who’d tapped on her passenger window and was motioning for her to open the window.

  Mordr opened it electronically from his side.

  The cop, whose name badge read Officer John Berry, leaned in. “Aren’t you folks a little old for this?”

  “Is a man ever too old for this?” Mordr replied, clearly unhappy at having been interrupted.

  “What . . . what did he say?” Officer Berry asked her.

  “Shh!” She motioned to Mordr, then told the cop, “Sorry, Officer. My . . . uh, boyfriend just got home from military leave and we haven’t seen each other for . . . a long time.”

  “Oh.” Addressing Mordr now, the policeman said, “Afghanistan, huh?”

  Mordr, thankfully, caught her warning scowl, and nodded.

  “My son is over there now.” He cleared his throat and added, “Anyhow, kids. Time to get a room, okay?”

  She and Mordr agreed quickly, she because she was glad to escape a ticket for public licentiousness or something, and Mordr probably because he feared all his weapons being discovered under that cloak. And, by the way, what kind of law enforcement person was he to not think it strange that a soldier would be wearing a cloak. On the other hand, it was Las Vegas. He no doubt saw stranger things.

  Actually, that wasn’t what Mordr was thinking, she soon realized, as he put the car in gear and began to drive away from the curb. He muttered to himself, “I cannot believe I allowed her to entice me so. I cannot believe that I am suddenly so weak I cannot control my urges. I cannot believe after all these centuries my sap rises instantly like an untried youthling. I cannot believe Mike is inflicting this new torture on me. I cannot believe—”

  “Believe this,” she said, and punched him in the arm. It was like hitting concrete, but she didn’t want to rub her sore knuckles and give him any satisfaction. “You are the one who enticed me. You turn me on just by looking at me, and I am not easily turned on. Having five kids, a job, and not enough time in the day to take a breath kind of dampens the libido, you know. Furthermore, I haven’t made out in a car since I was a teenager and I let Billy Jordan cop a feel after the junior prom.”

  He slanted her a quick sideways glance as he maneuvered through traffic. “I turn you on?” he asked, and she could swear that Mr. Grim almost grinned.

  “Like a faucet.” She folded her arms over her chest, then dropped them to her sides, when she realized that her breasts were still full and achy. If she didn’t know better, she would wonder if he had dropped some kind of drug in her drink, except that she hadn’t drunk anything. Truthfully, she had only herself to blame. “It’s probably just sex deprivation that made me act so out-of-character.”

  “Right,” he said, not believing it any more than she did.

  “Where are we going?” she asked then as he turned into an underground parking garage of a hotel on the Strip.

  “I promised to show you some demon vampires, and that is what I will do,” he said.

  Oh crap! They were back to that nonsense. She glanced up at the hotel sign and laughed, “At Valhalla?” It was the new themed casino hotel. She’d never been there, but she’d heard it had a lot of hokey Viking decor.

  He shrugged. “It’s as good a place as any.”

  “Isn’t Valhalla a kind of Viking heaven?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Been there. Not interested in a repeat.”

  As he pulled into a parking slot and turned off the engine, he looked at her with a frown of confusion. When he finally realized that she was referring to their making out a short time ago as a bit of Viking heaven, he did something he hadn’t done since she’d met him.

  He smiled.

  Twelve

  Tears of a Viking . . .

  Mordr laced his fingers with Miranda’s as they walked toward the elevator in the parking garage.

  When was the last time I held a woman’s hand? Did I ever?

  He continued to hold her hand, the pulse at their joined wrists seeming to offer a point/counterpoint of erotic rhythm, as they stood in silence in the intimate confines of the box as they rose to the lobby level.

  Are my passions really being ignited by the mere touch of skin on skin?

  Yes! Like sparks to long-dead tinder! Like lightning strikes to a desolate tree! Like fire to a death pyre! Like hearth heat to a bone-cold body! Like . . .

  Aaarrgh! I am turning into a foppish, poor excuse for a Viking. Next I will be spouting poetry like a drukkinn skald.

  He tightened his hold on her hand, alert to impending danger. As the elevator doors opened, they were assaulted by the cacophony of casino noise and color and flashing lights and conversation and smells.

  Something had changed betwixt him and the red-haired witch at his side whose changeable green eyes darted this way and that, taking in all the sights. And that change was surrender, pure and simple. His.

  At least for now, he was no longer fighting the compelling attraction he felt for this woman who’d come into his life with the suddenness of a North Sea storm. Even knowing that, sure as sin, such an attraction could be perilous to him. Mike would have a bird. Or an angel fit.

  He was not sure when that change had come about. Was it when he had kissed her? Or had his long-dead passions begun to rumble back to life the moment he first saw her? Or could it be when her woman scent, that tantalizing mix of lilies and cloves, first swirled about him like a carnal mist?

  But then, it did not matter when. It just was.

  He was jolted out of his reverie when Miranda muttered, “Good Lord!”

  If Mordr were permitted to swear, he would have said the same thing.

  Actually, he had experienced similar shock the day he had wandered into this hotel casino. A full-size longship was rocking on the waves of a pool in the hotel lobby. Murals of Norsemen in battle adorned the walls. A wild boar bellowed from a cage on one side. In fact, the menu posted outside one restaurant offered wild boar barbecue. In other words, pig. A miniature Viking village, complete with longhouses and pretty, scantily clad Norsewomen bending over cook fires, ranged along the other side. Over the hotel loudspeakers, haunting music played, presumably played on instruments he’d never witnessed in his time, but some entrepreneur’s idea of ancient Norse melody.

  Male waiters in the casinos wandered about, wearing naught but knee-high boots, leggings so tight they must use a crowbar to get into them, and the most ridiculous headgear. Nothing on their oiled, hairless upper bodies. Like no Vikings of his acquaintance!

  “Vikings did not wear horned helmets,” he asserted vehemently.

  “What?” Miranda, who had been gawking at said men, asked.

  “Horned helmets. Where in the name of all the saints did modern folks get the idea that Norse soldiers wore such ridiculous attire? Not only would vain Viking men decline to cover their well-groomed hair with such monstrosities, but enemies in battle could latch on to those horns and bring a man to his knees. Although I suppose, if they lost a weapon in
the midst of fighting, they could gore a man to death by head-butting him in the gut.”

  Miranda looked at him with amusement.

  He supposed he was fixating over minutiae when there were so many other inconsistencies in this fake Viking world.

  “I believe it might have started with some opera about Beowulf,” she said.

  Just then, a man stepped up to Mordr and asked, “Can you tell me where I can cash in my chips?”

  To Mordr’s chagrin, he realized that the man thought he worked here. In his cloak, with his Norse features, he must look like the Viking he was. He stepped around the man and walked away, taking Miranda with him.

  “That was rude,” she commented.

  Like he cared! “Stop!” he ordered suddenly, dropping their linked hands and tugging her tightly to his side, an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. He raised his head and sniffed the air, this way and that, like a hunting dog on point. “Over there,” he whispered in her ear. “Those two are Lucies.”

  “Where?”

  “The couple standing together at the roulette table. They are interested in the man betting wildly beside them. Probably an addicted gambler, risking his family’s last coin for the thrill of the sport. Afore the night is over, the poor fool will be in Lucie land.”

  “Are you saying that gorgeous hunk in green T-shirt and camouflage pants and his blond girlfriend in a tank top and designer jeans are demon vampires?”

  “Shh,” he warned. “Yes, they are.”

  “But they’re beautiful.”

  “Only in their humanoid forms. You would not want to see them when they morph into scales and slime and red eyes and tails.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Let us move on before they notice me. I do not want to fight them here in public.”

  “Fight?” she gurgled, glancing pointedly at his cloak, which she knew by now hid many different lethal weapons.

  “Besides, now that I look around, I see Lucies all over the place. That pit boss yelling at one of his underlings. The Valkyries carrying drinks to the baccarat area. By the by, Odin would nigh explode with anger if any of his Valkyries walked about with breasts and buttocks nigh exposed to one and all. On the other hand, certain parts of his dead warriors might come to life in appreciation.”