“Anything I want to. For now come and soak. We could use a little play time.”
“Yes. But, by whose rules are we playing?”
“Mine.”
“Could I know what they are?”
“How can you when I don’t? I’m making this up as I go along.”
Klaus laughed. “Very well, Edwina. Shall I put on the suit?”
“You seem comfortable in your skin.”
“Are you not?”
She looked down at the swimsuit she wore. “Obviously not.”
Klaus climbed into the tub. Edwina followed him into the water. She sat beside him. His arm went around her shoulder. She rested her head on his shoulder, enjoying the comfort of his embrace.
“This is the best moment of my day,” Klaus told her.
She looked at him and smiled. “Oh, I think it will get better.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Just relax, Klaus. You’ll be home far before dawn.”
“I appreciate that.”
She reached over and poured two glasses of the wine. Then she handed him one of those.
“Dutch courage?” he asked.
“No. I just like this wine. I thought you might enjoy a glass or two of it as well.”
He took the glass from her and sipped. “You have good taste. This is very fine.”
“You are very fine,” she told him after she drank from her own glass and then put it down.
Klaus took another sip of his wine and set the glass down on the ledge of the tub. “Edwina, when will you marry me?”
“Why would you want to commit to me?”
He looked at her as though she had just asked a profoundly stupid question. “That should be obvious. I’m in love with you.”
“You fall in love this easily?”
“No. I’ve felt this way about only one other woman in my whole life.”
“Why didn’t you marry her?”
“She’s dead. She died many years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Klaus,” Edwina said quietly, touching his face, then kissing him softly.
She had intended the kiss to be brief, nothing more than a brush of her lips against his. But her body had other ideas. So much for relaxation.
Edwina found herself moving to straddle Klaus’ legs as the kiss deepened between them.
“This was a bad idea,” she said quietly as she looked at his face.
“Feels like a very good idea to me. The only better idea would be if you would take off that bathing suit.”
“I’m not quite as comfortable in my skin as you are in yours.”
“Being somewhat clothed makes you feel more in control.”
She nodded slightly.
“You have control issues.”
“Many people do, I hear,” she said just before she reached down, grasped the hem of the swimsuit top and pulled it off over her head. “But I can compromise.”
Klaus’ hands came up to cup her breasts. “You are so beautiful. Your breasts are lovely. I envy our children taking nourishment.”
“There is no reason to envy them, Klaus.”
He smiled at her before he brought his mouth to her right breast.
Need shot through her as he began to alternately lave and suck her nipple. His fingers lightly rolled her other nipple.
She threw her head back and arched against him, offering him more of her breasts.
It was an offer he wasn’t in the least shy about taking.
Klaus’ hands went to her hips and gently urged her to settle down into contact with his penis. Even through the double fabric of her bikini bottom, the sensation of having his glans pressed against her clitoris took her breath away.
“Thought that I asked you not to touch me,” she offered quietly.
“I couldn’t help myself.”
“Good. I can’t help myself, either.”
“Edwina, we’ll play if you want. It’s all I can do not to rip that bikini off you, then ram into you. All I want is to be inside you. I want to hear you moan and know that the sound is pleasure. I want to see you orgasm. I want to feel you orgasm around me, time and time again. I could feel that forever and never tire of it.”
She swallowed hard as she saw the seriousness in his eyes and felt him tremble as she touched his chest.
Edwina rose to her feet and climbed out of the tub. She picked up a large towel and wrapped it around herself as a sarong. Then, she picked up another and held it out to him. “Let me dry you.”
He rose and came to her.
Her mouth went dry once more as she looked at his lean but powerful body. She tried not to look at his erect penis. However, she could hardly ignore it.
She went to work removing the water from him. Edwina walked behind him and dried the water from his back. She went down on her knees and dried his butt and the backs of his legs. Before she rose to her feet, she planted a light kiss on the birthmark on his butt. It was a mark that she had seen many times in her dreams.
Through the light contact of her lips to his birthmark, Edwina felt him shudder. And she smiled. His control was perilous. She knew that she was playing with fire. She knew from her dreams just how hot that fire could burn.
“Frau!” he moaned. Then he demanded hoarsely in German, “How long are you planning to torture me like this?”
“You set the conditions for your coming upstairs, Klaus,” she said as she rose to her feet and came around to dry his front. “And you are a beautiful man. I think that we have a long ways to go yet in becoming fully comfortable with one another,” she said as she moved the towel slowly down his chest and flat stomach.
“You are enjoying this,” he accused.
“Of course I am. That was the point of the exercise. You are enjoying it, too.”
“I can think of things we would both enjoy more.”
Edwina dropped to her knees again and began to dry his legs. She allowed her right cheek to brush his penis. And she smiled as she heard him moan. Then she moved to dry his other leg. Her left cheek brushed his penis.
When his legs were dry, she took the towel and lightly, but firmly, dried his penis and scrotum.
Remembering his reaction from a dream, she gathered her courage. She took the tip of his penis into her mouth and ran her tongue around the glans. Then she backed away from him before she began to drop light kisses along the length of his penis and then on his scrotum.
“Don’t stop,” Klaus begged in German.
“You like this?”
“Frau!” he said affection in his voice. “You know I like it.”
“Just making sure,” she replied before she took his penis back into her mouth and began to move her head rhythmically up and down his erect shaft. Klaus’ hands threaded through her hair. Edwina felt her hair loosen and stream down her back.
Edwina wrapped her arms around him and began to knead his buttocks with her hands. She heard him moan with excitement once more. She focused on giving him pleasure. His pleasure was exciting her.
Realizing that he was about ready to ejaculate, she debated about taking the semen in her mouth or pulling away. He was so sexually experienced that she simply wanted to slap him when she thought about the number of women he had likely been with during his life. Reluctantly, she pulled away from him and replaced her mouth with her hand. As he began to climax, she grabbed the towel from the floor and caught his semen in it. Then she threw the towel into the clothes hamper after he finished.
She rose to her feet and picked up her glass of wine. She took a drink before she looked at him.
“Turn about is fair play, Edwina,” he said quietly as he pulled her into his arms.
She smiled at him then brushed a kiss along his cheek. Then she stepped back from him. “Put your trousers back on, Klaus. Take the wine into my library. We can sit there for a little while. I need to have a minute to myself, right now.”
Klaus smiled at her, then picked up his trousers. With a few swift motions, he had b
oxers and trousers back on his body.
“You are so incredibly sexy,” she told him.
He chuckled. “Frau,” he said in rapid German, “you are the one in this room who is sexy. I can hardly keep my hands off you. There will never be a time that I will fail to desire you.”
“Even if I put on hundreds of pounds of weight and go gray?” she teased.
He pulled the towel loose from her and looked at her nearly bare body. “All I would have to do is to remember how you look right now. You are so beautiful to me. The memory of this moment will stay with me for a very long time.”
“Go on. Give me a minute or two.”
“Very well.”
“The log in the fireplace is gas. All you do is have to turn it on. It is self-lighting. I feel like a sitting before a fire with you.”
“You are a fire.”
“Am I? Good. Now go, please.”
“Very well, Edwina.”
When the door closed behind him, she peeled off the bikini bottom and finished drying herself. She refreshed her perfume. Then Edwina walked over to the closet and pulled out a black and silver silk caftan along with the matching slippers that her cousin Marie had presented her with as a Christmas gift. She had no sooner gotten that on over her head when the cats howled and the temperature in the room dropped precipitously.
“Go away, Catherine,” Edwina said firmly without turning around to face the spirit. She left the bathroom without paying the spirit any more attention.
Walking into the library, she saw that Klaus had lit the fire. He had put on his shirt, but the sleeves were rolled up. He was reading the titles from her bookshelves. “You have quite eclectic taste in literature, Edwina Elizabeth,” he said without turning to face her.
“That’s putting it mildly,” she said as she crossed the room to stand beside him.
Klaus had put on his shirt, but it was still unfastened. He’d also put back on his shoes. Without thinking, she reached out and touched his chest.
“You do like playing with fire, don’t you, Edwina?” he asked in amusement
“That has become painfully obvious.”
“Why painfully?”
“Klaus, you are sweeping me off my feet. I hardly know what I’m about anymore.”
“Do you want me to go away?” he asked carefully.
“No, not at all. But it is getting late.”
“You have quite a selection of books on the supernatural. They are old books.”
“Those were my father’s. The occult held a fascination for him. He particularly was fascinated by the impact of myth and legend upon culture.”
“Have you read these works?”
“Most of them, at one time or another.”
“And what do you think about the impact of…say…vampire legends upon culture?”
She shrugged. “There is certainly a preponderance of those legends in every culture around the globe. No two regional legends are quite the same. However, those legends have definitely become part of the popular culture. There is a certain canon of vampire lore that is common at least in the States. Just do a search on the Internet for the word ‘vampire’ if you doubt that. Browse the horror or even the romance shelves at a bookstore or walk through a video rental store and look for the number of titles directly or indirectly related to vampiric legends. There is a substantial body of work in print and in one video format or another. Walk through a discount store in the month before Halloween. You’ll see all manner of vampire symbols, costumes, accessories.”
“But, what do you think about the impact of the legends upon culture? You’ve described some of the impact.”
A shrill alarm sounded before she could reply.
“Fire!” Edwina announced needlessly as she walked over to the monitor and checked the location of the fire. It was in the paint store, the store owned by the tenant who had been quite loud in his protests about poltergeists. Klaus had turned off the gas log and was standing beside her.
“Time to get out of here?”
“Yes.”
Edwina checked the door at the head of the stairs for heat, finding none, she opened it and headed down the stairs. The alarm was still sounding. Reaching the shop, she felt around the door for heat, and finding none, went into the shop. There was no sign of fire. She snatched up her building keys and tossed Klaus his coat before putting on her own as she grabbed two fire extinguishers from under the counter. They left the shop and ran down three shops to the paint store
In the paint store, she saw the glow of a small fire coming from the back of the store.
The sirens of the fire department truck were approaching.
She unlocked the door to the paint store.
Klaus followed her into the shop and back to the area from where the smoke and flames seemed to come. The smoke wasn’t too bad, yet. He took the fire extinguisher from her and aimed it at the trash-can from where the flames were still mostly contained, although they had begun to creep up a wall. It didn’t take long to put out the fire, but it did take both extinguishers.
Edwina went over to her tenant who was lying on the floor, unconscious, in a small pool of his own blood. She checked for a pulse. He had one, although it was weak and thready. It was clear that someone had attacked him then set a fire. The back door to the shop was partially open as if someone had fled that way and hadn’t taken the time to shut the door firmly behind him.
She looked over at Klaus. “This is a mess.”
“We’ll get through it. Is he alive?”
“For now. I don’t want to move him. The fire out?”
“Seems to be. You want me to check him over?”
She sighed heavily. “There are advantages of having a doctor in the house.”
“There are many advantages to keeping me around, Edwina,” Klaus replied carefully.
“I had discovered that.”
The firemen came through the door before Klaus could examine Jim.
“We put the fire out,” Klaus told them. “But we need an ambulance for him.”
The first fireman in the door nodded. “Come on out of the shop. We’ll take care of this.”
It was two a.m. before Edwina and Klaus were done with giving statements to the police and fire department. Jim Douglass, her tenant, had come to alertness and had been taken to the hospital for treatment of his injuries. The fire department pronounced the fire to be out.
The reason for the failure of the fire sprinkler system was found. Someone had encased every sprinkler head the shop inside lumps of a thick, quick setting, clear acrylic resin, clogging the heads so effectively that water could not flow out. This was looking less and less like a robbery with every passing moment. Everyone seemed certain that someone had wanted Jim dead and wanted to destroy the evidence by burning down the building.
Edwina put in a call to the company that had installed the system, leaving a message that there was urgent service needed on the sprinkler system. The sprinkler heads would have to be replaced as soon as possible. She told them that she was willing to pay extra for a Sunday service call.
Klaus walked her back to her shop door.
“Goodnight, Klaus,” she said as they stopped before her shop door.
“Are you certain that you want to go back upstairs? The odor of smoke is bound to waft up there.”
“I’ll open some windows if it becomes unbearable. It was a minor fire, Klaus. I don’t think there’s really any problem.”
He sighed. “I guess that means that you are not going to invite me back upstairs?”
“No. I’m not. Not tonight. It’s very late.” She leaned into him and lightly kissed him on the lips. “Goodnight.”
“Sleep well, Edwina.”
“Drive safely.”
“Dream of me.”
“I don’t think I have any choice in the matter,” she said dryly.
Klaus looked at her curiously, but all he said was ‘goodnight’ before he walked away.
Catherin
e blinked in when Edwina returned to her apartment.
“You know, von Bruner wants to marry you,” Catherine said.
“That would be his problem.”
“No, my dear, I rather believe that it is your problem. Don’t dream of him. It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous. Marriage to him would be the last mistake you would ever make,” and with that, the shade faded out.
Chapter Five
Edwina paced, her bare feet sinking into the pile of a luxuriously thick red carpet. She wore an off-white silk and lace negligee. She was torn between staying here with him and running. She didn’t know what frightened her most about the prospect of running, the strong probability that he would come after her, or the remote possibility that he wouldn’t. This was her choice. He’d said that. She knew he wouldn’t force anything upon her.
Then she looked around the room. A fire crackled in a great stone fireplace. An open bottle of wonderful champagne was iced in an antique silver cooler. That sat on a silver tray on the bedside table along with two half-empty pieces of crystal stemware.
A Chopin piano concerto was playing softly in the background. The only other sounds in the room were the crackling of the fire and her breathing.
She poured herself another glass of champagne. She admired the way that the firelight bounced off the large marquis cut grass green emerald of her engagement ring. The stone had a tremendous amount of fire. When he had given her the ring he had said that the fire of the stone was secondary to the fire of her eyes. She didn’t know if that was true. The stone was incredibly beautiful. And so was the narrow wedding band of platinum and diamonds that she wore with the engagement ring.
Then she walked over to the security monitor in the windowless room and looked out at the midnight storm. The rain was coming down in sheets. Flashes of lightning lit up the partially planted garden. She picked up the planting diagrams for the garden and noticed that they were in her handwriting. The new garden was going to be so beautiful.
Of course, with this amount of rain, she thought, it was going to take a week or so before it would be dry enough for the crew to get back in to finish the work. But by the Fourth of July, it would be a beautiful setting for the midnight fireworks party Klaus was planning.
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