"Nnnnnnnnnang!" he agreed, his body glistening with a light sheen of perspiration as I applied myself to making him lose control.
I pointed out later just how dedicated I was to seeing a job done right.
"Very dedicated," he said from the floor of the hallway where he lay in a tangle of blankets, gasping great quantities of air.
I rolled onto my stomach and peered over the end of the bed at him. "How did you end up down there while I'm up here? Didn't we start out at the same spot?"
"Magic," he wheezed, little aftershocks rippling through him. I smiled and would have commented on just what sort of magic he worked on me, but I caught sight of the alarm clock lying on the floor next to him.
"Blast! I've got to go. I promised Roxy I'd have breakfast with her, and then we're going to visit a folk museum someone recommended, and then we have an appointment to see Christian's dungeons."
Raphael lay with his eyes closed until that last item; then he cracked them open and pinned me back with an amber glare. "Alone?"
I smiled as I stepped carefully over him to grab my clothes. I've always maintained that a little bit of jealousy looks good on a man. "Roxy will be there with me, so stop looking like you're going to do something stupid like forbid me to go, because it won't do you the least bit of good, and we'll only end up arguing, and then we'll make up our argument with more wild, untamed sex, and if we do that, I'll miss the museum. So you just go back to sleep now and get all nice and rested for later on."
"Later on?" His brows pulled together in a frown.
My reply was muffled as I spoke while pulling my dress over my head. "I thought we could get together at the bar before you go to work and Roxy and I meet Christian for dungeon viewing."
"What's wrong with you meeting me here?" he demanded, still frowning. I slipped on my shoes and stepped over him, lowering myself to sit on his stomach.
"Look at you, you're drained as dry as a rag," I said, trailing my fingers across the rippling muscles in his chest, leaning forward to tease the tip of an impudent nipple. His hands were warm as they pushed my skirt up my legs. "If you plan on being the love of my life, you're going to have to build up your strength. We'll work you into a full program of nonstop lovemaking slowly. Today you sleep, tonight you be social with me in public, and later on, after the fair's shut down for the night…" I gave him my best leer.
His hands tightened on my thighs as I leaned down to kiss him. He tasted like a sated man, warm and happy and utterly delicious.
"Am I?" he asked, his hands abandoning my legs to wrap around my waist, pulling me down over his chest so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue mated with mine, dancing a seductive dance that made me want to do over again everything we'd just done.
"Boy, you sure do give one hell of a goodbye kiss," I murmured, stroking my fingers through his hair. "Are you what?"
The look he gave me could have steamed open a clam. "The love of your life."
I melted onto him and gave him a kiss that should have said it all, but just in case it didn't, I added, "Yes, I very much think you are."
Smug complacency stole over his face as he let me go. "I like a woman who makes up her mind quickly."
I decided to leave his male ego inflated, and went to gather my things.
"Baby?"
From any other man, that term would rankle, irritating me enough to point out that I was neither an infant nor someone who enjoyed being treated like one, but the way Raphael said the word sparked a fire deep inside me.
"What is it, Bob?"
He rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. "Remember that goodbye kiss when you're with Dante."
I let him see the desire in my eyes. "As if I could forget it?"
The morning was bright after the cloudy night of the evening past, but the wind was still sharp as it whipped leaves into doing somersaults along the ground. Birds squabbled raucously over garbage in the dustbins near the food booths, scattering with hoarse objections when I jogged through them. The lingering acrid smell of burnt canvas and wood hung in the morning air as I passed the Kirlian aura photo booth, but I was pleased to see that new wood had been hammered into the charred, blackened frame of the booth. Evidently, Raphael and his crew had been busy while I slept through the last few hours of the fair. The main tent had been restored to its former state as well, I noticed as I hurried past it, although there were a few tears in the canvas, and some spray-painted words that I thought were best left untranslated. I glanced to my right toward the tent city as I passed beyond the fair, and almost came to a halt at what I saw.
"It's a population explosion!" The half of the meadow given over to the tents was now a solid mass of bodies, tents, vehicles, tables, chairs—and all, at this time of the morning, strangely quiet. I waved at a man sitting cross-legged, wrapped in a blanket as he groggily poured dog food into a bowl for an attentive black dog, and headed out of the camp for the hotel.
An hour later I had washed off the scent of Raphael and our activities, and was dressed in jeans and my fisherman's sweater. Roxy eyed me as I smiled at the waitress, mimed my need for coffee, and sat down at a table next to the window.
"Geez, I though you'd never get here," Roxy said with a sour look. "I know I told you to have fun, but I didn't expect you to have that much fun. I'm surprised to see you can still walk."
I waited until I had ordered breakfast and took a few sips of life-restoring coffee before answering her.
"You know, I'm going to be so glad when you find Mr. Right and I can tease you for a change."
"You're grinning," she accused me, a frown wrinkling her brow. "You should have snapped my head off for that comment, but you didn't, and you're grinning to boot. Oh, Lord, don't tell me you've fallen for more than just his pretty crotch?"
I sipped my coffee and admired the view of the mountains and forest in the distance. "Isn't it lovely here? I like this area."
"Dammit, you have, haven't you? You've gone and fallen in love with him!"
"It's a little brisk this time of year, but sometimes brisk is good. I like the feel of fall in the air."
"Joy, you idiot, don't you know that you're just a fling to him? Holiday romances never last!"
"And the people are so nice here. Don't you think the people are nice here? I think the people are nice."
"Once the festival here is over, he'll be off to Italy with the rest of the fair, and you'll be flying home. Have you even thought about the future?"
"I thought the language would be a problem, but you know, it's really not. Everyone speaks German or French."
"You don't know anything about him! You can't just throw yourself on someone you don't know anything about. How can you think about getting serious with a man who keeps secrets from you? Doesn't it bother you in the least that you don't really know him?"
"It's a romantic area, too, what with all the history surrounding us."
Roxy tossed her hands up in a gesture of defeat. "I give up. You just go right ahead and head for Heartbreak Hotel. I'll try to pick up the pieces of what's left of your heart after Raphael stomps all over it. I won't say another word about the fact that you're making the greatest mistake of your life."
"Thanks. You're a doll."
"However—"
I groaned and grabbed a roll from the basket, reaching for the butter and preserves.
"—if I was to say something to you, it would probably be to point out that although you've had more experience with physical relationships than I have, you've always had worse taste in men than me."
"Mmmf mmf mmmf mweamfam moo."
"What?"
I swallowed my mouthful of roll. "La la la, I can't hear you."
"Sure you can, you're just too stubborn to admit I'm right. You two deserve each other. Hey! Do you realize that you and Raphael just took the fifth step of Joining?"
"Fifth?" I thought about it. Roxy was right, if the third step was the first passionate kiss we shared, the fourth would ha
ve been Raphael revealing his secret to me, only—
"He didn't tell me his secret," I objected. "So the fourth step is void even if we did do the fifth step. Repeatedly. With much enjoyment."
"He told you he had a secret! That's almost the same thing as telling you what it was."
"No, it's not."
"Sure it is! Trust me, it counts as the fourth step."
"Regardless, the point is moot. Raphael is not a Dark One."
"My point exactly! You should be thinking through this relationship a bit more before you throw away your whole life for him."
And on it went. Unfortunately, Roxy didn't keep her word, taking periodic opportunities to point out the idiocy of falling in love with a man I knew nothing about. When I reminded her that she'd been perfectly happy for me to bind myself to him when she thought he was a bloodsucking soulless wonder, she waved that point away with the statement that Dark Ones never ran off with another woman while their Beloved was left pregnant and penniless adrift in a strange land.
I had to admit that she had a point, but it didn't dim the strength of my blossoming emotions one bit. They might not be rock solid yet, but I felt strongly that Raphael and I had taken steps down the path to something a bit more serious than a holiday fling. As for the wisdom of falling in love with a man I knew little about… well, I squelched that niggling worry with the reminder that everything important, everything that truly mattered about Raphael—his character, his morals, the fact that he wasn't the undead—was already clear to me.
Roxy and I visited the museum, poked around two nearby towns, and returned to the hotel for an afternoon nap.
"The fair's late hours and your insistence on being a tourist are playing merry hell with my beauty sleep," Roxy grumbled an hour and a half later when I woke her.
"You don't have to stay out until two A.M. every night, you know. What did you and Christian do all that time?"
She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "He left at about one. I hung out with a group of people from Portugal. Did you know there were Portuguese Goths? There are. They're kind of cute, too. None of them speak English, but we had a good time dancing. I think maybe we should go to Portugal before we go home."
I didn't say anything, just looked out the tiny window to the rooftops of nearby buildings.
"Joyful? I know you'll start 'la la la-ing' again if I bring it up, but have you asked Raphael what his plans are after this weekend?"
I sighed and turned around to face her. "No. It's too soon. We've only just gotten together. I can't be asking him yet if he thinks we should make the effort to stay together or if he doesn't have any room for me in his life."
"Pooh on him—how about you?" Roxy asked, smoothing out the down comforter. "Do you have room in your life for him? Would you leave everything at home for him? Would you travel around with the fair just to be with him?"
I started for the door. "Why do you always ask hard questions?"
"Someone has to. Joy, the fair is due to leave in four days. If this is as serious as you think it is, shouldn't you two be talking about the future beyond a few days of jumping each other's bones?"
I paused at the door for a minute, my hand smoothing over the cool planes of wood. "If you're asking if I've thought of what it would mean to leave everything behind, the answer is, yes, I have. If you're asking will I go through with it—well, that answer depends on Raphael. If you're done grilling me now, I'll see you down in the bar. The gentleman in question said he'd try to drop by for a few minutes before he has to get the security teams in place."
"You're not stupid, Joy," she called out as I closed the door. "If you think he's really different, if he's the one you've been looking for, make him prove it."
Our neighbor across the hall emerged from the shared bathroom, keeping me from bellowing my reply to Roxy. I smiled, murmured politely in my best German, and skipped down the stairs to the bar where I hoped Raphael would be waiting.
He was, but he sat against a wall with three tables pushed together, surrounded by seven fair employees, mostly guys who did all the grunt work around the fair. A large sheet of paper was in the center of the table, and Raphael was marking off areas that I assumed he felt were hot spots. He had told me earlier that the shape of the grounds had altered how they set up the fair, so I gathered he had called a strategy meeting to alert everyone as to how best to handle the swarm of people expected for the next few days.
Arielle sat across from the guys, a glass of untouched beer in front of her. I blew Raphael a kiss when he looked up and smiled at me, then went to sit down with Arielle.
"Good afternoon, Joy," she said in her careful English.
I scooted in the opposite side of the booth and reached across the table to pat her hand. "Hi, Arielle. What's wrong? You look like you've been crying. Are you upset about something? Is something the matter?"
She gave me a pathetic smile. "I look like I have been crying because I have been crying. Something is wrong, but I am not upset."
I lifted both eyebrows. "No?"
Her gaze dropped to her hands. "Perhaps just a little."
My heart went out to her. I was sure her sister had ragged on her over her decision to stick with her boyfriend. I looked around the bar to see if Tanya was lurking in a corner. It was dusk, night just beginning to take over the sky, and there was a steady stream of people coming into the bar, but thankfully no Tanya. I assumed that with the huge hordes in the tent city, all of the bars in town would be running at full capacity. A busy bar was no place for Arielle to be doing the unloading she clearly wanted to do. "Listen, if you'd like to have a good cry, you're welcome to use my room. It's not great, but it will give you a little privacy."
"No, I am not going to cry anymore," she said adamantly, giving a defiant little dab to her nose. "Paal said it is not necessary to cry since all will resolve well." She gave a big sniff and sent an adoring glance over to a prematurely balding Viking sitting at the end of Raphael's table. Paal gave her a little nod and turned his attention back to the orders Raphael was snapping out. "It is Tanya, you know? Dominic had an argue with her last night, a big argue. Much of it was about you, but once they were finished, Dominic said it was that Tanya was no longer compatible with him, and she must leave since she caused very much trouble last night."
"Trouble? You mean trouble other than the scene when I read the runes?"
Arielle nodded. "Yes. Dominic was very angry with her, and Milos said she was a responsabilité to the fair and that she must leave."
"Responsabilité? Oh, you mean she was a liability? Because she's angry over the way Dominic has been treating her? I have to say that although there's no love lost between Tanya and me, I'm in agreement with her on that issue. Dominic is a classic example of the love-'em-and-leave-'em type who should be beaten soundly by their own egos."
"No, it is not because of their affair which has ended so sadly, but of the other that Milos is so angry about."
I sat back against the high settle. "Wait a minute, you've lost me. What does Milos have to do with the history between Dominic and Tanya?"
"Milos owns the fair with Dominic, yes?"
I nodded.
"Dominic is for the customers, the… mmm… ringleader?"
"Ringmaster? That's a circus term, but I think I know what you mean. He's the flashy bit of show for all the people attending the fair, while Milos is the silent partner?"
"No, he is not silent, he speaks many languages quite well, better than me. But he is the businessman. He finds the bands and makes the arrangements for where we will stop. He is the one who pays us."
"Ah, he's the moneybags. Gotcha. So what did Tanya do that miffed Milos enough to make him angry at her?"
"She threatened to go to the local police with information about violations of the permit granted to the fair," Raphael said as he slid in next to me.
I was distracted for a moment by the warm press of his leg against mine. Raphael was a big man, but even all
owing for that fact, he didn't just sit, he dominated whatever environment he was in, making spaces that previously appeared adequate suddenly seem intimate. Was I going to complain about the fact that he took over our side of the booth, squishing me up against him? I was not. I just breathed in that wonderful clean smell that always seemed to cling to him, and made a mental note to buy stock in whatever company produced the soap he used.
"She also threatened to tell the truth about Dominic to the newspapers unless he kept his promise to make her a partner in the fair. That was after she accused him of sleeping with you, Roxy, and approximately half the female population of Eastern Europe," Raphael drawled, signaling to the bartender.
"Truth? What sort of truth? The truth that he's not really a vampire? That's hardly worthwhile as blackmail material," I said.
He shrugged. "I don't think that's what she was talking about, but as no one chose to enlighten me as to the truth, I can only speculate what she meant to do."
I mulled that over as I watched Theresa, one of the owner's daughters who doubled as a barmaid, trot over to Raphael, ogling him despite the fact I was plastered against his side.
"Raphael, how nice to see you again," she cooed, blatantly ignoring Arielle and me. "Will you be free later? There are many things I would like to show you." She licked her lips. I put a possessive hand on his thigh and gave her a squinty-eyed glare to let her know I didn't appreciate poachers. She gave him a look that could have steamed drapes. "Many sights around the town, of course."
Oh, right. Let's have a show of hands for those of you who believed it was sightseeing she had on her mind.
"Thank you, I'm going to be busy later," Raphael said gently.
Theresa pouted as Raphael placed our orders, curling the fingers of his hand into my hair and teasing the back of my neck. "And you thought I was acting territorial," he said quietly.
"You don't mind if I rubber stamp TAKEN on your forehead, do you?" I asked, pleasure shivering down my back at his touch.
He grinned in response. "Only if you promise to wear a robe and veil in return."
I slid my hand up his thigh a little just to let him know what effect he was having on me. When I turned back to Arielle, she was smiling at us delightedly, a definite twinkle in her eye.
A Girls Guide to Vampires Page 21