A Girls Guide to Vampires

by Katie MacAlister

"No!"

  "Oh." She sounded disappointed. "So are you doing it now?"

  "Roxy, it's not a circus act. I'm not going to do it with you watching me."

  "Why not?"

  "Because, it's something… intimate. I can't do it with people watching me. I have to be somewhere private to do it, where I know I'm not being stared at."

  She looked around the fair. People were elbow to elbow in the long aisle leading up to the main tent where the second band was setting up for their session. The tarot-card booth and the palm-reading booth, both empty, offered no privacy. She turned back to me with a faint grin. "I guess there's only one place for you to use."

  I nodded. "Raphael's trailer."

  She shook her head. "Do you really want to take the chance of having Christian swoop down on you where a bed is handy for that all-important fifth step of the Joining?"

  "Oy. You have a point. So what great idea do you have?"

  She pointed at the lines before the portable toilets. "Voilà! Instant privacy."

  I didn't like it, and spent a good fifteen minutes trying to find an alternative, but in the end I waited in line for an eon to use a toilet, Roxy at my side to keep me from being bored, or so she said. I think she was really just hoping to see me "do it."

  "Good luck!" she called as I stepped into the toilet, closing the door on a bunch of startled looks. I decided I'd rather stand than sit, and closed my eyes, trying to clear my mind of everything but the thought of Christian. It was difficult to do, what with all the noise—the second band had started their set—not to mention the unpleasant and aromatic surroundings, but I made a conscious effort to block everything out.

  I let my mind stretch and reach out to find him.

  Christian?

  I caught the image of awareness, of Christian turning to look at me, but he didn't respond. That was followed by a horrible thought. Maybe he didn't know who I was. Maybe he was so far gone in his madness that he had lost his memory of me.

  Christian, it's me. Joy. Are you all right?

  A distant noise so faint it might have been the wind moaning through the trees swept past me.

  I know you're probably hurt and angry right now, Christian, but I'm worried about you. If you could just let me know where you are and that everything is OK, it would make me feel a lot better.

  My head was filled with silence.

  Christian? Please let me know you're all right.

  He did not answer. I tried to contact him again for the next few minutes, but he would not respond to anything I said.

  "No luck," I told Roxy as I stepped out of the toilet.

  "You should eat more bran," a short, magenta-haired Goth told me in perfect English as she claimed her turn at the toilet.

  I ignored Roxy's giggles and headed away from the toilets, drained by my attempt to contact Christian.

  "Raphael's looking for you. The police are here, although no one is supposed to know. Raphael said it was business as usual. What are you going to do about Christian?"

  I shrugged and searched the crowd for my amber-eyed Romeo. He was standing in the empty tarot-card booth with Dominic and Inspector Bartos. "What can I do? He won't answer me. I know he's out there, I can feel him, but he's ignoring me for some reason. I don't have control over him, Rox. I can't demand he come to me, so there's nothing I can do but hope he's holed up somewhere away from people."

  She nodded. "Raphael said the police are going to want to speak with all of us. I've never been interviewed as a witness before. It'll be one for the diary, huh?"

  "That's one way of putting it," I said grimly as I headed for the tarot-card booth.

  It wasn't until a few hours later that Raphael climbed wearily into his trailer. I was curled up on his bed, fully clothed this time, reading one of the many mysteries he had tucked into a tiny bookshelf.

  I set the book down as he locked the door, flipped the lights out, and walked to the bedroom. "Was it bad?" I asked.

  He shrugged one shoulder as he peeled his coat off, leaning out of the bedroom to toss it onto the tiny table. "They're police. It's always bad when there's been a murder." He turned back to face me. Both eyebrows lifted as he stood on one leg to pull his boot off. "I liked you better last night."

  I looked down at my jeans and sweater. "So did I, but I wasn't sure if you wanted me here after you'd been grilled by the police. I know how you must have been dreading that."

  He grunted as he pulled off the second boot, "Baby, the only thing that kept me going tonight was the thought of you waiting for me."

  Questions? Yes, I had questions galore about what he'd been doing near Tanya's body, but first things came first, and at that exact moment, Raphael's mental and physical well-being topped my list of priorities. I pushed the book off the bed as I slid down. "Oh, well then, seems to me it's my duty as a humanitarian to render you whatever aid you require."

  I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around his neck, wiggling my hips against him as I kissed a trail around his lips. He slid his hands under my sweater and teased my nipples through my bra as his mouth captured mine.

  "I am going to require a lot of aid," he said between nips to my lower lip. His hands were burning my breasts, stroking and teasing until I gave in to his demand and parted my lips, welcoming that bossy tongue of his into my mouth with a hum of pleasure. "I will be needing so much aid, it's going to require multiple applications."

  "Multiple, hmmm?" I slid my hands down his back, lovingly stroking the hard curves of his behind. "I like the sound of multiple."

  He growled as I sucked his tongue into my mouth, tugging his shirt out of his pants. His hands tightened around my breasts as I gently raked my fingernails up his belly until I reached his chest.

  "Nipples," I cried in delight. "Imagine finding them here! I must explore more fully."

  "That's not fair." His breath was hot and ragged on my neck as he nuzzled me, licking and kissing and nibbling while his hands slid around to my back. "You have bare flesh in your hands. It's only right I should have some as well. I want bare flesh. I need bare flesh!"

  I saw the reason in his argument as soon as he got my bra unhooked and his hands had pushed that annoying bit of material away to cup my breasts, his thumbs teasing my nipples mercilessly. Tiny little rivulets of fire started in my toes and worked their way up my body as I gently scored my fingernails up his sides, throwing my head back so he would have better access to my breasts. He peeled my sweater off, tossed my bra after it, his hair brushing against my bare skin as he bent to take a breast in his mouth.

  "OK, that's it, I give." The feel of his mouth on my flesh was making my bones turn to jelly. I arched my back and pushed my breast at him in a brazen, shameless sort of manner. "I was going to torment you and tease you and arouse you till you had steam coming out of your ears, but I give. You're just too much for me. I surrender."

  "Baby, if you arouse me any more, I'll explode," Raphael growled, the steamy look in his eyes confirming his claim. "As I calculate it now, I have about three more seconds before that happens."

  We had our clothes off in record time. Raphael hit the bed first, me following immediately thereafter. I ignored his little grunt when I landed on him rather than the bed. I straddled his waist, sitting up and running my hands over his belly and chest, thinking about all the many and varied things I wanted to do to him.

  Raphael swore.

  "What?" I froze, wondering what I had done wrong.

  "Just a minute." He put both hands on my hips and heaved me off him, rolling over until he was sitting on the side of the bed. "Stay there. Don't move. And don't stop thinking about what you're thinking, because I like that wicked glint in your eye."

  I stared at his back for a moment, then figured out what he was doing. "Would you like me to hum a little condom-donning music while you're busy over there? Something in a march, perhaps? Or a Latin beat? Or maybe you prefer skaaaaAAAAAAAA!"

  Quicker than you could say "extra personal space" he w
as on his back again, and had me hoisted over him.

  "Wait a minute," I said, looking down from where he held me about a foot and a half above his body. "I see what you're doing, Bob, don't think that I don't. You're not going to impale me with that thing until I'm good and ready to be impaled, and that's not going to be until I do some of those wicked things you saw glinting in my eyes, so let me down nice and slow and no one will get hurt."

  He grinned and slowly lowered me until I was sitting on his groin. "It's like sitting on a broomstick," I said, my eyes widening as I wiggled around on him a little, sliding back and forth along his long, hard length. Raphael's hands grabbed my hips, his fingers biting hard into my flesh as his head thrashed side to side on his pillow. "Oh, my! Maybe I'm ready now. Maybe those wicked things can wait. Maybe I was a little overhasty in ruling out an immediate impaling."

  "Thank God," Raphael croaked, his voice as harsh as gravel. In one smooth move he lifted me up, positioned himself, and thrust upward as I sank down. His groan of sheer pleasure rang in my ears as my body accepted his. He was heat, he was fire, a very, very hard fire that pushed and shoved and burned its way into my tender flesh, filling me, stretching me, pushing me beyond everything I'd known into some new world inhabited only by us. I ceased to be one person and happily joined myself with him.

  The last thing I saw before my eyes rolled up in my head was his back arching up off the bed as I tightened every muscle I had around the hard heat of him.

  "Do you know, you're almost panting in time to your heartbeat, which says a lot, considering your pulse rate must be at least in the two hundreds."

  Raphael groaned beneath me. I was drawing lazy circles on his chest, enjoying the feeling of his chest hair tickling my face as I pressed occasional kisses onto his flesh. His chest rose and fell quickly beneath me, making me wonder if I was squashing him. I put my hands down onto the bed and levered myself up slightly. Immediately his hands settled onto my bare behind and held me in place. I smiled to myself. We were still physically joined, a testament to his girth that we hadn't parted ways, so to speak.

  "What does it feel like when you use a condom? I mean after. Does it feel ooky? I can't imagine it's a terribly comfortable feeling, what with all that… um… just hanging around the end there."

  Raphael's hands slid up to rest on my back, but other than that he made no response to my question. A perfectly good question, too, I thought. But perhaps he was embarrassed that he'd only lasted a couple of thrusts before blasting off. Poor man. That was all it had taken for me, too, but unlike women, men invest so much ego in their sexual prowess. I didn't want to make him feel anything less than a stud muffin, so I decided to let the subject drop and talk about something else.

  "Did you have a chance to see Arielle after the police questioned her? I was going to sit with her, but that minion of Inspector Bartos… what was his name?… Detective Kovar made me go over the whole evening again. Poor, poor Arielle."

  "Why is it women can work just as hard as men while they're making love, but when it's all over, they can still put words together and have them make sense?"

  I smiled at his disgruntled frown. "It's called afterglow, sweetheart. Pillow talk is the best kind of talk. Do I take it you'd rather I let you recover in peace than discuss the important topics of the day?"

  Raphael moaned an affirmative, his eyes closed tight. I grinned and pushed myself into a sitting position. His eyes shot open when I wiggled just enough to remind him that my cheerleaders were still entertaining him at their homecoming dance.

  "Baby, I wish I could oblige you, but I think you killed me a few minutes ago."

  I raised up just a little, then sank slowly back down, gripping him as tightly as I could. He bucked beneath me and sucked in half the roomful of air.

  "You don't feel dead to me," I said, leaning forward to tease the tip of his little brown nipple with my tongue. "You feel hot and hard and very, very alive. I can feel your pulse deep inside me. Here." I did my best Kegel squeeze.

  "Ah, Christ," he groaned, grabbing my hips and holding on as he rolled me onto my back. He scooped my legs up until they rested on his shoulders. Slowly he pulled out of me until just the very tip of him rested inside; then just as slowly he stroked forward, filling me with so much more than just a delicious bit of flesh that tears came to my eyes with the beauty of him.

  "You think I killed you?" I gasped, flexing my legs to pull him deeper into me. "You're going to be the death of me if you do that again, you know that, don't you?"

  He smiled a wicked, wicked smile so hot it singed my eyebrows. "I'm not going to kill you, baby. Just take you to heaven and back."

  Oh, Lord, did he!

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  « ^ »

  "So, Superman, it's been a half hour. Have you recovered enough to talk now?"

  Raphael, lying on his belly, lifted his head just enough to press a tender, but sated, kiss to my ankle. "I may never recover, but if you don't require anything more strenuous than me moving my mouth, I will strive to satisfy you."

  "Oh, Bob," I crooned, wiggling my toes and reaching over to tickle his feet, "there is no question about my satisfaction. I'm probably the most satisfied woman in the world. I certainly should be after the heroic effort you made to curl my hair."

  He rolled over onto his side, a smug smile gracing his adorable lips as he teased a finger along the line of my pubic bone. "Looks like I succeeded."

  I bit his ankle.

  He sighed and rolled onto his back, taking one of my legs with him, idly stroking my calf as he spoke. "I assume you want to discuss the murder."

  "Amongst other things," I said, thinking of Christian. "You… um… did talk to the police, didn't you? I mean, really talk to them?"

  "I did." He didn't look too upset by the experience, so they must not have questioned him about anything but the murders. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  "What, if anything, did the police say to you when they questioned you? They wouldn't answer any of my questions, they just kept telling me to explain again why I was in those trees rather than taking the shorter way to the hotel."

  Raphael swirled little circles on my leg. "What makes you think they told me anything?"

  I sat up and looked at him. "You're a man. Men like the police always feel it's important to keep women out of the loop. They disguise it as a protection tactic, but really they just want something to feel superior about. So, what did they say to you?"

  His lovely amber eyes considered me silently for a long minute; then he, too, sat up. "Joy, that's something I can't tell you."

  "What? Why? Because of this secret in your past that you refuse to tell me?"

  "Yes, it has to do with that. I would tell you if I could, but I can't."

  I didn't like the serious mien to his face. I slid my hand up his leg. "What do you mean, you can't tell me? You can't tell me because the police asked you not to, or you can't tell me because you don't trust me?"

  He watched my hand as it traced the long bulge of muscle from his knee to his hip. "It's not a matter of trusting you. There's a lot more at stake than just your feelings. The police are conducting a detailed investigation, and I can't… I… ah, Christ. I wish things were different. I wish I could just…"

  He left the sentence unfinished, but I had no trouble filling it in. He had a secret, and he couldn't trust me with it.

  I thought again of the scene I had witnessed: Raphael bending over Tanya's body. Could I have been wrong about him? Hadn't he discovered Tanya accidentally as I had? And what was he doing out there rather than staying at the fair, where he was needed? Did he have a reason to want Tanya dead?

  I shook the thought away as soon as it formed. I might not have known Raphael long, but I knew I trusted him. He was not a killer. "Why weren't you at the fair?"

  His eyes narrowed.

  "It was only eleven. You should have been watching over the crowds as the bands changed. Why weren't you the
re?"

  A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  "OK, let's try this question on for size. What hold does Dominic have over you? What does he know about your last job that keeps you, a man who is well educated and intelligent, working an inferior job at a moderately successful little traveling fair? Why aren't you some high-powered mucky-muck at an international corporation?"

  "Joy—"

  He had no intention of answering me, that was plain. I didn't matter enough to him; he didn't trust me because I was nothing but an unimportant floozy who threw herself into his bed. A holiday fling, Roxy had called it. Tears started pricking behind my eyeballs.

  "No good? Well, how about this: What did you pick up when you were bending over Tanya's body?"

  Raphael looked shocked by what I said. "You saw me pick something up?" he asked.

  "Yes. Just before you went to the hotel, you picked something up from the ground near Tanya. What was it, one of her wax voodoo dolls?"

  He looked at me as if I were a stranger. "You were spying on me? Following me?"

  Maybe I was a stranger. Maybe I didn't know him at all.

  Maybe I had made the worst mistake of my life. I shook my head. "No, I wasn't following you and I wasn't spying on you. And to tell you the truth"—I brushed away a tear that rolled down my cheek—"I'm more than a little insulted that you'd think I would."

  Slowly he got out of bed and grabbed his pants from where they dangled from the doorknob. "How did you know I took something from Tanya?"

  Oh, God, how could things be so good one moment and so bad the next? I pulled the sheet up until it covered my now chilled flesh. "I saw you. I wasn't spying on you, I was just taking the long way to the hotel because a bunch of kids were drunk on the east side of the meadow, and I didn't want to walk through them alone. I just saw you, that's all. You were acting funny, so I just watched to see what it was you were doing. And now, if you're finished with the third degree, I think I want to go back to my hotel. I have the feeling that I'm not terribly welcome here anymore."