Harvest III
"Interested in some shore leave, Beth? An evening-pass out of this prison hell-hole?"
His tone was airy -- so not intended to sting her then. He stood there, arms crossed over his chest, one shoulder leaning against her doorway, lips twisted in a mischievous smile.
"What do you mean?" She asked slowly, a combination of suspicion and hope flitting across her face.
"I happen to be hosting a charity bash at The Green Room tonight and I need someone on my arm who can talk politics and crime with authority. The sleazier the better."
She looked sceptical. Josef never did anything without a reason.
"Ok. Ok." Both palms rose in a gesture of surrender. "Simone had to cancel and all my girls are at a wedding. And I think if you put some effort in, Turner," the look he gave her said he wasn't holding out too much hope, "you might look presentable enough to make at least one of my business associates envious."
She gave an un-ladylike harrumph.
"Well, if you're not interested… "
He turned to walk away.
The screech that echoed around the marble hallway knocked out the upper register of his hearing for days.
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Chanel, Hermes, Dior, Lagerfeld, Jacobs, Karan…. Shoes, handbags, jackets, wraps...
Beth's eyes widened in disbelief and pleasure as rack after rack of exclusive designer gowns and accessories were wheeled into her suite.
"What…?" she'd gasped, turning to him in delighted amazement.
One crisply tailored shoulder rose in a careless shrug. It was nothing to him.
"Choose whatever you like. I need you looking your best tonight."
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This was heaven! Pure, farm fresh heaven!
She took another swallow of champagne, grinning like an idiot, and sucked in a lungful of the heady, buzzy atmosphere of the Green Room.
She was so grateful to be free of Castle Dracula for the evening she was even being pleasant to Josef. She'd smiled at him all night, wide, genuine smiles, and felt generous enough to please him by behaving with complete and total decorum toward the stuffed shirts and plastic trophy wives he happened to call his business associates.
She noticed Josef watching her with an approving wink.
"How do you like my world, Beth?"
He'd appeared out of nowhere and stood surveying the scene before him with regal satisfaction. She looked around at the obvious money in the room: men in designer suits and this year's Rolex's; women in couture fresh from last week's catwalks.
"Well… the uniform is certainly better," she laughed.
He slapped his forehead in mock horror, only just realising his lack of manners.
"I've neglected the compliment you must have been expecting."
He turned and inspected her from toe to crown. "You look beautiful, Beth."
He bowed a little then, having a joke with her. His voice, however, was sincere, and he caught her eyes and held them.
Only when he looked away did she realise that while he'd been holding her eyes, she'd been holding her breath.
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"You know, Josef, you work too hard."
It was she who was leaning against his door this time, arms crossed, tapping her toe, examining the ceiling, uncaring that his private study was off limits to houseguests.
"I think you need some R&R."
His expression darkened and the exasperated sigh he blew out with exaggerated menace would have loosened the intestines of a less foolhardy intruder.
"How did you get into this wing? Never mind. You surely can't be bored again already, Buzzwire. I took you out for a walk only last week."
The hurt expression she affected wasn't convincing.
"So cynical, Josef. Is it too hard to believe that I'm just concerned about the health and well-being of a very dear friend of mine?"
His look tells her that perhaps it is, so she tries desperation instead.
"Look, if I don't get out of here soon, I'll go totally ga-ga, men-in-white-coats lock-me-in-a-rubber-room barmy."
When his icy glare still doesn't send her scuttling out of his space, frozen tush dragging behind her, and the threat to call his security vamps merely elicits a sniff and a bored yawn, he agrees to a night out. Just one. Ladies' choice.
She beamed, not deflated at all by his stern admonition never to come to his private study again.
Half way out the door, she turned on her heel, remembering to warn him.
"Oh, and… dress down."
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"What did you say this place was again?"
"Huh?" She yelled over the din.
His lips brushed against her ear, repeating the question. He understands now why she made him change before they left. This wasn't a venue Josef would have chosen for himself -- a seedy, smoky, snake pit at the arse-end of a dark alleyway.
The grunge band at the back of the room is playing loudly, badly. Scores of young humans packed in like sardines are jumping as one, dressed in frayed t-shirts and jeans. Normally this would be a, rub-your-hands-together boys, all-you-can-eat buffet for a vampire, but these days Josef has hygiene standards for his food.
She looked amused at his obvious dismay, but taking pity on him, grabs him by the hand, pulling him along a dark corridor to a smaller room, where the low tones of the intimate break beats are less damaging to sensitive vampire eardrums.
She threw herself down on the worn velvet sofa, a marvel that had somehow survived the seventies, and patted the place beside her, clearly enjoying his discomfort. He looked with consternation at the worn surface of the red velvet, at some familiar-looking chalky stains that wouldn't be, surely couldn't be…!
He wondered if he could get by with just standing.
"Oh come on, Josef. You're not going to go all Howard Hughes on me, are you?" she teased, interpreting his hesitation with uncanny accuracy and grabbing his hand, she pulled him down to the cushioned surface. "Do all you uber-rich guys have BCD?"
"What?"
"Billionaire Crazy Disease," she laughed, twirling a finger around her ear.
He doesn't know this Beth, her face half shadowed by the fringed yellow lampshade in the corner, a Cheshire cat smile all that is visible of her beautiful face. Frankly, he's a little disoriented by the music and the thaw in her demeanour.
He looks at her quizzically as she's on her feet again shortly after, hugging her handbag to her side.
"I'm going to take something." Her tone brooked no argument, her meaning escaping him for a moment. "After six weeks in Castle.. ah ..Camp Josef, I think I deserve it."
He'd figured it out by the time she'd come back from the bathroom. Drugs were a definite no-no in his establishment. He preferred his meals unadulterated. The disapproving look he gives her would have reduced one of his girls to tears.
Strangely, the brazen grin and pink tongue poked in his direction reassure him, reminding him that she isn't one of his girls, she's her own woman, and makes her own decisions. The knowledge allows him to relax into the overstuffed cushions, arms outstretched along the back of the sofa, watching the crowd. Watching her.
He notices with curiosity the changes in her heart beat, the softening of her demeanour as the substance speeds through her system. Smiling, she nods in time with the complex throbbing beats, chatting to resting strangers beside them on the sofa, touching a knee here or an elbow there, full of loving-kindness.
Time after time, just when he feels she has become too engrossed in a new acquaintance to remember he's there, she raises her fingertips to his, allowing them to linger, warming his frozen finger pads, reassuring him that he's not forgotten.
And some time later, he thinks –
Is she crazy? Josef Kostan doesn't dance.
- and even if he did, there's no way in hell he'll dance here, to this, even though she pleads, her big blue eyes a wrecking ball against the barricade of his dignified refusal. No -- he's faced down more impressive opponents over the centuries than her -- he's content to just sit and watch as she disappears into the music, her body a conduit for the repetitive rhythms, her movements liquid, sensual.
For some reason he can't take his eyes off her as she dances; her eyelids lower and she's away, lost within the dark tempo of the strange music, her shoulders and hips rolling in counterpoint, her hands tracing graceful circles at her sides.
Mother of God, but she's sexy.
When she dances she totally abandons herself to the rhythm. If what they say is true, and the way a woman moves to music is an indication of what she's like in bed, then Mickey-boy is one lucky son of a bitch.
Finally out of breath, she moves back into his orbit, taking liberties, squeezing her body into the space between his side and the cushioned end of the sofa. She raises his arm to make room for herself and places it around her shoulders almost as if she has never lost her temper and shouted that she wished to skewer his black heart to the back of his office wall with the sharpest silver implement she could find.
He wonders at this small physical intimacy after her extended hostility, but the look she gives him is childlike and open, innocent. He'd swear she was a pious country virgin if he didn't know she could be arrested for the contents of her handbag right now.
And then they talk.
They talk all night about everything and nothing. He gets used to the absent-minded way she strokes his hand while she's talking, he even begins to enjoy the affectionate non-demanding tenor of it, and the first laugh takes him by surprise. She's not at all the shallow, spoiled ingénue he's believed her to be and he's genuinely enjoying her company.
While they talk, her gaze is rapt, her attention to his conversation so intent, that even though he knows the substance has reduced her inhibitions, she makes him feel as if she's interested in him, Vassily Josef Konstantin, the lonely boy underneath the layers of time, not Josef Kostan, arrogant twenty first century billionaire.
Then it dawns on him. Her fascinated curiosity is genuine. The drug hasn't given her an interest in him, merely allowed her to relax and show it.
It's an extraordinary sensation after all these centuries of being feared and fawned over, when someone relates to him and not to his money or his vampire gifts, and it almost takes what little breath he has away. This is why Mick's friendship is so very important to him; and why he can never truly fall in love with any of the harem who adore him, and why now he is beginning to feel a spider's thread of interest in building some sort of genuine connection with this prickly girl despite the grief she's been causing him.
For Mick's sake, of course.
And eventually, as he knew they would, they talk about Mick. Josef's not a fool, he won't tell her that Mick is in France or what he's doing there, but he feels for her, he'll listen and be sympathetic. After all, he knows what it's like to wait for someone.
She smiles, a beatific smile, when she discusses Mick, but he can sense an undercurrent, a feeling there waiting to surface. He inclines his head in silent acknowledgement when it does.
"Do you think I'm beautiful?" she asks, doubt cracking her voice. "Desirable?"
She looks down at the spot her fingernail is tracing on his denim-covered thigh when she asks, and the golden trace of lamplight along the cut glass contour of her profile emphasises her classic, ethereal beauty.
He's not sure where this is going, whether he should be worried that a drug affected Beth might be propositioning him, or whether the greater concern right now is that he might be tempted, if she does.
"Yes," he said, relieved that the socially acceptable answer is also the truthful one. "Mick must tell you so all the time."
She's silent for longer than he expected, and when she finally does speak, her words are not what he anticipates.
"He won't touch me," she says, all crushed ardour and innocence, her eyes downcast, her palm still warming circles near his inner thigh.
He hopes the light is dim enough to hide the shock on his face. That can't be right, they've been a couple now for almost five months.
"Oh we -- touch --," she says, "..but he won't – "
Josef understands, finally. She is precious, and Mick is taking his time to introduce her to the most dangerous vampire intimacy of all. This, he can help her with.
"Passion is a very powerful thing, Beth. It requires a lot of skill to control the bite during lovemaking, so that the other person, if they're human, isn't hurt." Or worse. "He's been out of action for a while. I'm sure he just wants to prepare himself and you properly by getting used to the excitement before he - ."
He pantomimes a biting action and the look she gives him is pained. Apparently he hasn't understood at all.
"We don't… don't.."
"You and Mick don't have sex?"
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