Harvest IX
.
The beautiful redhead occupied the threshold of his private study as if she were centre stage.
"The last of your guests just left," she said in a breathy whisper. "We're finally all alone…"
"Good," said Josef, barely flicking her a glance before continuing to examine his mail. "Do something for me, will you babe?"
Her lips curved in triumph. "Anything you want," she cooed, sauntering toward him and lowering the cleverly concealed zipper on her lovely gown.
"Go get me Selene. I've got a hankering for blonde tonight."
The redhead's face fell. Small blotches of anger and embarrassment reddened both cheeks. For a second it seemed as if she were about to object, but she thought better of it, blew out a sulky breath and flounced toward the door.
"Oh, and Angie," Josef said, stopping her in her tracks. "When you get in to the agency tomorrow, tell them to take you off my list. You were unforgivably rude to Miss Turner tonight."
...
Beth jerked awake. The alarm clock blinked '3:37' at her in big red numbers. She closed her eyes and tried to drift back off to sleep. It was no use. She was still too churned up by her earlier encounter with Josef. Josef! He had some apologising to do. Why not now? He always worked til dawn. She would corner him in his study, make him give a full explanation for his strange behaviour.
She threw back the coverlet and reached for her silky robe.
...
Only one thing was needed to make her utterly perfect.
"Turn out the light," Josef said.
The room plunged into shadow. In the golden glow of his desk lamp all that was visible was her bright blonde hair.
"Come here," he said, holding out his hand.
...
Light glowed around the edges of the open door to Josef's study. A murmur and the sound of skin sliding over fabric came from within. Josef wasn't alone. Morbid curiosity and a tight, hot feeling she didn't stop to analyse propelled her into the room, her bare feet making no sound at all on cool marble tiles underfoot.
A single desk lamp illuminated the darkness within. The antique polished wood of his desk gleamed with a warm tint of gold that made the room seem intimate, seductive, like one of the renaissance paintings of the Old Masters. At first the room seemed empty, but then she noticed that Josef's chair had been turned as if to give him a better view of the grounds beyond. Although from this angle she couldn't see more than the crisp white cotton of his sleeve laying on the armrest, she had a full view of the halo of pale hair draped over his masculine forearm. A pair of shapely legs shod in black stilettos extended over the other side of the chair. She raised her eyes. The lamplight had turned the darkened window of his study into a black mirror in which Josef and the woman were reflected.
She was lying across his lap, dressed in a sheath of navy silk with a split up to her panty line. Her head had been thrown back to expose the elegant arch of her neck and Josef's face was pressed against its apex.
Even in the poor light Beth could see that the woman's eyes were shut tight and that her face was contorted in an arousal so profound that she was entirely unaware of her surroundings. Beth flushed from head to toe. She had never really seen a vampire feed before. Was this how it always was between vampires and humans? Mick had been careful to keep that side of his past life from her. Now she knows why. The sounds the girl is making leaves her in no doubt that she is heading toward a climax.
With her merely human eyesight she couldn't see that in the dark Josef's eyes had lifted and were now locked onto the dim shadow of her reflection in the windowpane.
The woman moaned, a soft sound of such animal intensity that Beth's heart began to hammer.
...
He knew she was there long before she stepped into the room. He'd tracked her progress the moment the sole of her bare foot had warmed the white marble step at the head of his staircase. He'd considered retracting his fangs, allowing Selene to sit up and compose herself before Beth arrived, but felt a perverse disinclination to do so. It was his house after all and Beth an uninvited trespasser here tonight. The part of her that had been pushing Mick to satisfy her sexually, he knew that secret part of her wanted to be bitten. Why shouldn't she see what that really meant?
He could hear Beth's laboured breathing, smell the sweet scent magnified by her body heat. He raised his eyes and stared at her reflection there in the dark by his doorway. She was so beautiful. God, but she was beautiful… intelligent... fearless... daring...
He'd only intended to feed from Selene tonight, but with a sudden, sharp pang, knew he needed more. He felt the girl shift against his hardening erection and she moaned, a soft sound of animal intensity. He heard Beth's heart begin to hammer.
He retracted his fangs and gathered the girl to his chest.
...
The reflections of Josef and the girl began to kiss.
Beth stifled a gasp. In the dark and with the blonde hair flowing down her back, the woman in Josef's arms could easily have been Beth herself.
The hot, tight feeling in her chest expanded, making it hard to breathe. She began to back away and when she was safely in the darkened corridor, fled back to her room on shaking legs.
...
She lay in bed, her heart still pounding and tried to banish the disturbing images of Josef and the girl from mind.
Hot flashes of unwanted arousal kept coursing through her body. Eyes squeezed shut, she desperately thought of Mick. Picturing his handsome face and muscular body was more difficult than she thought it would be. She concentrated hard, remembering the lean grace with which he shrugged on a shirt or reached out a hand to open a door. She rolled over and pressed a hand between her legs, seeing him crossing her floor, his face in shadow; feeling his hard length pressed up against her in the dark. Her excitement grew as the shadowy fantasy Mick buried his face against her neck the way she'd seen tonight and she groaned, revelling in the sensation of a dangerous vampire at her throat. The thrill was intense, the rising crescendo almost overwhelming.
She was there, almost there, and as her imaginary lover lifted his head she climaxed in breathless shuddering waves when she saw that it was Josef.
...
Each of them took great care to avoid the possibility of an accidental meeting in the days that followed.
Beth couldn't imagine ever being able to look Josef squarely in the eye again after what she'd seen and done, her cheeks flaming, imagining that somehow he knew about her transgressions, both of them, and would despise her for it.
Josef, for his part, was unable to adequately explain to himself the decision to allow her to witness such a private moment, other than to acknowledge the undeniable attraction he felt toward her. That kind of carelessness was unlike him and he rededicated himself to the original plan of cutting off from her entirely.
The friendship each of them had grown to value seemed a distant memory.
...
In the end it was Fate that intervened to break the impasse.
The phone call interrupting his vampire working 'day' had come from his staff, when by rights it should have come from her. She was reluctant to give them details, refused their offers of help. He would be remiss in his role of guardian if he did not confront her.
"What happened?"
He was doing a reasonable facsimile of calm, but she can see that the hand jammed into his pocket is balled into a fist.
"Nothing happened."
"Care to take that from the top and try again?"
One eye is red and puffy and she is perched on the edge of her bath, trying and failing to roll the leg of her trousers down over her exposed knee with only one good hand. He can see that the bruise covers her entire kneecap and is already turning a winning shade of aubergine. There is an angry graze the size of Minnesota on her palm; her other hand is keeping the rest of her arm company in the sling.
"I fell."
"I see that," he nodded. "And I suppose you're about to tell me the cause was just your usual lack of womanly grace."
Beth narrowed her eyes in an 'oh, very funny' glare.
"Look it's nothing, okay. I was just a little more successful at tracking down a suspect today than I thought I'd be. No big deal."
He knows now why she has tried to hide this. She'd argued and won back the right to a bodyguard free workday some time ago.
"You're not going in tomorrow."
"I'm fine."
"Of course you are," he said in the altogether-too-reasonable version of his voice that always signalled trouble. "Undress."
They both ignored the strange frisson of tension that tingled in the atmosphere on the last word he uttered. It's obvious that neither of her injured hands is going to be able to manage the zipper down the back of her silky tank top.
"I thought so." He rocked back on his heels. "Ring Talbot. Now. Or I will."
"What is it with you vampires always trying to order me around! You sound just like Mick."
Tears are threatening to spill over onto her reddened cheeks and for the first time he sees beyond the tight haze of his own anger and realizes that she is downplaying what was an unpleasant and possibly dangerous experience. He has an urge to reach out, take her in his arms and comfort her, but turns away, thrusts his other hand into a pocket instead.
"Do whatever you want to do, Beth." He sounds completely bored and gazes somewhere over the top of her head as if to emphasise it. "I'll send one of the girls in to help you get ready for bed."
He stalks out, stiffening as he hears the first of the teardrops fall.
If she doesn't want to make a call, he will. Only his won't be to Talbot. He's owed quite a few favours in this town. If the suspect she's referring to isn't already in custody, after tonight he never will be.
...
Although they are once again on speaking terms, anger seems to be their only method of interaction these days.
"Call off your dogs, Josef."
She doesn't even bother acknowledging his private secretary when she stalks into his office today. She went to work in defiance of his orders only to find her vampire familiars ensconced as 'journalists' writing a piece on the newest of the D.A.'s investigators.
He hasn't even looked up from his paperwork, let alone issued an instruction, yet somehow every trader in his office is packing up their equipment and vacating the office space poste-haste.
"Well?" She said.
He's still not paying attention, flipping between files on his desk and typing on his laptop.
"I'm serious, Josef." Her toe is tapping an annoyed cha-cha on the carpet. "Josef!" Her raised voice isn't even rewarded with a glance. She threw her one good hand up in frustration. "I can't possibly work with your people glued to me twenty four hours a day!"
"So stop working."
He has finally looked up and despite his last statement he looks as sane as he did yesterday.
She blows out a disbelieving breath. "What, and how would I make a living just sitting around the house all day? Would you expect me to be kept just like one of your 'girls'?"
"You wouldn't be just like one of my girls," he smiled at her sweetly, "They all have impeccable manners."
Beth glared at him. "You know what I mean."
He could feel her blood pressure rising.
"What would you have me do?" She exploded, finally. "Meet you at the door every dawn in a fifties frock and high heels with a blood filled Bloody Mary in one hand?"
"Oh I wouldn't want to compromise your feminist values that much Beth," he leaned back in his chair and said with cool indifference. "I'd be perfectly satisfied with just the last two."
It took her a second to understand.
"Beast!"
"Prude."
"Control freak."
"Bottle blonde."
If it had been encased in a silver full metal jacket the look she gave him would have been fatal.
Josef sighed. "Look, Beth. Mick will be home soon. Take a few days off. Recuperate. God knows you'll be grateful for it. Something tells me you'll want to be in peak condition when he gets back." His shoulders slumped and he looked tired in a way she'd never seen before and for a second her feelings softened. Then one eyebrow rose in the arrogant way she knew so well and he said, "Besides, what sort of guardian do you think my best friend would think I was if I handed his human back in that condition?"
There seems to be just no getting through to Josef these days. His points made sense though, about getting herself as well as possible for Mick. Her eyes narrowed; there was another reason it might be worth doing as he suggested.
"If I agree to do what you say and take time off, will you tell me what's going on?"
She could almost see the shutters go down.
"I don't know what you mean," he said, his face blank.
"Don't treat me as if I'm a child, Josef. I mean between you and me."
...
.