Harvest X
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"Come on, Josef, we're friends." She walked around the desk, crouched down at his side, her voice soft, "I know we are. So what's going on?"
He turned his head. He couldn't look at her. Her blue eyes had the same puzzled, hopeful look of a puppy that's just been chastised for chewing the morning paper and the scent of her at this range, after such a lengthy separation was dizzying.
She moved back into his line of sight, took his hand and smiled. "What is it? Have I stepped over some ancient vampire rule of etiquette? Have your pale and interesting Fortune 500 buddies banned you from the billionaire's club because you have a bite-free human in the house? Because if it is, hey…." She held her wrist under his nose, "one quick swig and you're - "
"No, Beth," he said more harshly than intended, "No." His hand curled around her wrist, his thumb unconsciously caressing the place she'd offered to his fangs.
"Are you sure?" She smiled, "I hear I'm pretty rare."
"Take a few days off and we'll talk."
"Promise?"
He hesitated. She raised her eyebrows threateningly.
He nodded.
*.*.*.*.*.*
So she'd done as Josef suggested, taken the time off work to rest and recuperate. She did want to be as recovered as she could be for Mick. It also gave her time with Josef, to find out why he was behaving so oddly. As Mick's only real friend, she and Josef would be in one another's company quite often from now on. The awkwardness, whatever it was about, wouldn't bother her in time but she wouldn't have Mick discomfited by ill feeling between those closest to him. She'd talk to Josef, find out whatever it was she'd done and apologise.
That was the plan - only Josef hadn't quite lived up to his part in it.
Not only hadn't he given her an answer to her question as he'd promised to, he'd hardly had time to acknowledge her greetings before he hurried off to one private room in the mansion or another. Even when she pursued him openly, her luck wasn't any better.
There was Josef in his study, hunched over the laptop. "Sorry, Beth, don't have time. The Hang Seng is down and there are seventeen million reasons why I need some time to swing this deal. Maybe later."
Or Josef with his hand over the mouthpiece of his office landline, "Are you sure you want to interrupt this, Beth? It's the White House."
Or Josef shaking his head and mouthing to her over the top of the head of a grey suited visitor in the library - Not now, Beth - and pointing to the man - Vee Eye Pee.
Hmmph. Very Important Person, her ass. Very Inaccurate Promises, he meant. A Vampire's Incessant Phoniness. If she didn't know any better, she'd suspect the apex predator was avoiding her.
There was nothing for it. He'd left her with no choice. She knew what she was planning was extreme, crazy even, but if she wanted to fix this before Mick came home, something drastic would have to be done.
*.*.*.*.*.*
The mistake he made was in having a well-established routine.
Every night at four fifteen sharp he walked in the front door, went to his private suite, undressed, showered, fed and worked until he retired to his freezer at seven.
The aroma of lemongrass and ginger, the grainy hand-made soap Josef paid a fortune for, permeated the spacious bathroom. Steam filled the air and the sound of water hitting tile was loud enough to muffle the sound of the opening door. A pair of hands lifted the silk robe hanging from the back of the bathroom door and tossed it aside, uncaring where in the bedroom outside it fell, then they opened the generous cupboard doors, grasped the stacks of fluffy linen inside, and very quietly put several pieces aside on the floor beside the door, and shoved the rest out the door. The lock on the bathroom door snicked shut.
A hand towel was folded then twirled, then both ends wrapped around a familiar pair of eyes and knotted.
Without warning the shower door opened, the water stopping automatically as the occupant exited the stall. Josef stepped naked into the room, his eyes silvering as he spotted Beth standing guard at his bathroom door, a jerry-rigged towelling blindfold covering half her face.
"This had better be a game of blind man's buff gone badly wrong," Josef drawled, "or I'll be having the hostage special on the dinner menu tonight."
"Listen up, Josef," Beth said, turning to face the direction of his voice, "this is how we're going to play it: you answer a question, you get a piece of your modesty back." She held up a piece of linen and shook it. "You don't, and the blind fold comes off." A hand rested on the knot at the back of her head in warning.
"You're assuming I care if you see me naked."
"You may not. But you might want to think about how you'd explain to Mick just how it is that I can describe that little scar above your…right thigh… in excruciating detail."
Josef's head snapped down to look at his groin and then back up again to the smug smile on her semi obscured face.
"Ahh, the things you learn when you eavesdrop on employees," Beth sighed. She heard him cross his arms.
Mick was already a little suspicious of his motives; best not give him any further cause for worry. "Make it snappy," Josef grouched.
"Why are you so angry with me?"
"Besides this gross invasion of my privacy, you mean?"
He had no intention of having this conversation, and in his current frame of mind and state of undress he daren't risk removing her from the room himself. No, he had to come up with something, if only to win a towel to throw around his waist so he could remove her with at least a modicum of decency. Okay. She asked for it.
"You're a pest, Beth. A headache. You ask about things you shouldn't, get into places you shouldn't, break every one of my rules, see 'no entry' signs as personal invitations and disrespect my staff. Should I go on?"
"I've always been like that," Beth said, the blindfold preventing her from seeing the hint of a smile flicker across his features, "but that didn't stop us being friends before. What's going on, Josef? Why all of a sudden won't you speak to me? Why are you acting like you can't stand to be around me, that you hate me? Why are you shutting me out like this?"
Fat lot of good the truth would do any of them.
"I believe according to your rules I'm owed some linen."
Beth bent her knees and felt for the pile below her and threw Josef a piece of towelling. He caught it mid-air and shook it free of its folds.
"A face washer?" he said in disbelief. "Really?"
The lips beneath the blindfold smiled. "Consider it a gesture of good faith. So why now?"
"It's not always all about you, Beth." He could see her sharp little mind putting two and two together and adding it up as he'd intended.
"Your business? All the hard work you've been doing lately. Is something going on? Oh, Josef, I - "
"Towel," he interrupted.
She tossed him a hand towel and heard the gentle whumph of it landing on the tiles a little short of where she'd been aiming. She heard Josef sigh and then the wet, slapping sound of the soles of his feet as they crossed the floor toward the towel and then there was complete and utter silence.
"Josef?" It was as if she were in the room alone. "Josef?" The skin on her forearms prickled. She held out a tentative hand in front of her. Her palm slid along the hard, wet curve of his pectoral muscle and her fingers drew back as if singed.
"You know, I'm quite partial to bondage games, Beth," he murmured into her ear. "There are handcuffs in the top drawer of the dresser in my bedroom."
Her face burned and she whirled and tore the blindfold off, her hands catching at the doorknob several times before she got a good grip. The latch clicked and the door swung open. Beth ran out of the room.
Josef smiled. Turnaround was always fair play.
*.*.*.*.*.*
Halfway between the bathroom and the exit from his bedroom she stopped.
Damn that Josef! She'd almost fallen for his little call-your-bluff-and-raise-the-ante routine. If she chickened now, she'd never get another chance to corner him. Her chin tilted defiantly. She'd be damned if she'd allow a little skin to chase her away.
A moment later Josef strolled out of the bathroom, a towel slung low around his hips. Droplets of water still clung to his back and shoulders and dripped from the long, smooth muscles of his chest to his tight, white abdomen where they glittered like tiny diamonds in the dark hair that descended in a line below his belly button.
He cocked his head at the sight of her and rubbed a towel through the wet russet spikes of his hair. "You still here? I thought you might have gone to have a Percocet and a lie down."
Her throat tightened. His body was… much more muscular than his conservative business shirts had ever suggested.
"Ha, ha," she managed.
He picked up a remote and a section of wall hummed open to reveal a wardrobe space the size of her apartment. She struggled not to stare at the outline of his well formed behind beneath the towel as he chose a shirt, pulled it on over his freshly showered skin and buttoned it up.
"I'm reaching for my trousers now, Beth," he said without turning around, and doing exactly that. "And in a second I'll be putting them on. You sure you want to stick around for that? The trauma might scar you for life." He dropped the hanger to the floor and shook the trousers out. "And you might want to think about how you'd explain to Mick just how it is that you came to be in my bedroom in time to see me buck naked."
They stared at each other across the room for one long moment like duelling gunfighters waiting in the noonday sun for a call to draw, then Josef's eyebrow rose and he gripped the edge of the towel that secured it around his waist and began to lift.
"Alright, alright," Beth said, turning her back and crossing her arms with ill concealed grace. "But we're having this conversation."
She heard the towel drop to the floor and the sound of each foot sliding along the interior of his trouser legs. Finally she heard the sound of a zipper being raised and she gasped. Josef's hands slid over her shoulders. She hadn't even heard him cross the floor.
"How about we just call a truce," he suggested. "It's late and I don't feel like fighting."
She sighed and raised a hand toward each opposite shoulder, placing her own small hands atop his. "No more dodging my calls - ," she said with a suspicious look over her shoulder. He shook his head. "No unanswered phone messages." He nodded. " - and you'll come with me to grunge bands like you used to?"
He winced. "Let's just start with a gallery opening or two, shall we?"
"And from now on when I barge into that gulag you call an office you'll be happy to see me?"
"When have I ever been happy to see you in my office?"
She laughed, and spat into her palm then held it out toward him. "Deal," she said.
He shook his head. "If it's not in blood, its not worth the palm its pressed into." The cell phone beside the bed rang. "Now it's time for all good little girls to be in bed."
He wondered if he'd done the right thing as he watched the door close behind her, remembering the pain of wanting but not having that had driven him out of New York. At least he had another few days to enjoy the renewed friendship with her alone before Mick returned. Maybe he'd take an evening off work, do just as she suggested and take her to a club where, in the crush of people, he could stand too close, breathe in her scent without the risk of exposing how he felt. The phone rang again. He'd figure it out. He thumbed open his cell.
"Kostan."
"Josef, its me. I'm on my way home. Can you wait up for me?"
"Mick! You mean… tonight?"
"I'll be there in an hour."
The phone went dead and Josef snapped it shut and placed it carefully beside the bed, sat down and straightened the creases of his trousers.
*.*.*.*.*.*