If I thought my day was a nightmare, that was because I hadn't seen the inside of Dominic's trailer.
"Good God, it's like a really bad parody of a Dark Shadows set," I murmured to Roxy as I stepped around a tall standing lamp with a shade made out of metal bats caught in the act of flight. Dominic had blocked up all the windows, so the only light came from the weird lamps he had scattered around the trailer.
"I think it's fascinating, in a gruesome mangled-car-accident sort of way," Roxy replied. I stared at a painting hanging on a divider wall. It looked like one of those sixties gothic covers with a woman in a transparent nightgown racing away from a gloomy old mansion, only in this picture the woman was naked and was being followed by a somewhat effeminate-looking vampire in full Bela Lugosi rig.
"I see you admire my painting." Dominic appeared at my side, taking the head-tipped-to-the-side-considering-artpose. "I painted it myself, naturally."
"Oh. Did you?" I reminded myself that I wanted something from him, and thus to inquire how many other paint-by-numbers paintings he had done was not a good idea. "It's very... unique."
"Yes," he said, baring his fangs at me.
"Um... you have a piece of something... " I tapped the front of my teeth.
Dominic looked all too human for a moment as embarrassment flickered over his face. He dashed into his bedroom area.
"Dark Ones do not eat broccoli," Roxy muttered before turning her attention to what looked like a little altar made up of cheap-looking black and red candles.
"Looks like he's been shopping at Vampyrs 'R' Us," I whispered.
She giggled just as Dominic reappeared with a food-particle-free leer. "Mon ange, if you will sit just there, and Roxsee will sit there, and I will sit here, yes! Now we are all very comfortable, eh?"
"Sure thing," I said to his earlobe approximately three centimeters away from my mouth. "I just love being held squashed up against someone like I'm a mustard plaster or something." I paused and sniffed delicately, then recoiled as much as I could with him holding me clamped to his side. My eyes started watering with the effort it took not to sneeze. "What on earth are you wearing?"
A muscle twitched in his eyelid. "For you, I am wearing the Marcheur du Nuit cologne. I have created it myself. I am thinking of selling it. It is very fragrant, is it not so?"
"Potent is the word that comes to mind," I muttered, rubbing my nose. "If you don't mind, Dominic, I'm really busy today, and I know you must be busy getting ready for the festival, so if we could get to the discussion that Roxy mentioned, I'd be grateful."
"Mon ange weeps with pleasure?" he asked, flicking a fingertip across a path a tear had taken. I jerked my head back.
"No. I'm allergic to perfumes and colognes. Makes my... my... " I turned my head so he wasn't in the line of sight and sneezed into my shoulder."... nose itch. Sorry. Hope I didn't get any on your hand."
He withdrew his arm from where it had been wrapped around my shoulders and covertly wiped the sneeze off his hand while I discreetly blew my nose into the tissue Roxy handed me.
"So, about Raphael - "
"Mon ange, ma belle, always you are in such a hurry! I have so little time with you, can we not enjoy what we have together?"
I looked him dead in the eye, sniffing and mopping back tears. "No," I said, sounding like I had a pair of socks stuffed up my nose. "We cannot. Raphael?"
He sighed a dramatic, put-upon sigh and tapped his long fingers on his chin for a minute while I sneezed three more times.
"I'm sorry," I said, waving my hand at Roxy. She stood up and traded places with me. "No offense, Dominic, but I'll be sneezing my eyes out if I sit next to you any longer."
"She can do it, too," Roxy said, her nose wrinkling as his musky cologne hit her. "She once sneezed fourteen times in a row. Wet her pants doing it."
"ROXY!"
"She was only ten at the time," Roxy added, as if that made it better.
"If, for the fourth time, we could get to the subject at hand, namely Raphael's history... " I raised an eyebrow at Dominic. He looked peeved.
"And if I do this great thing you want of me, mon ange, what will you grant me in return?"
I glanced at Roxy. She was staring in horror at the painting. "Roxy said you needed help reading runes tonight. I would be happy to do another session for you."
"Your assistance would be most welcome to me," he nodded, his eyes hooded, but not so hooded I didn't notice the calculating gleam in them. If I had anything more than a little spending money, I'd offer to bribe the info out of him, feeling sure that monetary gain held more sway with him than my own dubious charms. "But this thing you ask of me, it is personal. You ask me to betray Raphael."
I frowned. I didn't like hearing my feelings put into words, especially not words that came out of his fake-fanged mouth. Idly I wondered what Christian did with his fangs when they weren't in use.
"Such a personal sacrifice demands a much more intime gesture, do you not think?"
I stopped picturing collapsible canine teeth and glared at Dominic. "No sex."
"Mon ange," he said, his hands fluttering gracefully. "You stir my blood with your too vehement protestations. But no, it is not to the danse sur le coucher that I refer."
Roxy snorted.
"Good, because it isn't going to happen. What exactly do you want, in addition to me reading runes tonight?"
He smiled, the calculating light growing in his eyes. He steepled his fingers together and made a little pout over them. "Tonight, as you have mentioned, is the Festival of All Hallow's Eve. In celebration of this night most dear to all who live in darkness, we have arranged the Punkevn¨ª Cave to be open to those attending the festival."
"That sounds like a good idea," I admitted, wondering what the catch was. Maybe he wanted me to collect ticket money, or help out working the festival.
"We went on that tour a couple of days ago," Roxy added. "It was a bit damp and smelly, but fun. Although Joy barfed up her lunch at the end."
I would have stopped her, but I figured the less attractive picture of me Dominic had, the better. "I get seasick easily," I said.
He looked momentarily disconcerted; then another of his smug smiles slid across his face. "You will not suffer from mal de mer with me, mon ange. I will see to it that you are otherwise occupied during our boat ride."
"Our boat ride?" I asked suspiciously. "You want me to go on the tour with you? That's all?"
"That is all," he said, spreading his hands wide.
I tried to find something objectionable about what he wanted, but couldn't. I gave in as gracefully as I could. "All right. I'll read the runes and go on the boat tour through Punkevn¨ª Cave with you tonight, but that's it. We'll be even then, right?"
He smiled and touched his fingers to his lips.
Roxy glanced at her watch. "Thank God the negotiating is over. Now you can dish with the dirt on Raphael and we can be on our way."
I looked at Dominic. He leaned back, toying with the ruffles on his poet's shirt. "There is not much to dish, I am afraid. I employed Raphael in Marseilles, where he had just been released from prison for the rape and killing of a prostitute."
My jaw hit my knees. "He what?"
Dominic made a moue and tsked. "It is true. He forced himself on a woman of the streets, harming her here" - he waved at his midsection - "inside. She was sent to hospital, and later died."
Roxy stared at me, true horror in her eyes. I blinked at her, then looked back to Dominic. "Raphael? My Raphael? I just don't believe it."
"Believe it, mon ange."
I shook my head. "No. Not him. I know him. He would never force himself on a woman. It must have been a mistake. He must have been falsely convicted."
"I myself have seen his papers, Joie. You see now why I sought to protect you from him. The man you have chosen as your lover is a criminal - one who does not care for the women he uses for his perversions. Because he had survived repeated assaults in prison, I knew he had brutality and ruthlessness, both skills which would help him to keep others safe. That is why I hired him to attend to our security. The police forced me to do so with their accusations. They came to us and said, 'You have been here, here, and here, and that is near where women were murdered, so we must detain you.' Bah! They did not find anything to connect us to the so tragic killings. It was all just a screen of smoke they create. But me, I have the alibis most unbreakable, and they must go away without me." He sat back and looked terribly smug.
"Do you mean to say that the police thought you had killed someone?" Roxy asked, scooting just a bit away from him.
"They called them the Vampire Murders, yes? And I," he said with an affected little flip of his hand, "am le grand Vampyr. It follows that they must suspect me."
He sounded like he was proud of the fact.
"I didn't know they were seriously investigating anyone with the fair," I said slowly, looking at the tips of his pointy boots as my mind turned over the facts. Was it the fair employees the police were investigating, or one amber-eyed man with a police history in particular? "Arielle told us about a woman who died, but she said the police at Heidelberg - " The words stopped as goose bumps crawled up my flesh. Raphael had told Inspector Bartos to check with the police at Heidelberg about something, about proving he was innocent. Oh, God! If the police had viewed him as some sort of suspect in previous murders, it was no wonder Bartos had him on his suspect list.
"Those pigs! They delayed us one whole week. We lost much revenue in Prague because of them. But that is over with. They did not find any connection between the fair and that woman."
"And now Tanya is dead," Roxy said thoughtfully, her gaze on Dominic.
"Yes." He sobered up at that thought. "She was not the most amiable of women, but she did not deserve death."
I gave him full brownie points for showing what looked to be real grief over Tanya's death. "I didn't get a chance to say so last night, Dominic, but I want you to know I'm very sorry about Tanya. I know you were close to her - this must be especially difficult for you. Do you have any idea who would have wanted her dead?"
For a moment the real Dominic peeked out. He looked like he was going to be sick, his eyes filled with horror; then the mask descended again and he was back to his slick persona.
"No. It is deranged to me. She was angry, yes, but not enough to do something foolish."
I withheld judgment on that point. Roxy put a few more questions to Dominic regarding the murders of the other women, but he had nothing new to say on that subject, or on his warnings against Raphael. I tolerated those for a few more minutes, then thanked him for his help and promised him I'd be at the festival shortly after opening to take up my duties at the rune-stone booth.
"I almost feel sorry for him," Roxy said a couple of minutes later as we stood outside his trailer, taking deep breaths of fresh air. The fair people, most of whom looked tired and drawn due to interrupted sleep, were just starting to break down the tents and booths. Some would be packed away, others would be moved to Drahansk¨¢'s grounds for the festival.
"I think I'll go see how Arielle is," Roxy said, watching Paal and another man at a water spigot. "I take it you're going to tackle your jailbird?"
"I don't believe a thing Dominic said about Raphael. I may not have known him for long, Rox, but I do know him. He's gentle and loving and would never rape a woman, especially with such force as to tear her up inside. He's beefy, but he's not monstrous! No, there has to be a mistake. Raphael told me he was accused of something he didn't do, and I, for one, believe him."
"Atta girl," she said with a pat on my shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't stay all pissy at him for long. Not with that belly tattoo. And of course, there's his huge - "
"Oh, I'm still ticked off royally at him," I interrupted her. "He's got a lot of explaining to do. But that doesn't mean I believe he's capable of rape and manslaughter. I think since Christian is out of commission until it gets dark, I will have a word or two with Raphael."
A smile touched her eyes. "A word or two, eh? K. I won't expect to see you for, oh, say three hours? Is that enough time for you two to talk?"
"You really need to get a man, Roxy. Your mind is just obsessed with sex. Obsessed! It's a sign of mental illness, it really is. Get some help. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to beat Raphael soundly about the head and shoulders with a sharp dick. Imagine him not having more faith in me!"
I snorted my indignation and strode off leaving Roxy doubled up, howling with laughter. I didn't stay to inquire what set her off, I had a man to handle. The fact that I went all mushy inside just thinking about handling him was neither here nor there. I had a point to prove. I was trustworthy, I was the perfect woman for him, and it was about time he realized that.
As for his secret... well, it was clear to me that it wasn't what Dominic believed, just as it was clear that the police viewed Raphael in a less than innocent light. I was about to knock on his trailer door when I remembered what Roxy had said about trust coming with time. If I told him what I'd found out, he'd be forced to trust me. But was forced trust what I wanted?
No, it wasn't. It wasn't good enough. Therefore, I couldn't let him know I knew what he had told Dominic. I gnawed on my lip while I figured out what I'd say to him. My last words had an awfully ultimatum feel to them. Perhaps an apology would start things off nicely. Maybe if I admitted I was wrong, he would do likewise and spill his guts about what really happened in his past.
The door opened without me touching it. "Are you writing obscenities on my door, or can you not bring yourself to knock?"
"Oh, very funny, Mr. Ha Ha. I happened to be in the area, and I thought it would be polite to say hello." I mentally pinched myself for the horrible inanities emerging from my mouth. What was I thinking? I sounded all stiff-rumped and prissy.
"Hello," he said, not moving from where he blocked the door. The glare I was about to level upon him for making me beg to be let in died when I saw that his eyes were dulled with fatigue.
"I also came to apologize," I said, unable to keep from stroking my hand down his temple. "You look exhausted."
"I am," he answered, grabbing my hand and pulling me up the three stairs, slamming the door behind him. Unlike Dominic's Trailer o' Darkness, Raphael's was filled with sunlight... and him. "I've had a hell of a day. First the woman who makes me mad with desire left me, then the police refused to listen to me, and finally my employer informed me my services were no longer needed."
I took a step toward him. He stood in the aisle, his arms crossed over his chest, his legs in battle stance. One of the things I appreciated most about Raphael was how he made me feel feminine in comparison with all his hard maleness. I took another step until I was close enough to brush his crossed arms with my breasts. "Dominic fired you? Why would he do that? He needs you now more than ever."
"He pointed out that I was engaged to keep the peace during the fairs, and his employees safe at all other times. Obviously, I failed in that duty." He bit the end of the sentence off as if he wanted to say something else, but didn't.
I leaned into him a little. His eyes grew brighter. I tried to count how many different shades of amber were within them, but failed. "That doesn't make sense. You can't possibly be responsible for everyone all the time."
One corner of his mouth turned up in a wry grimace. "Regardless, after the festival, I will be unemployed."
"Oh." I scooted closer, putting one arm around him, my fingers stroking the nape of his neck. "I'm sorry about that. I'm also afraid I can't do anything about the police. But the first item on your list, this woman you spoke of, perhaps I can make you forget her."
"No," he said, his eyes glittering now. I froze in mid-stroke. Suddenly his arms were around me, pulling me tight against his hard body - and I do mean all of it - his mouth a breath away from mine. "I will never forget her. She's everything I want in a woman - smart, sexy, and all mine."
"Ah," I said, allowing my lips to brush his as I spoke. "Well, since I can't help you with that, I'll just have to recommend that you go to bed. Perhaps a little rest will make your future look brighter."
"Bed," he growled, grinding his hips against mine. Every bone in my body melted into gelatin. I sagged against him. He shifted and hoisted me up in his arms, turning to carry me toward the tiny bedroom. "Now why didn't I think of that?"
"You don't have the intelligence I do. I am much more reasonable than you. You are tired, therefore you must rest. In bed. For a very long time."
"That is reasonable," he agreed, his voice deep with desire. He set me on my feet and had my coat off and my dress whisked up over my head before I could so much as protest. Not that I was going to, but his disrobing me still took me a bit by surprise. I stood in my bra and underwear before him.
"Very pretty," he said, eyeing the lace of my bra and matching undies. "Very nice. Very feminine. Now take them off."
"You first," I said, crossing my arms and tapping my toe, trying to look bored. I was anything but bored, though, when he complied, peeling off his shirt and baring that lovely chest and belly tattoo. I actually started to salivate at the sight of his bare flesh.
He pulled his boots off, never once taking his gaze from mine. His hands reached for the fly on his corduroy pants.
"Allow me," I said, ignoring the fact that my voice was as husky as a sled dog. I kicked off my flats and put my hands on his belt, unbuckling it as I said, "I love the way your eyes go all steamy when you look at me. You make me feel like I'm bathed by the fire inside you."
"Baby, you are the fire inside me."
I unbuttoned the button on his pants. "I love the way you smell. You smell like a man should smell, masculine, hard, hot... "
I pulled his zipper down slowly. He took a deep breath and held it as my hand deliberately stroked against the long length of his penis, his eyes positively glowing now.
"And how you make me feel when you touch me." I slipped my hands inside the waistband of his underwear, pushing them and his pants down past his hips and thighs. He kicked them off the rest of the way. I took him into both my hands, and indulged in a little tactile exploration. "You make me burn for you, Raphael. Only for you. I need your touch to feel alive. I need you."
"Ah, baby, what you're doing to me," he groaned, the cords in his neck standing out with strain.
"I haven't done anything," I said with a naughty smile as I lowered myself to my knees before him. "Yet."
"Baby, I don't think I'm going to be able to stand it if you - ah, Christ!"
He tasted just like his scent: hot, hard man. I remembered everything Dr. Ruth had ever said about the way to drive a man mad, and added a few little ideas of my own. He had both hands on my head, directing me to a rhythm that pleased him, his hips moving in time to my strokes. "Oh, God, baby, that's so good. You feel so good to me."
I added a little suction. His voice went up an octave. "You're going to kill me if you keep that up."
I lifted my head. "Do you want me to stop?"
"God, no!" he yelled, then groaned when I redoubled my efforts.
"I'm not... going to be able... oh, Lord do that again... aaaaiiiigggghhhhh... not going to be able... oh, sweet Christ, your mouth should be illegal... to last much... oh, God... much longer. Joy, stop. Stop now."
I didn't want to. I'd never really been one for oral sex before, but with Raphael it was different. It gave me immense pleasure to give him pleasure. I added a little fillip with the end of my tongue and heard him groan in response. "Baby, you have to stop now."
I wrapped my fingers around his balls, lightly raking my fingernails down them, tracing that fascinating little vein that runs forward. His hips jerked as I gave him one last stroke of my tongue.
"JOY!" he yelled, panic tingeing his voice.
I looked up. "What? Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize you were that close. Wow, no wonder you blew out the end of that condom. That's got to be at least five feet over to that wall."
"Woman," he growled, pulling me up until I was pressed against his body. "You are going to be the death of me."
His hands were busy on the hooks of my bra.
"Yeah, but what a way to die."
He smiled a smile that was filled with all sorts of wicked promises, promises I couldn't wait for him to fulfill. "Baby, you have no idea."
"Really?" I asked, allowing him to remove my bra. He pushed me back onto the bed, rolling on top of me for a moment to kiss my wits away. I smiled to myself as his tongue went wild ordering mine around, checking my teeth, stroking the roof of my mouth, and generally being demanding, but then it was gone as Raphael rolled off me and opened the drawer to his nightstand.
"I get to put it on you this time. I want to try doing it with my tongue. Roxy said she heard it's possible... what's that?"
He rolled back over until he was lying on his side next to me, a long bottle in his hand. "I'm partial to cherry. I hope you like it as well."
"Oooh," I squealed, partly in response to the idea of something a little different, partly because of the desire in his eyes. "Is that one of those slicky lotions that make you slide all over one another and heat up when you blow on them?"
"Yes," he said, flipping open the top as he bent to take my breast in his mouth. I squealed again when he tugged ever so gently with his teeth on my nipple, then moaned when the cool liquid hit the tip, oozing downward. He leaned over me and took my other breast in his mouth while his fingers teased the slick oil over my breast. The combination of the heat of his mouth and the coolness of the lotion made my mind go numb with pleasure. He teased circles around my cherry-flavored breast, gently rubbing my nipples between his slippery fingers just as he started suckling hard on my other breast.
I almost came off the bed, my back arched up so high.
"Like that, do you?" he chuckled, his voice intimate and sexy and rough with pleasure. He dribbled a little lotion on my bare breast, then switched sides and sucked all the cherry goodness off the first breast, laving my breast and nipple with long, sweeping strokes of his tongue.
"RaphaEL," I screamed, clutching his shoulders as he burned my breasts up with the fire his hands and mouth were causing. "Oh, please, Raphael, you have to stop! My nipples are going to explode, and then what'll I do? I don't think they can do nipple transplants, can they? Oh, sweet baby Jesus, that's so goooood... "
He drizzled cherry down my belly, his fingers painting me with the wetness, tracing intricate paths that his mouth soon followed. While he was busy nibbling around my belly button, his hand slipped down to my underwear, rubbing the heel of his hand over me, his fingers teasing the satin into my heated core. My eyes crossed at the cool silk of his curls brushing against my skin with each stroke of his tongue on my belly. The dance of his fingers against my soft folds was driving me wild, winding the coil inside me up tighter and tighter. "Raphael!" I shrieked.
He smiled against my stomach.
"Take my underwear off!"
He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Demands? Do I hear demands?"
"Please," I begged.
"That's better," he smiled, and nuzzled the flare of one hip. "Do I take it you don't like it when I do this?"
He pulled my underwear tight against my flesh, his finger stroking out a quick tempo that had me mindless in seconds.
I whimpered. It was all I could do, I couldn't form words - words were too much to expect when my body was being pleasured beyond any pleasure it had known.
"Baby, all you have to do is tell me what you want," he crooned, his eyes hot and wicked and full of the terrible, terrible things he wanted to do to me.
I prayed he had time to get to every last one.
"Please," I sobbed, my body bucking in time to his fingers. "Just you. I want to feel just you."
He ended one torment by pulling my underwear off, but started another when he spread my legs and went wild with the bottle of cherry.
"Dear God in heaven," I cried at the first stroke of his tongue against my heated flesh. "Raphael! Bob! Please!"
"Anything for you, baby," he said, settling my thighs on his shoulders and preparing to send me flying. His mouth sent me into a maelstrom of sensations: fire, silk, pleasure, love, desire, need... they were all tangled up together as he drove me higher and higher until at last I went up in a bonfire of ecstasy. He caught my shout of exultation in his mouth as he plunged into me, so deep it was impossible to tell where he ended and I started. He pulled my hips against him as he entered me again and again with quick, hard thrusts, touching my womb, touching my soul, searing himself into my heart with every hot word of love he moaned into my neck, setting me alight with the pure joy of our combined rapture.
"Each time," I told him later as I stroked my fingers down the long, damp sweep of his back to the curve of his lovely behind; "each time I think it can't get any better, and then it does."
His head raised from the crook of my neck just enough to press a kiss to my collarbone.
"You set me quite a standard to follow," I complained. "I don't know how I'm going to match you, let alone exceed you. Everything you do to me is wonderful. Do you have any idea what sort of stress that puts on me to strive for perfection? What if I fail? What if I can't ever match you?"
"You're forgetting an important fact." He pushed himself up so he could grin before swooping down to capture my lips in his. "Practice makes perfect. We'll just have to let you practice until you're perfect."
I thought about that for the scant second before I gave myself up to the hot lure of his mouth. "Works for me."
