The Accidental Vampire (18 page)

Elvi blinked at the question, wondering if the problem wasn't DJ being attracted to her, but that Mabel was attracted back and distressed by it.

"I told you, I think he likes you," Elvi repeated.

"Stop saying that!" Mabel snapped, spinning on her angrily. "I'm—"

"A beautiful woman," Elvi interrupted before she could insult herself again.

"You're a vampire, Elvi," she said grimly. "You have better eyesight than the rest of us. Now look at me. Look at this wrinkled old face."

"Oh, Mabel, for heaven sakes," she said impatiently. "Yes, you have laugh lines—"

"I have
wrinkles
," Mabel repeated harshly, then added, "everywhere."

Elvi waved that away as unimportant. "So? None of us look the same as we did twenty years ago."

"You do," Mabel pointed out. "Hell, you look
better
than you did twenty years ago; you look like you did
forty
years ago."

"Oh, right." Elvi bit her lip. While she hadn't had a mirror since returning from Mexico, she'd caught a quick glimpse of herself there. She knew she looked young.

"Forget I said that," Mabel said wearily when Elvi just stared at her with helpless guilt, then asked, "How was your night?"

Relieved at the change of topic, Elvi quickly told her about buying a bed and her annoyance with Victor for influencing the manager into delivering it the next day.

"I did call the store when I got home," she announced. "But of course it was closed. I left a message, telling them not to deliver it tomorrow."

"I don't know why you bothered," Mabel said with a shake of the head. "It's not that big a deal. Besides, do you think it will work? I mean, their control must reach beyond simple influence. They must be able to cause some sort of a compulsion in the person. Otherwise, the moment Victor left, the manager would have snapped out of it and cancelled the delivery himself. Don't you think?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Elvi admitted. "I need to find out more about this stuff, I guess."

Silence fell in the room, and then Elvi glanced at the robe and book Mabel had collected and now held loosely in her hands. She turned toward the door. "I guess I should leave you to your bath… maybe I'll take one myself."

"Good night," Mabel murmured.

"'Night." Elvi slid back out into the hall, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her, then wandered toward her own room. She'd had a shower that morning, but a nice relaxing bubble bath really did sound lovely.

Nodding to herself, Elvi picked up her pace. She had a lovely new bath set she wanted to try. A vanilla bubble bath with a crème brûlée body lotion to put on after. She gave a little shiver at the very thought. Elvi loved bubble baths. In the past, the tub was often the only place she'd got a moment of peace and privacy. As a mother and wife, there was always some great tragedy like having nothing to wear to the party the next weekend, or being unable to find the cheddar cheese that brought her daughter or husband to knock on the door.

Elvi smiled sadly at the memories of just such interruptions as she ran her bath. If she'd realized then how little time she would have with them, she would have savored those moments at the time.

Shrugging these thoughts away, Elvi closed the bathroom door, retrieved a bath towel and washcloth, then stripped out of her clothes. By then, the water was only a couple of inches from the top of the tub. Elvi bent to turn off the taps, then stepped carefully into the tub and eased herself into the hot bubbly water with a little sigh.

Oh yes, this was nice.

"I thought Elvi said she was going to unlock the door?"

Victor glanced toward Alessandro as the man returned to the group around the fire. He'd been pretending to listen to Harper regale DJ with their latest adventure in shopping with Elvi, but had really been preoccupied with the best way to make Elvi explain this business of being an "accidental vampire." It was obvious from her reaction last night that she didn't really wish to discuss the subject further than to say that, but it was the reason he was here. He didn't wish to upset her or make her recall what were obviously unpleasant memories, but he had to sort this matter out.

Victor knew he should have sat her down and addressed the issue today rather than allow this latest shopping expedition, but found himself too easily distracted by the woman. She was constantly taking him by surprise, flitting this way or that like a hummingbird in a garden. He found himself running to keep up with her, and eagerly doing what he could to aid her in getting what she needed rather than pinning her wings down to attend to his job as enforcer. This wasn't like him at all. It had been a very long time since a woman had fascinated him so, and he had never once been distracted from his duty as enforcer, not since the day he'd taken on the position more than three hundred years ago.

"Hasn't she?" DJ asked, drawing Victor's attention back to the conversation taking place around him.

When Alessandro shook his head, Victor frowned and glanced toward the upper windows of the house. The lights at Elvi's end of the house had come on a good hour ago. From the brief few moments he and the others had been in her room earlier that night, he thought it was the window in her bathroom. It was still on, he saw now.

He opened his mouth to suggest the man try knocking on Elvi's sunroom door, then closed it again and stood. If anyone was going to bother her in her bedroom, it was going to be him, besides, now was as good a time as any for him to get to the bottom of her turning.

"I'll see to it," he murmured, moving away from the fire.

Elvi had left the sunroom door open when she'd entered earlier, only the screen door was closed and it wasn't locked. Victor peered through the screen to the open door between it and the bedroom, frowning when he saw that the room was in darkness.

Raising a hand, he tapped lightly at the door, waited, then tapped a little louder. When there was no answer after a third knock, Victor hesitated, then slid into the sunroom. She obviously wasn't in her room. He'd just slip through her room, go down and unlock the kitchen door, then find her and have the talk he knew he needed to have with her.

Victor was halfway through her room, heading for the door to the hall when a door on his right suddenly opened. His feet froze guiltily and his head whipped toward the sound.

Elvi was coming out of the bathroom, wet hair slicked back from her face and wearing only a towel. A very small towel.

Victor swallowed heavily, all thoughts of talk slipping from his mind as his gaze traveled over every inch of exposed flesh. He started at the top, his eyes dancing over her shoulders, arms, and chest above the towel, before dropping down to slide lovingly over the legs visible beneath. It was short enough to reveal calves, knees, and a good three-quarters of her thighs.

His devoted exploration was interrupted when Elvi apparently spotted him, stopped short, dropped a small bundle she was carrying and let loose a little, startled shriek.

"It's okay," Victor said quickly. "I was just passing through. You forgot to unlock the door downstairs. I knocked, but there was no answer, so I thought I'd just slip through your room to do it."

"Oh," Elvi breathed her shoulders relaxing. "I—You startled me. I didn't expect…" Her voice trailed away and she glanced down at the bundle she'd dropped. Clutching at her towel with one hand, she bent to retrieve the bundle with the other, but something slipped free and wafted back to the floor as she straightened. Victor moved forward at once.

"Here, let me get that." He knelt to pick up the bit of silk, his brain slow to realize they were red silk panties. Recognizing that, he started to raise his face to glance at her apologetically, but his eyes got caught on her naked legs. They were lovely. Pale, but perfect. And there was a drop of water she'd missed while drying. It was at the top inside of her knee and he had the sudden, crazy urge to lean forward and catch it with his tongue.

A small sound from Elvi dragged him back to his senses, and Victor forced himself upright. He held the bit of cloth between them. "Your… er…"

Flushing, Elvi took the panties from him, murmuring, "Thank you. I'm sorry I forgot to unlock the door."

"Yes," Victor mumbled, his eyes locked on her lips. There was another drop of water just there in the center of her lower lip. It seemed to be taunting him, daring him to capture her lower lip between both of his and suck off the drop.

Her expression was confused and uncertain, but he could also hear her heartbeat and knew it was racing in response to his nearness. As was his own, he realized.

"Victor?" His name was barely a breath of sound, but it was enough to send the water droplet tumbling forward. Before it could roll off, Victor swooped forward, closing his mouth over her lower lip and drawing on it gently, capturing the drop and taking it into his mouth.

Elvi drew in a small gasp of surprise and Victor took full advantage. Shifting, he covered both her lips, allowing his tongue to fill the space between. She tasted sweet and smelled of vanilla, the aroma of home-baked cookies. Victor had an urge to eat her up. It was a reaction he hadn't had since his wife had died and was impossible for him to ignore. Giving into it, he used his tongue to urge her mouth further open, slid one hand up to her head to tilt it, then deepened the kiss even as his other hand slid around her waist to flatten against her lower spine and urge her body forward.

Elvi moaned into his mouth, her own hands creeping to his arms and clutching as he let the hand at her back drift down to the edge of the towel and slip beneath to close over one firm cheek of her behind.

It was the stomp of feet on the stairs leading to the deck that made him stop. Breaking the kiss, Victor glanced toward the open door to the sunroom, cursing himself for not closing it. He released Elvi with an apology and stepped away, pausing abruptly and bending to catch at her towel as it began to drift to the floor. When his hand closed over it, he found his face directly in front of one round breast, it's nipple a puckered rose.

Victor closed his eyes briefly against the temptation, then forced himself upward and wrapped the towel around her. He then placed her hand over it, turned her toward the bathroom and gave her a gentle push back into the room as someone knocked at the sunroom door.

"I'll get that," he murmured, pulling the bathroom door closed behind her. Then Victor took a moment to run his fingers through his hair, gave his head a shake to get it working again, and moved into the sunroom.

Chapter Eleven

"Sorry," DJ said when Victor opened the door. "We were starting to get worried. First Elvi went to unlock the door and didn't return, and then you went with the same result. We thought maybe something was wrong."

Alessandro nodded from his position on the step below DJ.

"No. Nothing wrong," Victor assured them. "Elvi just forgot and went to take a bath."

"Ah," DJ murmured, and then raised an eyebrow, obviously expecting an explanation for his own failure to unlock it.

Victor ignored the look. He stood there, solid as stone, waiting.

"Alessandro has to use the facilities and I need a bag of blood. I haven't eaten all day," DJ announced when Victor remained silent.

"Oh." Victor hesitated, his gaze moving to the closed bathroom door and then he reluctantly stepped back and gestured them in.

"Thank you," Alessandro said as he slipped out through the bedroom door Victor opened a moment later. "I'll unlock door to kitchen on my way back out."

"Good." Victor nodded, and then glanced to DJ expectantly.

Rather than leave, the man turned a serious look his way and said, "Have you fed today?"

Victor scowled. He wasn't a child to be chased after. Besides, the answer was no. He should have slipped out before cooking when he got up, but he'd wanted to be sure that breakfast was ready when Elvi awoke, so hadn't. He hadn't even thought of feeding since then, though now that DJ mentioned it, his stomach was beginning to cramp.

"You haven't, have you?" DJ's voice was full of the "Ah-ha!" factor. "I thought you looked pale."

"I'll see to it." Victor assured him, though there were other things he wanted to see to first.

DJ nodded. "I'll come with you. I can help keep an eye out and we need to talk anyway."

Victor scowled. He didn't want to feed now. He didn't want to talk now. He wanted Elvi. However, it didn't look like he was going to get what he wanted. DJ was waiting expectantly.

Sighing, he cast one regret-filled glance toward the closed bathroom door, and then stepped out in the hall, pulling the door quietly closed behind him.

"Edward mentioned something about an arrow being shot at you this evening," DJ announced abruptly as they started up the street moments later. He eyed Victor with concern. "What was that all about?"

Victor grimaced and quickly explained what had happened. He also mentioned Elvi's thoughts that it had been an accident, but that if it hadn't been, he had been the most likely target.

"You?" DJ asked with surprise. "Why would she think you were the target?"

Victor turned to the right as they reached Main Street. It was just after two A.M. on a Saturday night, closing time for the bars. The sidewalk was full of people making their way home. Victor's gaze slid predatorily over them as he explained, "She says she's lived in this area her whole life and no one has ever tried to harm her. As the outsider, she thinks I am the more likely victim."

He rolled his eyes at the ridiculous reasoning, but DJ was looking thoughtful.

"Hmm," he said finally.

"Hmm?" Victor echoed with disbelief. "DJ, no one would have any reason to try to kill me."

"Hmm-." DJ didn't look convinced, which actually made Victor take pause.

"What are you thinking?" he asked warily, his steps slowing.

DJ shrugged and released a little breath. "Well, I was thinking that if she's never had any trouble with the people of Port Henry or the surrounding area in the five years since she was turned, then it isn't likely they would try to kill her now."