A Game of Chess, Ch. 7 (PG-13)
Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:31 pm
Disclaimer: I don't own Josef, or Coraline, or Cynthia. Pretty much, that ought to cover it.
A Game of Chess
Chapter 7
Josef presented himself at the door of Mlle. Duvall’s apartment shortly after dusk, as requested. The building was ornate, the address exclusive. He hadn’t expected to find her in a tenement, but this seemed almost excessively opulent. He wondered if she’d had to have a male relative procure it for her. Not many buildings of this type would lease or sell to a single woman, fearing compromise of their moral tone. Reflecting on their previous meeting, however, he decided he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d simply charmed her way past any obstacles.
The Irish maid who answered the door seemed pale and subdued, her skin milk white beneath a generous dusting of freckles across her nose. Josef knew if he caught her wrist and pushed back the cuff, or pulled down the high collar of her uniform, he’d see traces of her more unusual household duties. Well, Josef reflected, she looked like a sweet little morsel. He wouldn’t blame any vamp for sampling that.
He smiled at her. “Please tell your mistress that Josef Fitzgerald is here to see her.”
“Yes sir,” the maid said, and bobbed a curtsey. “Please to come in.”
Before he could get well through the door, a young woman in a severe black bombazine frock, her hair pulled back smoothly into a bun, appeared. This one, Josef thought, might be very pretty, if she’d ever curve that wide mouth into a smile. He seemed to remember Mlle. Duvall had been accompanied by a blonde shadow at the opera, but he’d caught only a glimpse of her averted face, that night. A paid companion, no doubt, although the breath he took in caused him to suspect that at least part of her pay came in liquid form.
She favored him with a wintry gaze. “Mr. Fitzgerald? Mlle. Duvall is expecting you. Please follow me.”
The apartment was simultaneously not what he’d expected, and exactly what he should have surmised from the brief meeting at the opera. Spacious rooms filled with elegant French Louis Quattorze furniture, all of it genuine, all of it pristine. She probably had it shipped over from the family chateau, he thought. One of them. Families like the one he now suspected she belonged to, usually had multiple chateaux. It was quite a contrast from the new, heavy mahogany in his own house, furniture that could overwhelm any room and beat it into submission. Nothing like being clubbed over the head with a sense of weight and worth.
He was led past a well-appointed parlor, and a dining room. Why would a vampire need a dining table that seated twelve? he wondered. Granted, there were old stories about fetching young girls and handsome boys laid out on tables like edible centerpieces, back in the heyday of the ancien regime, and possibly such things still occurred in Europe, but it seemed an unlikely pastime in the New World. Besides, he’d been in New York for six months, and he’d barely found enough presentable vamps to have a poker game, let alone a formal dinner.
But they weren’t stopping. The companion, or housekeeper, or whatever she was, walked on, her movements quick and silent. Josef hadn’t quite made up his mind about Coraline Duvall, but this vampire companion of hers was dangerous. He knew that much.
She paused before a white, gold-accented door. “You understand that mam’selle is somewhat—Continental—in her habits.”
Josef drew himself up and radiated annoyance at her. She was old, but not as old as he. “Let me assure you, Miss—what is your name?”
“Davis.” There was a pause, and she bit out a grudging, “Sir.”
“Well, then, Miss Davis, you would do well to exercise more courtesy in speaking to your elders. I am not, as you well know, some bumptious fledgling.” He really hated speaking so formally, but he supposed it was good to be able to trot it out when needed.
Her expression went sulky, and she cast her eyes down, refusing to look into his face. “Yes,” she murmured, “I can see that.”
Josef considered exercising the usual reaction between vamps, and throwing her against the wall to prove his point, but it occurred to him the provocation might be quite deliberate.
He wasn’t used to dealing with a vampire as old as Coraline Duvall. He’d run across them, of course, but with every decade that passed he was finding fewer and fewer vamps with anywhere near his own age. So often, vampires seemed to self-destruct about the time they hit the century mark. The ones who got past that, persisted, he found. He could remember a few dark times in his own past, perhaps even times when he’d questioned his own desire to go on. On the whole, however, he failed to understand the urge to suicide. As the decades turned into centuries, he found his life enjoyable still. Blood was warm, women were willing, and the money flowed like blood from a tapped vein at his direction. Much as he frowned on war as a shameless waste of blood, economically it was often a godsend. His own ventures had prospered insanely in the face of the current conflict. The trick lay in covering his tracks.
But this was pointless. Coraline Duvall was maybe 150, give or take a few years. And she was waiting while he stood here on the threshold, lost in philosophy. He nodded to Davis, and she opened the door.
Coraline’s boudoir was a confection, an elaborate dream of white and pale blue, ruffles and silk brocade, the style of the furniture an echo of the rest of the apartment. Most of the chairs appeared so fragile a harsh look would shatter them, and the ornaments scattered around the room were similarly delicate.
The vampire herself nestled within the room, a dark jewel in this exquisite setting, a vivid hothouse bloom in a crystal vase. She sat before a dressing table crowded with vials of cosmetics and scent, staring into a triple mirror, a powder puff in one hand poised to apply a dusting of fine, pale powder to her flawless décolletage.
Continental, indeed, Josef thought, surveying her attire. She’d chosen to receive him while she finished dressing for the evening, and although her corsets were on, and laced, the long stockings carefully smoothed over her shapely legs, she wore only a frilled, diaphanous dressing gown over the extensive undergarments. She had one foot stretched to the side, showing off the exquisite curve of calf and thigh. He wondered how long he’d kept her holding the pose.
Josef had to admit, it was a very nicely set up display. He could imagine the effect it would have on a proper young American businessman like Cam Marshall. Intoxicating, to say the least.
When she saw, or decided to admit seeing, Josef in the doorway, she gave a last pat to her chest with the powder puff, then deposited it carelessly back into the feminine litter of items on the table, turning to cock her head to one side and smile prettily at him.
“Mademoiselle Duvall,” he said, inclining his head to her. “Devastating, as I expected.” Damned if she was going to sense any surprise from him at seeing her in dishabille. He could feel the dislike radiating from the companion beside him.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, I’m so pleased to see you,” she said, adding in a sharper tone, “Cynthia, why does Mr. Fitzgerald still carry his hat and cane? Take them for him, s’il vous plait.”
The woman pressed her lips into a thin line, and held out her hands for the items, wordlessly.
Josef responded with what, as he was well aware, was his most insolent, irritating smile. After handing her his hat, brim up, he stripped off his dove gray gloves as well, and threw them into the crown. Taking his gold-mounted cane, she turned away and left without ceremony.
“Cynthia is a treasure, but she can be a bit…protective,” Coraline said.
“She’s been with you a long time?”
“We were mortal girls together.” Coraline sighed. “It’s a sad story. Her foolish, profligate father sent her to be raised in a French convent, and when he died, penniless, she had to go into service. We’d got on well, at school, and my family thought I needed a suitably raised servant…so there you are. We were turned the same night. It’s a bond.”
“How charmingly quaint, Mlle Duvall.”
She dimpled a smile. “Mr. Fitzgerald. Surely, the two of us having such—similar natures—need not stand on formality? You must call me Coraline.”
He nodded assent. “I should think a lady of your obvious upbringing would favor the older forms of etiquette.”
Her mask slipped for a moment, displaying naked pain, and she said sharply, “You know nothing of my upbringing, Josef.” Then she blinked, and the practiced coquette was back.
Probably not, my lady, Josef thought, but you just told me volumes.
“But where are my vaunted manners?” Coraline rose and moved toward a bell pull. “May I offer you a drink? Cognac? Blood?”
Josef shook his head. “Thank you, no. I dined recently.” He could still taste sweet Tessa’s blood in his mouth. That was another problem, but not one he needed to give thought to, now.
“Pity,” Coraline pouted. “I have a vintage I’d love your opinion on.”
“Next time, I’ll come hungry.”
“Ah, but you see, you are promising me a next time, Josef.” She pronounced his name with an enchanting French lilt.
“It’s funny, but I’ve not run into many of our kind here in the city,” Josef said, ready to turn the conversation to other, more fruitful, topics.
Coraline acknowledged the shift with a nod, sinking onto a chaise longue with feline grace, the frothy lace of her negligee draping tantalizingly over her long legs. “Well, we are both newcomers here. Perhaps the residents wait for us to prove ourselves, or misstep, before they show their faces to us.”
“That’s not how it works. Usually.”
Coraline gave a Gallic shrug. “Ah, well, better hunting for us, then.”
Josef twisted his mouth. “I haven’t considered it hunting for some time now. More like harvesting.”
“But farming—oh, the ennui of it. Don’t you wish to pursue? To capture? To destroy?” He could see the barest tip of extending fangs, as she thought about it.
“To do it all over again the next night? And the next? And the next?” He feigned a yawn, politely covered with one hand. “Tedium abounds.”
She gave an airy wave. “In any event, we are spoiled for choice, n’est ce pas?”
Josef lifted his eyebrows and quirked an appreciative smile. “I can’t argue that.” He paused. “So you didn’t ask me to pay a call on you, just to discuss food.”
She regarded him silently for a long moment, her dark eyes languid. It was one of those looks that seemed to promise unspeakable pleasures. Josef knew it was an act, but he had to admit it was a damn fine one. Tempting. “It’s always good to establish friendly relations, in the community,” she said. “Especially for a woman. You understand.”
Josef understood, all right. He was a long ways past the time when he’d consider a vampire, male or female, well over 100 years old, defenseless. Appearances weren’t the only thing that were deceiving. “Naturally,” he replied.
“And when I can find a man as powerful, and as attractive, as you, Josef…well. You can see why I’d be eager to combine forces.”
Josef thought he could almost see the silky strands of spiderweb floating in the perfumed air. His sense of a spinning net of entrapment was virtually tangible, and he had to fight the urge to claw his way free.
He had experience, of course, with vampire lovers. And he had to admit their dangerous charms were seductive; the freedom of abandoned sensuality had drawn him in time and time again, especially since he’d passed the 200 year mark. He had to remind himself of that desperate and pathetic human conference, the one where he had promised, if he could be forgiven a slight mixing of mythological metaphors, to attempt to extract Cam Marshall from the lure of the siren song of what Honoria Marshall would deem the worst kind of harpy.
“The two of us, against the world?” he asked.
Coraline preened, stretching sensuously against the velvet upholstery of the chaise. “It certainly could be.”
“But I’m forgetting your estimable companion.”
“Cynthia?” Coraline licked her lips, and her smile took on a softer mystery. “Josef, you are adventurous. Cynthia has been with me—in all things—in the past. And will be in the future, I’m sure.” Her eyes were half-lidded, and there was no mistaking her intent. Josef decided to push a little harder.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but the prospect is certainly intriguing. Miss Davis strikes me as a spirit that might be difficult to—master. Although there are certainly pleasures to be had in that direction, as well.”
Coraline laughed, wetting her red lips again. “I think we understand each other, Josef.”
He made a slight bow from where he sat. All too well, he thought. “But haven’t you snared a mortal pet or two? It’s customary to seal a deal with a drink from a shared chalice.”
Coraline narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Pets?”
Josef rose and closed the distance between them in three long strides. As she looked up at him, he reached out to caress her cheek with one practiced hand. “Your little conquest from the opera would do nicely. Or don’t you have that boy seduced to the bite?”
“Cam?” She shifted her eyes away, and spoke with a lightness that seemed forced. “He’s a diversion. I want him to beg me for the feel of my fangs. And he’s not there, yet.” She smiled, the predator contemplating a tasty morsel of prey. “Not quite.”
“Really?”
Coraline sighed. “He’s fighting it, Josef. Some ridiculously misplaced loyalty to that little mouse of a human wife. But he’ll come to it. They always do.”
“We’ll take the thought for the deed, then. For now.” He began to pace the room, feigning restlessness. All right, not entirely feigning. He was restless, thinking about a dozen worries. You’d think, being immortal, taking the long view, that things would gain a certain perspective. But every time he turned around, new situations and new circumstances cropped up. He paused in his circuit, staring abstractedly at Coraline’s dressing table. The paints and powders, the implements of feminine entrapment. He was fairly sure that Tessa’s dressing table held little such business, and he’d take a bet that Mrs. Cam didn’t paint, either. He wondered, suddenly, what her name was. She’d never been referred to in his presence, except in her wifely capacity. He supposed she had to have a name, though. “Poor little Mrs. Cam,” Josef remarked, almost to himself. “So neglected.”
Coraline raised an eyebrow. “If you fancy her, we could take them together. Four together can be so delicious. Imagine, Josef…he can hold her, kiss her, and behind them on either side, we can feed. Very sensual. Very…stimulating, for all.”
Josef smiled pleasantly, to take the sting out of his words. “You French,” he said, “you always think you invented sex.”
“Not invented, Josef dear,” she returned with a purr. “Merely…perfected.”
Josef gave an amused but disbelieving snort, and resumed his pacing. Lost in thought, he didn’t register the movement behind him, until Coraline slipped both hands around his waist. “I hope you don’t think me overly forward, Josef, but…well. Here we are.”
He turned in her loose embrace, and put a hand up under her jaw. He turned her head to one side, then the other, his fingers tightening on her neck, a little more cruelly than she expected. His touch was so insolent, that in response her eyes flickered to silver, and the points of her fangs extended with such force that her lower lip was sliced open, a drop of bright red welling instantly to trickle down her chin even as the wound closed. Josef brought his face close to hers, feeling her hands ball into fists at his waist.
“Oh, not yet,” he breathed, as his tongue snaked out to lick away the fresh blood from her cool mouth. “Not…yet.”
A Game of Chess
Chapter 7
Josef presented himself at the door of Mlle. Duvall’s apartment shortly after dusk, as requested. The building was ornate, the address exclusive. He hadn’t expected to find her in a tenement, but this seemed almost excessively opulent. He wondered if she’d had to have a male relative procure it for her. Not many buildings of this type would lease or sell to a single woman, fearing compromise of their moral tone. Reflecting on their previous meeting, however, he decided he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d simply charmed her way past any obstacles.
The Irish maid who answered the door seemed pale and subdued, her skin milk white beneath a generous dusting of freckles across her nose. Josef knew if he caught her wrist and pushed back the cuff, or pulled down the high collar of her uniform, he’d see traces of her more unusual household duties. Well, Josef reflected, she looked like a sweet little morsel. He wouldn’t blame any vamp for sampling that.
He smiled at her. “Please tell your mistress that Josef Fitzgerald is here to see her.”
“Yes sir,” the maid said, and bobbed a curtsey. “Please to come in.”
Before he could get well through the door, a young woman in a severe black bombazine frock, her hair pulled back smoothly into a bun, appeared. This one, Josef thought, might be very pretty, if she’d ever curve that wide mouth into a smile. He seemed to remember Mlle. Duvall had been accompanied by a blonde shadow at the opera, but he’d caught only a glimpse of her averted face, that night. A paid companion, no doubt, although the breath he took in caused him to suspect that at least part of her pay came in liquid form.
She favored him with a wintry gaze. “Mr. Fitzgerald? Mlle. Duvall is expecting you. Please follow me.”
The apartment was simultaneously not what he’d expected, and exactly what he should have surmised from the brief meeting at the opera. Spacious rooms filled with elegant French Louis Quattorze furniture, all of it genuine, all of it pristine. She probably had it shipped over from the family chateau, he thought. One of them. Families like the one he now suspected she belonged to, usually had multiple chateaux. It was quite a contrast from the new, heavy mahogany in his own house, furniture that could overwhelm any room and beat it into submission. Nothing like being clubbed over the head with a sense of weight and worth.
He was led past a well-appointed parlor, and a dining room. Why would a vampire need a dining table that seated twelve? he wondered. Granted, there were old stories about fetching young girls and handsome boys laid out on tables like edible centerpieces, back in the heyday of the ancien regime, and possibly such things still occurred in Europe, but it seemed an unlikely pastime in the New World. Besides, he’d been in New York for six months, and he’d barely found enough presentable vamps to have a poker game, let alone a formal dinner.
But they weren’t stopping. The companion, or housekeeper, or whatever she was, walked on, her movements quick and silent. Josef hadn’t quite made up his mind about Coraline Duvall, but this vampire companion of hers was dangerous. He knew that much.
She paused before a white, gold-accented door. “You understand that mam’selle is somewhat—Continental—in her habits.”
Josef drew himself up and radiated annoyance at her. She was old, but not as old as he. “Let me assure you, Miss—what is your name?”
“Davis.” There was a pause, and she bit out a grudging, “Sir.”
“Well, then, Miss Davis, you would do well to exercise more courtesy in speaking to your elders. I am not, as you well know, some bumptious fledgling.” He really hated speaking so formally, but he supposed it was good to be able to trot it out when needed.
Her expression went sulky, and she cast her eyes down, refusing to look into his face. “Yes,” she murmured, “I can see that.”
Josef considered exercising the usual reaction between vamps, and throwing her against the wall to prove his point, but it occurred to him the provocation might be quite deliberate.
He wasn’t used to dealing with a vampire as old as Coraline Duvall. He’d run across them, of course, but with every decade that passed he was finding fewer and fewer vamps with anywhere near his own age. So often, vampires seemed to self-destruct about the time they hit the century mark. The ones who got past that, persisted, he found. He could remember a few dark times in his own past, perhaps even times when he’d questioned his own desire to go on. On the whole, however, he failed to understand the urge to suicide. As the decades turned into centuries, he found his life enjoyable still. Blood was warm, women were willing, and the money flowed like blood from a tapped vein at his direction. Much as he frowned on war as a shameless waste of blood, economically it was often a godsend. His own ventures had prospered insanely in the face of the current conflict. The trick lay in covering his tracks.
But this was pointless. Coraline Duvall was maybe 150, give or take a few years. And she was waiting while he stood here on the threshold, lost in philosophy. He nodded to Davis, and she opened the door.
Coraline’s boudoir was a confection, an elaborate dream of white and pale blue, ruffles and silk brocade, the style of the furniture an echo of the rest of the apartment. Most of the chairs appeared so fragile a harsh look would shatter them, and the ornaments scattered around the room were similarly delicate.
The vampire herself nestled within the room, a dark jewel in this exquisite setting, a vivid hothouse bloom in a crystal vase. She sat before a dressing table crowded with vials of cosmetics and scent, staring into a triple mirror, a powder puff in one hand poised to apply a dusting of fine, pale powder to her flawless décolletage.
Continental, indeed, Josef thought, surveying her attire. She’d chosen to receive him while she finished dressing for the evening, and although her corsets were on, and laced, the long stockings carefully smoothed over her shapely legs, she wore only a frilled, diaphanous dressing gown over the extensive undergarments. She had one foot stretched to the side, showing off the exquisite curve of calf and thigh. He wondered how long he’d kept her holding the pose.
Josef had to admit, it was a very nicely set up display. He could imagine the effect it would have on a proper young American businessman like Cam Marshall. Intoxicating, to say the least.
When she saw, or decided to admit seeing, Josef in the doorway, she gave a last pat to her chest with the powder puff, then deposited it carelessly back into the feminine litter of items on the table, turning to cock her head to one side and smile prettily at him.
“Mademoiselle Duvall,” he said, inclining his head to her. “Devastating, as I expected.” Damned if she was going to sense any surprise from him at seeing her in dishabille. He could feel the dislike radiating from the companion beside him.
“Mr. Fitzgerald, I’m so pleased to see you,” she said, adding in a sharper tone, “Cynthia, why does Mr. Fitzgerald still carry his hat and cane? Take them for him, s’il vous plait.”
The woman pressed her lips into a thin line, and held out her hands for the items, wordlessly.
Josef responded with what, as he was well aware, was his most insolent, irritating smile. After handing her his hat, brim up, he stripped off his dove gray gloves as well, and threw them into the crown. Taking his gold-mounted cane, she turned away and left without ceremony.
“Cynthia is a treasure, but she can be a bit…protective,” Coraline said.
“She’s been with you a long time?”
“We were mortal girls together.” Coraline sighed. “It’s a sad story. Her foolish, profligate father sent her to be raised in a French convent, and when he died, penniless, she had to go into service. We’d got on well, at school, and my family thought I needed a suitably raised servant…so there you are. We were turned the same night. It’s a bond.”
“How charmingly quaint, Mlle Duvall.”
She dimpled a smile. “Mr. Fitzgerald. Surely, the two of us having such—similar natures—need not stand on formality? You must call me Coraline.”
He nodded assent. “I should think a lady of your obvious upbringing would favor the older forms of etiquette.”
Her mask slipped for a moment, displaying naked pain, and she said sharply, “You know nothing of my upbringing, Josef.” Then she blinked, and the practiced coquette was back.
Probably not, my lady, Josef thought, but you just told me volumes.
“But where are my vaunted manners?” Coraline rose and moved toward a bell pull. “May I offer you a drink? Cognac? Blood?”
Josef shook his head. “Thank you, no. I dined recently.” He could still taste sweet Tessa’s blood in his mouth. That was another problem, but not one he needed to give thought to, now.
“Pity,” Coraline pouted. “I have a vintage I’d love your opinion on.”
“Next time, I’ll come hungry.”
“Ah, but you see, you are promising me a next time, Josef.” She pronounced his name with an enchanting French lilt.
“It’s funny, but I’ve not run into many of our kind here in the city,” Josef said, ready to turn the conversation to other, more fruitful, topics.
Coraline acknowledged the shift with a nod, sinking onto a chaise longue with feline grace, the frothy lace of her negligee draping tantalizingly over her long legs. “Well, we are both newcomers here. Perhaps the residents wait for us to prove ourselves, or misstep, before they show their faces to us.”
“That’s not how it works. Usually.”
Coraline gave a Gallic shrug. “Ah, well, better hunting for us, then.”
Josef twisted his mouth. “I haven’t considered it hunting for some time now. More like harvesting.”
“But farming—oh, the ennui of it. Don’t you wish to pursue? To capture? To destroy?” He could see the barest tip of extending fangs, as she thought about it.
“To do it all over again the next night? And the next? And the next?” He feigned a yawn, politely covered with one hand. “Tedium abounds.”
She gave an airy wave. “In any event, we are spoiled for choice, n’est ce pas?”
Josef lifted his eyebrows and quirked an appreciative smile. “I can’t argue that.” He paused. “So you didn’t ask me to pay a call on you, just to discuss food.”
She regarded him silently for a long moment, her dark eyes languid. It was one of those looks that seemed to promise unspeakable pleasures. Josef knew it was an act, but he had to admit it was a damn fine one. Tempting. “It’s always good to establish friendly relations, in the community,” she said. “Especially for a woman. You understand.”
Josef understood, all right. He was a long ways past the time when he’d consider a vampire, male or female, well over 100 years old, defenseless. Appearances weren’t the only thing that were deceiving. “Naturally,” he replied.
“And when I can find a man as powerful, and as attractive, as you, Josef…well. You can see why I’d be eager to combine forces.”
Josef thought he could almost see the silky strands of spiderweb floating in the perfumed air. His sense of a spinning net of entrapment was virtually tangible, and he had to fight the urge to claw his way free.
He had experience, of course, with vampire lovers. And he had to admit their dangerous charms were seductive; the freedom of abandoned sensuality had drawn him in time and time again, especially since he’d passed the 200 year mark. He had to remind himself of that desperate and pathetic human conference, the one where he had promised, if he could be forgiven a slight mixing of mythological metaphors, to attempt to extract Cam Marshall from the lure of the siren song of what Honoria Marshall would deem the worst kind of harpy.
“The two of us, against the world?” he asked.
Coraline preened, stretching sensuously against the velvet upholstery of the chaise. “It certainly could be.”
“But I’m forgetting your estimable companion.”
“Cynthia?” Coraline licked her lips, and her smile took on a softer mystery. “Josef, you are adventurous. Cynthia has been with me—in all things—in the past. And will be in the future, I’m sure.” Her eyes were half-lidded, and there was no mistaking her intent. Josef decided to push a little harder.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but the prospect is certainly intriguing. Miss Davis strikes me as a spirit that might be difficult to—master. Although there are certainly pleasures to be had in that direction, as well.”
Coraline laughed, wetting her red lips again. “I think we understand each other, Josef.”
He made a slight bow from where he sat. All too well, he thought. “But haven’t you snared a mortal pet or two? It’s customary to seal a deal with a drink from a shared chalice.”
Coraline narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Pets?”
Josef rose and closed the distance between them in three long strides. As she looked up at him, he reached out to caress her cheek with one practiced hand. “Your little conquest from the opera would do nicely. Or don’t you have that boy seduced to the bite?”
“Cam?” She shifted her eyes away, and spoke with a lightness that seemed forced. “He’s a diversion. I want him to beg me for the feel of my fangs. And he’s not there, yet.” She smiled, the predator contemplating a tasty morsel of prey. “Not quite.”
“Really?”
Coraline sighed. “He’s fighting it, Josef. Some ridiculously misplaced loyalty to that little mouse of a human wife. But he’ll come to it. They always do.”
“We’ll take the thought for the deed, then. For now.” He began to pace the room, feigning restlessness. All right, not entirely feigning. He was restless, thinking about a dozen worries. You’d think, being immortal, taking the long view, that things would gain a certain perspective. But every time he turned around, new situations and new circumstances cropped up. He paused in his circuit, staring abstractedly at Coraline’s dressing table. The paints and powders, the implements of feminine entrapment. He was fairly sure that Tessa’s dressing table held little such business, and he’d take a bet that Mrs. Cam didn’t paint, either. He wondered, suddenly, what her name was. She’d never been referred to in his presence, except in her wifely capacity. He supposed she had to have a name, though. “Poor little Mrs. Cam,” Josef remarked, almost to himself. “So neglected.”
Coraline raised an eyebrow. “If you fancy her, we could take them together. Four together can be so delicious. Imagine, Josef…he can hold her, kiss her, and behind them on either side, we can feed. Very sensual. Very…stimulating, for all.”
Josef smiled pleasantly, to take the sting out of his words. “You French,” he said, “you always think you invented sex.”
“Not invented, Josef dear,” she returned with a purr. “Merely…perfected.”
Josef gave an amused but disbelieving snort, and resumed his pacing. Lost in thought, he didn’t register the movement behind him, until Coraline slipped both hands around his waist. “I hope you don’t think me overly forward, Josef, but…well. Here we are.”
He turned in her loose embrace, and put a hand up under her jaw. He turned her head to one side, then the other, his fingers tightening on her neck, a little more cruelly than she expected. His touch was so insolent, that in response her eyes flickered to silver, and the points of her fangs extended with such force that her lower lip was sliced open, a drop of bright red welling instantly to trickle down her chin even as the wound closed. Josef brought his face close to hers, feeling her hands ball into fists at his waist.
“Oh, not yet,” he breathed, as his tongue snaked out to lick away the fresh blood from her cool mouth. “Not…yet.”