Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (24 page)

Raphael’s eyebrow went up, and then he smiled.

I finished my wine and ordered another glass. I am not much of a drinker, and I could almost hear the alcohol fizzing inside my bloodstream. I wanted to see if I could tempt Raphael to lose his composure, the way he’d almost made me lose mine. So I slipped off my right shoe. The tablecloth wasn’t long enough for my nefarious plan, but what the hell. I lifted my spoon and dipped it into the soup. At the same time, I brushed my toes over Raphael’s leg.

He drew in a breath.

I slid my foot under his pants leg and drew a squiggly line on his ankle.

“You are wicked,” he said.

“And depraved,” I said, then slid the spoon into my mouth.

He dabbed a napkin on his upper lip. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“You started it.” Actually, I was a little surprised at myself. I’d never acted inappropriately in a restaurant or any public place; I mean, really. Look at all the trouble I was in. It had to be the wine, right? Yes, definitely. It wasn’t because of my dirty dreams or the memory of that night in Longyearbyen.

I glanced around the restaurant. The middle-aged
women had gone, and a busboy was piling dishes into a plastic tub. I raised the spoon and slowly licked off a thin layer of soup.

Raphael lowered his napkin. “We’re supposed to do a blitz attack on Dr. Walpole tonight. Now, I don’t think I’ll be able to go.”

I withdrew my foot. Raphael looked disappointed. I dipped my spoon into the bowl again, then drew lazy circles in the broth. Then I lifted the spoon and slowly fit it into my mouth. Then I repeated the process.

“Oh, this is so good,” I whispered.

“Caro.” His voice held a desperate edge.

“Yes, darling?” I said sweetly. I lifted my foot, slid it between his thighs, and pressed my sole against his crotch. I felt something hard and thick.

He blinked.

“There’s something sensual about soup,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“There’s an art to eating soup. You have to thrust the spoon into the broth, pushing it all the way into the bowl. Like this.” I demonstrated. “See? You put it in and pull it out.”

The whole time I’d talked, I was kneading his crotch with my toes.

He exhaled so hard, ripples moved across the surface of the soup. Two spots of color bloomed in his cheeks, and a pulse throbbed in his neck.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” I said.

“Make it beat faster.” He slipped his hands under the table and grabbed my ankle. He pulled my foot against him. His lips parted, and a little burst of air came out.

I lowered my spoon, watching his face.

“
Mia cara
, please. I’m begging you. Let’s go upstairs.”

“Raphael, do you want to take me to bed?” I whispered, trying to look innocent.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to make love to me?”

“God,
yes
. Caro, please. I can’t wait…another…second.”

The waiter returned and set down a sizzling platter of buttered prawns. I repressed a smile. Oh, I was going to have fun with the textures and layers of these crustaceans.

The waiter put down Raphael’s plate. “Will there be anything else?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” Raphael said, keeping his hands under the tablecloth. He didn’t speak until the waiter left.

“We should stop,” he said.

“You’re holding my foot. I’m not holding yours.”

His pupils dilated. I knew he was trying to look into my mind.

Okay, this could be entertaining. I took a huge gulp of wine and set down my glass. Then I picked up my fork and scraped it over the prawns. When he slipped into my head, I was ready.

Raphael, I want to feel you inside me. I want you to enter my deepest places. I want to taste you—

I forgot what I was thinking when he wrapped his hand around my foot and began moving his thumb in a circle. He lifted his other hand to his mouth and wet his fingers.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“You’ll see.” He lowered his hand and ran his fingers between my toes.

I barely had time to gasp before the orgasm roared through me. I felt like I’d been hit by a wave, sucked down by a current, water rushing over my thighs and hips and breasts, all of my secret places. Oh, it felt so…

Another wave pulled me under. My pulse crashed in my ears. I gasped. My fork clattered against the table. When it was over, I couldn’t get my breath. Perspiration skidded down my neck.

He was smiling. I’d underestimated him; I’d thought that I could reduce him to a quivering puddle. And just
look
what happened. “You ought to be ashamed,” I said.

“Yes, but I’m not.” He winked.

When we walked into our suite, Vivi had not yet returned. The rooms were dark and empty. Arrapato’s tags rattled as he trotted around us in tight circles, a blue squeak toy gripped in his jaws. As I switched on lamps, I found a note from Vivi. She’d returned to our room and couldn’t find me. She was having dinner with Gillian and Fielding, and the guards were still with them.

I remembered the joy on her face when she’d seen the goats. It didn’t take much to make her happy. She needed more of those moments.

“What happened to you in the restaurant?” Raphael said. “Were you toying with me? Or were you attracted?”

“Both.”

“Mia cara.”
He pulled me into his arms. I leaned against him, brushing my head against his chin. A hot rush moved through me, like a flame burning holes in
paper. A small vestige of sanity took hold.
Don’t do it, Caro
, I warned myself.
He’s not good for me. I’m not good for him. Besides, if Vivi walked in, how would I explain?

He leaned in to kiss me, and I stepped back. “Just don’t. Please.”

“We can get another suite.” He eased forward.

“While you’re at it, get me another life. One without murderers or prophecies.”

He lifted my hair, bunching it around my chin. “Let me take you away from all that. Just for one night.”

Only one? That was the real problem. His fingers threaded in my hair, grazing across my cheek. I could barely draw in a breath. Some part of me knew how it would feel to make love with Raphael, because of that night in Longyearbyen. But my dreams had been explicit and colorful, large and fraught with meaning, like one of my favorite paintings in the Louvre, Veronese’s
Wedding at Cana
. Instead of water into wine, the transformation would be widow into wanton woman.

“That’s a lot of words starting with
W
,
mia cara
,” Raphael said.

“You just can’t stop reading my mind,” I said, straightening his lapel. “Let me spare you the trouble. I’m thinking about more
W
words.
Wail. Withered. Wallis Warfield Simpson Windsor.
”

“I love your mind.” He moved closer. “I’ve been dreaming about you. Vivid dreams. Every night. Something is changing between us. Can’t you feel it?”

Yes, I felt it.

“You’re dreaming about me, too,” he said. I moved back, tilting my head. He’d really been dreaming about
me? Just thinking about that made me tingle. I wanted to finish what we’d started, but not until we were completely alone. I needed to cool the air between us and focus his attention elsewhere.

“I thought of another
W
word,” I said. “
Walpole.
Let’s find him.”

Raphael tucked Arrapato under his jacket, and we walked out of the hotel, into the cool night air, past cafés and shops that blazed with light. Dr. Walpole lived just beyond St. Mauritius Church on Kirchstrasse, so we headed in that direction, trailed by our guard. He was a stocky man, each shoulder the size of a country ham.

As I moved down the crowded Bahnhofstrasse, my plaid bag thumped against my hips. I rarely left it because it contained the things that I needed to control my uncontrollable life. Illegal passports, breath spray, hairpins, pocket calendar, euros.

Then I thought about Vivi. This small separation felt like a huge step. An optimistic one.

Raphael brushed up against me, gripping Arrapato. “It’s chilly tonight. Are you warm?”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the dog. I slid my hand into the pocket of a white down jacket. I’d changed into tight jeans, and I’d tucked the legs into my red boots. Gillian would approve of this outfit. Just thinking about her made me worry. She was taking a huge risk. Even if vampires didn’t attack her, she could be jailed and deported for using an illegal passport.

“Gillian is an attorney,” Raphael said. “She knows the law. And she wants to help us.”

I glanced up at him.

“I know you’re frightened for her. But you cannot control everything and everyone.”

“And you’re a master at sweet-talk.”

He handed Arrapato to the bodyguard, then led me around the back of St. Mauritius Church, toward a black iron fence, and we turned into the Mountaineers’ Cemetery. Flowers lay beneath many of the headstones, and candles flickered in the distance.

I glanced at my watch. The second hand had stopped. I tapped the dial, and the hand swept around once and stopped again.

“Look at these inscriptions,
mia cara
.”

I lifted a strand of hair out of my eyes. This was just like Raphael to deviate from a planned excursion and go on a nighttime cemetery tour. I paused beside a weathered slab. Arthur Emory had died in 1963, while climbing the Weisshorn. Next to him, A.K. Wilson, age twenty-six, had perished on the Riffelhorn in 1865. I walked past a stone that read,
Be Not Afraid
.

My vision blurred. I felt disoriented, as if I’d stepped into a place where time malfunctioned. I wiped my eyes as I walked past a tall gray stone. A red pickax was propped against it, next to a bouquet of white edelweiss blossoms. The epitaph read,
“I Chose to Climb.”

“We all have choices,” Raphael said.

“And every choice has a risk,” I said. “I’m not ready to—”

He silenced me with a kiss. I felt pieces of myself scatter into the chilly night air. The front of my jacket made a whispery sound as I pressed against him. Then he drew back.

“I love you,
mia cara
. But I cannot compete with a ghost.”

I flinched.
Be not afraid.

“I’ve known you fifteen years,” he said. “You and Jude were together five. Give me one night, Caro. Just one. If I don’t please you—”

His voice rang through me, a holy sound like church bells. I shook my head. “Pleasure isn’t the issue. It never was.”

“I want to feel you,” he said. “I want two people in the bed. You and me. Tell me that you want this, too.”

My knees began shaking. “We’re in a graveyard,” I whispered. “Have a little respect.”

“Can you vanquish your ghosts for one night?”

“Not until we talk to Dr. Walpole,” I said.

We walked out of the cemetery. Raphael retrieved Arrapato from the guard and took my hand. We turned into a stucco-and-timber apartment building. The lobby was
furnished with brown nubby sofas, a dusty potted plant, and three security cameras. The air was cold and smelled medicinal. We walked up the stairs to the second floor and walked along a blue-carpeted hall, the guard lagging behind, checking out the security cameras that angled down from the ceiling.

I turned my face away. Raphael stopped in front of a blue door. Off to the side were a blank nameplate and an electronic keypad. Black masking tape covered the doorbell. He tucked Arrapato under his jacket, ignoring the ferocious growls, then knocked.

Behind us, I heard a rustling noise—the sound a pit viper might make if it crawled over a silk blanket. Then I heard a strangled gasp and shoes stamping the carpet.

I turned.

A guy in a hazmat suit held a pistol to our guard’s head. “Hands in the air,” he told us. His voice was muted by a Plexiglas helmet, but I detected a British accent. He was tall and rangy, and a black patch covered one eye. The other one bulged like a hard-boiled egg. His free arm snaked under the guard’s chin.

“Get your hands up. Hurry. Or I’ll cap him.”

The guard lifted his hands. I raised mine, too. Raphael was holding Arrapato, so he could lift only one arm.

“I said both hands, you bloody idiots,” the guy in the hazmat suit yelled. A circle of mist spread inside the Plexi-mask and disappeared. He pushed the gun a little harder against the guard’s temple.

“Raphael can’t raise his other hand,” I said. “He’s holding a dog. Don’t shoot him.”

Arrapato chose that moment to poke his head out of Raphael’s coat, his pale pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

“I’m going to put my dog on the floor,” Raphael said. “I will move slowly.”

“No!” the man yelled. “It might have germs.”

I kept holding my hands in the air, ignoring my tingling fingertips. I was pretty sure we’d found Dr. Walpole. At first, the black patch over his left eye had confused me. Vampires have acute vision, and I’d never seen one wear a patch.

“Please let go of my friend,” I said, nodding at the guard. “You’re choking him. He’s having trouble breathing.”

“Why does your friend have a gun? He’s a guard, isn’t he?” Walpole’s good eye wobbled. “Who the bloody hell are you people?”