The Gift- Burke's Date

Here is a little something from Santa to Burke...Merry Christmas chere

The Gift

The tall blond emerged steaming from the shower. His usually pale, cool skin was warm and pink as he stepped on the thick copper colored rug. He grabbed a towel and began to dry his lean, muscular form, savoring the sensations of the Egyptian cotton on his skin. He simply dropped the towel on the floor. The house keeper would pick it up later when she came just before he went to his rest with the dawn. He brushed his hair straight back and looked at himself in the mirror. Still steamy, he ran his palm over the steamy glass, sending rivulets of water down the mirror. His lips parted and his fangs ran out with a snick. He smiled at his reflection and with a wrinkle of his lip, they retracted.

He walked naked from the bathroom and directly into his bedroom with its ornately carved bed, something out of a Norse fantasy with entangled animals, vines and lovers carved in careful detail. Across the bottom of his bed was the silk burgundy robe and black pajama bottoms. He slid on the bottoms and then the robe, leaving it open. He padded animal like across the room and walked into the living room.

She was coming to see him, his first visit with her since the trip to Baton Rouge and the Myrtles plantation. He thought about how she was with him, as they walked in the cool damp air of the night, among the overhanging oaks of the drive and the Spanish moss swaying like the silver hair of a Valkyrie. She had shivered in the cool air and he put his leather jacket over her shoulders and then, later, he made her shiver in a more basic way. She was so sweet.

She had presented him with a beautiful poem she'd written him. His eyes had examined the framed piece, carefully hand illuminated by an artist friend of hers. The art was more Celtic in flavoring than Norse, but it was hand drawn and painted and the lettering was beautifully rendered. It looked very like a piece of sacred writ, and because she penned the poem for him, he treated it as such and put in on his mantle with a dark red candle before it. He lit that candle now, so she would see the place of honor he had placed her gift.

“Want thou mine swan song?
Though it means my death, Odin…
For thine kiss, I yield.”

He loved the sentiment, but he would not take her quite that far. He loved her life spark, but he would taste her, a thousand times and each kiss a little deeper. He would make her dizzy, first with the wine he had for her, then.... He turned to the fire and started it with ease and soon the house was warm and fragrant with the wood he was burning. He was thought of as a savage man, a hard man, but there something of the romantic in him as well, not a soft romance, but a fiery one that made demands. Lusty and robust.

She was fiery too, his darling skald, passionate, a little wild, with a wicked, earthy humor he enjoyed. He loved all his lady friends and each was unique. This little darling of his silent heart was a lot like the women he'd known when he was not as he is now. While the sheriff was never one to be playful, she forced him to play, experience the world of total enjoyment. During one of their little counseling sessions, she'd gotten a little drunk and made him teach her vulgar words in his native tongue. And then she used the words in whispers in his ear when they were a little further along, growling the words, making the syllables vibrate against his skin. She nipped and bit him and beat upon his hard chest with her hands as he pulled her down, onto the deer hide rug in front of his fire. She played at resisting him, making herself breathless for him, her heart beating fast, so fast he was as dizzy as if he had been drinking the whiskey himself. He was lost in those pleasurable memories when he heard the knock on the door. He stood up to answer it, walking quickly for the door. He opened the door.

"Dearest...." he said in his thick, throaty voice.