chapter Seven
"Seamus, could I offer a bit of advice?" Ethan asked, as he glanced through the schedule Seamus had handed him.
"Sure." Seamus lifted the orange cat off his notebook computer and dropped him on the floor. A tuft of fur wafted up and stuck on Seamus's lip. "Damn it." He plucked it off and tossed it in the wastebasket with a grimace. "These cats get into everything. It's like living on Animal Kingdom."
"That ties in with what I'm about to suggest. It seems to me that you and Cara have some issues."
Yeah, like the fact that she couldn't stand him.
"So maybe it would be wise if we found other arrangements for Cara. Just because you turned her doesn't mean she has to live with you."
Seamus felt a tremor of alarm. Maybe things weren't going so hot, but he didn't want Cara to leave. It wasn't safe. And he would miss her.Because he hadn't slept with her yet. "She can't be on her own yet. She doesn't know how to be discreet, she doesn't know our rules. And what if those guys from the alley come back around? These attacks don't make any sense, Ethan. What if she's in danger?"
"Relax. I don't mean leave our protection. I meant we could get her a suite of her own. I think she'd be happier that way."
"I don't want her to have a suite of her own." The very thought offended him. Why the hell couldn't she stay with him? What was so freaking awful about him?
"Look, I can see you're attracted to each other. But I think Cara is still confused and upset that her life has altered drastically. I think she might appreciate the space and the privacy." Ethan nudged the Chihuahua off his pants. "And she'd take her pets with her."
"No," Seamus said. He had no logical reason to say no, but it popped right out of his mouth with no hesitation whatsoever. "She stays with me."
Ethan studied him. "Then you might want to drop the master and servant routine. I don't think she enjoys being told what to do."
He had no idea what Ethan was talking about. He had been nothing but considerate of Cara in the forty-eight hours since he'd met her. He was living with a Chihuahua , for hell's sake. That was pretty freaking accommodating of him. He clicked to open his Internet browser. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Ethan snorted. "I don't think you do. You seem to have no clue you're falling for Cara."
That shocked him speechless. Seamus stared at his computer screen filled with the day's news, the TV lineup for that night, his daily horoscope, and the weather.Las Vegas .Sunny and eighty.
Seamus Fox.Stupid and three hundred seventy.
"I'm not falling for Cara." The minute he spoke the words, he knew he was lying. He was. The control he strove for, clung to, was already slipping away from him.
"Come on, Seamus. Maybe if you just let yourself have a relationship, you might enjoy it."
"I don't want a relationship, and you know why." The very thought of commitment to a woman made him sweat in unpleasant places.
"Because of Marie?"Ethan stood up and tossed the packet of papers onto Seamus's dining room table. "Come on, Fox. It's been two hundred years. Marie lied to you, betrayed you. But she's dead and Cara isn't Marie. You've got to learn to trust another woman sooner or later."
Later worked for him."She didn't just betray me, Ethan. She had me sent to the guillotine. The only thing that saved me was a dull blade." It had gone only halfway through his neck. Assuming he was dead, they had tossed him in a pile of headless corpses, including two of his vampire comrades.
He touched his neck. His scar had never fully healed.
"I know that. I saw you that night afterward. Marie was a bitch. But you shouldn't judge Cara by Marie's betrayal."
"I just met Cara and you're a lousy shrink. Let it drop. We have more important things to worry about, like your campaign, and who the hell wanted me dead in that alley. I should have taken this more seriously. I should have questioned Kelsey more thoroughly."
Ethan just shook his head. "I'm not sure that would have mattered. And I trust you to be thorough, Seamus."
"I'm sorry about Cara," Seamus said, feeling guilt sit in his gut like a stone. "I shouldn't have turned her."
"But you did, and maybe you should ask yourself why. Maybe she's meant to be your mate."
"Marriage has made you obnoxious." Seamus headed to the fridge for a drink. "Not everyone wants your domestic bliss, you know. And I am sorry I ever met Cara in the first place." Maybe if he said it out loud, he'd actually believe it. "She's not happy, and I really don't want her to toss controversy onto your campaign."
"I'm sure it won't be a big deal. We'll just have to make sure her behavior is discreet. Keep her presence a secret."
Seamus had a suddenly horrible thought. "Then why the hell did we let her run off withyour wife? Alexis wouldn't know discreet if it bit her in the ass."
Cara was so relieved to be out of Seamus's apartment, that she would have done anything Alexis suggested for entertainment, whether she wanted to or not. But it was all the better that Alexis had suggested hitting the casino downstairs and gambling a little. They had gone and grabbed Kelsey, who had been reluctant, but wanted the company, and after changing clothes and doing one another's makeup, they had hit the casino floor.
"All I have is ten dollars," Cara said, digging in her purse. "Where is the money machine?" She needed something to distract her, and mindless gambling entertainment sounded like a perfect way to spend the night.
"Oh, we don't have to pay." Alexis scoffed and went up to the box office. "My husband owns this joint. Being married to Ethan has its privileges besides great sex. They can give us loaded cards to use."
"Okay. But if I win, I'll give back the original investment to Ethan." Growing up without a father, her mother dying at twelve, Cara was used to being poor but proud. She didn't like to take handouts.
"Fair enough."
Alexis went up to the box office, one of the two bodyguards trailing after her. The other stood at a discreet distance from Kelsey and Cara. Cara smiled encouragingly at Kelsey. "So, how do you know Ethan and Seamus?"
"I'm Mr. Carrick's secretary. I met him in New York in the sixties when I was a brand-new vampire, and he asked me to come to Vegas with him as his secretary. That's when I met Seamus."
Kelsey darted her eyes around the whole time she was talking, and she crossed her very thin arms over her flat chest. She had long black hair that tumbled over her sharp alabaster cheekbones. "Did you feel that?"
"Feel what?" Cara just felt aware, but content.Neither hot nor cold, nor hungry.Just vampiric .
"That bad feeling.That fingers-on-my-spine feeling.There's someone here."
"There are lots of people here." The floor was packed, despite it being an average Thursday night in September. Time had no relevance in a casino. It could have been any day of the week, any month, any city, morning, noon, or night, and it didn't matter.
"There's someone bad here."
Cara didn't doubt that. If you had that many people in a room, there was bound to be someone nasty in the bunch. "Maybe you're picking up on someone's distress. Maybe someone lost a lot of money or something."
"No." Kelsey locked eyes with her."Never mind." She gave a soft smile. "Seamus likes you a lot, you know."
"He could have fooled me."
"Well, men are stupid."
In that, Cara had to totally agree with Kelsey. Just thinking about how he'd ordered her to his room made her hot all over again.And bad hot, not good hot.
"But you can trust Seamus. He's a good man. He took care of me when I had my accident."
"I'm sure he's responsible." He did what was expected of him, she could clearly see that. She just didn't want to be an obligation to Seamus Fox. She didn't want him to feel sorry for her. She didn't want him to control her life.
Alexis came back up to them, waving cash cards."Where to first?"
"The Wheel of Fortune machine," Kelseysuggested, a spark of something other than fear in her eyes. The slots didn't appeal to
Cara at all, but she felt compassion for Kelsey. She had obviously been through something traumatic and the rest of the vampires at the Ava cared about her, worried about her.
If the slots made Kelsey relax, Cara was all for it.
An hour later, Alexis was grumbling that she'd lost her shirt on the slots. "Well, Ethan's shirt," she said with a grin.
Kelsey was flushed pink in the cheeks and pressing buttons with enthusiasm. "I'm up eighty-seven dollars."
Cara had lost six dollars,then had contented herself with watching the other two. "Do you all mind if I hit the poker table?"
"No." Alexis hopped off her stool. "My ass is numb anyway."
As they walked across the floor, the lights blinking and the machines merrily beeping and chiming, Cara stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and bit her lip. She sensed an ally in Alexis, but she didn't want to put her on the spot.
But she needed help or she was going to go insane. Or murder Seamus. "Alexis, can I ask you something?"
"Anything.I have a little sister that I raised, you know. I can give advice onanything, even shit I know nothing about."
Cara laughed. "I want to know how to get Seamus to toss me out. If I can't leave on my own, and I can't run away, I need to convince him he doesn't want me around. How do I do that?"
She'd been thinking about it while she'd mindlessly pushed slot machine buttons and it seemed to her the only course of action available to her. Being around him was too dangerous to her mental health and sexual stability. But she didn't think she could escape past six bodyguards. A glance back at Mutt and Jeff, as she'd silently named them, convinced her of that fact. They were big guys. They could probably snap a cactus in half and not think twice about it. Add four more like them and she was trapped.
"Annoy him until he doesn't want you around, huh?Very devious. I like it. How to lose a vampire in ten days it just might work." Alexis frowned. "There are a lot of things that annoy Sea- mus.Breaking the rules being number one. Not to mention exhibitionism.Clinging women."
Kelsey shook her head, swiveling her tiny hips as she walked in three inch heels. "He doesn't like clinging women, but he won't send you away for that. Like me. I drive him crazy, but he would never send me away. He takes care of me."
That seemed remarkably astute.
"Yikes, she's right," Alexis said with a grin. "Okay, so what is it you think Seamus likes about you?Because he obviously likes you."
Cara gave that a moment's thought. It wasn't hard to figure out. "He thinks I'm a sex goddess. He looks at me and sees a stripper. Sexual fantasy sprung to life. But I'm not a sex goddess at all. I can't even wear a bathing suit in public without feeling self-conscious. I dance only because I can do it behind a screen and pretend there's no one watching me." Except for that impromptu lap dance, which frankly hadn't gone all that well. "He looks at me and thinks sex."
"That makes sense. And it gives me an idea." Alexis stopped walking and glared at the bodyguards when they got too close. They immediately backed up. She dropped her voice down to a whisper. "They're not supposed to listen to my conversations but you never know. So what's the one thing that would really drive Seamus crazy?"
"What?" Cara whispered back.
"Commitment.A permanent relationship with a woman.Scares the shit out of him."
That made two of them. Cara felt a little deflated. "Well, I'm not going to offer him that."
"Why not?He won't take it. If you go all domestic on him, honey this, honey that, did you take out the garbage and why don't you ever buy me flowers he'll have you out so fast your head will spin. Seamus doesn't do commitment.Period."
It made sense. "You may be on to something."
"I'm right. Vampire males are dominating and like to get their way. They're also terrified at the thought of being attached to one woman for eternity. Vampire marriage is forever, you know. It breeds relationship reticence."
"I'll give it some thought." Even pretending to be Seamus's girlfriend scared the blood out of her. What if it backfired and he actuallyliked it? They reached the poker room. "I'm not sure what to do. But first I'm going to win some money."
Seamus was a little confused. Somehow Cara, the feisty exotic dancer, the woman of his fantasies, who had orgasms while feeding from him, had morphed into a walking advertisement forBetter Homes and Undead Gardens .
Opening his front door, he braced himself for what she might have done now. In seven days she'd managed to infuse a startling amount of pink into his apartment, from plump pillows in the living room to fluffy fuchsia towels in his bathroom. The woman wasa meance with Internet access, shopping her way through half a dozen retailers online. Just tonight, after his shower, he'd found pink lint on his bollocks. It was an assault on his manhood. If his soldier friends from the First World War had ever seen him wrapped in pink, they'd have laughed their arses off.
But he couldn't begrudge Cara a few comforts since he was essentially holding her prisoner against her will for her own safety.
Stepping tentatively into the apartment, he spotted Cara up on a footstool. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.
"Oh, good, you're home! I need help with these curtains." She waved a lot of fabric?pink fabric?toward him.
The devil help him, she was putting pink and orange stripped curtains on his windows. "Uh aren't those a little bright?" They were more painful than direct sunlight.
"What?" She looked puzzled. "They're cheerful.Day colors. Raspberry and orange crush."
"Well." Seamus threw his wallet on the dining room table, trying to find a tactful way to say those were the most godawful curtains he'd ever seen. Then he decided he wasn't known for his tact. "Cara, I don't like those curtains."
Her eyes went wide, limpid pools swimming with hurt. "I'm just trying to make thingsmore cozy ."
"I understand. I appreciate your effort, honestly. But can't you make things cozy with curtains that aren't ugly?" And what was the matter with his desk? Everything looked rearranged.
"You don't think I have any taste." She flounced down off the footstool, hiking up her oversized sweatpants.
Seamus hated those sweatpants. They hid every inch of her body. For the last few days, she'd worn nothing but giant sweatpants and loose T-shirts. It was starting to irritate him. He sighed and reached for the pile of mail on the table, which had been tucked into a goddamn pink letter organizer.
"I never said you don't have taste." Everything he said lately was wrong.Just completely wrong. He could say snakes slithered and she'd take it as a personal insult. The only time she wasn't pouting was when she was feeding. But even then she wouldn't let him touch her anymore. It was like it was like they weremarried .
God, it was as horrible as he'd always imagined. No sex and nagging twenty-four/seven.
"You implied it." She defiantly shoved the curtain onto the rod she lifted up. "Did you remember to pick up the dog food?"
Shit. "No."
She made that sound, that pissy disapproval sound that said she was so unfortunate to be saddled with an unhelpful asshole like him. It was amazing she could convey all of that with one tiny sound through tightly pursed lips, but she managed it. Even though she'd mastered the technique of closing her thoughts to him, he didn't need to hear her thoughts to know she was pissed off at him.
"I guess I'll just run out tomorrow night then and get it myself. Fritz is on the verge of starvation."
Fritz was ten pounds overweight and sleeping on the couch at the moment, gut sagging toward the floor. "I'll get it tomorrow. Sorry I forgot." Seamus went to reach for a pen to writehimself a reminder note and discovered all his writing utensils had been deposited into a hot pink, swirly container with a fluffy pink feather glued to the front. "What the hell is this? I can't find a damn thing!"
"That's because I organized everything for you. Once you get used to the system, you'll see it's so much more efficient."
Seamus supposed this was his fault. He had said no togiving Cara a suite of her own. He could be all alone in his bachelor contentment if he hadn't been stubborn. But he didn't want that.Despite the pink fuzzies on his man parts. He wanted Cara.In bed and out. Only she seemed to have lost any sexual interest in him, even while feeding.
If Ethan found out Seamus was guzzling twice his normal blood allotment for the sole purpose of self-feeding Cara, he was going to hit the roof. And blow right through it.
Cara seemed to take it as a matter of course that he was supposed to feed her. Only once had she asked how he ate, and he had told her the truth?from a refrigerated blood bag. She'd tried it twice, drinking a whole bag, before crinkling her nose. "I like it warm," she'd said.
Yeah, so didhe .
"More efficient.Perfect." What would be perfect would be if she'd take off her clothes and let him spread her out on this table next to the fuzzy pen holder.
Maybe he should try again. Make another move, and let her know he wanted her desperately.Had the erection to prove it. She had been interested that night of the aborted lap dance, he was sure of it.
"Cara " He snapped the pen in his hand in half. Damn, he was so pent up and confused and off-kilter. He had no clue what he was doing. "Cara "
"Can you take out the garbage?" she asked as she clicked the rod and the hideous vomit-inducing curtains onto the wall.
"What?" Between his lust and the blinding pink and orange, he'd had a hallucinogenic moment and hadn't heard what she'd said.
"Take out the garbage, please. It's full."
No, he'd heard that. He'd just assumed he had misheard because he didn't give two shits about the garbage. He was horny, damn it. "Sure, I can take out the garbage."
"Oh, and when I was ordering the new comforter online for the bedroom, I noticed you have very boring checks to pay your bills. So I ordered you fun new ones. Betty Boop . They're adorable."
Seamus dropped the pen shards.Took a deep breath. It didn't matter if his name was printed on the same piece of paper as a cartoon bimbo.Really. It didn't. It's not like the opposition was going to get ahold of them. Oh, bloody hell. What if their political opponents got ahold of them? And why was she picking through his financial papers? Seamus rubbed his forehead.
"You know what? I'm going to bed."Come with me, come with me , he projected. If he could just get Cara out of her clothes, it would make the curtains seem so much less horrible, he was sure.
"I'll come with you," she said. "Hanging these was harder than I thought."
And he'd just stood there and watched her finish the job. Nice. He went to her, took her hand.Lied through his teeth. "It looks good. Cheerful."
"You think so?"
No. "Yes.Definitely."
She leaned against his arm. "Thanks. It makes it so much easier to be a prisoner knowing I can decorate."
Was that guilt stabbing right through his heart?
"Just a little while longer, Cara, I promise.Until we figure out a few things."
"What things?"
"Don't worry about it." He didn't know where to start, and didn't want to scare her. "And you know a lot more now about vampires than you did a week ago."
"I know all about the laws, all about Ethan's political platform, all about half-blood vampires, but I don't know anything about you."
Cara had told him about her family, about her father leaving, her mother dying, and he felt compassion that her life hadn't been an easy one. But what was there to say abouthimself ? His mortal family had only been his father, and he could barely even remember what his father looked like. "Yes, you do know about me.Irish farmer.Told you that." Seamus tugged her hand so they headed toward the bedroom. He didn't want to talk about himself. He wanted to take Cara to bed.
"What I don't know is who she was."
Seamus stopped walking. "What do you mean?"
"The woman who hurt you."
His fists clenched involuntarily and he squeezed Cara's hand. Was she reading his mind? He could have sworn all his thoughts had been closed to her. "I don't know what you're talking about. There was no woman."
"There had to be someone because you hold back."
This is where he really had no clue what women wanted. "Hold back?" She was the one who had nixed sex. "Come on, Cara, let's not do this. We're getting along here, things are fine. We were total strangers ten days ago and now we're living together and it's working out just fine. Don't make things complicated."
She studied him for a second,then shrugged. "Okay. Sorry."
Well, that was very unsatisfying. Seamus tugged off his shirt and pitched it toward the laundry hamper in his closet. It fell on the floor and he ignored it. He shucked his pants and went in to the bathroom in his boxers and brushed his teeth. When he came back into the room, Cara had picked up his clothes and deposited them in the hamper. She brushed past him into the bathroom, still wearing those damn sweatpants.
He got into bed, punched his pillow six or eight times, and flopped back. Something was wrong here, only he didn't know what it was. Fritz jumped up on the bed, turned three times, and lay down right next to Seamus.Right where he'd prefer Cara to lie.
"Get down, dog," he said in annoyance.
Fritz ignored him and stretched out his snout so that wet nose was touching the back of Seamus's shoulders. Seamus scooted over to the edge of the mattress to get away from the slimy touch. From the floor, Satan gave a frantic orchestra of yips and whines.
"What?" Seamus stared at him, willing him to lie down and die. It didn't work. Satan just turned up the volume.
"What's the matter with Mr. Spock?" Cara called from the bathroom.
"He wants on the bed."
"Can you pick him up, Seamus? He hates being left out."
Seamus counted to three.Thought about taking yoga. Decided it would be better to take up boxing. "Sure." Leaning over, he grabbed the fat Chihuahua with one hand and hauled him straight up. "It's not because I like you," he told Satan. "It's because I like Cara."
Satan wiggled free, scrambled over Fritz's back, and settled on Cara's pillow.Served her right. Seamus rolled onto his back.
One of the cats leaped onto the foot of the bed and sat on his right foot, crushing it. Seamus yanked his foot out from under cat ass. "Damn it."
The cat took advantage of the newfound space and curled up into a ball where Seamus's foot had been. Seamus turned on his side. The black cat jumped on the bed right where Seamus's face was." Argh." He turned, but so did thecat, and he wound up with a furry tail in his mouth.
He pushed the cat's rump down until it lay on the sliver of bed between Seamus and the nightstand. "Stay."
Feeling squished and pissedoff, Seamus flipped onto his back and watched Cara come out of the bathroom.Still wearing sweats.Still wearing a T-shirt, though it was a different one.An even baggier one.
" Aahhh, look how cute you all look," she said. "Where's Button? Button! Come here, baby."
The other Lab bounded into the room and leaped onto the bed. Cara slid in behind him. She lifted the Chihuahua off her pillow and cuddled him against her chest. The chest Seamus wanted to cuddle against.
The Labs grumbled at each other as they nudged and pushed for positioning.
"Cara, I'm not sure the bed is big enough for all these animals."
"Sure it is." She fixed the blankets over herself. "It's cozy and comforting."
Not the words he would have chosen.
"I'm going down to the casino with Kelsey and Alexis again tonight," she said, capping her words off with a yawn.
"That's fine." Even if it scared him, he couldn't see a legitimate reason to say no when she would have a bodyguard with her, and she'd be staying in Ethan's casino.
"I wasn't asking permission."
Seamus rolled his eyes and shifted, causing the black cat to shoot him a look of displeasure. He gritted his fangs."Fine."
It was the only word he could manage, because this was a fine end to a long life. He was a vampire, for hell's sake.Strong.Bloodthirsty.Intelligent.And what else?
Whipped by a woman.Awoman who lived with him, decorated his apartment, ordered him checks, and shared his bed, but who he had not had sex with.
She was silent for a minute. Then, "Do you think we need relationship counseling?"
"No!" He'd rather hack his own head off. And what kind of relationship did she think they had? Besides weird and asexual, that is.
"Well, you'revery closed."
So was she. She'd yet to let him anywhere near her inner thighs in days. "Vampires don't go to counseling."
"Humph," was her opinion on that.
He wished he could read her mind and figure out what planet she was coming from, but her thoughts were shuttered.
"Good night," she said after a second.
That made him smile, just a little. "Actually, it's good day."
Brittany Baldizzi was still adjusting to the fact that she was half-vampire and her sister Alexis was now a full vampire, married to the president of the Vampire Nation. It was a big change, some of it a little unnerving. But she did appreciate that she could now call Alexis at all hours of the night.
She leaned her head on the edge of the bathtub to cool her flushed skin, and hit the button for Alexis on her cell phone. Even though Alex couldn't do anything to make the flu go away faster, it would make Brittany feel better to hear her sister's voice. Alexis had raised her when their mother had overdosed, and was Brittany 's rock. Alexis would let her whine about how lousy she felt.
Actually, Alexis would probably come over and wipe her brow. Help her change her sweaty T-shirt. Tuck her into bed. Get her some ginger ale.All of which sounded very appealing from her hunched-over position on the cold bathroom floor.
She'd never been this sick in her life and it was awful.
Unfortunately, Alexis wasn't answering her cell phone.
When the voice mail came on, Brittany said, "Alex?" in a shaky, hopeful voice. But Alexis didn't pick up.
She dropped the cell phone and let a tear slip out of each eye and roll down her cheeks. She felt really damn awful. Like something had gone inside her intestines and started jackhammering through the interior walls. Not to mention she was light-headed and cold.
But other than her sister, she had no idea who she could call in the middle of the night on a Thursday for some sympathy and Pepto-Bismol.
Corbin popped into her head for some reason.
Brittany sighed and picked at her sweaty shirt, lifting it up and shivering when the cool air hit her wet skin underneath. Even if she knew how to call Corbin, she wouldn't. They didn't have a relationship or anything. He was just a vampire she had met in Ethan's hotel, and he had told her he was a scientist, researching a cure to vampirism. He had asked for a sample of her blood, and somehow, she wasn't really sure exactly how, but their clothes had fallen off and suddenly she'd been having amazing sex with him.But then, nothing. He had zipped on out of her apartment about a minute after he'd pulled it out, which had been fine with her because she'd been mortified at her behavior.
That should have been it.
It shouldn't matter. She really didn't even know him. But it still hurt, just a little, that he'd thought so poorly of either her or her sexual prowess that he hadn't bothered to call or anything.
And he was so cute.With his little Frenchie accent and his gray eyes. Corbin Jean Michel Atelier.
Her stomach cramped convulsively again. She lurched for the toilet and gripped her way through another round of heaves. When she pulled back, shaking, eyes watering, hair in her face, stomach sour, she heard the front door to her apartment open.
Thank God. It was Alex. She must have heard her pitiful voice mail and dashed over. Or somehow with her vampire senses she had detected Brittany 's misery.
"Alex?" she whispered, eyes closed, hand fumbling for a towel to wipe her mouth.
" Brittany ? What is the matter with you?" a voice asked from the doorway.
A voice with a French accent.Oh, shit. Brittany 's eyes flew open. "Corbin?" she asked weakly.
He was standing in the doorway of her tiny bathroom, looking put together and suave in dress pants and a deep blue dress shirt that complemented his fair hair and gray eyes. She hadn't seen him in four weeks, and he looked even cuter than she remembered.
There was no telling what she looked like, and the look of horror on his face wasn't encouraging.
He strode into the bathroom and bent down in front of her, pushing her hair back off her face and running his eyes over her. "What is wrong, Brittany ?"
"The flu."
"Do you have a fever?" He pressed his cool palm onto her forehead. "It doesn't feel like one to me, but you are clammy. And you vomited, yes?"
"Yes."And forgot to flush the toilet. Mortified, she reached for the handle. He beat her to it and pushed it down forcefully.Lovely.Just lovely. The only man in her adult life she had ever mooned over and he showed up right when she'd puked her guts out. She probably had saliva on her cheek to complement the sweat-soaked sticking-up hair.
But he startled her by reaching out and lifting her into his arms. "Corbin! Stop, I'm all gross."
"Hush, Brittany . I'm taking you to bed."
Despite her queasy stomach, his word choice made her blush, remembering the last time they'd been in her bed. His grip tightened on her. He felt good.Strong.Solid. She indulged in leaning against him, appreciating the fact that she wasn't alone. Her sister Alexis was the strong one, who liked solitude. Brittany craved company.
With one arm, he pulled back her white and pink bedsheets and deposited her gently on the bed. Brittany sighed in relief. The bed felt good to her sick body. Then he turned and rummaged through her dresser.
"What are you looking for?"
He came back to the bed with a T-shirt in his hand."Getting you a fresh change of clothing. Your shirt is soaked."
It was also making her shiver. She held her hand out for the clean shirt. "Thanks."
But he didn't give it to her. Instead, he dropped it on the bed, grabbed the hem of the shirt she was wearing, and yanked it up.
"Corbin!" she shrieked. Hello. She wasn't wearing a bra. Before she even finished squawking out his name, he had the shirt completely off her. She was naked except for soft cotton sleep shorts.
Naked with Corbin and the flu.It was a cruel irony.
"I am not going to ravish you," he said in an offended tone, his French accent increasing. "I am a doctor, if you recall. I am trying to help."
She knew that. But it didn't make her feel any less of a doofus . She wanted to turn him on, not puke on him. "I know." Her arm sort of slid across her chest to cover her breasts. It was just too weird to be half-dressed. "Thank you."
He watched the arm movement. A small smile crossed his face as he bunched up the new T-shirt. "You do not need modesty around me."
Brittany didn't answer as he tugged the top on over her head. She helped get it down over her chest and then sank back into the pillow, exhausted. He got her a glass of water and a wet washcloth to wipe her face. He pulled the covers over her and patted everything in place. She still felt like hell, but it pleased her to have him cosseting her, taking care of her.
"Why are you here, Corbin?" she asked when he pulled a stray hair off her lip.
Now it was his turn to look embarrassed. He folded his arms and frowned. "I heard your distress so I came."
"You can hear my thoughts?" He had been able to do that before. That was how she had contacted him several times. Before they'd had sex and he'd run off.
"I did no such thing as running off." He looked indignant. "You told me to leave."
That answered her question on his mind-reading capabilities.
Brittany felt herself smiling. He did like her. He had just been embarrassed like she had.That made her feel so much better. "You're right. I did. But thanks for coming tonight."
Her eyes drifted closed. She was so tired all of a sudden.Exhausted.
"You are welcome, cherie ," he whispered. Cool lips pressed against her forehead. "Sleep, Brittany ."
So she did, feeling warm and protected.