chapter Eight
Brittany studied the vampire in front of her and waited for him to explain why he had flown her up to the roof of Ethan's casino.
It had been quite an experience, zinging through the air so fast she hadn't even been able to see where they were going, or even if they were going up or down. Like the world's fastest roller coaster, or like that blissful moment of wild exaltation right before an orgasm. But he had set her down a solid two minutes ago, and she'd already patted down her flying frizzed hair, crossed her legs on the little chimney he'd set her on, and was ready for him to say something.
He just stood there staring out at the Vegas strip.
"Did you want to speak to me?" she asked, trying to be helpful. Meeting new people was awkward sometimes and she had seen him suck a woman's neck. That probably wasn't a standard introduction.
Just a shrug.He was around the same height as she was, lean.
withcaramel brown hair that was a touch long. Dressed in black pants and a short-sleeve silk shirt, he was stylish, with a European flare that was a little too cosmopolitan for the average guy running around the bowling alley.
Not that she imagined this man had ever played tenpin.
Getting up, she moved to his side and rubbed her arms. The hot desert night felt wonderful up there, like somehow they were higher than the heat, basking in a comfortably warm wind. Brittany breathed in deep, taking in a crisp earthy pull of air, unlike the oppressive atmosphere down on the Strip, with its cocktail of odors?people, food, exhaust fumes.
"There's the Stratosphere.And Excalibur." She pointed out the landmarks, enjoying the view, the magic of a million lights filling the desert sky.
He glanced at her. "Did you grow up here, inLas Vegas ?"
"Yes. My mom was a stripper." She smiled. "Alex would freak if she heard me say that. She wants to pretend we were both hatched. But Mom had her moments."
"Who gave you your vampire blood?" he asked quietly.
"No one." Brittany tried to get him to look at her, but he was still studying the cityscape. "I don't have vampire blood." That she could say for certain. Ethan had never once even tried to bite her, let alone given her blood.
"Who ez your father?"
"I don't know. Some guy my mom had an affair with. I think she met him at the club she was working at."
"Ethan Carrick, he tells you nothing."
It wasn't a question. "If you mean that he's a vampire, no, he hasn''t told me that. I figured it out on my own."
She couldn't take it anymore. Something about this man was so sad, so quiet and intelligent, that she touched his arm. "What's your name? Why don't you go to Ethan's parties?"
Finally he gave her his full attention. "I am Corbin Jean Michel Atelier." He nodded his head.
"You were going to bow, weren't you? But you stopped yourself."
Again he nodded.
"That's cool. You can bow to me if you want." Brittany thought she would really like that, actually.
"It ez out of fashion."
"That's okay. I don't think drinking blood is really fashionable either. So Corbin, what brings you to Vegas, and why won't you answer my questions?"
"I am here because there is nowhere else I want to be."
Well, that was a nothing kind of answer. "Why did you bring me up here?"
"Because you need to understand you cannot talk about my kind when there are mortals around. You must be discreet.That ez all."
"Okay." But there was something else, something bothering him.
"There ez nothing."
"I didn't say anything."
"I heard your thoughts." He tapped her temple with his finger. "You have very loud thoughts and feelings. They spill out of you like sunshine. I hear everything."
And here she'd thought she'd gotten a handle on blocking out vampires. She hoped he couldn't tell she thought he was cute-
Or that she was thinking of that woman from the night before and the look on her face
"What about her?" He looked sharply at her. "I did not hurt her."
So much for privacy."I know you didn't hurt her. In fact, she told me that while you were, you know, doing your neck thing " Brittany stared straight at him. "She had an orgasm."
Corbin looked aghast. "You should not talk about these things."
"How else am I going to help you if I don't talk to you?"
Now she'd hurt his masculine pride. He bristled. "I do not need your help. I need you to stay away from my business."
Brittany looked over the edge of the building, down at the street far below. "If I fell, would you catch me?"
His arm came up in front of her like he expected her to pitch herself over the side. "Of course I would!"
With a pleasant sigh, Brittany tossed her hair back. "I thought so."
She is a very strange person.
Corbin's thoughts floated over to her, and she knew, felt, that he wasn't soulless. Humanity beat just as bright and strong in him as it did in her.
She grinned at him."Takes one to know one. If I'm weird, you're even weirder."
"You can hear my thoughts?"
"That was the first time," she assured him, since he looked so horrified.
"I could kill you," he said.
"But you won't."
"I could drain you of your lifeblood and fill you with mine, making you a vampiress ."
"But you won't."
He paused. "I'll take you back. You shouldn't be seen with me."
Brittany looked around the rooftop. It wasn't like the joint was hopping up there. "Who shouldn't see us?"
"Any of them.I am banished."
Ooohh. Brittany sat back down, pulling the snap of her jeans out of her gut. "Now this sounds good. Tell me all about it, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier. What did you do to put yourself in the vampire doghouse?"
She wanted to know so she could help him, of course. And she would not kiss away that tiny frown line between his eyes.
"You most certainly will not!" he roared. "Then for sure we will both be killed."
"You're already dead," she pointed out.
"Real dead.No more on this earth dead. And while I'm many things, suicidal is not one of them."
"That's a relief." She patted her lap. "Come sit down and tell Auntie Brittany all about it."
His eyebrows shot up. He didn't look like he thought she was cute, which was kind of a disappointment. Men usually found her fairly attractive. Brittany felt her lower lip jutting out. She didn't mean to do it. It was just a reflex. Because nine times out of ten it got her what she wanted with Alex.
But not with Corbin.
He shook his head.And stepped off the edge of the roof.
Brittany screamed in reflex. Then remembered he wouldn't get hurt. He would just wing away or whatever he did to fly.
But then she remembered something else. "Corbin! You can't just leave me here! I'm stuck on the roof!"
Alexis sat on Ethan's burgundy leather sofa, listening to the running water of his shower, and tried to get a grip.
Okay, so he was a vampire. So what?
Everyone had their little quirks. God knew she wasn't perfect, and really, was vampirism an imperfection, or more just like having brown hair versus black? There was no reason to flip her wig like some squealer bimbo and run out of there screaming.
Needing blood was like needing an asthma inhaler.Sort of.In a more gruesome, demonic, unnatural way.
But hey, she was no wimp. She'd had defendants threaten her with physical harm. She'd had defendants' mothers fling their three-hundred-pound bodies at her after a conviction verdict was read.Vampires? She was cool with it.
Alexis Baldizzi was stuck in a pixie's body, but she didn't have to act like a wuss .
So she propped her bare feet on the couch and jammed a plaid throw pillow behind her back. She liked plaid. It was the antithesis of the scarlet bordello-like atmosphere she'd grown up in. While every other kid on the block had a mother in seventies' plaid pantsuits, her mother had been wearing short shorts, bikini tops, and high heels.
Thoughts of her mother disintegrated when Ethan walked back into the room, his blond hair dripping wet, wearing jeans and a button-up shirt that wasn't buttoned. Damn it. The last time she'd seen his chest, it had been covered with blood from a gaping chest wound, which had been a little distracting. Now he had nothing but clean, smooth skin, no evidence that a bullet had ever entered his chest.
And without the wholeno pulse, rivers of blood thing to distract her, she couldn't help but notice he was pretty damn hot.A little pale, but hot.
"Feeling better?" she asked, crossing her legs out of a survival instinct. If she could erect a sign below the waist of her evening gown, she would, // smckeep out.do not enter, no trespassing.
VAMPIRES NOT ADMITTED.
Because he had that look again?that super sultry, let's make like bunnies and do it look.
"Cleaner.A little tired, but fine, thanks. I'm sorry you had to find me like that. And I appreciate your quick emergency response even if it wasn't necessary." He sat down on the couch next to her and gave her a smile.
"Yeah, well, all in a day's work."
"I ordered a new dinner for you. It should be here in a minute or two."
"Thanks." Alexis stared at his chest. She couldn't help it. She knew what she had seen, believed Ethan was telling her the truth about his unusual genetic makeup, but it was still hard to swallow.
"You can touch it if you want. Feel for yourself. There's no permanent damage."
That was enough to rip her eyes off his chest. "I'm not going to touch it!"
"Scared you'll like it?"
Yes. "No. Please. Get over yourself, Carrick."
He laughed. "You're handling the events of the evening very well. I usually get hysterics when a mortal discovers the truth about me."
Alexis wasn't entirely sure why she wasn't in hysterics, but she was grateful for that fact. "Have a lot of mortals discovered the truth about you?"
Leaning his back against the arm, and lifting a leg onto the couch, he shrugged."No, not really.Maybe two or three. I've told some. But mostly we blend."
She wished he'd blend his crotch into the couch so she wouldn't have to look atit, all spread out at her like a forbidden fruit. It was a little hard to keep her eyes off inappropriate parts. If she looked at his chest, she pictured touching it. If she looked at his crotch, well, hell, she didn't want to go there. If she looked at his legs, she imagined wrapping her own around them. And when she looked into his pale, cerulean blue eyes, she had an entire mental striptease choreographed in her head.
Either he was doing that vampire mind control thing that he swore he couldn't do on her, or she was a sick bitch who thought vampires were sexy.
Why the hell couldn't he be a werewolf? That wouldn't have done a thing for her, she was positive. Fur had never gotten her going.
"So how old are you? And how do you blend if you have to sleep all day and suck blood all night?" Did he need three pints square a night, or did he have to graze on blood constantly, like a whale shark with plankton, or could he make it a whole week without touching the stuff?
Ethan gave her a look. "I don't suck blood all night. And I was born in 1067, the son of a Norman lord and his new Anglo-Saxon wife."
Alexis swallowed, more freaked out than she cared to admit. "Wow.Dude. That's seriously old. And you don't look a day over thirty."
"Neither do you." He smiled, and nudged her leg with his foot.
"I am thirty."Which had seemed old until an hour ago. "So is nine hundred really like the new thirty then? Do you feel just as perky as ever?"
"Actually, I get stronger with age. We're weak in our youth."
"You should have a millennium birthday party. That would be cool."
"Maybe I will. I hadn't thought much about it. I've been busy with the campaign."
"Can I have a stiff drink now?" Alexis thought it was time for a bottle of gin, just to settle her stomach.
The doorbell rang. "I have a better idea.Dinner."
A minute later, he had her steak dinner in front of her, served with pea pods and roasted potatoes. It did smell good, but she felt rude eating in front of him. "Did you ever, um, eat?"
"No, I was waiting for your food to arrive."
"Go ahead. You must be dying since you lost all that blood." Without even trying, she managed to make him laugh. "No pun intended."
"If you'll just excuse me, I'll grab myself a drink then."
"Sure." Alexis chewed and sipped an ice water, her stomach making embarrassing noises as it embraced the beef enthusiastically.
She was surprised to see Ethan come back into the room empty-handed. "Where's your drink?"
"I had a nip in the kitchen. I didn't want to bother you. The sight and the smell, well, it can take some getting used to."
"I don't think I'd mind. I mean, it's not like you're dragging a bellman in here and going at him like a mosquito. You're just going to like suck it out of a bag, right? How often do you do that?" she asked around a mouthful of potatoes.
"I don't suck it out of a bag. I drink it out of a glass when I am thirsty. Sometimes once a night, sometimes every other day, sometimes once aweek depending on my mood and what I'm doing."
"Does it taste different? I mean, do you prefer B positive over O?" Alexis wondered what her blood would taste like. Pepper steak?
Ethan snorted. "In nine hundred years, no one, not a single person, has asked me that."
"I have a curious mind. It makes me a good lawyer."
"Or just nosy."
"Bite me. I'm not nosy." Then she realized what she had said. "Not literally! No biting. It's just an expression."
Ethan laughed. His finger swiped the corner of her lip, scaring the crap out of her.And sort of turning her on. But he only licked his finger. "You had some water dribbling down there."
Alexis felt her face heat. "Don't lick me. That's inappropriate."
"I didn't lick you. I licked my finger, which touched you. I'm getting the feeling that I make you nervous. Is it because I'm a vampire?"
"I'm not nervous. But if I was, yes, it would be because you're a vampire. You have to admit, that's a little odd. I mean, I saw you bleeding like a stuck pig and here you are all cute and casual thirty minutes later." And now that her stomach was feeling much better, she was starting to think it would be a good idea to have some alone time.Far away from Ethan Carrick.
"I'm cute?" He looked pleased by that. "My mother always said I was angelic looking."
Alexis rolled her eyes. Apparently even after nine hundred years of life, men still needed their egos stroked. "Mothers are blinded by love. But you're not ugly, I'll give you that."
"Be still my heart."
"Hey, how come you're blond and all your vamp friends have black hair? You don't fit the raven-haired brooding image."
"Maybe not, but as I said, I'm angelic looking.Trustworthy. Having dark-haired cabinet members is a coincidence, but it does provide a nice contrast.Makes me stand out in the political crowd."
Alexis chewed on that as she chewed on a pea pod. She really should go back to her room. But Ethan was right. She was nosy. She had about three million questions for him.
But first things first."I'm going to scream if I have to wear this dress for another second. I've got to take it off."
"I have no problem with you taking it off. In fact, the thought rather pleases me." Ethan gave her a lecherous grin.
"Watch it, Carrick. I'm not some White House intern that's easily excitable when a president strolls into the room."
"No? Good. I wouldn't want you to be easy." He stood up-"But if you'd like, I could get you something to change into."
Wear Ethan's clothes? That was a dangerous proposition. It wasn't like her room was a million miles away. It was right next door. She could run over, change, run back.Which might not look so good. She might look a little too eager to be back in his company. Not to mention that the idea of putting a powerful vampire's clothes next to her undersexed flesh had an enormous appeal.
"Thanks. That would be great."
Brittany would be so proud of her. She had utterly lost her mind and was acting on pure impulse.
"Finish your dinner and I'll gograb something. The pants will be long, though, you'll have to roll them up."
"Thanks. Rub it in. I'm well aware that I'm vertically challenged." Alexis stabbed a piece of beef and watched Ethan walk into his bedroom.
For a vampire, he had a nice ass. How sick was it that she was attracted to a man who was older than the discovery of theNew World ? Granted, there were lots of things older than Ethan?like dirt and cockroaches?but he was still really damn old. And she was thinking naughty girl thoughts about him.
She should have dated more.Plain and simple.
Ethan came out and said, "I put some things in the bathroom for you when you're ready to change."
"I'm ready. And I'm done with the dinner, it was delicious, thanks."
"You're welcome." He didn't move from his spot in the hallway, which meant she had to shimmy past him, brushing her arm against his.
She shivered.
"Cold?I can get you a sweatshirt, too." Alexis watched his lips move. Thought about how close they were to hers, albeit higher from the ground.
"It's August in Vegas. I'm not cold." And she shut the bathroom door in his face before she leapt on him.
His bathroom was large and luxurious, white on white, with nickel faucets. A peek in the shower showed a wide variety of gels and shampoos, and there were bath beads sitting beside his Jacuzzi tub. "The softer side of vampires," she mused, as she unzipped the dress and let it drop to the floor.
Alexis wasn't wearing a bra, which was potentially dangerous, but there wasn't much she could do about that at the moment. Standing in her panties, she reached for the T-shirt Ethan had set on the marble countertop for her. But first, she spotted a scale tucked under the vanity. Never one to be able to resist the temptation to horrify herself, she pulled it out and stepped on.
And went blind."Holy crap, I'm a cow." She sucked in her gut, glared at the digital readout, shifted her feet, and then out of sheer desperation shucked her underwear off, too. They might weigh half a pound. Better to be completely accurate.
This time when she stepped on, it was a gratifying pound less. "Ha. See, I knew it. Damn lace is heavy."
The knock on the door had her jumping and falling off the side of the scale onto the floor, making a loud metal-on-tile scraping sound in the process.
"Alexis? Can I get you anything else?"
Hello.Naked here.With Ethan two feet away on the other side of a thin wood door. Just the thought had her inner thighs hum-mine. Nudity was for bathing or sex, and her body seemed to be ready for the second option. And she'd forgotten to lock the door.
"I'm good, thanks." She tugged on the kelly green T-shirt and reached for her panties. Once they were covering all the important parts as best as a black lace thong could, she felt marginally better. She debated locking the door, but figured he would hear the click and get offended.
"Okay. I spoke with the security advisor a half an hour ago, but I'm going to ask him to bring the tapes up now from the reception area."
"Good idea. You need to find this guy. And can you ask him to bring my shoes, too? I left one in the elevator and one by your bleeding body. In the trauma of the whole experience, I forgot them."
"Sure."
"Hey, Ethan?"Alexis pulled the jogging pants on and was mortified to find that they actually fit her in the waist. Shouldn't a woman be smaller than a man? "How's your vision? Do you have, like, x-ray eyes or anything?" Better to know what she was dealing with.
She could practically hear his grin. "I'm not superman, beautiful. I can't see your naked body through this door, no matter how much I want to."
"Oh." She rolled the bottom of the pants and flipped off the door with her middle finger, just because he'd aggravated her.
"I saw that."
Alexis lost the ability to breathe. If he had seen her falling off that scale naked, she was going to croak. "You said you couldn't see me!"
Now he laughed.Loudly. "I can't. But I know you did something rude. I could.just feel it."
Oh, she hated it when someone got the best of her. "You're going to feel me busting your ass in a minute."
"I can hardly wait."