Bit the Jackpot (Vegas Vampires #2)(8)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Maybe that didn’t sound right.

"Excuse me?" She gaped at him and scrambled onto her elbows, inching away. "I knew you were trouble. The minute I saw you, I said there’s trouble, and I was so right. I mean, you did that whole weird staring thing and I told you my name even though I didn’t want to, and then I had this bizarre feeling that you were hurt and so I went out into the alley and you were in my head. I mean, I could hear you in my head. And now you’re saying you made me drink your blood what kind of sick game are you playing?"

Seamus was trying to find a way to interrupt and explain that he was immortal when she stopped for air.

"I didn’t really drink blood, did I?" Her eyes darted down to his wrists, which had healed and closed, but still had blood smeared on them.

"Well " A little help here would be good, since he had no clue how to handle this. But Seamus knew he wasn’t going to get any. He’d done this, now he had to make it right.

Cara touched her lips and pulled her fingers back. They were crimson from his blood.

"Holy shit!You made me drink blood. That is sick, sick, sick." She turned on her side and promptly threw up, Seamus’s regurgitated blood splashing all over the asphalt.

He darted back to avoid getting hit."Heaven and hell!" He hadn’t expected that. "Cara, calm down, I can explain."

Seamus tried to pull her hair back off her face as she finished retching, but she smacked at him.

"Don’t touch me. Oh, my God, look at my puke. It’s red." She heaved again.

"Okay, okay, the thing is, Cara, I had to give you my blood. You died. The car hit you, and you died. I gave you my blood because I’m a vampire."

She tilted her head a little to look up at him, on her knees, her hair a curtain shielding half her face. There was a brief pause while he wondered what she was going to say, hope rising in him that maybe she understood. Then she started screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Help!Somebody help me!" She stood up, broken leg clearly healed, and ran back to the nightclub door. "The club’s on fire!Everyone out!"

Oh, shit. Seamus sighed. Could he screw this up any more?

With vampire speed, he erased the distance between him and Cara. He slapped closed the door that she had started to open. "Cara, you can’t do that, darlin ‘." Trying to be gentle, yet firm, he wrapped his arm around her waist.

She kicked and punched him, wiggling wildly. "Let me go, you lunatic."

"I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you, and everything is going to be okay."

Ignoring his words, she continued to fight to free herself, stomping on his foot and clocking the side of his head with the palm of her hand. That rang his ears a bit, but it wasn’t any struggle at all for him to hold her, even with the thrashing.

"Okay, I’m taking you home, and we can discuss this calmly. I’ll explain everything to you."

She shrieked. "I’m not going anywhere with you!" That was accompanied by another kick in his shin and an attempt to scratch out his eyes, which he thwarted. Then she reached out and bit his arm, right below his T-shirt sleeve.

He guessed it was an instinctive move, just a survival tactic to escape him, but almost immediately it became more than that. Her bite to hurt became a bite to feed. Seamus felt her new fangs puncture his flesh and eagerly draw on him. The feeling was unexpected and arousing for him, her body flush against his while she drew nourishment from him, her hair brushing against his chest. Seamus shuddered in pleasure, an erection immediately quickly growing firm and thick against her thigh.

Cara sucked and pulled for a long gratifying minute,then she jerked back, his blood on her mouth. Tongue running over herlips, she swallowed hard, distaste clear in the wrinkled moue of her nose and mouth. "What the you’re a vampire?"

He nodded.

"I’m a vampire?"

Seamus nodded again, rubbing his free hand along her back, the silkiness of the robe slippery. "Yes."

"No, no, no." She tried to back up again.

It was time to go back to the hotel. "Hold on, Cara." Seamus gripped her firmly, and shot straight up and over the nightclub. They were only a minute from his apartment at the casino, the Ava, if he took to the air.

Cara shrieked in his ear and clamped on his waist with arms and legs. He glanced down into her startled, wild eyes.I’m taking you home with me , he said directly into her mind. It was too windy to speak out loud without shouting and he wanted her to understand who he was. What she was now.

Her head shook back and forth and her teeth rattled. "No, I don’t want to."

Seamus kissed her forehead, not sure why, but going on instinct.It will work out, I promise .

"Are we really flying?"

Yes.

"I’m afraid of heights."

Just don’t look down.

Which was absolutely the wrong thing to say to someone who was afraid of heights.

She looked down, spasmed against him, and sank in a dead faint.

When Seamus carried Cara onto Ethan’s balcony and knocked on the sliding glass door for someone to let him in, he cursed himself. He couldn’t have made a bigger mess out of this if he had planned it.

Alexis, Ethan’s wife, pulled back the drapes and unlocked the door, her jaw dropping. " Uhh " she said as she opened the door and looked him up and down.

"Don’t say anything, alright?" He brushed past her with Cara still passed out in his arms. He and Alexis didn’t really get along. Truthfully, she’d always annoyed the crap out of him because of her willingness to disregard rules and protocol. Clearly, he had no business judging her now that he had a fledgling vampire in his arms.

"Did I say anything? I wouldn’t dream of saying anything." Alexis was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt and she had her computer on the coffee table, a stack of papers and a half-empty wineglass next to it. "Can I get you anything?A drink?A fresh change of clothes?A membership card to Hypocrites International?"

He supposed he deserved that. He hadn’t exactly welcomed Alexis into the Vampire Nation with open arms. "No, thank you. I’m taking her to my room and I’ll get us cleaned up there. Sorry to bother you, but my apartment doesn’t have a balcony like yours does, and I didn’t want to bring her in through the lobby."

She snorted. "I guess not. Want me to call Ethan?"

"No!" he shouted before he could consider it wasn’t wise to sound so vehement.

"Chill out." Alexis stared down at Cara. "So, does she have a name? And is there a reason she’s covered in blood and passed out? I can hear her breathing so I know she’s alive. And I’m assuming it’s nothing serious or you’d be calling 911."