Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(10)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Ouch!” She swatted at him with her pale hand and tried to wiggle away. “Stop it, that hurts.”

“Then take your jeans off, let me have a real taste of you.” He tugged her back so she landed in his lap, right on his boner. “Can’t you feel that? I want you. I’m in pain.”

She sighed, one of pleasure, yet regret. “I feel it. But not in here. The guard is right outside the door.”

“So?” He thrust upward, and spread her knees with his hands. It amazed even him how much he really did want her. She was annoying, unpredictable, treated him like a problem child, and really did have a bony ass. Yet she was the only person whose company he could actually stand, and when he looked at her, he felt intense, biting desire, and the urgent need to protect her. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, or what it meant, but the sexual urges he knew how to act on, if she would just let him. “Who cares if the guard is in the hallway?”

She rubbed her butt against his erection. “I would be embarrassed if he heard us.”

Said the woman who had gone down on him the first night they had met. Ringo was resigned to the fact that Kelsey’s logic was never going to be clear to him. He would just use her reluctance in his favor. “Then let’s go away somewhere together. Like a romantic weekend. No one around but you and me.”

“You’re still on house arrest. You can’t leave Vegas.”

Ringo supposed an apology for trying to assassinate the vampire president wasn’t going to impress Kelsey or the tribunal. Not that he was interested in groveling, but he did resent having his freedom clipped. That’s why he had a better plan. “Oh, come on, just a little weekend away. You know me. I’m not going to do anything. I just need to get out of this casino. I don’t even need to leave Vegas. I just feel like I’m suffocating here, stuck inside all the time.” He kissed her shoulder, brushing her long dark hair out of the way. “Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you care about my mental health? Don’t you want to make love to me somewhere private?”

Her eyes lit up as she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I know, let’s get married, Ringo, and get one of those really sexy romantic honeymoon suites with a whirlpool.”

Married? Jesus, how had she pulled that out of her bony ass? While he had interesting emotions regarding Kelsey, the thought of marriage made him want to hurl up his blood breakfast.

“Okay,” he said. Opportunity pops up, you take it. That was his philosophy.

“Really?” She spun all the way around. “You mean it?” Her arms came around his neck and she kissed him eagerly. “That’s so cool.”

“Way cool,” he said, kissing her back, indulging in a little tongue. He needed the contact to reassure himself he wasn’t going to regret this dumb-ass move. “So pack a bag, baby, and let’s figure out how you can get the key to my ankle bracelet from the guard.”

Four

Corbin knocked on Brittany’s apartment door an hour later, determined that he would remedy the situation. What he suspected, based on simple biology, was that their child would be born immortal, with no urge to drink blood. At first glance, that had seemed a positive outcome to the situation, at least compared to the alternative. But what had concerned him was how an immortal child would mature, both physically and emotionally. That was something he could not predict, no matter how much research on vampire genetics he had garnered, but after talking to Ethan Carrick, he felt somewhat reassured. Carrick hadn’t mentioned any complications from his niece’s unusual genetics.

That left only the need to secure secrecy about the baby, which despite his aplomb with Carrick, Corbin had his doubts about. Brittany was a bit unpredictable, he had determined. Or perhaps impulsive was a better adjective to describe her. There was no guarantee she would want to marry him, but he was going to have to convince her of the obvious merits of such an arrangement.

Brittany answered the door with a smile. “Come in.”

It struck him anew how beautiful she was, how sweet and pure of heart, honest and compassionate. That was what had attracted him to her in the first place, had made him forget himself. “Good evening, Brittany.”

Corbin loathed the idea of lying to her. Hated that no one would know she was carrying his child, wouldn’t know that she had opened herself for him, that he had taken her, blended his body, his DNA, with hers and created a child. It brought out all manner of feral urges he hadn’t even realized he had.

Not to mention embarrassment.

“I knocked on the door,” he said inanely, not at all sure what to say to the woman he had made love to with an appalling lack of finesse. That alone was cause for awkwardness, but added to his own bad handling of that night was the memory of her huddled in her pillow, so embarrassed she had refused to look at him. He could honestly say that had been a sexual first for him, leaving a woman writhing in emotional discomfort. Now that same woman was having his immortal child. There was not a greeting card for this particular occasion.

She laughed a little. “Yes, you did. Thanks.” She led him to her living room and she sat down on a thick floral sofa.

Brittany’s apartment was very white and pink with lots of competing floral patterns, china hung to the walls, and a profusion of pillows. It had a cottage feel to it that pleased him, even if it was excessively feminine. He sat down on the sofa opposite Brittany and was immediately enveloped by lacy pillows. It didn’t feel like a position of power, to say the least, so Corbin leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees. He could do this. Had to do this.

“Aside from the morning sickness, you are feeling well?”

“Yes, I’m tired, but that’s normal according to the doctor.”

“When is your due date?”

“May twelfth.”

Now what in hell did he say? Brittany was looking at him expectantly. “I am sorry if I have caused friction between you and your brother-in-law.”

She shrugged. “Ethan is worried about me, but he’s totally on my side.”

And against Corbin. He heard the subtle censure. “I am also sorry for my irresponsibility. I have never before… created a situation… ” He couldn’t think of a delicate enough phrasing for what he meant.

“I’m the first girl you knocked up?”

He winced. So much for delicate.

“That does make me feel better, Corbin. I admit it would bother me if you’d had a kid every decade for the last five hundred years or something.”