High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(14)
Author: Erin McCarthy

That’s what she thought.

So she found him unattractive, did she?

Well, he would just show Alexis Baldizzi that Ethan Carrick was a man who knew how to treat a woman.

"I had no intention of using you in such a crude fashion. I confess myself shocked."

She rolled her eyes and sat up. "Somehow I don’t think a whole lot would shock you. You’re like me that way—I’ve seen everything and then some."

"You’re a prosecutor, right?"

"Yes.Sex crimes. There are a lot of sickos in this world, Carrick, and I’ve met quite a few of them. So your vampire games don’t surprise me. As long as you’re not biting people or something whacked out like that, what you do is your business.But not with my sister around. That’s the bottom line— Brittany goes home."

"I agree to all your terms." This was probably one of the worst ideas he’d gotten since that time he’d gone coffin sledding inFrance nine hundred years ago, but it was done.

And he found himself really looking forward to getting to know Alexis better.

Maybe then he could shake off the boredom and discontent that encircled him like a tight leash, growing tighter and tighter.

Maybe an affair with Alexis would satisfy his growing tactile urges and prevent him from doing something bizarre like dying his hair, dating his secretary, or getting his chest waxed.

He wasnot having a midlife crisis.

Chapter Five

Brittany was starting to think she shouldn’t have let Alexis talk her into leaving. They were driving on U.S. 95 toward Alexis’s house in Summerlin and all she could think about was that man— that vampire—and how he had caressed the woman outside the restroom, suckling her, making her moan with pleasure while he drank her blood.

It had been like watching two people have sex—embarrassing, arousing,shocking .Exciting. And that disturbed her What those people were was wrong—soulless, evil—yet she was fascinated by them, and she had to do something.

"I need to go back." She had agreed to leave only because Alexis had threatened never to speak to her again—which they both knew was a lie, but if Alexis was worried enough to say it, Brittany knew it was serious. She never wanted to cause Alexis worry. Her sister had had her childhood yanked away from her way too early, and she’d spent a lot of years stressing about money and Brittany , when she should have been dating and having fun.

So Brittany had left the hotel because she didn’t want to see that look in Alexis’s eye, the frantic concern that made her look older than she was. But she couldn’t get the image out of her head of the man with the expensive suit, rich caramel hair, and a little lab kit in his pocket.

There had to be a way to form an intervention or something. But first she needed to know everything about Vegas vampires. If she understood them and their ways, she could figure out how to save their souls. And the only way to learn about them was to spend time with them.

"Over my dead body," Alexis said, turning into the driveway of her stucco house, the garage light glowing in the dark. She opened the car door and cursed."Flipping yucca bush! I hate this ugly, spiky plant. I can’t believe the landscaper put it right where I park the car and need to get out. I hit it every single time."

She forced her way out of the car.

"Alex " Brittany bit her lip.

Her sister stopped whacking at the foliage with her purse and bent over to stare at her suspiciously. "What? You’ve got that pretty girl wants something voice going on."

"I have to go back." Lives depended on it. She might be just a dentist, and too trusting, according to Alex, but there was a reason she had met Ethan Carrick. A reason he had invited her to his hotel, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with oral hygiene.

It was a cry for help, and she had to answer it.

Alexis saw the stubborn tilt to Brittany ‘s chin, and the very impressive pout her lower lip was creating. She knew that look.Had caved under it many, many times. But this she couldn’t compromise on.

"No."

"I’ll go on my own."

"I’ll lock you in my spare bedroom."

"No, you won’t." Brittany scoffed.

Shit, she was right. Alexis would never do that. "You’re serious?"

"Very." .

"You’d go back without me?"

"Yes."

Then Alexis had no choice. She sighed.Leaned on her car door.Crossed her arms.

Despite her earlier conversation with Ethan, once she had Brittany out of the hotel, she had rethought the whole staying with him thing. If she had Brittany out on her own powers of persuasion, what did she need him for?

Nothing.Her whole willingness to stay had been based on his offer to kick Brittany out. So when that became unnecessary, she had figured their little agreement was just null and void.

Brittany ‘s one-eighty changed things again.

"Alright, how about I go back? You stay here and I’ll take your place at the hotel and keep an eye on them." That was a little vague, but she was just feeling Brittany out for the time being.

Brittany wasn’t buying it. "Alex. I want to find a cure for their vampirism. Not prosecute them."

Here’s where it got dicey. "Who said anything about prosecution? I could do that—cure them." Maybe a high kick to the head would solve their problems. "I’m persuasive."

"If that’s what you want to call it." Brittany still wouldn’t get out of the car, just sat there in her cocktail dress, long legs crossed.

Alexis couldn’t imagine where Brittany got her stubbornness. Alexis would have thought she herself had drained the family gene pool of that particular trait long before Brittany was born.

"Okay, here’s the thing." Alexis wiped her hands on her jeans and prepared to eat crow for her sister’s sake. "Ethan, well, he, uh, invited me to dinner.As his date."

Brittany ‘s face lit up. "Alex! That’s wonderful. When was the last time you went on a date? Like six years ago?"

It hadn’t been that long. Surely there had been someone like Jim back in law school okay, so that had been six years. Damn. "I was thinking maybe I need to open myself up to new experiences." There, that sounded like Brittany-speak.All warm and fuzzy and full of self-realization.

Brittany got out of the car finally, thank God, and winked at her. "That’s not all you’re going to be opening, if you know what I mean."

"Brittany Anne!" Crap, she was blushing.Mostly because she’d had a flash of memory of being under Ethan, her body hot and humming. She had so been lying when she’d said she wasn’t attracted to him.

Brittany grabbed her suitcase out of the backseat and giggled.

"It’sdinner, not a night of wild monkey sex."