High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(28)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Well, aren’t you the noble vampire?" Seamus had short dark hair, trimmed neatly, but he managed to muss it up by raking a hand through it.

"Hey, you wouldn’t do it either. Admit it. It’s wrong. If I were attracted to Brittany , it would be different, but I’m not. I’m attracted to Alexis."

Seamus made a face. "Damn it, you’re right. I wouldn’t do it either. But I suspect Alexis will be more detriment than asset. She is a bit vocal."

Ethan laughed. That was a polite understatement. "It’s that very thing that I find so incredibly arousing about her."

"I don’t need any details about your arousal, thank you very much." Seamus threw his hand up in the air. "But if Alexis already knows what we are, then that is a plus. Having a mortal wife is better than no wife at all, and her sister is an Impure. You need tc tell Alexis about Brittany , you know, or she’ll be angry with you when she finds out."

"I need to tell her a lot of things. But I’m easing her into everything." And that night he had come perilously close to easing himself’into her. It was too soon for that, and he knew it intellectually, even if his body disagreed. He should be grateful Alexis had slammed the door in his face.

"Sit down, Seamus, and have a drink. You’re much tootense, it’s starting to grate on my nerves." He sipped and reflected on his friend’s words. Even when he had discussed the strategy with Seamus regarding Brittany , he had never really believed he could marry her, even before he’d realized they wouldn’t suit.

In more than nine hundred years he had not taken a wife, not even as a mortalman, and the thought of taking a mortal wife now did not appeal to him any more than it ever had. Some vampires did marry mortals for short periods of time—ten or twenty years—then left them or divorced when their spouses aged and became uncomfortable with their differences. Ethan had always thought it seemed so temporary, so unfulfilling.That at the end, it would leave you lonelier than when you started.

But vampire marriages were rarer still, because it was a bond that could not be broken. Once mated, the marriage lasted for eternity, and most of theirkind were unwilling to risk get ting stuck in a relationship for six hundred years after the bloom had worn off the rose. Those who did spoke ofa knowledge , a love, that told them this was their chosen one.Their destiny.Their love.

Ethan wanted that or nothing at all. Not a tepid, tomato juice marriage with a mortal when he could someday have a hot, satisfying pure blood passion for the rest of his undead life.

"Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Seamus. I’m not ready to talk marriage to anyone. At this moment, I am fascinated by Alexis Baldizzi, that is all."And suspicious. He’d felt something when he’d kissed her, something he never had before.Something that confused him. He’d felt knowledge.A sense of Tightness.

Like he had methis chosen one.

Hands in his tuxedo pants pockets, Seamus studied him. "You could turn her."

Ethan couldn’t deny the excitement that leaped in him at the thought.Or the fact that it had already occurred to him. That he had embraced it, dissected it,rejected it."Perhaps. But it would be wrong and you know it."

"This isn’t about you,Ethan, this is about all of us.Our way of life.Our future."

That made him snort. "Don’t be melodramatic. The end of the world as we know it does not rest on my love life. If it does, then we deserve to go extinct as a species."

Seamus didn’t laugh, which made Ethan realize between the two of them, they had become very uptight vampires. Until Alexis had karate kicked her way into his life.

"So let’s talk about something else then. Like who tried to kill you."

That sounds like fun. Give me thereport, I’m just dying to hear it."

"Cute, Carrick."Though Seamus didn’t really look like he thought it was cute at all.

Ethan shook his head, amused. It seemed everything, every thought, circled him back to Alexis. "You’re the second person to call me that today." And he had really liked it when Alexis had said it.

Astonished at himself, he rubbed his chin.

Good God, it was worse than a midlife crisis. He was falling inlove .

If he wasn’t careful, he’d be buying flowers and going down on one knee, making an ass of himself. He’d be spouting poetry and begging her for a lock of her hair. He’d trail after her like a faithful hunter and obsess over getting her into his bed.

It sounded like hell.

He wasn’t doing any of that crap. He’d gone nine hundred years without falling inlove, he could damn well go another nine hundred unscathed.

Unless Alexis really was his chosen one. Then he might not have a choice in the matter.

He remembered the way his head had spun and his heart had swelled when his lips had touched hers. The beautiful way she had sighed into him, and the way his body had pulled taut in anticipation. How much she fascinated him

Shit. It looked like making an ass out of himself was in his future.

"There’s nothing to tell," Alexis told Brittany for the third time as she paced her hotel suite, still wearing Ethan’s sweatpants and shirt. "It was a reception kind of thing with a bunch of stuffed-shirt types running around in tuxedos."

Then Ethan had been shot, confessed his vampirism, and kissed Alexis, but nothingmajor had happened that Brittany needed to know about.

"And where are you, Brit? It sounds like you’re on the runway at the airport and a jumbo jet is flying over your head."

"I’m on my patio and a jumbo jet is flying over my head."

"Oh. Well, go to bed. Don’t you have to work tomorrow?" Alexis was eternally grateful she didn’t have to. There was no way she could wrap her brain around a molestation case that was on her desk when her head was full of the fantastical.Vampires up for reelection. Jesus.

"Tomorrow’s Sunday, so no.And are you sure nothing interesting happened? I got the feeling that Ethan was attracted to you. He didn’t even try to kiss you or anything?"

"Just once."She didn’t want to admit to that little lip-touching episode, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie straight out to her sister either. Their relationship was the most important one in Alexis’s life, and she had always played it straight with Brittany , even when their mother had overdosed.

The excited scream that ripped through her cell phone almost shattered her eardrum. "Alex! So help me "

There was a shuffling sound, and Alexis waited, rubbing her temples. This was so embarrassing. She had kissed a vampire. Celibacy did strange things to a woman."Brit? Did you drop the phone?"

No, I don’t need help, it’s my sister. But thank you,that’s so sweet."