High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(35)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"That sounds very difficult."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but I know a lot of kids have it worse. I’ve seen those kids. I’ve seen horrific abuse cases I’ve talked to those children and had to put them on the witness stand. I don’t have anything to complain about so why am I such a baby?"

"Maybe because you love your sister and would do anything to protect her, even become a vampire slayer, and you don’t understand why other people—including your mother—don’t feel the same way about their families."

Alexis closed her eyes against the last fading sunlight and sighed again. Ethan made a lot of sense, and his words made her feel a thousand times better. That scaredher a little, at the same time it thrilled and pleased.

She could like him. She could even sleep with him.

But she could not fall for Ethan Carrick, for about four hundred reasons.

Like there was no family health insurance for mortal-vampire unions.

And she would eventually be a saggy, wrinkly, incontinent old woman and he would still be sexy.

Plus she was sure her boss would not like her hooking up with a guy who drank blood. It would be really lousy publicity for the office.

But just talking? Just hanging with him for a week was a temptation she couldn’t pass up.

"You might be on to something, Ethan." She studied him sitting in the shade of the building. "So how come sun doesn’t kill you?"

"I don’t know. It’s very draining but it certainly doesn’t kill me. We are night dwellers, but not unholy demonswho will explode in an agonizing death when a cross is shoved at us. I suspect we have mutated genes, but I leave that to the scientists, not politicians."

"Mutantdoesn’t sound any better thanvampire ."

"I’m over it," he said.

Alexis laughed. "So have you been married like thirty times?" She was sure this was going to lead in unpleasant directions, but she couldn’t let him kiss her again, with tongue, until she heard that he wasn’t a total dog.

Life longevity didn’t mean he was exempt from morality, in her opinion.

"I’ve never been married."

She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. At first, it sounded good, like he was holding out for Miss Vampire Right, but then maybe he was just a selfish, confirmed bachelor.

"Have you been married?"

The question startled her. She hadn’t thought that maybe he i would wonder about her past, too, short as it was compared to his. "No. I’ve been’building my career. And the men I meet on the job are either attorneys or criminals and neither really appeals to me. Besides, not every man sees the charm in a short, extremely independent woman who has a peach butt."

Ethan played with the leaf of the oleander bush growing in a pot next to him. "I confess I’ve never really spent a lot of time with independent women. I was always drawn to the sweet, feminine, simple types, but since meeting you I’ve come to realize I’ve denied myself a great deal of pleasure. While sweet women can be soothing, it seems in my old age I crave intelligent conversation as much as pretty smiles. You give me both, Alexis."

It was so sexy and romantic, she didn’t believe it for a second, and treated him to a heavy eye roll.

"And your backside looks nothing like a peach, though I haven’t seen you without clothes. Perhaps it’s fuzzy?" He shot her a grin.

Whenever he turned her words around on her, she had to struggle not to give in to the juvenile urge to stick her tongue out at him. "No, it’s not, and if that’s some kind of psychological maneuver to get me to take my clothes off and prove it, you’re going to be disappointed. I’m stubborn and competitive, but my butt is none of your business."

"You’re the one who brought up that particular body part in the first place."

"I hate it when you’re right." She forced herself to sit up."So, no wife, huh? You like playing the field?"

"Yes.And no. Had I found the right woman, my chosen one, I would have married. But I didn’t."

Chosen one.Like a soul mate. Alexis figured if she’d ever stumbled across one of those for herself, she would take the plunge, too, despite her lack of successful role models. Yet she was pretty sure such an idealistic thing didn’t exist. "Can you have children?"

"Only with a mortal woman, and that is frowned upon. Vampire women can’t have children at all."

Oh, that figured. The guys were a thousand years old and still making sperm, and the women got nothing.

"So if you have a kid with a mortal, what is the kid? Vor-tal? Mampire? Do you give them blood in a bottle or what?" It sounded a little creepy, actually. It was one thing to know intellectually that Ethan had to drink blood, from a blood bank, to survive. It was another thing to picture a little five-year-old whipping his fangs out on the playground and biting into a blood bag for an afternoon snack before his nap.

"No. No blood bottles." Ethan shook his head, like she was being outrageous.

"What? It’s a legitimate question."

" Impuresare raised mortal, some never even knowing they are half-vampire. But they are strong, free from many common ailments, and have a very long natural lifespan. All those hundred-and-ten-year-olds you see on the news? Impures."

"Really."Alexis thought that wasn’t such a bad bargain. You didn’t have to suck blood but you got to live a long time in good health. Sign her up.

"They also tend to sunburn easily and excel at sports.

Occasionally, they have the unique vampire trait of crying blood tears, which is usually chalked up to sinus infections."

"Hey, Brittany used to have that. It was totally gross. She hardly ever got colds, but when she did, her eyes would swell up and this nasty, bloody, pus-like stuff would come out.Freaked my mom out every time." Alexis gave a laugh remembering the way her mother used to make gagging noises when she’d hand Brittany a tissue.

Ethan didn’t say anything.

Alexis glanced over at him. "What? It was funny. Brittany was such a girly-girl, even though she was always really good at sports, and to see her all puffed up like that, it had its element of humor."

He just stared at her expectantly. "What? Why are you looking at me like that, Ethan?"

Suddenly she remembered what he had told her the first night she’d met him. That Brittany was anImpure , half-vampire. She wasn’t, of course, Alexis was sure of that, but here she was spouting all these similarities.

"Oh no, I know what you’re thinking," Alexis said, her face going hot. Her baby sister was not a vampire, and she wouldn’t accept anyone saying otherwise. Brittany loved garlic—it just wasn’t possible. "Don’t even go there. It’s just a coincidence. Brittany ‘s my sister, and while my mother was impulsive, I don’t think she would have fallen for a vampire."