High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(41)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Damn Donatelli for pulling him into his games.

"Are you his girlfriend?"

"Mr. Carrick?" Her dark brown eyes widened. "No. He hasn’t been dating anyone at all. Not until now, with Brittany ‘s sister."

"Not Carrick.The other one.The one who sent you to me." Frustration made his voice hoarse as he tried to keep it low.

"I don’t know what you mean." Her shoulders scrunched up, like she was trying to protect herself from him. "I know you wanted to kill him because I heard your thoughts in your head."

Oh, my God. He f**king could not believe he’d had the idiocy to even speak to this girl the night before. He should have pretended he didn’t speak English. Been Italian himself for the night.

"I speak Italian," she said. "My mother was Italian."

"What?" Ringo dropped his hands from her waist. He hadn’t said any of that out loud.

"You couldn’t have pretended to be Italian and not able to speak English because I speak Italian. That’s what I mean."

"How are you doing that?" And how had she left him in a confused stupor with his pants unzipped the night before? He didn even remember having a drink when she sat down next to him.

"You didn’t have a drink."

"I didn’t say that out loud." Ringo narrowed his eyes at her-

Some of her nervousness was disappearing and she stared at him expectantly. He didn’t believe in this kind of psychic crap, hadn’t believed in much of anything since the service.

"What’s the service?" Kelsey blinked."Oh, the Army or something?"

His hands went cold and his throat closed. A sweat ran down between his shoulder blades. "You can read my thoughts?"

She nodded. "I’ve never been that great at it, but with you, it’s like one of those things what are they called? The thingy they use to have the news guy read the, you know, things he’s supposed to read?"

Ringopressed his temple, brushed his hair off his forehead, his brain understanding what she was saying yet at the same time unable to accept it."A TelePrompTer?"

"Yes! That’s it." She reached out and touched his chest.

Ringostiffened, but she only stroked him with an odd sort of tenderness. "Don’t worry. I won’t tell, but you have to promise not to try anymore. It won’t work."

"Why not?"Thoughts raced and tumbled in his head and he was unable to get a solid grip on anything. None of this made sense. Since the minute he’d said yes to this hit, things had been off.Out of balance. "I can get around security."

"It just won’t work. Mr. Carrick is untouchable. Trust me." She moved her hand to rest on his shoulder and gave him a smile, her fear clearly gone. "I wish I knew your name."

Ringotried to close his thoughts down, panicked that she would know who he was. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle ran through his head. It was the first name to pop to the front of his consciousness—his kid brother’s name.

"Kyle? You don’t look like a Kyle." Kelsey giggled. "More like a Mario.Something that ends in ‘o’ anyway."

Ringofelt a cold pit settle down into his stomach. The silly bitch could actually read his thoughts.

He didn’t even like to be in his own head. He sure in the hell didn’t want anyone else in there.

Ethan ignored the first three voicemail messages from Seamus and drank two bags of blood in rapid succession. He was thirsty from all the physical exertion of the last hour. The thought tripped a memory of being inside Alexis, the way she’d clamped her legs around him and yelled her pleasure.

He’d known she would be aggressive, and she hadn’t disappointed him. But now he wanted his turn, to set the stage and the seduction. He’d left Alexis sleeping in her room next to his, so he could come back and feed. She wasn’t used to being awake during the night, but Ethan was, and he couldn’t change a pattern nearly a millennium old, despite the fact that in his casino he could move about during the day without ever encountering the sun.

Not that the sun bothered him that much anymore anyway, now that he was older and stronger. If he had lived in a northern or eastern city, he could probably have even spent an entire day out in the sunlight. In Vegas it would be a little tough, but he could do it on occasion for an hour or two as he had that day. And despite Alexis waking him earlier than usual, he wasn’t feeling sleepy.

What he felt was reenergized. He’d been sleepwalking lately, letting his job prod and push him through his nights. He knew in his gut that it was essential he win this election, remembered all the reasons why, but at the same time realized that he had become a workaholic.The job and nothing more. It was time to find better balance in his life before he suffered burnout.

Before he became a dried-up old crank of a vampire, with no sense of humor and zero sex life.That was a horrific view of the future—Ethan would do anything to avoid that, even incur Sea- mus’swrath.

"You’re starting to piss me off," was Seamus’s fourth message. It made Ethan laugh as he held his room phone up to his ear. Sea- muswashalfway to old crank already, and he was only a few hundred years old.

Leaving his dirty glass in the kitchenette, Ethan went back into his living room. Since this was home about eighty percent of the time, it was designed for his comfort and convenience. He had a bedroom with luxury bath, an office, a living area, and a kitchenette with a Sub-Zero minifridge and a dishwasher for his glasses. Alexis had noticed that the decor was a little out of the ordinary for the desert, but he liked the stately, dark colors that reminded him ofEngland .

It wasn’t easy to remain obscure in the English countryside these days, and he found Vegaswas a perfect cover-up for a vampire.

Bloody hot and lacking in trees, but a man couldn’t have everything. There was a certain charm to the constant ebb and flow of humanity inSinCity —a sort of perpetual defiance of reality.

A knock pounded on his door. It didn’t sound like a Seamus knock, which would be polite but firm. This was a ragtag, pay attention to me kind of knock.

Alexis.

"Ethan?" she called.

Barefoot, he walked to the door, vampire speed. He had it open before she even finished speaking his name. "Hey, come on in. I thought you’d be asleep for hours still. It’s the middle of the night."

She looked adorably rumpled and grouchy, wearing his sweatpants and a T-shirt that said // smcmy give a damn is broken. "You’re not blowing me off? When I woke up and you were gone, I thought maybe you’re one of those guys who won’t spend the night and I just wanted to clear up right now that that irritates me. If you can stay long enough to have sex with me, you can damn well stay a little longer. This isn’t a drive-through service."