High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(56)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"If you don’t take a chance, you’ll be missing out on something amazing. After a thousand years of living, a man has decided you of all women are his soul mate. That’s pretty damn romantic. I would jump at that."

Brittany sounded sosad, Alexis turned around and took her hand, wanting to cheer her up. "Maybe Corbin "

"That was just sex." Her sister shrugged. "No big deal. I’m sure I’ll find someone. After all, according to Ethan, I’ll live to be a hundred." Brittany smiled, shaking off the ennui she’d been showing.

"Brit " Alexis wasn’t sure what she was going to say, so she hesitated.

I in going to go, okay?1 didn’t sleep at all last night and I ve got a really full schedule tomorrow. Call me in the A.M. and let me know how the debate went." Her sister blew her a kiss. "You look great. Hugs, Alex."

"Thanks, Brit. I’ll call you."

When Brittany left, Alexis sat on the bed, puzzled and deflated. Brittany ‘s words had made her melancholy, bothered her, and she wasn’t sure why.

The door to her suite opened. "It’s just me, don’t kick me," Ethan called.

Alexis didn’t even move. She felt like the entire balance of her future was resting on the next few days. There was the safe, the usual, the lock-down of her emotions.Which meant flat, loveless status quo. Or there was the risky, the hopeful, the taking a chance.Which could mean disaster or could mean some really damn good years with Ethan.

He appeared in her doorway, wearing a gray suit and a blue tie. "Hey, everything okay? You look a little pale."

Before she could change her mind, Alexis stared at him and blurted, "I’ll live with you."

Ethan froze. "What?"

Now that she’d said it, Alexis felt a thousand pounds lighter. "Yes, I’ll move in with you."

"Alexis." He came toward her, bent down, kissed her hard on the lips. "Are you sure?" Then he shook his head, laughed. "God, what am I saying? I shouldn’t give you an out. Not when you’ve made me so incredibly happy."

She was feeling pretty freaking happy herself. Grabbing on to Ethan’s tie, she pulled him down for another kiss. "Ten years is better than one, right? I mean, I either get my heart broken then or now, so at least if we have some time together, I get some good sex out of the wuole deal."

He grinned against her lips. "I’m so glad you’re being logical about this."

Alexis flicked her tongue against Ethan’s lower lip. God, he tasted so good. She couldn’t even imagine walking away from him, a man who understood her, appreciated her strengths while respecting her weaknesses.A man who didn’t patronize, or insult her intelligence. She breathed in his scent, light aftershave and crisp mint toothpaste. He had an obsession about brushing his teeth, and a constant toothpaste taste clung to him.

"That’s me, all logic. Then there’s also the fact that I’m completely and totally in love with you."

Ethan kneeled down on the carpet in front of her, pressing her legs apart so he could get closer to her. "That’s a fact I’m glad you decided to share with me."

He wanted to inhale Alexis, press everything against her and show her how much this meant to him, that he understood the sacrifice she was making, how much trust she was putting in him to make the next decade or so worth the pain of separation.

"Alexis, I have waited over nine hundred years to find a woman I could love, and now that I have, I will do everything in my power to ensure you won’t regret this." Ethan was supposed to be downstairs in ten minutes, but he didn’t give a damn. Nothing had given him the sense of fulfillment that being with Alexis did.

Never had he felt himself to be lonely, but the thought of life without Alexis was agonizing. He was going to enjoy every moment he had with her.

Shifting her dress up, tracing his thumbs over her thighs, running his lips over her neck, he murmured, "Maybe I should resign the presidency.Let someone else run, so you and I can spend more time together."

"Are you insane?" Her breathing hitched when he nipped her breast through the clingy red dress. "We’re not going to spend the next fifteen years just gazing adoringly at each other."

He noticed ten years had now stretched to fifteen. "No?" Her nipple rose for him behind her stretchy, seamless bra. He flicked his tongue across it.

"No. We both have careers, responsibilities. And when we split, we have to have something to go back to or we’ll both just wander around in a stupor. No, we have to live normal lives, as normal as it can be for a prosecutor and a vampire president."

"Whatever you say."He didn’t care what they did. He didn’t want to argue, didn’t want to do anything but make love to Alexis, find a wedding chapel, and put a hugely expensive ring on her finger.Because surely marriage was the next logical step.

He sucked on her breast, enjoying her moan, the feel of her fingers flexing in pleasure on his shoulders. Ethan moved her dress higher and higher on her thighs, stroked his fingers over the front of her flesh-colored stretchy panties. " Mmm, I like the way these feel. They give with you."

His thumb pressed into her, and the panties sank slightly into the dampness there, pulled back sticky and wet. Fangs down, lust raging alongside his love, Ethan could feel her heart racing, quickly pumping the thick sweetness of her blood. He scraped his fangs over her breast as she moaned, teasing himself, knowing he wouldn’t bite.

She spread her legs farther apart for him, for his finger, a blatant invitation that he couldn’t resist. He slid her panties down to her ankles, trailed his nose up the side of her calf, her knee, before sucking her skin into his mouth.

"If you’re going to suck anything, you should aim for a little higher," she said, sinking back onto her elbows.

"Higher?" Ethan sucked her inner thigh. "Here?"

"That’s not bad, but a little higher."

Nuzzling between her legs, Ethan parted her soft inner folds with his thumbs and scrutinized her. She was so damn beautiful, glistening with moisture, and giving little shivers of anticipation. "Here?" He sucked the button of her swollen clitoris, holding her down when she bucked against him.

"Yes, that’s exactly where I was talking about," she moaned, collapsing back on the bed.

Her hot sweetness tightened as he pulled at it, the musky scent of her arousal surrounding him, filling his nostrils and blending with the scent of her mortality, her blood. His fangs ached with the need to taste her, his body cramped with sexual want, his erection thick and hard as it strained against his pants.

"Yes," she whimpered, clawing at the bedspread. Then she sat up, giving him a wicked, desperate look. "Bite me, Ethan. I know you want to, I can tell. Do it."