High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(58)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"True." Kelsey wasn’t the best mind reader, but she could certainly project her fear or plea for help to them if she needed to."Speaking of that." He squeezed Alexis’s hand. "You need to learn how to call me with your mind if you need me."

"You can’t read her thoughts?" Seamus asked in amazement.

"Not at all."

Seamus looked at Alexis with new respect. "You really are his chosen one, aren’t you?"

Alexis looked at Seamus like he had serious body odor. Her nose wrinkled. "He may have chosen, but I had to agree to it, too, you know."

"I mean never mind." Seamus crossed his arms. "You can teach her to project."

"You really should, Alexis. You can train yourself to open up to me only when you want to. That way if you’re ever in danger, you can call for me."

"Sure. Like a mental cell phone. That’s cool, as long as you don’t enter my head without asking first." Her scowl showed what she thought of that.

"I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, I couldn’t without youopening yourself for me."

That made her grin."Sounds kinky."

Seamus made a disgusted sound. Ethan was starting to think Seamus needed to reinvent his social life.

"Okay, so just think of something that really brings out strong feelings in you. Something you despise." Ethan led her off the elevator.

"The grocery store."

"You hate the grocery store?" Ethan only went into one on occasion, to buy shaving cream or shampoo, but it didn’t look that awful.Neat and tidy. Food was packaged and ready to cook, unlike in his youth when the castle cooks always had dirty fingernails from slaughtering animals.

"I hate it with a passion. It’s like physical and mental torture. First you have to carve time out of your schedule to do it,then you walk in and are instantly surrounded by millions of choices. And every single item on every shelf requires you do something with it. Chop it or cook it or saute it or remove it from gobs of packaging and microwave it. It’s either fattening, which makes you feel temptation and guilt simultaneously, or it’s good for you and tastes like crap, reminding you that you are five foot two on a tall day with slow metabolism and zero time to work out. Then for the privilege of all this fun, you get to pay outrageous prices for the food that had to be trucked across the desert to the over-air-conditioned grocery store near you, and all hopes of buying a new couch to replace the hideously ugly one you have evaporate in the checkout line."

"Wow." Ethan couldn’t have begun to imagine. "Okay, so channel all that energy about the grocery store into one place in your brain."

They were walking down the hall side by side, Seamus in front of them, but that was just as well. She shouldn’t really be looking at Ethan when she tried to give him her thoughts. "Now let me see it."

"The grocery store?"

"Yes. Let me see your thoughts, in your head, without talking. Push them at me."

Ethan heard and saw nothing.

Alexis made a funny growling sound. "You’re not answering."

"I can’t hear anything." Ethan tried to pick through her wall, but he couldn’t get past it.

She giggled.

"What’s so funny?"

"I’m thinking all kinds of dirty thoughts. I can’t help it."

They reached the doorway to the ballroom where the debate was being held. He stopped and tried to give her a stern look. "Behave yourself. Don’t try and project perversions to me when I’m in the middle of this debate."

"I wouldn’t do that." She gave him a dignified look. "I’m a perfect political girlfriend.A lawyer.Logical. I’m going to have a really kick-ass pet cause, too. Maybe I’ll overhaul campaign finance reform orImpure rights or something. First I’ll have to figure out what’s what, but rest assured I’ll fix something."

"I look forward to it." He tucked her hand into his arm. "Ready? Smile for the vampires, Alexis."

"I’m ready." She took a deep breath and flashed him her pearly teeth.

Seamus opened the door and they strode into the packed ballroom, applause greeting them. Ethan raised his free hand and waved, smiling, giving the victory sign, and feeling damn proud Alexis was on his arm. This was actually a lot of fun with a partner.

Chapter Nineteen

Alexis sat in the front row, heavily guarded on either side by Ethan’s security team. Like someone was going to snatch her or something.

Seamus was two seats over from her, and she could practically smell him sweating. She felt a certain amount of guilt over stressing him out. Hey, she lived for her job, or had up until a week ago. She knew what it was like to put your heart and soul and hours of work into something, only to watch it fail.

It sucked. Failure was like physical pain. She was so TypeA it was scary, and she could sympathize with Seamus. Leaning around the brawny henchman on her right, she whispered to Seamus, "I’m sorry for distracting Ethan. I’ll do whatever is necessary to help him win the election. Just tell me your strategy maybe we can schedule a meeting for tomorrow to get me up to speed."

He stared at her. "I think that’s an excellent idea. We can verse you in proper protocol, such as not speaking during a presidential debate."

Tight-ass.Alexis sat back in her seat and studied the stage. She actually couldn’t hear them all that well. "The acoustics in here are lousy," she told her bodyguard.

He glanced down at her, all dark hair and pale skin. "We have better hearing than you. It’s not necessary to have it any louder."

"Well." So she would just sit there and admire Ethan’s package in that gray suit. His opponent, Donatelli , was a very creepy dude. He wore expensive clothing, but his frame was so lean, he almost looked effeminate. Yet there was nothing gentle about the way he gripped that podium and fired accusations at Ethan.

He pointed fingers at the moderator tugged at his tie, looked exasperated, and cast a cold, hard, arrogant stare across the entire audience. At one point, he said, "With all due respect, Mr. President, that is the most outrageous lie I have ever heard. We don’t believe you, do we?" He held his arm out to encompass the audience. "We think it’s time you told the truth to us." That got Alexis riled up."Bastard."

"Quiet," Seamus reprimanded her.

Right.She’d forgotten she was in a room with two thousand vampires, all of whom could probably hear her speaking if they tried hard enough. That was vaguely (disturbing, but she’d better get used to it, since she was probably going to be spending a lot of time with this crowd for the next decade.