High Stakes (Vegas Vampires #1)(62)
Author: Erin McCarthy

He nodded, relief turning his stomach sour. He hadn’t realized how f**king frightened he’d been until now, when it looked like she was okay. Ethan carefully hid those fears from her and gave her a smile. "I know exactly what you mean. You’re going to have a few days of adjustment, but then I have a feeling you’ll be enjoying your newfound vampire powers. Just think how fast you can karate kick me."

She gave a laugh, wiping at her mouth with her finger, catching a stray drop of his blood. The finger went into her mouth and she licked it, her eyes dilating with desire. " Mmm, I like the way you taste."

Ethan was shocked at how hard that made him. He’d never seen a mortal take to the change with such nonchalance.

"Later, after you’ve rested, you can taste all of me."

Her fingers marched down his chest. "You wanted to do me, didn’t you? I could feel Chief here " She brushed over his erection."And could feel in your mind that you wanted to get nasty on me."

"That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me during a change. You have a strange effect on me." Ethan tried to work up some embarrassment, but it just wasn’t there.Relief, pleasure held top spot, followed by lingering shock, growing excitement.

She was his.Forever.

Alexis smiled, her normally green eyes sharpening to a sparkling emerald. "Good. Let’s take a shower together and explore that strange effect." She was still smiling, her fingers working on him, but she also gave a rattling cough.

"You need to rest," he told her, stilling her touch on his erection before he moaned. "Your body has been through a trauma and needs to recover."

Currently, his body was going through its own trauma of lust, but he could ignore that for now. Even if his whole being urged him to take her, mate, push out all of the fear, the agony he’d just suffered watching her bleed to death, and join in desperate sex.

"Fine," she said. "But after I take a little nap, you’d better be prepared to initiate me in the ways of vampire sex. I have a very healthy curiosity. Can you hear my thoughts now? I want to understand all things vampire."

Ethan kissed her forehead. "No, only while our blood was mingling. And I’ll show you all things vampire, have no fear. But the very first thing we’re going to do is get married." He wanted to claim her, let the world know she washis, move her into his apartment and his bed permanently. "I’m holding you to your words, you know."

Before any of that, on a much less pleasant note, he needed to take care of poor Kelsey, as soon as he could force himself to let go of Alexis.

She wiggled in his arms. "I don’t plan on reneging." Then she ran her fingers over his mouth and sighed. "Thank you for saving me."

"Trust me, it was my pleasure." Ethan bent down, touched her mouth with his. Love, passion, devotion poured from him into her, and she gasped as they tasted each other, blending teeth and tongue, blood and desire.’

Vampire to vampire, mate to mate, this kiss was of tangled tongues, urgent relief, electric strength, and focused love.

"What the hell is going on?" Seamus asked in shock.

"It’s about time you got here," Ethan said, turning to glance at his old friend.

Seamus ran his hand through his hair, his cell phone clutched in his grip as he took in the scene. "Oh, shit, I don’t even want to know what happened here, doI? "

"Probably not," Ethan agreed. "But you have to know. Alexis had an appalling discovery." He gestured to Kelsey. "I need you to take care of Kelsey, please, and we need to know why she was put here like this. A vampire drained her."

"Oh, my God," Seamus said, his voice stunned. "Why?"

"And it was a vampire who stabbed me," Alexis said, sitting up and brushing her hair back off her shoulders.

Seamus made a choking noise.

Ethan took one look at the bra and panties Alexis was wearing and peeled off his suit jacket. Throwing it around her shoulders, he told her, "Why don’t you go take a shower, love?"

"That’s a great idea." She winced when she stood up, and shook out her ankle, but then she just clutched the jacket around her bloodied midsection and walked toward the bathroom as if she hadn’t been injured at all.

"She was bleeding out," Ethan told Seamus. "There’s no way EMTs could have saved her."

Seamus was glancing over Kelsey, checking her neck and shoulders for puncture wounds. "You don’t have to justify yourself to me, Ethan." He locked his dark blue eyes on him."Seriously. I’m sure you did what you thought was right."

"Thanks, Seamus. That means a lot." Ethan thought about a life without Alexis. "I know I did the right thing. I’m sure of it."

He knelt down beside his old friend and rubbed his jaw. "How long do you think Kelsey’s been without blood?"

"Eight hours, maybe more." Seamus shook his head in disgust. "Who the hell would do this? It only looks like one vampire. Only one set of teeth."

"I don’t know. And I can’t imagine why either. Kelsey was absolutely harmless." Death in mortals was hard to see, but Ethan was used to it. Butvampires death was rare, and it hit hard, especially when it was someone as young and vibrant and full of life as Kelsey had been.

The brutality of the crime was shocking and offensive. "Someone wants to put this on me."

"Not if I have anything to do with it." Seamus pressed a finger to Kelsey’s neck. "Don’t worry. You deal with guiding Alexis through the change. I’ll take care of Kelsey."

Ethan got up todo just that , but he paused. "Have you seen the Frenchman?"

"No. Why?"

"Just wondering."Ethan reflected on the bites on Brittany .On Corbin’s research for the cure.

On why Atelier had been banished in the first place, and what that might mean for now.

Chapter Twenty-one

Alexis wished she could actually see herself in the mirror. So far, that was the only downside to the vampire deal. It was her wedding night and she couldn’t possibly tell how huge her ass looked in the white sheath dress she was wearing.

Then again, maybe that was a good thing.

"Are you sure I look okay?" she asked Brittany for the twelfth time. "This is the only time I’m going to get married and I want to make sure Ethan doesn’t scream when I come down the aisle."

"You look fabulous." Brittany pulled Alexis’s hand off the back of the dress. "Stop touching your butt, you’re making it bunch up."

Alexis dropped her hands and took a deep breath. "Okay, I’m cool. I’m fine. I’m just committing myself to one man for the rest of eternity. Somehow I never saw this twist in my life a month ago."