Bit the Jackpot (Vegas Vampires #2)(24)
Author: Erin McCarthy

But she needed help or she was going to go insane. Or murder Seamus. "Alexis, can I ask you something?"

"Anything.I have a little sister that I raised, you know. I can give advice onanything, even shit I know nothing about."

Cara laughed. "I want to know how to get Seamus to toss me out. If I can’t leave on my own, and I can’t run away, I need to convince him he doesn’t want me around. How do I do that?"

She’d been thinking about it while she’d mindlessly pushed slot machine buttons and it seemed to her the only course of action available to her. Being around him was too dangerous to her mental health and sexual stability. But she didn’t think she could escape past six bodyguards. A glance back at Mutt and Jeff, as she’d silently named them, convinced her of that fact. They were big guys. They could probably snap a cactus in half and not think twice about it. Add four more like them and she was trapped.

"Annoy him until he doesn’t want you around, huh?Very devious. I like it. How to lose a vampire in ten days it just might work." Alexis frowned. "There are a lot of things that annoy Sea- mus.Breaking the rules being number one. Not to mention exhibitionism.Clinging women."

Kelsey shook her head, swiveling her tiny hips as she walked in three inch heels. "He doesn’t like clinging women, but he won’t send you away for that. Like me. I drive him crazy, but he would never send me away. He takes care of me."

That seemed remarkably astute.

"Yikes, she’s right," Alexis said with a grin. "Okay, so what is it you think Seamus likes about you?Because he obviously likes you."

Cara gave that a moment’s thought. It wasn’t hard to figure out. "He thinks I’m a sex goddess. He looks at me and sees a stripper. Sexual fantasy sprung to life. But I’m not a sex goddess at all. I can’t even wear a bathing suit in public without feeling self-conscious. I dance only because I can do it behind a screen and pretend there’s no one watching me." Except for that impromptu lap dance, which frankly hadn’t gone all that well. "He looks at me and thinks sex."

"That makes sense. And it gives me an idea." Alexis stopped walking and glared at the bodyguards when they got too close. They immediately backed up. She dropped her voice down to a whisper. "They’re not supposed to listen to my conversations but you never know. So what’s the one thing that would really drive Seamus crazy?"

"What?" Cara whispered back.

"Commitment.A permanent relationship with a woman.Scares the shit out of him."

That made two of them. Cara felt a little deflated. "Well, I’m not going to offer him that."

"Why not?He won’t take it. If you go all domestic on him, honey this, honey that, did you take out the garbage and why don’t you ever buy me flowers he’ll have you out so fast your head will spin. Seamus doesn’t do commitment.Period."

It made sense. "You may be on to something."

"I’m right. Vampire males are dominating and like to get their way. They’re also terrified at the thought of being attached to one woman for eternity. Vampire marriage is forever, you know. It breeds relationship reticence."

"I’ll give it some thought." Even pretending to be Seamus’s girlfriend scared the blood out of her. What if it backfired and he actuallyliked it? They reached the poker room. "I’m not sure what to do. But first I’m going to win some money."

Seamus was a little confused. Somehow Cara, the feisty exotic dancer, the woman of his fantasies, who had orgasms while feeding from him, had morphed into a walking advertisement forBetter Homes and Undead Gardens .

Opening his front door, he braced himself for what she might have done now. In seven days she’d managed to infuse a startling amount of pink into his apartment, from plump pillows in the living room to fluffy fuchsia towels in his bathroom. The woman wasa meance with Internet access, shopping her way through half a dozen retailers online. Just tonight, after his shower, he’d found pink lint on his bollocks. It was an assault on his manhood. If his soldier friends from the First World War had ever seen him wrapped in pink, they’d have laughed their arses off.

But he couldn’t begrudge Cara a few comforts since he was essentially holding her prisoner against her will for her own safety.

Stepping tentatively into the apartment, he spotted Cara up on a footstool. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

"Oh, good, you’re home! I need help with these curtains." She waved a lot of fabric—pink fabric—toward him.

The devil help him, she was putting pink and orange stripped curtains on his windows. "Uh aren’t those a little bright?" They were more painful than direct sunlight.

"What?" She looked puzzled. "They’re cheerful.Day colors. Raspberry and orange crush."

"Well." Seamus threw his wallet on the dining room table, trying to find a tactful way to say those were the most godawful curtains he’d ever seen. Then he decided he wasn’t known for his tact. "Cara, I don’t like those curtains."

Her eyes went wide, limpid pools swimming with hurt. "I’m just trying to make thingsmore cozy ."

"I understand. I appreciate your effort, honestly. But can’t you make things cozy with curtains that aren’t ugly?" And what was the matter with his desk? Everything looked rearranged.

"You don’t think I have any taste." She flounced down off the footstool, hiking up her oversized sweatpants.

Seamus hated those sweatpants. They hid every inch of her body. For the last few days, she’d worn nothing but giant sweatpants and loose T-shirts. It was starting to irritate him. He sighed and reached for the pile of mail on the table, which had been tucked into a goddamn pink letter organizer.

"I never said you don’t have taste." Everything he said lately was wrong.Just completely wrong. He could say snakes slithered and she’d take it as a personal insult. The only time she wasn’t pouting was when she was feeding. But even then she wouldn’t let him touch her anymore. It was like it was like they weremarried .

God, it was as horrible as he’d always imagined. No sex and nagging twenty-four/seven.

"You implied it." She defiantly shoved the curtain onto the rod she lifted up. "Did you remember to pick up the dog food?"

Shit. "No."

She made that sound, that pissy disapproval sound that said she was so unfortunate to be saddled with an unhelpful ass**le like him. It was amazing she could convey all of that with one tiny sound through tightly pursed lips, but she managed it. Even though she’d mastered the technique of closing her thoughts to him, he didn’t need to hear her thoughts to know she was pissed off at him.