Bit the Jackpot (Vegas Vampires #2)(56)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"You really want to leave politics?"

"You know I have to. People will demand that I resign. I’m okay with that. I just want you in office for another term. I don’t have to be there."Though it made him feel a little solemn to imagine Ethan working without him, getting another advisor. They had worked together for a long time, and Seamus had tried to have a positive impact on the Vampire Nation. But he had broken the law and it was time to step back.

"We’ll see, Fox. It might blow over. It might be nothing. And I’m going to apologize to Alexis, too. I should have told her the Frenchman was back. I didn’t because I thought she’d give him hell for sleeping with her sister. I just didn’t want to deal with the drama, but that wasn’t fair of me."

Seamus glanced over at Ethan in amazement. " Brittany slept with the Frenchman?"

"Oops," Ethan said. "Probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that."

They both laughed,then fell silent. Seamus studied the sky.Brittany and Corbin. Hell. Everyone had been having sex but him. And given the morning’s events, he wouldn’t be having sex again anytime soon either.

"What about Kelsey?" Ethan asked.

"What about her?"

"You’ve spent a lot of time with her. She has your blood now. Maybe you could contact her."

Seamus hadn’t thought about Kelsey. "It’s worth a try. You never know what you’re getting with Kelsey, but maybe she would tell someone where we are."

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, visualize Kelsey, pick through time and space and reach her.Kelsey ?he called.Can you hear me ?

Seamus? Her voice came back to him just a few seconds later, suspicious and hesitant.Why are you in my head ?

Ethan and I need your help. We’re trapped at the Venetian hotel. Send the security team. Seamus was about to elaborate when Kelsey slammed her thoughts shut.

"Shit. She just closed me out. I told her we were trapped and needed help and she shut me out."

"She’s the worst goddamn secretary," Ethan complained. "She names computer files shit like ‘Things I don’t know what to do with’ and she puts rainbow-colored sticky notes all over my desk. I hate that."

"Cara ordered me Betty Boop checks."

That set Ethan off all over again.

"And she bought these pink fluffy towels so that after I showered I had pink lint on my balls."

"Stop," he said, laughing so hard he was doubled over wheezing. "I can’t take it."

It felt better to get it all out there, to make Ethan laugh. If it was someone else, he’d laugh himself, and it was better than sobbing into more alcoholic blood. That had only gotten him tied onto Donatelli’s roof.

"Then today, after she left and got a new room, she sent the bellman to get her stuff.Including the towels."

Ethan made a choking sound. "No f**king way." His laughter sent him rolling over to the left.

It took Seamus a second to realize that Ethan had rolled right off the side of the building."Carrick?" He tried to sit up, to see what had happened. He could see the shackle attached to the wall, and snaking off the roof where Ethan had disappeared. "Carrick, you okay?"

Great.Now Ethan was dangling over the side of the building drunk.Very presidential.

"I’m fine," Ethan called. "And I broke the chain. I should have done that an hour ago." He leaped up onto the roof, hands still locked behind his back in steel cuffs.

Seamus nodded, suddenly feeling very prosaic. "Cool. Now get me out, too, and we can be on our way."

Chapter Fifteen

By sunset, Cara was sobbing again. She had taken a break from wailing to let the bellman in with her belongings earlier and had caught a few hours’ sleep. But now she was awake and she was right back to balling her eyes out, clinging to Seamus’s T-shirt.

It smelled like him, musky and masculine.

And she had reached a new low, cuddling up on the bed with the cotton shirt cradled in her arms. Knowing it was pathetic didn’t make her stop. She was actually dragging it across her face for another whiff when there was a knock on the door.

Maybe it was Seamus. She didn’t think her instructions to keep her room number from him would be an obstacle to a man like Seamus. He could probably hunt her down like a bloodhound, for all she knew. Obviously there was a lot about being a vampire he had failed to mention in the weeks she had lived with him.

She thought about opening the door. She really did want to see him. She missed him. The night before had been so intimate, so tender, so hot, those feelings of love couldn’t have been her imagination. Maybe if she just gave Seamus a chance to explain. Plus she was hungry. She hadn’t fed since the bagged blood that morning with Kelsey and Alexis. Seamus’s blood tasted so much better

Cara flung the shirt completely over her face, wiped her tears with it, and breathed in deeply. She was losing it. And she was not going to answer the door.

The pounding came harder. Her dogs lifted their snouts in disapproval.

"Cara,it’s Alexis and Kelsey. Open up."

Damn. She supposed she couldn’t ignore them.

Still holding the now soggy T-shirt, she got up and answered the door. "Hey."

Alexis’s jaw dropped. "Whoa. Things didn’t go well with Seamus, I take it."

"No."

"What happened to your hair?" Kelsey asked. Despite her early morning adventures in self-mutilation, Kelsey looked fresh and perky, dressed in sexy skinny jeans, a silk camisole, and a sparkly shrug.

Cara touched her head. "I don’t know. What does it look like?" She hadn’t really brushed it since her postsex shower some fifteen hours earlier. She had pulled shirts on and off over her hair, cried into it, slept on it, and chewed the ends at one point. Chances were it wasn’t looking all that great, but she wasn’t sure she cared.

"It looks like you’ve been electrocuted," Alexis said. "But that’s irrelevant." She paced back and forth in front of the bed, while Kelsey sat down.

Cara flopped on the row of hotel pillows lining the headboard and wished more than anything she could still eat chocolate.

"We’re here because Ethan and Seamus are missing."

"Missing? How could they be missing?"

"I don’t know. But none of the guards know where they are, which is insane. They don’t go anywhere without at least two bodyguards. I haven’t seen Ethan since this morning when we had a little bit of an argument. He’s not answering his cell phone. And when I try to call Ethan mentally all I get is this fuzzy sort of static."

"Maybe they’re avoiding us. Maybe they’re somewhere together bitching about us." It had only been twelve hours. They were grown vampires. Cara couldn’t work up the energy to worry.