Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(15)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"What? I just needed a little, Kels. That’s all. You know what that’s like." Hell, she’d been a user herself when she was a mortal. So f**k her. She wasn’t any better than he was.

"Can you give us some time?" she asked Williams. "A couple of weeks?"

"I don’t think so." The ass**le shook his head and took one of Kelsey’s scented candles and tossed it up in the air with his thick hands. "You’d have to really motivate me to risk Donatelli getting pissed at me for failing to deliver right away."

"What? A cut for you?"

"Maybe."

Ringo realized that Williams was leering at his wife, rolling his eyes up and down over her body. He sat up straighten Maybe they could take advantage of that, keep the monkey off their back for a few weeks. "So what if Kelsey did a favor for both of you?"

"What kind of favor?"

There were limits on what he’d let these losers do to his wife, but a little o**l s*x had never killed anyone, and it would give them some time to find the money. Then he wouldn’t have to give back the little bit of heroin he still had left. "Kelsey’s a fun girl. Fucking amazing on her knees, as she can demonstrate for you if you’re interested."

Smith smiled. "I might consider that. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Kelsey?"

But Kelsey didn’t say anything. She just turned on her heel and went into their bedroom.

"I didn’t mean right now, babe," Ringo called to her. Damn, her negotiation skills sucked. "Wait until they say yes first."

"Yes," Smith said.

Williams shook his head. "No."

Frustrated, Ringo was about to argue with him, try to persuade him to take a good deal, when he realized that Kelsey had come back out of the bedroom with a suitcase rolling behind her. That didn’t make any sense to him. "What the f**k are you doing?"

"I’m leaving you."

It took him a full ten seconds to process her words. "What?" She didn’t mean like leave him for good, did she? She couldn’t mean that. Kelsey loved him.

"I’m moving out. You can deal with your addiction, these guys, Donatelli, all by yourself. I’m done."

Well, that sucked. "Come on. Let’s talk about this." Ringo fought to keep his eyelids open. Shit, he was sleepy, and he just wanted to sink back and enjoy the haze. But he didn’t want his wife to leave him. He didn’t. "What’s the problem?"

Her lip trembled as she grabbed her purse off the kitchen table. "Oh, I don’t know, the fact that you offered to prostitute me for your drugs. That kind of says something about our relationship. You don’t respect me. I’m not a priority to you."

Great, she was going into psychobabble land on him. "Oh, my God, come on. I’m sorry, shit, it just seemed like a fast fix. Don’t get all worked up, it’s just a blow job. You should want to help me, you know. You should support me."

She opened her mouth, than snapped it shut again. She turned to Williams. "Do what you have to do. But I’m just asking you, as a favor to me, not to kill him."

And with that his wife left. Just walked out, rolling her little prissy pink suitcase behind him, like she didn’t have a f**king care in the world. Leaving him with Dumb and Dumber and a sick stomach and no money.

So much for loyalty. Love.

Ringo didn’t even bother to duck the next blow. He just let it nail him dead on, rattling his teeth and bursting the skin on his cheek open. Wishing Kelsey had told them to kill him, he closed his eyes. He was already in hell. Might as well make it official.

And when he got there, he was going to make damn sure Donatelli followed right after him.

Nate was actually surprised that Gwenna hadn’t just sent him packing with a thanks and a don’t call me, I’ll call you. That hadn’t exactly been his smoothest sexual encounter, and while he knew she’d had an orgasm, it had all been a little fast and furious. In the midst of it, he had been positive she’d been digging it, had felt her enthusiasm and her wild abandonment. But it seemed like the second he pulled it out, she was having regrets, trying to cover her nakedness up, and worrying about her phone ringing. Then she had been embarrassed as hell by the security guard and Nate had figured the night was over and he should be grateful for what he’d gotten.

But Gwenna had come back with the idea of slipping into a massage room and he was smart enough not to question fortune when it shined on him. Now he was kissing the bejeezus out of her on a massage table and feeling damn grateful she was giving him a chance to go back into the game. This time he was going to draw things out, build a little suspense, make her completely satisfied and glad she’d spent the night with him, not waking up in the morning wondering why the hell she’d had sex with a stranger.

To that end, he was employing a good old-fashioned make-out session, no rushing, no groping, just kissing slow and easy, like they were a raw sixteen and lip locking was enough to satisfy. He could feel her relaxing beneath him, her knees sinking back down to the table, her hands letting go of the death grip she’d had on the front of his shirt. When he’d laid her down, she hadn’t resisted, but she hadn’t exactly embraced the idea either. She had stiffened, knees up in the air, hands pressing against him like she was holding him at bay, her head slightly up off the pillow.

But now she was sort of melting onto the bed, all of her body relaxing and opening for him, her hair spread out around her head, her breathing soft and languid. Nate ran his tongue across her bottom lip, enjoying the sound she made. It was a tiny sigh, a release, a letting go. That was what he wanted, what they both needed. Here in the narrow semidark room, with a lingering scent of earthy candle and lotions, there was nothing to worry about. No reality. Just each other and pleasure, for a short space of time, before it would all crash back in on them.

Nate wasn’t all that comfortable half standing, half leaning over her on the bed, but he was capable of compartmentalizing. He could ignore his calf muscle burning for the privilege of running his finger over her smooth cheek, down her neck, across her shoulder. Gwenna had amazing skin, with absolutely no imperfections anywhere. It was like brushing his lips over satin sheets, cool and sleek and expensive. He was very conscious of how big and rough and guy he was next to her, and he liked that. She was delicate and slight and all things soft and feminine.

"This is very nice," she murmured, breaking their kiss. "Did you notice the bed is heated? It feels delicious."

He had noticed because it was the last thing in the world he needed. He was generating plenty of heat on his own and knew if he lay down on the massage table with her, he was going to break out into a massive sweat. But he had noticed that Gwenna’s skin tended to be always cold. She must have a slow metabolism or something. "Glad you like it. I bet it would feel even better under the blanket." With her clothes off.