Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(54)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Have you ever bitten me?"

"No!" Gwenna was offended, until she remembered the little love bite she’d taken. "Just once. And not to feed. It was while we were… I just wanted to taste you, feel you completely."

"Who are you?" Nate asked, looking at her with such profound hurt that she wanted to weep. "I don’t know anything about you at all."

"Yes, you do. You don’t know details, but you know me, Nate. I’m the same Gwenna you understood me to be this afternoon. The woman you said you were falling in love with." Bringing up that little confession right at the moment might be horrific timing, but Gwenna didn’t want to lose the opportunity to remind him of what he felt. She did not want to lose him, period.

"But you’re a vampire, with a very long past. How long?"

"I was born in England in the eleventh century. Ethan is my half-brother, and he turned me to vampire when I almost bled to death in childbirth."

Nate stared at her, cop face on. It was disconcerting the way he could completely shutter his emotions. She didn’t really have any true gauge of his feelings.

"So your daughter, the one who accidentally fell on a sword, was born hundreds of years ago?"

"Yes. And she didn’t accidentally fall on a sword. She lived to the age of twenty-five, then she killed herself with a sword so Ethan or I wouldn’t change her to vampire." Saying the words out loud was painful, but Gwenna wanted Nate to understand she had kept the truth from him because there had no way to be honest without him declaring her insane. It had never been from malice or plain old dishonesty, but out of necessity. "It was a different time period then. She thought Ethan and I were an aberration, that we were evil."

That cracked Nate’s mask. "I’m sorry, Gwenna."

She gave him a brief smile. "Yeah, me, too. I’ve lived a lot of years wishing I could alter the past, wishing that my daughter was still with me, wishing that she hadn’t shown fear of me in the end, but I’ve learned to deal with it. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely at peace but I’m getting there. And I’m learning to be more independent, to spend less time alone."

Nate sighed. "I want to be angry with you. I want to be furious. But I look at you… I see that look in your eyes and I can’t do it. I can’t stay angry, even when you lied to me because I know that you only do what you think is right. You’re a good woman, and you’d never hurt me intentionally."

Hope swelled in her. "No, I absolutely wouldn’t. I… I love you, Nate. And I haven’t told a single man those words since my divorce, which was three hundred years ago."

Nate’s head was pounding, brain struggling to keep up and process all he was uncovering. While he heard Gwenna’s declaration of love, it was her latter words that made him give a laugh of disbelief. "Three hundred years since your divorce? God, that’s insane. And the ass**le is still giving you crap. That’s just not right."

It wasn’t right. And Nate was a vampire. That wasn’t right either. The very thought messed with his head. Though he knew it was true. He could feel the changes in himself, see the sharpness and clarity of objects around him, hear with a focus and subtlety that were new. He could smell every nuance of people and the world around him. Feel his fangs. Crave blood.

Scary as hell, that’s what it was. But at the same time, he knew he wouldn’t have wanted to die. He was more selfish and controlling than Kyra. His sister had accepted her fate with grace and dignity and Nate had admired her, had been in awe of her. He knew that he could never have just accepted death without wanting to fight, that he had the sense that he hadn’t finished what he needed to accomplish in his life.

So he would accept his vampire fate. Eventually he would probably have to thank Gwenna for it. But at the moment he was too busy processing information and sensory input to appreciate that he should reassure her, tell her how he felt in return. Because he still cared about Gwenna, wanted to be with her. Even more now that he understood just how long she had been battling her ex-husband and her grief for her daughter.

But Gwenna just shrugged. "Roberto is Roberto. Though tonight I think he and I finally reached an understanding. He just may be sufficiently angry to stop speaking to me indefinitely." She stood up and came over to him. Her hand slipped into his. "I’m just sorry that it took me so long to stand up to him, to be honest with him. Because if I had done so sooner, you would still be mortal."

She looked so sad, so worried, that Nate touched her cheek. He couldn’t stand a woman in tears, and she looked damn close to losing it. The last thing he wanted was for Gwenna to take this on and own it. "This isn’t your fault. Don’t ever say that. You didn’t have me shot. Donatelli did."

"I got you involved."

"No, I got involved because there was a murderer running around killing people. You’re not responsible for those deaths on the slayers’ loop either. You haven’t done anything wrong. You and I chose to be together, chose to hook up because we both wanted to. End of story."

Her blue eyes stared up at him, her long eyelashes wet with her unshed tears. "Is that the end of the story? We hooked up, and that’s it?"

A tear squeezed out and slid down her cheek. A red tear. Blood. Nate felt his throat close. He loved her. He did. That had to be what this was, even as he doubted it, a nasty little fear that he was wrong, that he was wanting her to be something she wasn’t, wanting what was between them to be real when it wasn’t. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure of her, him, or what the hell love really was, but there was one thing he’d never question. He wanted Gwenna safe and he would protect her from anything, anyone. Even himself. But right now, he just wanted to hold her, to feel her against him. "No, that’s not it."

Gathering her in his arms, Nate pulled her close and kissed her forehead, her temple, her cheek. "Blood tears. Do we all do that?"

"No." She shook her head against his chest, her body still stiff and unsure. "Only a few of us. Kelsey and I can do it, but no one else in Vegas that I know of."

"So you’re special."

"Not so much."

Nate tipped her chin up. "You’re special to me. I want to be with you, Gwenna. I want to love you."

He kissed her tenderly, enjoying the way her soft lips parted for him. His tongue was more sensitive, more attune to her unique taste. She was delicious. His. Just as he felt the urge to bite her, she pulled back.

"Good. Because I was determined to convince you we need to be together, but the truth of the matter is I don’t really have time to do that right now. We have a problem."