chapter Fourteen
Kelsey pursed her lips at him and avoided his eyes as Ringo pressed her back against the wall with his body, one leg wedged between her skinny thighs.
To anyone walking down the hall, they looked like a couple getting it on. But all he felt was a cold, unpleasant fear that his carefully constructed, unemotional life might be collapsing in on him. "What did you mean by that? And don't think you can play me, because I can snap your neck right now and get away with it."
He was lying. He wouldn't kill her. He didn't even like the way he had to threaten her, but he had no choice, and no time to feel sorry for the dark-haired ditz.
Kelsey licked her already glossy lips. Her breath panted in his face, quick and distressed. It had a sickly sweet scent to it, like she'd been drinking one of those girl drinks with fruit in them. "You have to stop what you're trying to do you won't be successful. I can't see who wants you to do it, but you'll only get caught, and he still won't die."
Ringostared at her, his heart pounding, his grip on the waist of her red dress tightening. She had to know theItalian, there was no other way any of this made sense. But how and why, that was the question. And was he being set up? Had Kelsey purposely been a distraction?
Damn Donatelli for pulling him into his games.
"Are you his girlfriend?"
"Mr. Carrick?" Her dark brown eyes widened. "No. He hasn't been dating anyone at all. Not until now, with Brittany 's sister."
"Not Carrick.The other one.The one who sent you to me." Frustration made his voice hoarse as he tried to keep it low.
"I don't know what you mean." Her shoulders scrunched up, like she was trying to protect herself from him. "I know you wanted to kill him because I heard your thoughts in your head."
Oh, my God. He fucking could not believe he'd had the idiocy to even speak to this girl the night before. He should have pretended he didn't speak English. Been Italian himself for the night.
"I speak Italian," she said. "My mother was Italian."
"What?" Ringo dropped his hands from her waist. He hadn't said any of that out loud.
"You couldn't have pretended to be Italian and not able to speak English because I speak Italian. That's what I mean."
"How are you doing that?" And how had she left him in a confused stupor with his pants unzipped the night before? He didn even remember having a drink when she sat down next to him.
"You didn't have a drink."
"I didn't say that out loud." Ringo narrowed his eyes at her-
Some of her nervousness was disappearing and she stared at him expectantly. He didn't believe in this kind of psychic crap, hadn't believed in much of anything since the service.
"What's the service?" Kelsey blinked."Oh, the Army or something?"
His hands went cold and his throat closed. A sweat ran down between his shoulder blades. "You can read my thoughts?"
She nodded. "I've never been that great at it, but with you, it's like one of those things what are they called? The thingy they use to have the news guy read the, you know, things he's supposed to read?"
Ringopressed his temple, brushed his hair off his forehead, his brain understanding what she was saying yet at the same time unable to accept it."A TelePrompTer?"
"Yes! That's it." She reached out and touched his chest.
Ringostiffened, but she only stroked him with an odd sort of tenderness. "Don't worry. I won't tell, but you have to promise not to try anymore. It won't work."
"Why not?"Thoughts raced and tumbled in his head and he was unable to get a solid grip on anything. None of this made sense. Since the minute he'd said yes to this hit, things had been off.Out of balance. "I can get around security."
"It just won't work. Mr. Carrick is untouchable. Trust me." She moved her hand to rest on his shoulder and gave him a smile, her fear clearly gone. "I wish I knew your name."
Ringotried to close his thoughts down, panicked that she would know who he was. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle ran through his head. It was the first name to pop to the front of his consciousness?his kid brother's name.
"Kyle? You don't look like a Kyle." Kelsey giggled. "More like a Mario.Something that ends in 'o' anyway."
Ringofelt a cold pit settle down into his stomach. The silly bitch could actually read his thoughts.
He didn't even like to be in his own head. He sure in the hell didn't want anyone else in there.
Ethan ignored the first three voicemail messages from Seamus and drank two bags of blood in rapid succession. He was thirsty from all the physical exertion of the last hour. The thought tripped a memory of being inside Alexis, the way she'd clamped her legs around him and yelled her pleasure.
He'd known she would be aggressive, and she hadn't disappointed him. But now he wanted his turn, to set the stage and the seduction. He'd left Alexis sleeping in her room next to his, so he could come back and feed. She wasn't used to being awake during the night, but Ethan was, and he couldn't change a pattern nearly a millennium old, despite the fact that in his casino he could move about during the day without ever encountering the sun.
Not that the sun bothered him that much anymore anyway, now that he was older and stronger. If he had lived in a northern or eastern city, he could probably have even spent an entire day out in the sunlight. In Vegas it would be a little tough, but he could do it on occasion for an hour or two as he had that day. And despite Alexis waking him earlier than usual, he wasn't feeling sleepy.
What he felt was reenergized. He'd been sleepwalking lately, letting his job prod and push him through his nights. He knew in his gut that it was essential he win this election, remembered all the reasons why, but at the same time realized that he had become a workaholic.The job and nothing more. It was time to find better balance in his life before he suffered burnout.
Before he became a dried-up old crank of a vampire, with no sense of humor and zero sex life.That was a horrific view of the future?Ethan would do anything to avoid that, even incur Sea- mus'swrath.
"You're starting to piss me off," was Seamus's fourth message. It made Ethan laugh as he held his room phone up to his ear. Sea- muswashalfway to old crank already, and he was only a few hundred years old.
Leaving his dirty glass in the kitchenette, Ethan went back into his living room. Since this was home about eighty percent of the time, it was designed for his comfort and convenience. He had a bedroom with luxury bath, an office, a living area, and a kitchenette with a Sub-Zero minifridge and a dishwasher for his glasses. Alexis had noticed that the decor was a little out of the ordinary for the desert, but he liked the stately, dark colors that reminded him ofEngland .
It wasn't easy to remain obscure in the English countryside these days, and he found Vegaswas a perfect cover-up for a vampire.
Bloody hot and lacking in trees, but a man couldn't have everything. There was a certain charm to the constant ebb and flow of humanity inSinCity ?a sort of perpetual defiance of reality.
A knock pounded on his door. It didn't sound like a Seamus knock, which would be polite but firm. This was a ragtag, pay attention to me kind of knock.
Alexis.
"Ethan?" she called.
Barefoot, he walked to the door, vampire speed. He had it open before she even finished speaking his name. "Hey, come on in. I thought you'd be asleep for hours still. It's the middle of the night."
She looked adorably rumpled and grouchy, wearing his sweatpants and a T-shirt that said // smcmy give a damn is broken. "You're not blowing me off? When I woke up and you were gone, I thought maybe you're one of those guys who won't spend the night and I just wanted to clear up right now that that irritates me. If you can stay long enough to have sex with me, you can damn well stay a little longer. This isn't a drive-through service."
It was a struggle to keep a straight face. "Trustme, I'm not one of those guys. It's just I can't sleep at night, and I didn't want to disturb you, so I came home to eat and do some work. I had every intention of waking you up at the crack of dawn so I could make love to you again before I sleep for the day."
Her nose wrinkled. "Well, this sucks. It's like we're on swing shifts. I either have to stay up half the night or you have to force yourself awake during the day."
Ethan didn't like that any more than she did. "If I start getting up a little earlier, say five or six o'clock, and you stay up a little later, like one or two in the morning, we'd have plenty of time for dating and otheractivities . No less than other couples who both work."
She leaned on the living room wall. "Are we a couple?"
"You agreed that we're dating, and we are now sexually mti mate, so I believe that makes us a couple, yes."
"Wow. And look at how well we compromise already. We've got this couple thing in the bag." That was capped off with a yawn
"You can go back to bed if you'd like, gorgeous. Or we can go lying, get some fresh air."
"Flying? Whattaya mean?" Her words started to slur together as her shoulders and eyelids drooped. "You're not going to turn into a bat, are you? I really think that would freak me out."
"Not a bat. It's more like a Superman maneuver. I can go for a mile or two at a time. It's sort of like running in the air for me."
She stood straight up, tugging at her shirt. "No kidding? Can all vampires do that?"
"Just ancient ones likemyself ." A hint of braggart entered his voice, which surprised him. He'd thought he was past the pride of youth.
"Well, aren't you the shit?"
That stripped away any feelings of grandeur. Alexis had an honest way of putting everything into perspective. "Younger vampires can go up and down and hover, but not laterally."
"Cool. Do I need my purse?"
"Just some shoes."He had his wallet in his pants pocket. Not that anyone would see them. They'd be going too fast.
A minute later, she was back with gym shoes on, and they stepped out onto his balcony. Being in the penthouse, he had one of only four balconies in his hotel.
Alexis leaned over the edge and took a deep breath of the cool night air. "So what do we do? Do I need to have a Wendy moment? Think happy thoughts? Or do you have fairy dust or something."
"Think happy thoughts if you want. But I resent being com-pared to Peter Pan."
She laughed. "You're definitely more man than boy."
At least she'd noticed. "Stand in front of me, facing me, and wrap your arms around my chest with your legs around mine."
Alexis sort of jumped up onto him, legs way up around his waist."No, not like that, gorgeous. Keep your feet on the ground for now. If you're up too high, you push out from me and wind will get between us, which will tug you away from me, making it harder to hold on. I don't want you to slip off."
"That's reassuring." She slid her waist and legs down his.
"That's it. Nice and snug against me."
The little minx took his words to heart and did a sultry rub all up and down on him, which was incredibly distracting. "You'd better stop that. My erection will create wind resistance."
She laughed. "Nobody's that big, Garlic."
Ethan didn't answer, but just bent his knees and jumped off the balcony, arms locked around her.
With a squawk, she clung tighter to him." Geez! We're in the air!"
"That's kind of the point." Then he got going faster, and concentrated fully on the feeling of heading through the night air. The times when he allowed himself full use of the powers of his body he felt amazing, like he was free and at peace withwho and what he was.
And with the weight of Alexis in his arms, for once he was not alone on his strange journey.
That was the unexpected gift of finding his chosen one. And he just might stick that in a poem.
Alexis had feared for her bladder for a split second, but now that they were winging across the sky, like they were on a motor-
cycleat seventy-five miles per hour, her fear had given over to exhilaration. Ethan had her securely in his arms, and she was half on her back, her hair straight across her face from the force of their forward motion.
Jack and Rose fromTitanic had nothing on them, baby. They were flying.
She held on to the cotton of his shirt with a fierce grip and locked her feet behind his ankles. Eyes closed, she felt the wind, smelled the desert, heard the low hum of the Strip below them, still alive at three in the morning. Moving like this?it was a roller coaster, a convertible with the top down, a bungee jump.
They went higher, then lower, and Alexis laughed in delight. She'd wanted new experiences, wanted to loosen up. This was certainly that.
And she was falling for Ethan. Absolutely falling for him head over ass, bullet-train speed.
He was everything she could ask for in a man, except human.Which could be a problem.
They slowed to a hovering stop, in a vertical position. Her back bumped into something. Alexis looked around, trying to get her bearings, shoving the wild windblown hair off her face.
She was pressed against a wall, slightly angled, held up by Ethan.
"Where are we?"
His arm went under her butt and made a seat for her. "This is the Sphinx on the front of theLuxor . We're on its neck."
Alarmed, Alexis tried to turn. She flung her arms out and tried to find purchase with her gym shoes.
Careful." Ethan gripped her harder, pinning her to the wall. He kissed her, but she couldn't get into it. They were hanging out in the air, with nothing but Ethan's arms keeping her from swift and painful death.
She wasn't, sure why that was different from flying, but it was, and she was sure she was going to die.
"Relax. I didn't expect you to be such a wimp," he whispered in her ear, before invading her eardrum with his tongue.
Her body reacted predictably. Nipples up, panties damp, legs spread. Head lolled back and breath went shallow.
"I'm riot a wimp."A hussy maybe, but not a wimp. But his words relaxed her, staved off the panic. He seemed to be holding her without any strain, and the building was helping take some of her weight off him.
"No, you're not." In the dark, with his lips nearly flush with hers, his face was shadowy, eyes black as the night behind them. "You're amazing."
This kiss she enjoyed, the force of his tongue felt all through her body and clear down to her toes. Ethan had a wonderful mouth, which he moved on hers with just enough pressure to excite and entice and give thought to getting back to either of their rooms.
"You taste delicious," he murmured, "fresh and sweet."
"You make me sound like fruit."
"I barely remember what fruit tastes like. Right now, thereis only you."
Damn, he was good at this. Alexis closed her eyes?suspended in the air, in time and space, and desire, as Ethan suckled her neck, the top of her breast.
Through the T-shirt she was wearing, he plucked at her nipple with his teeth. And when his hand slipped beneath the loose waist band of her sweatpants, she groaned.
"You're not wearing any panties," he said, sounding scandalized.
"I haven't been wearing any all night. Why start now?" Alexis arched into his touch, gripping his shoulders.
"It certainly makes this easier." His finger pressed inside her, stroking up and down.
"Oh, shit, that feels good." She was who the hell knew how many feet in the air, suspended by nothing more than the strength of Ethan's vampire arms, and he was getting her off. This had to be the most unusual date she'd ever been on, by far, and that included the time a guy in college had taken her pig wrestling.
"Are you sure this is safe?" she asked between moans as her hips thrust forward onto him.
"Absolutely."He sucked her nipple through her shirt again, sending a jolt vibrating around her inner thighs. "Just whatever you do, don't come."
"No?" She was about three seconds away from doing just that. The way he was sucking and stroking, plucking and pressing, she was spiraling quickly to the point of no return. With supreme willpower, she tried to scoot back away from him and his talented invasion, but there was nowhere to go. Her back was against the wall, literally.
His touch was relentless, a second finger sliding in with the first, and she pushed her feet against the steel wall, desperate to get away. Gravity kept pulling her down, settling his fingers deeper inside her, the base of his hand bumping against her vulva.
"Ethan, stop. I can't "
"Can't what?" he asked in a harsh whisper, pulling his fingers apart and stretching the swollen flesh. He was deep, just buried so far in there, his breath blasting across her cheek, her neck, his teeth plucking at her nipple.
"Oh!" This wasn't going to work. Alexis bit her lip and knew she was about done. "You can't and expect me not to "
Talking was too much effort. All her lung capacity was going to moaning, and her brain power was focused on keeping her eyes uncrossed.
"Don't do it, Alexis," he said, even as he pinched her clitoris.
"Too late."Her head snapped back, and her whole body stilled for a split second, before she succumbed to a massive orgasm. It ripped through her, wracking her with shudders, convulsive waves of pleasure, and forcing a violent cry from her.
Feet scraping on the Sphinx, she rode it to the end, gripping the straining muscles of his forearms. When she was limp against him and panting, he finally removed his fingers from her with a triumphant smile.
"You wanted me to do that, didn't you?" she asked, kissing the corners of his mouth.
"Yes, I really, really did." And he looked about as satisfied as she felt.
And as aroused.
Arms tight around her, he pulled them away from the building. "Now let's move before we're spotted."
Though Alexis couldn't imagine anyone would guess the truth? floating vampire gives killer orgasm?if they saw a spot high on the Sphinx, she sure didn't want any investigating.
"You're a man with a plan. Take me wherever you want." Slack and satiated, she held weakly on to Ethan and let him fly her through the night.
Brittany couldn't sleep. She had the prickling sensation that someone was watching her, and it was unsettling. Never one to be paranoid, she didn't have trouble sleeping, not even after scary movies. And Alexis was the occasional insomniac, never Brittany. She had always fallen asleep practically before her head even hit the pillow.
Sunday night, she was lying on her bed beneath a gauzy thin white sheet, staring at the ceiling, her heart beating a little too fast. It was a safe apartment building in Summerlin , with bright floodlights, new windows, and a security entrance. All her doors and windows were locked. There was no reason to be feeling this sense of disquiet, this weird negative anticipation.
Maybe it was guilt. She shouldn't have left The Ava. She shouldn't have let Corbin walk away from her. She really needed to figure out a way to help him?surely he didn't deserve banishment, no matter what he had done. Maybe she could talk to Ethan, discuss it with him, and see if there could be a better solution. Corbin was a tortured soul.
That stressed Brittany out, stirred her compassion. Brittany had never been tortured, in any sense of the word, and it broke her heart to see other people struggle. Her mother had been tortured. Alexis didn't see that?maybe had been too hurt to realize it?but it was true. Their mother put her faith in all the wrong peo-ple and was burned over and over again, and the whole time she had desperately tried to grab on to happiness, seeking a higher thrill, through men, sex, drinking, dancing. Her eyes would light with that feverish desperation, and Brittany had felt sorry for her. Even at six years old, Brittany had seen her pain.
Punching, her pillow, she turned on her side. Why hadn't she drawn the drapes? The linen sheers didn't block out the moonlight, and it was fanning out across her legs. That was probably what was keeping her awake. She scissored her legs, kicking off the sheet. Either it was the moon, her shorty pajamas riding up, or she had just way too much on her mind.
Her sister Alexis was tortured, too, but in a different way. She had been hurt, felt rejected by their mother, and she marched through life ready to smack down anyone who dared to try to get close to her. Alexis couldn't get intimate because she didn't want to get hurt.
If Alexis had an affair with Ethan Carrick, it would be temporary, because at a certain point she would resist it going any further. Which was a shame, because Brittany liked Ethan, thought he was a good foil for hersister. Then again, he was a vampire, and that had the potential to be a bad thing.
Eyes wide open, Brittany hugged her shabby chic floral heart-shaped pillow, and wondered if she should just get up, get dressed, and drive back to The Ava. That tremor, like fingers walking up her spine, rippled through her again.
She wasn't sure whether to take that as a yes or a no.
Corbin sat on the garage roof across from Brittany 's bedroom window and wrestled with himself. It was ridiculous, his behav ior . Why was he hanging out in the shadows again, watching this woman? Why did he not just take what he wanted?
Someblood, that was all he wanted.
He was very close to the cure, he was certain.
Brittany could be the key.
Go inside, he commanded himself.
His body stayed exactly where it was.
He reminded himself he was possibly running out of time. If Donatelli won the election, Corbin would not be allowed to remain inLas Vegas . More likely, he would be sent to Alaska or someplace equally horrible, where he would have to draw blood from moose or bears or something else with fur.
The very idea offended his sensibilities. He did not even enjoy Vegas all that much, with all its glitz and bright lights, but it was civilization, with conveniences and decent tailors. Not nineteenth-centuryParis , that was true, but it was accommodating and full of seductive women.
Taking blood from a showgirl or a moose.There was really no comparison.
Corbin sighed.Climbed down off the garage roof.
And went to break into Brittany 's bedroom window.