Sucker Bet (13 page)

That's what she had in mind, but she didn't think that's what Nate meant.

"Gwenna. I have had a hard couple of days and I don't have it in me to be playing guessing games. If you didn't mean to ditch out on me, what are we doing here? What do you want from this? Just last night?"

She shook her head. It felt like they'd just got started and she was attracted to him, physically and otherwise. "No. I would like to see you again. What do you want?"

What Nate wanted was a big old tropical island far away from death with Gwenna naked on it, but seeing as that wasn't a real likely possibility anytime soon, he gave her the simplified version of the truth. "I want you." Painfully. Immediately.

Her blue eyes widened, sparking with desire. "It's good to hear we're in agreement then."

Nate closed the distance between them. Gwenna was wearing the tightest stretchy pants he'd ever seen, and he loved the way they hugged her ass, and even better, the way they clung in front, outlining her sex for him. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her, hot and hard, forcing her lips open with his tongue, while his free hand stroked over the front of her pants, and his cock went hard on cue.

Her gasp against him satisfied him. Gwenna's knees bent, and she leaned forward, her soft fingers wrapping around his wrist like she meant to stop his touch. The hell with that. Nate pressed his thumb against her clit, nudging her legs apart. Then he stroked and petted her over the soft stretchy pants, loving the way the fabric cupped her mound, enjoying the sound of her breathing in his ear, her tiny little gasps and sighs. Gwenna was petite and proportionate, but while he'd originally thought she was fragile, lithe, skinny, he now knew her body was all woman, with curves and a healthy muscle tone. She was thin, but firm, curvy, but toned. Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect.

Driving her wild without undressing her was really damn hot, and Nate saw no reason to stop. He kissed and licked her mouth, his fingers moving over and over her, brushing her nipples, smoothing over her tight ass, sliding up and down in the indentation in her pants he'd created by stroking her, pressing a little deeper and deeper as she moved restlessly, knees bending further.

"Take my pants off," she murmured, her cheeks bright pink spots of color, and her eyes half closed, glazed with desire.

Nate bit her bottom lip. "Shh. You're fine like this."

Her gasp of indignation turned him on. "Take my pants off," she demanded, clamping her hand around his wrist and holding him still with a strength that surprised him at the same time it made him hotter than hell. Damn, the lady wanted her pants off. She looked so sweet and innocent, like she'd faint at the site of a naked man, but looks were deceiving. Shit. Gwenna gave as good as she got.

"Yes, ma'am." He ripped her pants down to her knees and slid two fingers inside her wet, eager body.

"Oh, hell, Nate." She closed her eyes, and still gripping his wrist, she came, with graceful shudders, head falling back, back arching, hips thrusting to meet his touch.

It was beautiful. And suddenly, in the midst of the lust, the hot, wet desire to grab her hips and fuck the life out of her, Nate felt something else. Maybe a kind of gratitude to her for sharing herself with him at the right time, maybe an attraction for her as a woman, a human being, or maybe a kind of interest stirring to life that went beyond sex, and the instinctive urge to protect her, in all her intriguing mix of strong yet incredibly vulnerable. Whatever the hell it was, it was there, and Nate was caught off guard. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was unnerving, and he needed to regroup, get a grip on his life before he dove in and did something stupid as hell.

So after she came back to earth and smiled at him, making little sighs of delight, Nate gave her a soft kiss, and pulled her pants back up.

That earned him a frown. "What are you doing?"

"I need to go back to work."

"You can't take five more minutes?" Her outrage nearly made him laugh.

"I don't want to settle for five minutes," he told her, which was true. It was also true he was feeling a little like he'd been nailed by a baseball in the gut, and he needed to figure out what the hell that meant. Or more importantly, what to do about it. "What are you doing tomorrow night? Can I see you?"

Tomorrow was Kyra's wake, which meant he should probably spare Gwenna the lousy company afterward. But then again he'd have to see his parents, which was always a total nightmare, and Gwenna Carrick was a wonderful distraction. She had a quiet comfort about her that appealed to him.

"Oh, shit, I can't tomorrow." She entwined her fingers with his. "My brother has this big corporate party thing and I promised I would go. I'm appalling at these functions—I can't think of a damn thing to say and I hide by the potted plants, but I told Ethan I'd be there. How about Sunday night?"

"Sure. I'll call you." He took another kiss, enjoying the way she responded so quickly to him, and the sensual feel of her mouth beneath his. "Can you send that slayers' loop info before you go to bed tonight?"

The doorbell rang behind him. "Expecting company?" If she had a date, he was pretty sure he was going to be ugly jealous. On the other hand, if it was her loser ex-husband, Nate was going to enjoy threatening him with a little force.

"I'm going out with my girlfriends." She moved around him, adjusting the waistband of her pants—which he had messed up—and opened the door.

Nate saw an amazingly thin woman with long dark hair dressed in the tiniest red outfit he'd ever seen in his life. It was like a headband masquerading as a dress. Next to her was a blonde who was a solid ten inches shorter, wearing jeans, high heels, and a sparkly blue shirt. Gwenna looked a little under-dressed for whatever night out they had planned.

"Who are you?" the brunette asked. She didn't sound accusatory, just sort of mildly curious.

"I'm Nate Thomas. Who are you?"

She walked into the apartment and blinked. "I'm Kelsey Columbia, but after my divorce, I'll have to decide if I want to go back to being Kelsey Dickens or not. I've never really liked that name. I was kind of thinking this is my chance to just pick whatever name I want. What do you think of Kelsey Kinko?"

Nate kept his voice even. "That works."

The blonde shook her head. "I told you that sounds like a stripper name."

His thoughts exactly.

While Kelsey pouted, the blonde stuck her hand out in his direction. "I'm Alexis Baldizzi-Carrick, Gwenna's sister-in-law."

He shook. Firm, confident grip. "Nice to meet you. I'm Nate Thomas, a detective with the Las Vegas Police."

At which point Gwenna grabbed his other hand and tugged on him. "Well, thanks for dropping by. I don't want to be late for the concert and I'm not even dressed, so sorry to rush you off, but we'll speak soon, and I'll see you on Sunday."

Gee, he could take a very subtle hint.

But while she could shove him out the door, he wasn't about to let her forget the unfinished business they had for Sunday.

Nate tugged Gwenna up against his chest. "Sounds good." Then he gave her a big-ass kiss, with tongue, sliding his hand all up and down her backside for good measure. "See ya, Gwenna."

Then he left, absolutely positive he had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

Ethan Carrick hated Roberto Donatelli with every fucking bone in his body. Once they had been friends, back when London was nothing but a mudhole and the Americas didn't exist to Europeans. But then Donatelli had seduced Gwenna and left her to die giving birth to his bastard child, and Ethan would never forgive him for that. Donatelli was a cruel, heartless son of a bitch who enjoyed playing people for power, and would trample anyone who got in the way of his self-serving plans.

Not to mention that he was just annoying as hell. A metrosexual moron.

God, Ethan hated him.

They stared across the conference table at each other.

Donatelli leaned back into his leather chair. "I can practically hear your teeth grinding, Carrick. You need to at least pretend to like me at the Inaugural Ball tomorrow night."

"I'll tolerate you, nothing more. Everyone knows this is a political alliance, not a friendship."

A smirk on his smarmy face, Donatelli said, "You mean I'm not invited to your ranch for fishing, hunting, and relaxing man talk away from the office?"

"I don't own a ranch. And if I did, I'd burn it down before I let you set foot in it." Ethan was still appalled that Donatelli was vice president of the Vampire Nation, while he was president. But there had been no choice. Ethan had been on the verge of losing the election because of the growing unrest of Impure vampires, born mortal with vampire genes, and later turned to vampire. They felt that vampires like Donatelli, who encourage vampire population growth, spoke to their rights more than a conservative like Ethan did. Then when Gregor Chechikov had entered the race, Ethan had known they would have a disaster on their hands if Chechikov won. He was a Russian lunatic, plain and simple, with plans for cloning vampires. Ethan had seen an opportunity to ensure Chechikov didn't come into power by aligning himself with Donatelli. Together they became a moderate, all-inclusive ticket, and it had won them the election, averting what amounted to vampire civil war.

But the immediate result was also that Ethan had to work together with Donatelli in some functioning capacity for the next forty years, and he needed to learn to control his dislike of the bastard or they would never accomplish anything. And unless he got a handle on his anger, Ethan would spend the next four decades walking around pissed off, which was bad for his mental health.

"Let's just get to the point here. Tomorrow we walk in together, get sworn in, and have drinks. It should go smoothly enough. Are you bringing a date or something? Because you can't be strolling into this with some bimbo mortal or eighteen-year-old vampire chick. We all know the truth about you, but you have to least pretend to have some sort of class." Maybe he was just getting a dig in, but hell, he wouldn't put it past Donatelli to do something as stupid as bring his mortal blood slave to the Inaugural Ball.

Donatelli didn't rise to the bait. He shrugged. "I didn't think having your sister as an escort would be in the least bit offensive. Gwenna has always conducted herself with perfect decorum."

The Italian was just so good at infuriating him. "Gwenna isn't your date." He didn't think. She had made it sound like she wasn't against speaking to her ex-husband, but surely that didn't extend to putting on a party dress and walking with Donatelli into a room filled with a thousand vampires. Gwenna didn't like attention, and the kind of buzz their being together would create was enough of a deterrent for his sister, he was sure.

Besides, she had been with a mortal and Alexis was right. Dating two men was not Gwenna's style. Hell, as far as he knew, she hadn't dated any man but Donatelli.

"She's not my date yet. But she will be. I'll drop by her suite after we're done here."

The bastard's self-assurance irritated Ethan. What gave the jerk-off the right to even ask Gwenna to be his date? She'd divorced his sorry ass three hundred years earlier, which meant she wasn't obligated to be seen in public with him. "She won't say yes."

"Yes, she will. She and I have been on much friendlier terms lately. She'll do it as a favor to me, and as a favor to you. She'll understand how important it is for our government to show unity."

There was truth to that, and Ethan didn't like it. But he still said, "I wouldn't expect her to bleed for me like that, and she knows it."

"Being my date is bleeding?"

"Hell, yes. I imagine it would be more fun fucking a frog than dancing with you."

"How colorful. Hopefully you'll never have to do either, because I'm not too keen on the concept of waltzing with you either." Donatelli looked casually around. "Where's your secretary? I need a drink."

Ethan turned to his bodyguard, wanting this little meeting over. God, he was never going to survive forty years of this drivel. "Would you please find Brenda and see if she can find a drink for Mr. Donatelli? Thank you."

"Is Brenda your new secretary? I hope she's more efficient than that idiotic Kelsey you had previously. While Kelsey is attractive in a vapid, slutty sort of way, she's distressingly dumb. Though loyal. It's a beautiful thing to see her clinging to her junkie husband."

It was still a rather sore spot with him that Kelsey had essentially betrayed Ethan after he'd spent the last forty years providing her with gainful employment—despite her questionable secretarial skills. Hearing Donatelli rub it in wasn't conducive to a stress-free work environment. Nor had it made him the least bit happy to hear from his wife that she intended to spend the night hanging out at a rock concert with Kelsey. That screamed male strippers and possible jail time to him. Kelsey was a magnet for trouble.

"Kelsey left her husband, so just let her be, alright?" Though he had no intention of rehiring her. She had proven herself untrustworthy. "And by the way, you can't drop by to invite Gwenna to the ball, and have her laugh in your face and say no, because Alexis told me Gwenna has plans tonight."

Ethan paused to make sure he had Donatelli's full interest.

"Oh, really?" Donatelli didn't look like he believed him.

"Yes. She has a mortal boyfriend and they're out tonight." And Donatelli could put that in his fucking pipe and smoke it.