by Heidi Betts
Dragging his wet fingers through her hair, he tugged her head sideways to rest on his shoulder, continuing to bathe her slowly, sensually with the damp cloth. “You’re the first woman I’ve met in longer than I care to remember who I can imagine being with for any length of time.”
“Your ‘length of time’ or mine?” she had to ask.
At the back of her head, she felt his shoulder lift in a shrug. “Either,” he said carefully. And then, “Maybe both.”
That made her stomach tumble even faster.
“What are you saying, Sebastian?”
Seconds ticked by with nothing but the slosh of water and her rapid breathing filling the giant room.
“I was thinking that maybe I wouldn’t work my vampire mojo on you just yet. That you might like to stick around, see how things play out.”
“Are you asking me to date you?” she only half-teased.
“Something like that,” he returned, doing a bit of teasing of his own by running the cloth suggestively between her legs. She gasped, arching against his seeking hand.
“The only problem is,” he continued, “you couldn’t write about me. Or talk about me to others. Ever.”
He said it quietly, almost apologetically, and she fell a little bit more in love with him for it. Because, yes, she could admit it, if only to herself—she was pretty sure she was falling for him, big time.
The intellectual side of her brain told her that was ridiculous. He was a vampire, for God’s sake, and she’d known him for barely twenty-four hours. True, she’d fallen into bed with him in the blink of an eye, but she blamed that, at least in part, on her long, self-imposed abstinence.
But the other side of her brain, the side directly connected to her heart, didn’t care what he was or how short their acquaintance had been. She never wanted to leave his side, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he had more money than Bill Gates and Donald Trump stacked together. (Although the lush digs were a total turn-on.)
What he said was true, though. If he let her keep her memories, and they ventured into an honest to goodness relationship, there was no way she could write about him for the Tattler. No way she could reveal his deepest, darkest secret.
For one thing, she’d feel like a total schmuck, if she did. And for another, she could never hurt or betray someone she cared about that way.
“What are we talking about, here?” she needed to know.
“Just not writing or talking about you as a vampire, or giving up my writing altogether?”
He shrugged again. “I think we’d have to reassess that as we go along. You definitely can’t write about me, or let anyone know what Aidan and I really are, but I don’t care what you write about otherwise.”
She sat up like a shot, twisting around to face him. “Your brother is a vampire, too?”
For some reason—which now made her feel like a dolt—that had never occurred to her. Although, now that he mentioned it, it made perfect sense. How else would he have gotten a brother who looked so much like him at his age? Adoption? Cloning? Now, that would have made a good tabloid story!
“Of course,” he told her with an indulgent smile tipping his lips. “What did you think?”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, falling back against him with a tiny huff. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy.”
He tweaked her nipple, clamping his legs tighter on the outside of hers. “I’ve noticed. I’m hoping you’ll be busy again very soon.”
As much as she wanted that, too, there was no point rushing into more of the fun stuff until this decision had been officially made.
“What happens if we try to build a relationship and it doesn’t work out?”
“I’ll have to kill you, of course.”
She jerked away from him again, sitting straight up. But before she could turn on him with wide, shocked eyes, he chuckled and tugged her back into place.
“I’m kidding. I haven’t killed anyone in centuries.”
She chose to believe he was kidding about that, too, though part of her suspected it might be the truth.
“I would simply wipe your mind, the same as I can do now, if you’d prefer. The longer we’re together and the more you know, the harder it will be to erase all the pertinent details, but it can be done.”
She thought about that for a minute. “So we can go at it as sort of a trial run. If it doesn’t work out, no harm, no foul.”
It was his turn to pause while he considered that. And when he finally responded, he didn’t sound entirely chipper about the idea. “Yes.”
She thought about that for more than a minute. About what her life had been like up to this point—her marriage to Matthew, watching him die, getting the job at the Sin City Tattler that kept her busy and distracted for eight long years. Her relationship with her sister, who was apparently involved with a vampire, too, though she didn’t think Chloe realized it. And her relationships with pretty much no one else.
Writing far-out stories on subjects most people knew were completely made up was the perfect occupation to keep her isolated and alone. Which was exactly what she’d thought she wanted for her life after losing Matthew.
But maybe that wasn’t enough for her anymore. Maybe stepping out and doing something crazy, something different, something slightly dangerous, was the way to go.
Oh, she wasn’t afraid of Sebastian, even knowing what he was. He would never hurt her, physically, of that she was absolutely certain.
But pain to her body and pain to her heart were two different things, and he did possess the power to break that heart in two if a relationship between them didn’t work out.
Then she thought about what her life could be like if she stayed with him. Mind-blowing sex aside, she had to admit that the companionship alone would be nice. Having someone to talk to, snuggle with, wake up with in the . . . evening.
And while they’d already had quite a heart-to-heart, revealing more to one another in a single short night than most couples revealed in months or years, she felt as though there was so much more to learn about Sebastian. She wanted to know it all, even if she could never write about him or tell another living soul.
So was it worth the risk? Was she willing to give up her chance for the Big Time and put aside all the work she’d done to discover his true identity for a shot at a truly larger-thanlife romance, and possibly true love?
It was a frightening leap to contemplate, and she’d never been nearly as daring or happy-go-lucky as her twin sister.
But her heart was pounding in her chest, and she could swear it was telling her to say yes, say yes, say yes.
She didn’t say yes, but she did pull away, twisting and sending the now lukewarm water splashing against the sides of the wide tub until she could straddle him. He dropped the washcloth and gripped her hips, balancing her rear end on the tops of his slick thighs.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she leaned in, pressing her breasts flat to his chest. With her lips mere centimeters from his, she stared into his steel-gray eyes. If she hadn’t already decided on her answer, what she saw there would have made up her mind for her.
“Okay,” she whispered. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done . . . but then, so is falling into bed with a vampire on the first date.”
“It wasn’t really a date,” he corrected her, but he hugged her close while he said it. “More of a fact-finding mission.”
She smiled. “Then I guess you owe me one. You can take me out to a movie and a late dinner.”
“Or maybe you can accompany me to the charity dinner I agreed to attend next week. It doesn’t start until ten p.m. and is a thousand dollars a plate. That’s better than a box of popcorn at some boring Hollywood flick, right?”
She shrugged her shoulder. “I was going to make you buy me a soda and a box of Sno-Caps, too,” she teased. And then, in a more serious tone, she asked, “Are you sure you want to take me out in public so soon? You’re not known for be
ing seen out and about very often, especially with women.”
“Which is how those rumors started about my being gay,” he quipped with a wry lift of his lips. “But, yes, I’m sure. You aren’t just some temporary amusement for me, Charlotte.”
Her nose wrinkled automatically and he corrected himself with a chuckle. “Chuck. You know, I’m not sure that’s something I’ll be able to get used to—calling you Chuck. And think how it will look in print when the papers start linking us together. ‘Sebastian Raines and his lady love, Chuck.’” Shaking his head, he said, “I much prefer the sound of ‘Sebastian and Charlotte Raines,’ if you must know.”
Raking her fingers through his hair, she cupped the back of his head and tipped it toward her. “Keep talking like that, referring to me as your ‘lady love’ and implying we might one day be married, and you can call me anything you want.” Her heart was already skipping beats just thinking about it.
He grinned at her. “Good. Then come here, my lovely Charlotte, and kiss me. We need to make good use of this water before it gets any colder, and then we should probably get dressed and see if we can track down your sister and my brother. I have a feeling they’re up to no good and headed for total disaster.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If I can find love with the vampire of my dreams, Chloe might just manage to do the same.”
But she kissed him, anyway, and when they finished, the water was both cold . . . and all over the expensive marble floor.
MARRIED . . . WITH FANGS
Ante Up
“I think Aidan might be the one.”
Chloe’s identical twin sister, Charlotte—Chuck for short—lifted her head to meet Chloe’s eyes, but then ducked back down as Chloe raised the gigantic feathered and sequined headdress to place on her sister’s head.
Although they’d both spent their lives in dance classes, Chloe was the only one who did it now professionally. She’d been a showgirl for the Inferno Hotel and Casino’s dance revue club, Lust, going on almost ten years now.
Sigh. Time sure did fly when you were a single mother living from paycheck to paycheck. She was so ready to give up her stilettos and skintight costumes for a more reasonable nine-to-five.
Or better yet, the life of a stay-at-home mom. If she ever got such an opportunity—which she was hoping she would very, very soon—she swore she’d be the best little housewife ever. She would wear an apron and a string of pearls. She would dust and vacuum and starch her husband’s collars, bake cookies and pot roasts and homemade bread.
Okay, so her idea of a home-cooked meal was walking in the door with Chinese takeout, and the only way she normally knew dinner was ready was if the smoke alarm went off. But she was willing to learn.
“‘The One’?” Chuck asked, wincing as Chloe drove hairpins into her scalp to keep the “Flames of Hell” headdress in place. “Capital T, capital O?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Aren’t you moving kind of fast?”
Chloe’s stomach dipped at her sister’s question and the thought of what was going to happen later tonight.
Was it the right thing to do? She had no idea. A part of her was hugely excited about it, while the other was scared stupid.
But she’d made her decision, and had every intention of following through with it. It was what was best for Jake . . . and hopefully for herself.
Adopting a flippant attitude she didn’t quite feel, she said, “You know my policy—the faster the better. And this one is on the hook.”
On the hook and about to be reeled in. She just hoped she wasn’t the one who ended up flopping around on deck, gasping for air.
“Just be careful, okay?” Chuck told her.
“I will,” she promised. “You, too.”
Taking a step back, she studied her sister, feeling as though she was looking in the mirror. Her sister was dressed from head to toe as Chloe, because tonight she was Chloe.
It might not be the smartest plan in the world, but Chuck had insisted she wanted to take Chloe’s place onstage tonight. They ran through Chloe’s dance routine together on a regular basis—Chloe for her job, and Chuck simply for the exercise. (She had a small addiction to chocolate that she was trying to keep from settling for too long on her hips.)
Chloe wasn’t worried about Chuck messing up as much as she was about her sister getting caught. If that happened, Chloe honestly didn’t know what the ramifications might be. She could lose her job, and Chuck could go to jail, she supposed. Or at least be charged with . . . something.
But the more dangerous part of Chuck’s plan was that she intended to stalk the Inferno’s elusive owner, Sebastian Raines. The man was richer than triple-layer chocolate fudge cake, oozed charm like a sieve, and had danger written all over him. Even Chloe, who felt as though she spent ninety percent of her life at the Inferno, had only seen him a handful of times. And each of those times, he’d been surrounded by bodyguards who looked as though they’d recently escaped from the gorilla enclosure at the local zoo.
And her sister—intrepid tabloid reporter, more used to making up stories about potato chips popping up in the shape of dead celebrities or religious figures—had gotten it into her head to break through the veil of secrecy surrounding the casino mogul and prove that “something was up with him.” She hadn’t given Chloe a clue of what she suspected that something might be, but she’d been adamant about going through with her nefarious plan.
Chloe was concerned about her sister, but also knew Chuck could take care of herself. She wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity for a night off, either—with pay. Especially since Chuck’s plans just happened to play in perfectly with her own.
So she’d been more than happy to sneak Chuck backstage and help her wiggle into her “Flames of Hell” costume. The sheer stockings with the dark lines running up the back; the red-and-orange sequined body suit; the tall, feathered and sequined headdress. Not to mention the glitter eye shadow, long fake eyelashes, and enough sparkling rhinestone jewelry to wave in a fleet of 747s.
“If anyone finds out what you’re doing and why . . .” she began, feeling the need to warn her sister one last time of the consequences of going through with this.
“They won’t,” Chuck insisted. “We’re identical, remember? We used to do this all the time in school. I can pretend to be you almost as well as I pretend to be me.”
They both chuckled, remembering all the fun they used to have as kids, trading places and convincing people they were the other twin. Everyone but their mother; the single mother and former showgirl herself had always been much too street smart to fall for her daughters’ antics.
A shout from the dressing room on the other side of the bathroom door made them both jump. Their eyes met, and Chloe knew Chuck’s heart had to be pounding as hard as her own.
“Showtime,” Chloe said.
She gave Chuck a final once-over, checking the makeup, the jewelry, the headdress, the fit of the costume, and the straps of the high-high platform heels.
“All right,” she said, blowing out a breath. “Break a leg.”
Her sister winced, and she immediately regretted her choice of words. But they were good luck and might actually keep her from doing so literally, so she didn’t take them back.
“You go out first,” she told her, hand on the knob, “and I’ll hide here until the coast is clear.”
With a final hug, Chloe saw Chuck out, then locked herself back in the broom closet of a bathroom, listening to the stampeding clack-clack-clack of heels as dancers rushed toward the stage, the stage director’s shouted orders, and the strains of the music she was usually out there shaking her moneymaker to.
She loved being a dancer, really she did, but being a showgirl lifted the term to a whole new level. She and the other girls she danced with were all extremely talented. They could have danced on Broadway, if they’d wanted.
But working nights, in the heart of one of Las Vegas’s most popular adult casinos—as opposed to those that
catered to children in an effort to be family friendly and bring in even more tourist dollars—meant that people made a lot of assumptions about her character. Especially people of the male persuasion, who thought the word “showgirl” was synonymous with “high-priced hooker” and spent more time ogling her boobs than paying attention to what was taking place onstage.
It was to be expected. As were the pinches to her morebare-than-not bottom and being propositioned multiple times a night. Even if she wasn’t in costume, wasn’t even on the clock, once folks found out she was a showgirl, she often got the exact same treatment.
It had been fine for a while. Her mother had been a showgirl, so long before she’d ever balanced her first thousand-pound headdress, she’d known what to expect. And some of it was even enjoyable. The attention. The flattery. The parties. The flowers and gifts that often showed up at her dressing table from not-so-secret admirers.
But things were different now. She was getting older, as were her knees and ankles and every other joint in her body.
And she had a little boy to think about. Kids hadn’t been part of the plan—at least not in the short run—and her relationship with his father hadn’t lasted much longer than it had taken her to get pregnant, but Jake was the love of her life. One of those things you didn’t know you wanted or needed until it was thrust upon you. Which was why she could call him a surprise, but never an accident or a mistake.
Having a child made her rethink her priorities, though . . . and her future. Her family was great about Jake, and hugely supportive of her, despite some of the less-than-stellar choices she’d made. Her mother—retired now and living in Henderson—kept him overnight while Chloe was at work. And Chuck was not only her back-up sitter, but the world’s greatest aunt. Between the three of them, it was a wonder Jake wasn’t spoiled rotten.
But she was tired of dropping him off at her mother’s every night, then being too worn out most of the day to give him the attention he deserved.
She was tired of feeling guilty that her son’s only influences were women, and worrying about whether or not he missed—and needed—a good male role model.
